Essential Differences Between LSD & Mushrooms

[ReX0r]

What are the essential differences?

I'm not talking about the fact that the latter is biological rather than chemical, but the effects, the dangers, availibilty, personal experiences, preference and so forth.

I want to use something biological (just seems more natural, easier to get my hands on and more weed related) but I've read mushrooms stink(both drugs are best used without any negative influences that could incite a bad trip), I wouldn't know where to get them and in either case I am uncertain about the dosage aswell.

I've done some research on the net but I've yet to have found a site that makes a good comparison (in all areas).

Anybody?

[signifier]

Advantages of Mushrooms:


1. They connect you better with internal mental/emotional/physical archetypes and programs stored in your DNA.


2. You get more high and euphoric


3. They dont last as long so you remember more of the experiences.


4. Telepathy effects.


5. More 'spiritual' buzz off them


Advantages of LSD:


1. Longer acting


2. More cerebral


3. Wider mental vistas can be experienced

[hh339]

I would say that mushrooms makes me a lot "dumber" than does LSD.

[psyche]

I've never tried LSD or mushrooms, but SWIM has some experience with the latter and I've read trip reports of both. Mushrooms seem to me to be more earthly and soft. More on the emotional level and at a lower frequency than LSD. LSD seems to have more in common with DMT in regards to a high frequency buzzing experience. Mushrooms are very smooth, and it feels like they "trick" your brain more sneakily, like you think about something as you normally would, but get astonished when you give it a second thought because it seemed so self-explanatory at first, but you've never thought of it in that way.

Go on, people with experience with both. SWIM'll propably not be finding LSD anytime soon, but this is interesting topic nonetheless.

[[éS]Infinite]

SWIM always says that LSD is like seeing the life in everything around you. He describes seeing trees "pumping" all the way to the top, all through the branches, the energy which gives them life. He also depicts how patterns in all the life around him begin to swirl and move (as though he could see the motions on a molecular level).
The same friend describes mushrooms as more of a euphoric trip which deeply roots him with a strong inner being, which he simply calls consciousness. He feels the life isn't as vivid as with LSD, but both life and death, and all of the in between.
Nonetheless, he affirms that they are both magnificent states which return him "to seeing the world for the first time, like when one is a child", and have changed this segment of living entirely.

[Lethargy]

Our Psychedelic Explorer Friend (or PEF) tells us that:

He finds mushrooms to have a far higher availability on the streets than LSD, hell, he went to a party the other week and some random guy handed him a stem for no reason he can fathom.

He thinks if one knows what to look for (how dried psychedelic mushrooms look) than mushrooms will always contain mushrooms, whereas LSD may contain various research chemicals, but he has no reason to believe he has ever had anything other than LSD in his LSD (except when he has gotten ripped off buying plain paper or h2o).

Mushrooms for him last about 4-6 hours, LSD about 8-10.

He enjoys LSD much more than mushrooms, it seems to awaken his inner energy and heighten his perceptions to supernatural levels. He says he seems to see things, interrelationships and body language and connections between living (and even nonliving) objects much more clearly. He feels like his entire body gets rejuvenated at the cellular level by "energy" and he usually feels quite euphoric (though often also terribly sad once or twice a trip) and emotionally open.

Mushrooms he says feel "heavy" like "something watches" him. He feels more open to nature than whilst sober but not as much as while on LSD. He has a lot more spatial distortions/visuals on mushrooms than LSD. He has had episodes of intense fear on mushrooms as well as the euphoria and sadness and emotional openness. He finds them generally more intense than LSD, with more of an overwhelming character, even at low doses. Despite this he finds them gentler on the psyche, with a more flowing water-like character whereas LSD feels "crystalline". He has had multiple occasions on mushrooms where he could not stop giggling for multiple minutes, on one notable occasion he giggled and thrashed on the ground for literally 45 minutes! (It felt like HOURS, he says). He has never had this happen with LSD.

He has no appetite on either substance, but food "looks at him funny" on mushrooms whereas on LSD he looks at food funny. He feels like the mushrooms make him more aware of the life surrounding him whereas LSD makes him more aware of the consciousness surrounding him.

He combined the two once and had an incredibly intense experience much of which he no longer remembers. He had it at a trusted friend's house far away from the city or any authority figures with lots of comfy furniture, tv, a fireplace and loads of cannabis. He thinks it overwhelmed his brain so much that he cannot even recall the majority of the experiences sober, though he does recall the entirety of the trip occurred in his mind, no strange external events (other than a time travel opportunity).

On LSD "coincidences" seem to occur regularly, along the lines of manifesting thoughts into reality. This has happened rarely on mushrooms. An example: On LSD he felt overwhelmed by the hopelessness and sadness of modern America, with abused children and homeless people in the midst of plenty. He stopped at a store to use the restroom and clean up his tears and as he exited he nearly got run over in the parking lot by a woman in an SUV chasing down a homeless man and pressing money into his hand saying "for FOOD, promise me!" He felt like the Universe had answered that yes, hopelessness and poverty exist but so does good, even in the least expected places. This chain of events happened within perhaps 15 minutes, the most blatant "manifestation" that he has experienced, but others much more subtle occur every time with LSD.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	nice summary of the differences
	Wow... best post I've read in a while. Nice adjectives ^^

[TMM]

The differences are whatever you make of them.

[Days Of Speed]

Hello first post. Swim?? has tried both, as an adult without a paranoid mind.
And this swim geezer must say, that mushrooms do not get close enough to touch LSD.
What a laugh swim and co have had on acid.

It's all about been able to use the trip for what it is.
Swim is beyond the age of dreaming of the universe and staring at statues in the hope that they may move.

Trips are one thing to an 18 year old, and another thing to a 26 year old.
It's such a powerful drug though.
I'd like to do one again, amongst good friends.
I don't know if the comedown would be worse with age,
maybe a thirty-something could enlighten us to that.

Nighty Night xx (I'm No Puffter, Understand!)

[Salvinorin A]

Swim had a much greater euphoria on LSD than shrooms, and far far far less nausea (a lot vs absolutely none).


A lot of people that swim knows have the opposite of this but.........swim noticed rippling with LSD and insane size/distance hallucinations with mushrooms.

But for both of them, there were always patterns everywhere (like the light spots of swim's white carpet).

[psyche]

The differences are whatever you make of them.

What have you made of them is the question then.

When SWIM ate mushrooms for the very first time in Amsterdam, he got very nauseous. He was there with his mom, and they split the modest 30g P. Cubensis box they had bought. SWIM went dry heaving to the bathroom and was feeling very hot. He smoked something stronger than leaf for the first time there too, and with a little help of hash he had remarkable time. His mom on the other hand said that he didn't have anything at all happen to him, and when describing the experience to her she just notes that sure, life is always that way. Later attempts haven't been that bad physically but he always has some sort of nausea, but he has learnt that it is up to you, it can be converted to euphoria by relaxing and letting the experience flow for what it is. Anyways, this is kind of offtopic, so off I go.

[ReAlitY-HoLds-NonE]

The advantages SWIM feels with mushrooms are the fact that things become far far more spiritual, and therefor essentually personal. almost anything he could relate back to himself. One relization he had on mushrooms was that his mind is the part of his body that 'he' interfaces with (as said earlier, mushrooms are more spiritual, so when SWIM refers to himself he means his 'soul' (in the case of its existance)) and how he treats his body will essentually affect this, meaning that he concluded that the entire body, including the function of the mind, is a symeltanious system that needs to be treated with respect, dont put anything bad in unless you want it affecting your headspace... However, on LSD, it is far far less spiritual, and more 'clinical' as SWIM likes to call it. If SWIY can relate mushrooms to philosophy of the mind, LSD would be the psychology of the mind, the same as mushrooms would be to art, as LSD to mathematics. SWIM could 'feel' that LSD is synthesiized to the perfection that it is, its to scientific. If SWIY would perceive who they are as a spirit on mushrooms, as SWIM does, then on LSD one realizes that this is simply the direct ego of the mind. If SWIM was to have the same realization that he had on mushrooms, he would perceive it in a far more analytical, clinical way, rather than a perceived 'deeper' sense... In the end, either can be seen as better than the other, it depends on one question, according to SWIM, philosophy? or science?

[TMM]

Originally Posted by psyche

What have you made of them is the question then.

My various daredevil animal friends don't have enough experience with either substance to give a proper answer to this question. The quality of perceptive alteration was very slightly different, with these two as well as with mescaline. Visuals with all three were basically identical. Trying to figure out any differences between the thought processes would be difficult and futile. They all felt like what they are: SWIM's brain trying to make sense of everything with a flood of alien neurotransmitters clouding everything over.

IMO, obviously the experiences between these chemicals are different, sometimes very different, but it has more to do with the differences people's mentality between each and every trip, qualitatively laying the grounds for an altered experience before anything has been taken. IMO this is vastly more important than which chemical one ingests. Sure, for example, LSD acts on a wider range of receptors and is probably more likely to produce euphoric feelings, but I think it is silly to say that one will make you think in a certain way whereas another won't.

That was a bit of a muddled post, sorry, lol. Hopefully made sense...

[Lethargy]

IMO, obviously the experiences between these chemicals are different, sometimes very different, but it has more to do with the differences people's mentality between each and every trip, qualitatively laying the grounds for an altered experience before anything has been taken. IMO this is vastly more important than which chemical one ingests. Sure, for example, LSD acts on a wider range of receptors and is probably more likely to produce euphoric feelings, but I think it is silly to say that one will make you think in a certain way whereas another won't.

See, that sounds like saying an experience of drinking a merlot with say salmon will cause the same flavor combination as drinking a chardonnay with salmon, because you pair both of them with salmon and both wines come from grape juices fermented to contain amounts of alcohol. Whereas say eating chocolate (different mindset than eating salmon) will change the experience but switching variety of wine will not.

Obviously the chemicals act in a similar manner, and just as obviously context (set and setting) play a huge role, but if one drinks wines one learns that say a merlot combines with certain foods well and others poorly but always tastes like a merlot and not a chardonnay.

Both count as wines, both made of grapes, still a fermented beverage and vastly different than say beer or vodka, but with consistently different flavors from each other. These subtle flavor differences make or break dinners. And plenty of people prefer red over white wine or vice versa, no matter how well a specific type pairs with a specific food!

[psyche]

IMO, obviously the experiences between these chemicals are different, sometimes very different, but it has more to do with the differences people's mentality between each and every trip, qualitatively laying the grounds for an altered experience before anything has been taken. IMO this is vastly more important than which chemical one ingests. Sure, for example, LSD acts on a wider range of receptors and is probably more likely to produce euphoric feelings, but I think it is silly to say that one will make you think in a certain way whereas another won't.

Makes sense alright, and that is true and generally underunderstood(if that word makes any sense ). But by taking each report as a grain of salt one can form some sort of generalized idea about the differences, and individuals who have used both numerous times in different mindsets and settings can summarize the main differences between the two. In the same manner that one can tell the difference of a feeling of eating different foods, despite the environment having more effect on experience than the substance.

[TMM]

Good points, but that's not exactly what I was talking about. I didn't mean to specifically talk about set and setting, although looking back at my post, that's what it implies. Whatever the set/setting of a trip is, one is the same person when they take it. That's not true of the next trip, though. Doing mushrooms first will greatly alter how one perceives LSD, and vice versa. The specific perceptions of the second - more spiritual, more euphoric, etc, whatever it may be - will arise out of contrast with the first, and this keeps going however many times these substances are taken, in whatever order and whatever ratios. I'm just saying that I don't believe looking at other people's evolved comparative perceptions of similar substances is a useful way of distinguishing between them. In other words, we can agree to disagree, lol.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good point, didn't come to think of it

[psyche]

Yeah, that kind of makes sense. The way I was thinking was that if we take a large sample, then what is the direction that these differing environmental and personal factors distort the 'truth'? The bigger the sample, the more efficiently the environmental factors count each other away, and there should always be some kind of 'bias' in personal level since we are talking about subjective experience. The truth is what people experience, but big samples are needed to find a fine line between these two. But yeah, now that I think of it the personal life of a tripper would be less tangled in proportion to the effects if you simply read single trip reports instead of comparisions. They have been very enlightening in the past to feel the differences of these two when SWIM was extremely interested in drugs.

I think we were talking about the effects at a very different level; I never intended to find any kind of median truth as to the ideas that these psychedelics may inspire, like there would be some kind of absolute truth at that level. Rather the more abstract, lower level effects on cognition and quality differences in experiencing the outside world. Now we can agree to disagree, before my brain starts to take a override(and now that I got the final say lol.)

Nonetheless, interesting thread to see what people have made of the differences if not anything else. It may give new inspiration or insight on other trippers to find new qualities, though it's not the point to focus on the quality of a tv-picture instead of content.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Good stuff.

[TMM]

Originally Posted by psyche

I think we were talking about the effects at a very different level; I never intended to find any kind of median truth as to the ideas that these psychedelics may inspire, like there would be some kind of absolute truth at that level. Rather the more abstract, lower level effects on cognition and quality differences in experiencing the outside world.

Yeah, that's sort of what I was trying to say. I think people's specific, rather than subtle, perceptive differences between these drugs, as was asked for in this thread, come perhaps more from preconceived notions of what it might be like than actual neurochemical subtleties. As such, I don't find it a particularly useful exercise. Interesting, yes, but not useful, IMO.

So, in conclusion, I'm not exactly sure what my overall point is, lol.