Some said we weren’t utilizing the amanita properly. “Try it in a dark room [with] music [with] a sleep mask on,” one reader wrote to us. “The experience is incredible, very fractal and holographic [with] a feeling of weightlessness.”
Another reader told us we needed to mix the amanita with delta-9 THC, the psychoactive compound in weed that gets users high. “I recently read your article about amanita muscaria mushrooms and I feel like you've got it wrong,” they wrote.
We also considered that we may not have taken enough, as our highest dose of amanita was 2,500 milligrams.
Other readers steered us toward another product, magic mushroom gummies by a company called TRE House. Wunder was another brand of gummy people recommended. The TRE House gummies are different from the others we tried as they don’t contain any amanita muscaria. The readers said this product would give us the psychedelic trip we were looking for.
Naturally, we had to try out all of these recommendations to see if we had, in fact, gotten it wrong when it came to amanita, and whether there are products on the market that will, in fact, make you trip.
Before we did more experimenting with amanita, we wanted to consult an expert. So, we reached out to Christian Rasmussen, CEO and owner of MN Nice Botanicals, a Minnesota-based company that sells amanita products, including gummies.
He said there are some common misconceptions about amanita muscaria. For one, it’s not a psychedelic like some may think. He said it’s really not a product to get people high, either. “Largely, it’s really for healing and connecting people with larger, better aspects of themselves,” he said.“Try it in a dark room [with] music [with] a sleep mask on." – reader
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Rasmussen said one thing to consider when looking for amanita products is whether they’re actually amanita. He said many products marketed as amanita muscaria have other things in them, such as hallucinogens like 4 ACO DMT or some other analogue of psilocybin, the main psychedelic compound in real magic mushrooms.
On real amanita muscaria products, a microdose would be between 0.2 grams and 2 grams, Rasmussen explained. He said the experience on this dose is going to be “sub-perceptual,” meaning most people won’t notice the effects, but they can be therapeutic. “A lot of people say they notice a reduction in anxiety or it helps with sleep,” he said. Our highest dose last time was about 2 grams.
A more perceptual dose would be between 2 grams and 5 grams. On this dose, people can expect to get some muscle relaxation, lowering of inhibitions and some body euphoria. These feelings are more potent in the 5–10-gram range. (10 grams equal about one-third of an ounce. A typical aspirin is 300 milligrams.)
Things get different at 10–15 grams. “It’s almost as if you’re in a waking dream in a sense,” Rasmussen said. “There can start to be some uncomfortable physical sensations coupled with some even more intense and comfortable physical sensations.”
“If they’re not prepared for it or know what’s happening to them, it can be kind of scary,” he said. “Honestly, most people shouldn’t be delving into these higher-dose realms.” He said most people like amanita at the lower doses anyway.
Doses of 15–30 grams can send people into a “spiritual delirium,” Rasmussen said. “There’s thought loops and time loops. It’s a pretty hallucinogenic experience. It’s not necessarily psychedelic. … But it’s for sure hallucinogenic.”
He said amanita muscaria tends to have a reverse tolerance associated with it, meaning a lot of people will need to microdose for a week or two before being able to feel the effects of a larger dose. “Most everybody really enjoys it once it clicks for them,” he said. It hasn’t quite clicked for us yet. We didn’t microdose for a week or two like Rasmussen suggested. (We’re in the process of trying that now.) But we wanted to try a higher dose to see if we could feel some of the effects he described. So, we went back to our local CBD shop, CBD American Shaman, and grabbed the same Kruz brand amanita muscaria gummies as before.
This time, we ate the whole bag, which was equivalent to about 5 grams. We took it with 90 milligrams of delta-9 THC as someone had recommended. We shut off the lights and listened to some music as someone suggested. Still nothing perceivable to us. At one point, we thought we may have felt some body euphoria and a lowering of our inhibitions, but that could've been the delta-9. We’re interested in what an even higher dose will do. We’ll have to try that out some day after we’ve microdosed for a week or two.
Now, four people told us if we wanted to trip, look no further: the magic mushroom gummies by TRE House had us covered.
When it comes to the TRE House gummies, there’s no doubt about it. They will make you trip.
The packaging for these products comes with recommended doses: 1–3 for a day at the office, 4–6 for a day at the party and 7+ for a day on the moon. After doing a decent amount of research into these little guys, we felt comfortable starting out with three gummies. The effects were mild, but good. It gave us a solid head high, but at times it was hard to distinguish what we were feeling, the gummies or the high-inducing THCa flower we had been smoking. We mostly sat around and played video games for the roughly three hours that we felt the gummies’ effects. Overall, we had a fine time on three gummies, but it still didn’t feel like a trip. We had more experimenting to do.
Normally, we’d like to inch our way toward higher doses when experimenting with stuff like this, but there was no time. We had a deadline we wanted to meet. So, we waited about a week for our tolerance to go down before our next session with the TRE House magic mushroom gummies. It was go big or go home this time, seven gummies total. We steered clear of the THCa flower on the come up so there was no confusion about what we were feeling. We took notes throughout the experience.
The gummies were sent down our gullet at around 2:30 p.m. With every gummy we swallowed we wondered if this was a good idea, but there was no turning back.
We figured we’d play some virtual reality video games until the gummies kicked in, so we donned our VR headset and loaded into Asgard’s Wrath 2. We got some good fights in and progressed through the campaign a bit, but it became increasingly overwhelming. We had to get out of there. Around 2:56 p.m., we started to sweat more than usual. “It’s about 3 p.m. Feeling a tiny bit nauseous,” we wrote in our reporter’s notebook. “Might check back in in half an hour or so.”
Our next entry read, “JK. It’s only been about 15 minutes. I’m definitely feeling the gummies now.”
We started to feel tired, but there was no way we could sleep. Our pupils were huge. More and more, we were being filled with a strong feeling of euphoria and anxiety. We felt heavier and giggly. Then, the visuals began to kick in. Out of the corner of our eye, everything seemed to be moving. Colors were brighter, shadows were darker, and sounds seemed to reverberate around the room for longer. It became increasingly difficult to focus on anything. When 3:22 p.m. rolled around, it was time for a bowl of THCa flower. That kicked our trip into high gear.
“It’s about 3:36 p.m. now and I’m feeling the gummies pretty strongly,” we wrote. “I feel like I need to lay down and close my eyes.”
When we closed our eyes, we saw red, neon outlined pyramids, as if we were in some Egyptian sci-fi horror flick. By this time, we were spending a lot of the trip convincing ourselves that we weren’t going to die, that everything was OK and that this is exactly what we were asking for. At times, it felt like a mix between acid and mescaline.
“It’s about 4:20 p.m. right now, but I don’t think I could 420 right now,” we wrote in our notebook. We tried listening to music but could only make it through two songs before that too became too overwhelming. Are you catching the theme here? If we could sum up our trip in one word it would probably be “overwhelming.” But, we don’t blame the gummies for that. We think we may have just taken too much for our liking.
We started to come down around 5 p.m., and the trip slowly faded away over the next hour or so.“Largely, it’s really for healing and connecting people with larger, better aspects of themselves." – Christian Rasmussen, MN Nice Botanicals
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Well, what the hell did we just take? The packaging doesn’t give much information, but it does say each gummy has about 22.5 milligrams of a “proprietary nootropic mushroom blend.” The company website refers to it as a proprietary liposomal blend. There’s no amanita in these bad boys. On TRE House’s website, it says that liposomal blend includes: 5-HTP (a.k.a. 5-hydroxytryptophan), rhodiola rosea, lion’s mane, mimosa hostilis root, phenylethylamine hydrochloride, cyanocobalamin (B12) and cholecalciferol (D3).
Mimosa hostilis root has a powerful psychedelic in it called DMT. Some Redditors seem to believe that this is what’s causing the trip in TRE House’s gummies. Others have suggested that the gummies have the hallucinogen 4 ACO DMT in them. However, lab reports provided on the company’s website show no detectable presence of DMT or 4 ACO DMT in the gummies.
So, how do these gummies work exactly? We couldn’t get in touch with the company, and there isn’t much information about this on their website.
However, one of the people who recommended the TRE House gummies to us was Sallie Baxter, the owner of a local yoga studio called Balanced Being. The yoga studio sells these gummies, and Baxter said a company rep gave her a fact sheet for them. Here’s how they break things down in that fact sheet.
The company says it’s come up with a “proprietary blend of liposomes and nootropics that activate the same receptors in the brain as traditional psychedelic mushrooms.”
“The issue is, that in their normal state, the body is unable to process enough of these ingredients all at once and expect that they are able to hit the receptor site all at once which would trigger the optimal effect,” the company says. “This is why the ingredients are first made into a smaller, evenly homogenized particle size to in a sense trick the body into feeling like you are consuming much more than you actually are and that all ingredients hit the receptor site at the same time, triggering a highly bioavailable and efficacious blend of all ingredients all at once, yielding an intensely euphoric effect.”
It still doesn’t make much sense to us, but this explanation will have to do for now.
We have a love-hate relationship with psychedelics. Most trips we’ve had have been coupled with fears of death. Those fears mostly come from the idea that we’re unsure of what we’re putting in our bodies and how it might affect us. Was that real acid we just took? Are we sure these are the right mushrooms? Did we take too much? These are some of the thoughts that come to mind when we trip.
We’ve survived all of our trips, but the fear is there every time. That same fear was there on the TRE House gummies, mainly because we don’t know how they work. We knew all of the ingredients going into our trip, but how they react together and how safe they are is beyond us. The whole experience has made us a little apprehensive about trying just any reportedly psychedelic product out there. But, hey, trips are out on store shelves now if you want to experience one for yourself. Just start small. You’ll thank us later.
