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Amanita Muscaria (Fly Agaric)

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MalargueZiggy

MalargueZiggy

Rising Star
Right, this is still legal in England, which I find quite ridiculous because I've heard quite a few bad things about it, especially in comparison to the classic psylocibin mushrooms they cracked down on a few years ago.

What I was wondering is whether these bad things are true and what you guys think about this? Is it a worthwhile venture?
 
There's already at least three threads here, have a read:

Amanita muscaria
amanita mushroom i.d. please
Amanita muscaria - Culinary and Medicinal Uses

I wrote about when SWIM tried them somewhere too but can't remember where.

See Erowid for info, lots of trip reports and the all-important dose page, if you haven't already. Their amanita section is quite developed. It's safe to eat only when thoroughly dried, and I presume within the dosage range seeing as it's a deliriant.

Also, google video [ "sacred weeds" amanita ] for a great documentary involving human subjects http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?q="sacred+weeds"+amanita&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f# :)
 
Just be sure to drink your own urine, it's the only way to get the true effects.

I have done it before, it is amazing and the only way to really experience this strange entheogen.

I'm serious, BTW.
 
[quote='Coatl]Just be sure to drink your own urine, it's the only way to get the true effects.

I have done it before, it is amazing and the only way to really experience this strange entheogen.

I'm serious, BTW.
[/quote]

Sorry, but that's completely and totally 100% incorrect. Drinking your urine is no more effective than simply redosing with some more fly agarics.

The idea that urine-drinking is better, or the only true way to experience the effects of the mushrooms is pure nonsense and misunderstanding.

The indigenous people of Siberia didn't eat the mushroom then drink their own urine to boost the effects. The people who could afford to ate the mushrooms (or drank mushroom tea). Those who couldn't afford the mushrooms drank the urine of those who could.

Unless you've got a mushroom shortage going on, there's no reason to drink your urine. Period. The urine simply contains ~90% of the ibotenic acid that was in the dose of mushrooms. Eating another dose of mushrooms (about 9/10ths the size of the initial dose) produces identical results.
 
Well it worked well for me and was the only way I could get "psychedelic" effects from the Amanita muscaria mushroom.
 
While it is true that drinking your urine after eating Amanita boosts the effect, it is not needed to achieve psychedelic effects. You will get more effects, but not more effects than redosing with the same amount, as Entropymancer said. My understanding is that in your body, the bad ibotenic acid is converted to the good muscimol. Therefore you might experience a better psychedelic/body"high" ratio. However, if your mushrooms are prepared the way they are supposed to, all of the ibotenic acid is already converted to muscimol.
 
Actually, only a small portion of the ibotenic acid is converted to muscimol in your body (but that small portion is enough, since muscimol is much more potent). The rest of the ibotenic acid is excreted in the urine. Muscimol, on the other hand, is not excreted in the urine in any significant amounts.

So really, redosing with more fly agarics (which contain active amounts of muscimol) is better than drinking urine (which does not.
 
Really, are you sure? Then I must have been misguided, thank you for clearing that up. :) Could you post some sources for this? I am really interested in what actual quantity of ibotenic acid and muscimol is converted and excreted.
 
Looks like some unpublished lab analyses by Scott Chilton (cited by his colleague, Jonathan Ott, in Pharmacotheon) are the main source which found ibotenic acid to be largely excreted in the urine while very little muscimol was excreted. Ott also demonstrated that only a very small percentage of muscimol injected into mice was excreted in their urine (1975, Physiological Chemistry and Physics 7: 381-384).

The hypothesis that some ibotenic acid converts to muscimol (which is presumed to be responsible for the psychoactivity) is drawn from several observations (as far as I can tell, no definitive analysis has been done to prove this, but the argument seems quite sound). The observations leading to the hypothesis are as follows:

1.) Identical effects are achieved from the ingestion of about 100 mg ibotenic acid or about 10 mg muscimol (Chilton, 1975; MacIlvanea 2: 17)(Theobald et al, 1968; Arzneimittelforschung 18(3): 311-315)(Waser, 1967; Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs [Ed. Efron et al] p. 419-439)

2.) Muscimol is the simple decarboxylation product of ibotenic acid

3.) Ibotenic acid is presumed to be unable to cross the blood-brain barrier, as if any substantial portion were to cross, immediate, dramatic, and permanent cerebral toxicity (brain damage) would be plainly evident. (Lipska et al, 1992; Brain Research 585: 1-6)(Newsome et al, 1985; Journal of Neuroscience 5: 825-840)(etc.)
 
Thank you alot, Entropymancer! Is there any possibility that you could find the exact figures on what amount of muscimol actually gets excreted? And perhaps how many percent of the ibotenic acid is converted to muscimol in vitro?

The fact that people that have tried drinking their urine experience much more psychedelic effects and less side-effects than if eating the mushrooms, draws my attention. Could there perhaps be a degrading component of muscimol that can account for the psychoactivity? Or is it just the unconverted ibotenic acid? What about the lack of nausea, is there possibly some toxins in the mushroom (besides ibotenic acid) that is not present in the urine?
 
Evening Glory said:
Is there any possibility that you could find the exact figures on what amount of muscimol actually gets excreted?
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Not in humans, as far as I can tell that data has never been published. I'd say it's worth firing off an email to Chilton, but he died a few years ago. I'll definitely dig around and see if I can find any other studies on human metabolism.

I can try to track down Ott's study on mice to get those figures though.

and perhaps how many percent of the ibotenic acid is converted to muscimol in vitro?
Click to expand...

Nope. Like I said, that's a hypothesis. As far as I know it hasn't been analytically verified. Considering the dosage equivalency though, it's safe to assume it's somewhere in the 5-10% range.

The fact that people that have tried drinking their urine experience much more psychedelic effects and less side-effects than if eating the mushrooms, draws my attention. Could there perhaps be a degrading component of muscimol that can account for the psychoactivity? Or is it just the unconverted ibotenic acid? What about the lack of nausea, is there possibly some toxins in the mushroom (besides ibotenic acid) that is not present in the urine?
Click to expand...

Yep, there are quite a variety of other toxins in the mushrooms that can account for these toxic-feeling side effects. Muscarine, stizobolic acid, sometimes even trace amounts of bufotenine have been reported. These chemicals are likely not excreted unchanged in the urine, so they probably account for the "purer" feeling of the urine compared to the whole mushroom.

I'll be looking into this issue some more in the near future.
 
However, if your mushrooms are prepared the way they are supposed to, all of the ibotenic acid is already converted to muscimol.
Click to expand...

Could y'all go into what the best preparation method for Amanita muscaria is?
 
Entropymancer: I see, great to have someone with your knowledge to clear things up. In my mind the "purer" feeling of Amanita urine is a good reason to actually use it, for the people that don't find it too nasty. About the toxins you mentioned, my understanding was that all three of them is only found in inactive trace amounts, not only the Bufotenin. Is this wrong? I am looking forward to see the results of your digging!

'Coatl: Heat and drying are the key factors in converting ibotenic acid to muscimol. You should dry your mushrooms on around 100 C (I think everything below 150 C is safe for the alkaloids, maybe Entropymancer can confirm this). With the dried and now pulverized mushrooms, you should make a tea with boiling or sub-boiling water for some time, maybe an hour or so. Filter out the mushrooms and drink the tea, preferably with some Ginger to counteract the possible nausea.

My experience is that Amanita tea has very little nausea, even without Ginger, compared to just dried Amanita. This could be because more of the ibotenic acid is converted during the boiling, or maybe because there are some toxins in the mushroom that are not water-soluble (or perhaps both).

I must add that I most likely was wrong in stating that ALL of the ibotenic acid is converted with the correct preparing, but a great portion is undoubtly converted.
 
You're right, the quanities of muscarine present are very very small quantities (in the samples analyzed), but the majority of the side-effects of fly agarics sound just like the effects of muscarine (salivation, perspiration, lachrymation)... I'm not sure what a threshold dose of muscarine is, but it seems like muscarine is a likely culprit based on the effects. I ought to see what info I can find on micro-doses of muscarine.

It's also worth noting that the side-effects vary from country to country... not surprising, as the Eurasian varieties are known to belong to a different clade than the North American ones. In fact, they have recently been seperated into Amanita muscaria and Amanita amerimuscaria. North American ones are much more apt to produce profuse sweating. Western European ones are anecdotally linked with greater nausea. Siberian ones are anecdotally linked with very few side-effects. Australian ones are known as the bottom of the barrel; very little of the good stuff (ibotenic acid and muscimol) with tons of nausea, sweating, and other side-effects. It's important to keep in mind regional variation when considering the side effects.

In terms of drying, you're absolutely correct that less than 150 degrees C is safe for the chemicals, but you're apt to end up with burnt mushrooms if you bake them at this temperature (believe me, I've tried). Around 90 degrees C seems to produce a better result (air circulation is critical). Quite frankly though, I prefer simple air-drying. I haven't noticed any substantial difference between the mushrooms I air-dried (in a box with a fan built into one side and a bit of ventilation) versus the ones I oven-dried.

With dried mushrooms, I agree tea seem the most effective way, although I really loathe the flavor. I prefer my drug teas to be bitter; opium poppy tea doesn't bother my taste buds much at all! Fly agaric tea just makes me cringe.

My absolute favorite way to consume the mushrooms though is too sautee fresh ones with garlic and onion, and cook them into just about anything you can think of. I really miss them now that they aren't in season and I can't cook a few slices of cap into all my meals (they're delicious, and at low doses they're a truly wonderful tonic). I had the forsight to can and pickle a couple jars which I'm rationing to keep me in supply until they come back in season this fall. (I've got plenty of dried mushrooms, more than I'll probably use this year, I just don't like how the mushroom's delicious flavor turns into a rancid-sock flavor upon drying)

From my own personal experience, I'm really skeptical of the claims that proper drying is crucial to using the mushroom. There's a 1993 paper by Tsunoda et al, entitled "Change in ibotenic acid and muscimol contents in Amanita muscaria during drying, storing or cooking," (Journal of the Food Hygenic Society of Japan 34(2): 153-160) that I really want to track down to find out what it has to say on the subject.
 
Just to be clear, I should note that virtually all of my personal experience with fly agarics comes from the use of Amanita amerimuscaria (formerly known as Amanita muscaria var. flavivolvata) which I harvested myself in the Pacific Northwest.
 
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