Is there a "permant tolerance" to shrooms?

[highlightprotein]

I'm pretty new to mushrooms, having taken the around 18 times or so. Normally I take them once per week, with the occasional 2 week break due to going on vacation or having to work weekends. Recently I have found that my 1.75g dose isn't cutting it for me. I am worried that I now have a "permanent tolerance" to mushrooms and that the only solution is to increase the dose or quit for several months.

I took a large quantity and blended them all up in order to homogenize the dose. I always fast 16 hours before dosing.

I thought I found my sweet spot at 1.75g about 1.5 months ago. 1.85g or more was a bit too intense for me. 1.75g made everything look very cool and I had very nice visual distortions.

However, the last 4 times I have taken 1.75g, the effects have been pretty reduced. It feels more like 1.3g or so. Everything I look at no longer looks incredibly cool. And the visual distortions/hallucenations are no longer as intense as I recall from originally taking 1.75g.

I know many people say taking mushrooms every week is not good because it leads to tolerance. However in the past 6 weeks I have had 2 two week breaks, but even after 2 weeks my 1.75g dose still doesn't feel as impressive. This weekend I even took 1.85g and found it to be underwhelming (my first time taking 1.85g was way too intense, but this time it was nothing like it).

So I wonder if perhaps there is some kind of permanent tolerance. Have I simply burned my allowance of 1.75g for the rest of my life? Or is perhaps 2 weeks insufficient to reset my tolerance? Do I need to quit for a few months to reset myself?

The other thing I would like to mention is that the best trip I ever had was on 1.5g of mushrooms. Everything, I mean everything, I looked at was extremely interesting and cool looking. Since then I have never come close to that. I've read that some people believe you should go big for your first trip because you are only going to have that experience one time, the rest of your trips are always not going to be as good. I don't want to believe that though, but so far that has been my experience.

Of course, perhaps the solution is that I just need to up my dose to 2.5g or more...

 

[shroombee]

I purchased a large quantity and blended them all up in order to homogenize the dose.

By blending, do you mean you powdered the batch? How are you storing your blended shrooms?

 

[Tony6Strings]

I suggest upping your dose to 3.5 and see where that takes you. 5 grams and up is where mushrooms really start to get interesting.

 

[highlightprotein]

I purchased a large quantity and blended them all up in order to homogenize the dose.

By blending, do you mean you powdered the batch? How are you storing your blended shrooms?

Yes, I powdered the batch, and then packaged them all into capsules. I store the capsules in a ziplock back at room temperature.

I suggest upping your dose to 3.5 and see where that takes you. 5 grams and up is where mushrooms really start to get interesting.

I'm a bit scared lol but will start slowly upping the dose.

 

[Dirty T]

Dosing with mushrooms isn't so precise that an extra 100mg will change the experience on any noticeable level. Mushroom trips kind of work at different threshold levels. There are some basic guidelines that can give you an idea of 'breakpoints' the standard format is -
.25 grams
1 gram
2 grams
3.5 grams
7 grams
14 grams
28 grams

Each 'breakpoint' will result in a "different" experience. What they do never changes but how they "take hold" of your conscious varies according to dose.

As far as tolerance goes I agree with the chart. I wait 28 days between treatments for guaranteed "clean" 5ht receptors. You can just up the dose a little to get you where you're going. If you've done them 18 times and haven't tried an eighth yet I highly recommend it, it can be very pleasurable. I would say a quarter and up are for more experienced users and half plus are used for more therapeutic value than recreational, at those high doses like that it is very intense and exhausting and it's more like work than fun.

 

[shroombee]

Yes, I powdered the batch, and then packaged them all into capsules. I store the capsules in a ziplock back at room temperature.

Powdering mushrooms can potentially accelerate the loss of potency because you are greatly increasing the surface area of the material (exposure to oxygen). This might be why your trips are getting less intense - possibly because your material is less potent. So if you acquire a new batch, start low until you gauge the potency. And if you really want to homogenize the dose, taking small pieces from different mushrooms should do the trick.

For storage, keep them dry and in the dark. I store my shrooms whole, in the dark, in a sealed tupperware with desiccant.

I suggest upping your dose to 3.5 and see where that takes you. 5 grams and up is where mushrooms really start to get interesting.

I'm a bit scared lol but will start slowly upping the dose.

You can learn how to meditate on the mushrooms, which will teach you how to stay grounded as you increase the dose and the intensity increases. That's how I worked my way up to 20 grams.

 

[dragonrider]

There is a multitude of factors that determine how sensitive you are to shrooms or other psychedelics.

Some antidepressants increase tolerance, full or empty stomach makes a HUGE difference as well, cannabis makes you much, much more sensitive for any psychedelic, while benzodiazepines decrease sensitivity. Some synthetic cannabinoïds can induce extreme and very long lasting tolerance.

Theoretically, the kind of food you eat could affect your experience as well. If there are any supplements you take, that could also have an effect. Tryptophan could theoretically weaken the experience, while tyrosine and phenylalanine could potentially intensify experiences.

It could also be that your shrooms decreased in potency due to storage conditions, as was pointed out already.

Then there may be psychological factors. You have to be open to it. If there are a lot of things on your mind, (financial, health, family, relationships, work...whatever) your mind will often be too occupied processing all of these things, to open up to the experience.

And i've noticed that people who feel generally burnt out, often complain that psychedelics don't affect them as deeply anymore. That may either be something neurochemical in nature or something purely psychological, but it is something i've repeatedly seen. And it does make sense to me: the psychedelic experience does have a kind of "energetic" nature.

And then there's the environment you're in.

I'm probably forgetting some things. There are just so many things that will all have some kind of impact.

But basically, if you're not on any kind of medication, you aren't taking any other recreational substances and you feel you are in good health, then i wouldn't worry about a few lesser experiences. You normally don't build up a huge tolerance after a couple of mushroom trips over the course of a few weeks.

Usually, people either tend to have a high natural tolerance due to personal genetics, or not. Aquired tolerance eventually passes.

 

[PedroSanchez]

1.75g is quite a low dose and 1.85g is going to be somewhat indistinguishable from 1.75g. i think you would notice a bigger change in trip based on what foods you ate before hand.

there are a lot of factors that could be responsible for the lack of trip, but after 2 weeks it is unlikely to be major tolerance, certainly not from taking a 1.75g dose.
i was about to go into possible factors but i can see dragonriders reply below right now and they have covered these very well already, probably other posts have too.

i follow a ritual in the morning leading up to taking mushrooms. i only eat a light breakfast, no medications etc and i take them around lunch time. i also powder my mushrooms and store them in a jar, so potency differences from different fruits are spread well across the jar. even after all that my trips vary with the same doses, i would say probably enough that i might be disappointed with a 1.75g dose.
a ritual might be your best bet with such a low dose though. try to mimic every aspect of your day. and maybe try a longer break, maybe a couple of months. worth a try.

 

[null24]

Maybe you are just getting used to them. More comfortable in the space, maybe it's not as novel, but that's not tolerance, it's familiarity.

Mushies don't have any kind of quality control, there may be slight variabilities in psilo quanity from one to another. Your doses really aren't in the exhorbitant range of mushroom experience, and noticing a difference in a tenth of a gram change prolly has more to do with something else. I have had mushies plain not work, take 4 hours to give me a 45 minute trip, and kick my ass, all from the same dose at different times, and all those reactions are down to me- something I ate or didn't, or santa knows what. :?:

because you are only going to have that experience one time, the rest of your trips are always not going to be as good.

Absolutely not true by any means. Whoever told you that, I feel sory for.:|

 

[PedroSanchez]

because you are only going to have that experience one time, the rest of your trips are always not going to be as good.

Absolutely not true by any means. Whoever told you that, I feel sory for.:|

i agree this is absolutely not true. that is no way to think of mushrooms, that is the kind of thinking that is associated more with things like meth, where tolerance becomes a problem for addicted users. mushrooms are a different world, they offer a different experience every time, sometimes more intense, or stronger than others, but they will not leave you chasing a high.

 

[Dirty T]

because you are only going to have that experience one time, the rest of your trips are always not going to be as good.

Absolutely not true by any means. Whoever told you that, I feel sory for.:|

i agree this is absolutely not true. that is no way to think of mushrooms, that is the kind of thinking that is associated more with things like meth, where tolerance becomes a problem for addicted users. mushrooms are a different world, they offer a different experience every time, sometimes more intense, or stronger than others, but they will not leave you chasing a high.

I just reread the thread twice looking for where you pulled that quote from. That statement would be true for vaporizing Cocaine not taking psilocybin. I've had light trips with no visuals from 2 grams and had heavy visuals from 1 gram. Every time is different, there are similarities but it's definitely different everytime and the actual outcome is dependent on a host of factors as has been described in this thread.

I'm just completely baffled that someone has somehow derived the idea that psilocybin causes permanent brain damage that causes all subsequent uses to result in an inferior experience, that's what crack cocaine does. It's what is known a s a "non-cessating" drug. When that stuff takes hold they aren't even getting high anymore. A "Crack Addict" will do strange things like smoking aspirin or cracker crumbs and claim to get high because it probably affects them as much as the actual drug once they've used some. Just a plain ridiculous idea. Psilocybin repairs pathways and damaged areas of the brain not destroy them.