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What are the positive effects of liberty cap mushrooms?
Liberty cap mushrooms are often called magic mushrooms because of their psychedelic effect, which means that they basically cause hallucinations or distort reality. For some people this is positive and pleasing, for others it can be scary. Generally they are easy to pick when in season and so free, another possible positive (unless you’re caught picking them, or preparing them, then they have a negative effect: criminal justice involvement).
As with all drugs any effect depends on how much is used, where it is used and who with, and the mindset of the person using.
The active ingredient in liberty caps is psilocybin and there is no way to measure the amount that each mushroom has. Things like size, age and how they’ve been stored may all have an impact. It is similar to LSD and generally doesn’t last as long in effect, so possibly another positive.
Low doses of mushrooms often produce feelings of relaxation and being chilled out, a bit giggly, with heightened sensations, so that colours might be more intense, music is better appreciated, touch is more sensitive.
At higher doses there is a more intense experience for the user, more similar to LSD. Colours and light can become very vivid, vision becomes distorted, true hallucinations occur ie experiencing sensation in the absence of any stimulus. Put simply: seeing/hearing/feeling/tasting things that aren’t there. There may also be an intense feeling of well being associated with heavy use but the flip side is that there may just as easily be an intense feeling of distress.
It’s vital not to confuse liberty caps with other mushrooms as the chances of misidentification are high and other mushrooms can be poisonous. Obviously in these circumstances picking and eating at the same time would be a stupid thing to do!
Recent research suggests magic mushrooms might help in the development of antidepressants. However, this does not mean that taking mushrooms is the same as taking an antidepressant. As a matter of fact where there is any family history of mental health problems, or if you have underlying mental health problems the advice is stay away from psychedelics like liberty caps.