Poppycock I Have Heard of Late: 5 Strange, Untrue Misconceptions Floating around the Microdosing Field

So chuffed to be able to implement the outstanding word “poppycock” in a blog post 😜… but - more importantly - share some of the strange or outright untrue things I’ve been witnessing when it comes to microdosing knowledge and education of late. Five years ago when our community was founded, one of the primary obstacles was that information, knowledge and resources were quite limited or not-super-easy to find. Fast forward to today, we have a different challenge: information overload and tons of misinformation, conflicting advice or opinions being presented as facts. Today I’ll share 5…

1 - TOLERANCE: If you’re overly worried about tolerance when microdosing, you’re not doing it right. I continue to see - over and over again in the interwebs - people banging on about the prospect of developing ‘tolerance’ to the mushrooms. In other words, propagating the idea that you will continue to need more and more mushrooms - higher and higher doses - to continue to receive any benefits. I’ve found this to be completely untrue, in fact most people require LESS mushrooms and lower & lower doses over time. Taking breaks from microdosing at regular intervals and working with a protocol are wonderful ideas for other reasons (more on this HERE) but not because you will ‘build up a tolerance.’ Ultimately, the goal of a microdosing practice is to not need to microdose at all… this kind of blows people’s minds and can take a minute for folks to get their heads around. “Wait a minute, you mean all the cognitive, emotional, physical and spiritual benefits actually CAME FROM ME, and their mine to keep?!” 🤯 Yes. Mushrooms help ignite our innate healing, and once we attain this new baseline we tend to keep it even after discontinuing practice, especially if we’re simultaneously receiving coaching, support, community and participating in lifestyle practices, healthy rituals and mindset work. If & when people choose to restart their microdosing practice, it’s because they move onto other fresh new intentions, not because they are dependent or reliant upon them.

2 - MISUSE IS ON US. 🥴 Mushrooms are not addictive, however it’s us humans who are prone to misusing them. Mushrooms are incredibly clever, humble, wise, generous little spirits from nature and divine portals to the sacred & eternal. It is humans - when not at our finest - who are greedy, entitled and prone to serious cases of the ‘more-more’s’ (to borrow a phrase by Jordan Gruber & Jim Fadiman in their new book “Microdosing for Health, Healing and Enhanced Performance.”) Innumerable scientists and research studies have proven that mushrooms are among the least addictive substances on earth, however it’s our human tendency to always want to take more, expect more, stick our finger in every pie, and grab more than we actually need that is the real issue. Whenever I have “used” mushrooms for the wrong reasons - to pacify boredom, fill time, escape from reality or assuage momentary discomfort - my guide was right there to call me out and set me straight. “Back so soon?” she’ll ask. “Have I not already given you quite a lot? Are you appreciating it, living into all that I’ve shared with you… or are you just here asking for more?” She’s got a point. 😬 In my experience, nature practice and mushroom microdosing respond ideally to humility. To gratitude. To intention and honor, treating the practice as a gift, special, and appreciated. The more we give to the process - the more we truly invest ourselves in it - the more potent the results… and the less we need over time.

3 - BLACK + WHITE, EITHER/OR THINKING - “PHARMA VS. NATURE” - “I was told I couldn’t start microdosing unless I got off all pharmaceutical medications. In fact, I was told it was dangerous!” Oh boy is this one going around! Firstly, every single person is unique, and every situation is unique. Yes, for some people and some medications (lithium, for example) this is true. But in my experience - in the vast majority of cases - it is not… and people can actually be very much supported by microdosing while they’re utilizing or tapering off pharmaceutical prescriptions. In all cases, it’s important to speak to professionals about your unique circumstances, medications and goals, and ignore these sweeping, black & white claims made in chat rooms or by people who haven’t actually done substantial direct work in the field. We’ve supported many dozens of people tapering off antidepressants or sleeping pills in our Microdosing for Healing programs who had a much gentler experience of an otherwise challenging process thanks to their microdosing practice. We’ve also had participants able to get better results from their anti-anxiety and antidepressant meds after working with mushrooms. In other words, instead of requiring them to stop their prescription, it allowed their prescription to actually, finally start to work for people… which, as you can imagine, came as quite a relief to the individual! 🙌

I highly recommend anyone worried about mixing your prescriptions with microdosing consult with Dr. Ben Malcolm (The Spirit Pharmacist.) Ben has spoken, written and taught on this subject generously for the public, professionals working in the field, as well as fellow pharmacists seeking psychedelic-informed education. Check his work out HERE. You can also explore Dr. Kristin Speer’s brilliant Magic Mushroom Interaction Tracker HERE - an online tool to quickly & affordably run screening reports on all your medications (please note that the results have high dose psilocybin journeys in mind - you may want to keep that in mind if you’ll be microdosing, exclusively.)

4 - “Paul Stamets is Against Decriminalization Efforts.” 🤦🏻‍♀️ I was recently on a webinar with a well-known influencer in the microdosing field, and he claimed - in front of an audience of 500 people - that Paul Stamets is “against the decriminalization of microdosing because he’s trying to patent his formula and profit off of it.” Now, first of all, this is straight up poppycock. I prefer to give nature, the earth and mushrooms full credit for their healing gifts, but if I’m going to extend credit to any human being, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more devoted acolyte to the widespread accessibility and education around mushrooms than Paul Stamets. Paul has been advocating for the healing potential of mushrooms way before it was cool to do so, back when the audience was a tiny handful of people content to wait for society to catch back up. He’s everywhere, generously lending his face and voice to decriminalization movements and public education efforts around the world. As we speak, he and Dr. Pam Kryskow, MD are helping to support Natural Medicine Alaska in a promising statewide initiative. Just because Paul is sponsoring or participating in clinical trials to “prove” the efficacy of mushroom healing does not mean he’s some greedy bio-tech outfit… it simply means he’s realistic in the recognition that a vast portion of our society requires scientific “evidence” and “proof” that mushrooms “work.” You can stand for both decriminalization and citizen-science efforts AND for clinical work and scientific research; being for one does not preclude supporting the other. In every field and industry since time immemorial - dazzled by the promise of power, celebrity & greed - therein lies the propensity for a Darth Vader. Sorry, but Paul Stamets is not one of them.

5 - I’M TOO SENSITIVE TO MICRODOSE - “I’m a highly sensitive person - to everything! - so maybe I shouldn’t microdose.” I wrote about this recently in my piece on dosing (read more HERE) but I can’t emphasize enough how untrue this is. Mushrooms LOVE sensitive people and our Community is full of them! In so many ways, microdosing helps transform the liabilities of our sensitivity into the incredible gifts they are. If you’ve been poking around in the psychedelics world over the last year, there is an outsized amount of real estate being given to the Voices of Fear based on the narrative that healing must be hard, harrowing, requiring of great sacrifice, etc. Please know that this perspective is just one of many, and it tends to get pushed forward because - let’s face it - fear sells: it gets shares, clicks and pokes people’s well-oiled outrage buttons. It’s more ‘interesting’ to read about the outing of the celebrity shaman than it is about the teacher who quietly experienced profound healing from childhood abuse, so these stories and their authors tend to get pushed forward… which is especially unfortunate when we have so many people brand new to earth medicines coming into the field, looking to learn and become educated on what this is all about.

One of the many reasons I think microdosing is the ideal way for the majority of people to begin working with psychedelics is because it is more subtle, gentle, sensitive and soft. It is more like the mushrooms themselves: unremarkable on the surface, quiet, unflashy, easily overlooked. But make no mistake… they are an essential part of the forest and foundational to global eco-systems. Many people today are not prepared - psychologically, emotionally, mentally - to leap straight into big medicines and big destabilization; microdosing gives people the opportunity to create a relationship with the medicine, grow & mature, nurture trust and understanding, and prepare for deeper levels of healing & expansion to take place. If you are sensitive and been scared by the stories and headlines, please know there is a very different side and experience of working with earth medicines waiting for you.

Our Spring Microdosing Immersion begins April 17- join us! Learn more and apply for this intimate, transformative microdosing experience within a small group experience HERE.