Comment by virtualwhys | Hacker News Reader

Comment by virtualwhys | Hacker News Reader

> The truffle sample (15 grams; Psilocybe Hollandia) contained 1.9 mg of psilocybin and 10.5 mg of psilocin. Participants ingested an average (SD) 34.2 (8.9) grams of truffles throughout the day.

Is that equivalent to 15 grams of dried mushrooms? If so that is a serious dose (over 1/2 an ounce!), there would be breakthroughs and breakdowns happening left and right given that amount.

Seems unlikely that participants (particularly first timers) would ingest such a large quantity, even when spread out over a number of hours.

Perhaps if one only drank the tea the effects wouldn't be as extreme as both drinking the tea and eating the remnants, but still, I'd have some concerns if the facilitator presented 15 grams to me and said something along the lines of, "now don't worry, just drink the tea and eat the rest, everything's going to be just fine [after you get through the maelstrom phase]" :)

Truffles are less potent than mushrooms, so you need to more or less double the dosage. I would think that the 15 grams of truffles then would be equivalent to about 7-8 grams of dried mushrooms. Since it was ingested throughout the day, I would assume that's dosages equivalent to 1-3 grams spread out through the day.

> I would think that the 15 grams of truffles then would be equivalent to about 7-8 grams of dried mushrooms

Spread throughout the day that would be reasonable for a facilitated retreat, yes. Also depends on the variety, some strains can be extremely powerful, to the point that 3.5 grams is more than enough.

I’ve found it to be closer to 10:1.

15g truffles felt like 1.5g.

Truffles are less potent than mushrooms, and are typically administered non-dried.

Therefore, 15g of truffles is more like 1.5g of dried mushrooms.

The amount of psilocin and psilocybin given in the article confirms this. It's a very low dose.

When I was in Amsterdam, I bought a package containing 20g of these truffles. The label on the packaging said you should split it into two doses, but I've never been one to diddle the dose, so I ate 'em all, en route to the famous Amsterdamse Bos.

It ended up being, quite literally, a walk in the park :)

Not sure about the weight concentration in truffles, but for fresh mushrooms, if my memory doesn't fail me, the weight for a similar psilocybin dosage is about 10:1, so 50g of fresh mushrooms would be the equivalent of 5g of dried ones.

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