Protocols for taking raw, dry Amanita Muscaria

For people with ADHD, caffeine addictions or people whose work involves repetitive stress, dry amanita may be helpful in aiding focus, energizing and alleviate pain and stress. It can also be helpful in mitigating the distraction and exhaustion from chronic pain while relieving both temporarily and permanently.

The gelcaps I make are pure, raw, Siberian Amanita Muscaria. I mix caps in large batches to uniformize the dosage which is very important to avoid “hot dosing”. The red pill is .15 grams. Most people take 2-3 pills 20-25 min before a task that requires focus and energy; and 3-5 for the treatment of acute or chronic nerve pain. (Topical oils have also proved quite helpful in the treatment of pains from sciatica to facial neuralgia). This more measured protocol replaces our old “rule of thumb” which remains a valid dosing method: take one thumbnail sized piece of a raw cap as needed.

Doses this size are more than an order of magnitude too small to cause harmful side effects of overdosing ibotenic acid. If for some reason someone decided to take 30-50 caps they might experience some stomach cramps. In MUCH higher doses seizures have been reported although no long term damage has been reported and people report experiencing weeks of notable calm and clarity following such events. Nobody is recommending that but its important to understand just how small a dose you might take. (A common protocol from Russia is to take .5g twice daily for 11 weeks with a 2 week break. With hundreds of participants in 2 studies, no ill effects were attributed to the amanita at this dose.)

What to expect: a period of focus and clarity (40-90min) followed by a period of relaxed light trance useful for flow state, creativity, and feeling “normal”.

Personally, I take between .3 and .5 grams when hiking. My body feels better and my joints ache less when I get off trail. The light trance is great for enjoying the landscape. On a 20 mile hike I may dose twice. 

Once you find a useful dose, consider frequency. In general people find it helpful to think of it more like Ritalin than Adderall in that it can be taken 20-25 min before a task and that task becomes easier, rather than taking it daily and indefinitely. For chronic pain the Russian protocol seems very effective: 3-4 pills, 1-2 x daily.

Most excitingly, people report that after 6-8 weeks of daily or near daily use they find their motivation or pain is improved and they need the amanita less often if at all. Because of the nature of ibotenic acid, these changes in the nervous system are permanent. 

Many people report side effects include: vivid dreams, more efficient sleep patterns, better boundaries, more emotional capacity, relief from CPTSD symptoms and episodes, a calm attitude, taking action on long differed decisions, and occasionally hearing the voice of the forest or the ancestors.

It is not uncommon for people to use amanita while titrating off their meds for ADHD, Anxiety, Antispasmodics (taken off label for mood disorders), Benzodiazepines in general, some SSRIs (although psilocybin is more commonly used), and meds for CPTSD and Insomnia (although partially decarboxylated tea seems better suited to these last two). Please seek professional advice from pharmacists and psychiatrists but it may be helpful to hear a common protocol to ween off meds is: cut the dose by 1/3 every two weeks. If rebound symptoms occur you may choose to stay at a higher dose for 2 more weeks and step down again. Once the dose is below 5 milligrams reduce the dose by 1/4 every 3 weeks. Stay on the smallest possible dose for a month or two. The entire purpose of this protocol it avoid shock to the endocrine system and minimize rebound symptoms. For some people this process takes 3 months, for others 18 months. Take it slow and be gentle with yourself.

Ibotenic Acid is cholinergic, meaning it travels in the acetylcholine pathways and therefore has very few interactions with pharmaceutical drugs if any. It is an upper but has minimal physiological side effects, so its not like coffee, does not raise the blood pressure or heart rate, and does not cause panic. It will induce a parasympathetic state, meaning a state of relaxed focus, the body’s way to “rest and restore” after “fight or flight” encounters. Since most humans live in a constant state of “fight or flight”, you may not at first notice that you are experienceing less pain, emotional reactivity and more calm peace.

Ibotenic Acid is a nerve lesioning agent that appears to target nerves which refuse to stop firing once a parasympathetic state has been achieved. These nerve signals appear to most commonly be chronic pain and childhood trauma. We believe that while muscamol can treat these conditions, ibotenic acid, over time, can cure them permanently. We have seen it reverse autoimmune conditions from diabetes to eczema to food allergies by abating the stress and underlying inflammation. 

Ibotenic acid does not want your fear. It is a flavor enhancer, it wants you to feast. It loves to dance, drum with it. It is an aphrodisiac, it wants you to make love. It puts us in the flow and wants us to see our power in the world. It feeds the creative soul and wants us to make art together. Ibotenic acid is no more dangerous than Tylenol and just as effective.

Ibotenic Acid does decarboxylate in the liver so if you are taking anything to alter the function of your liver, including alcohol, please consult a doctor before using raw amanita. If you are using this to titration off your psych meds, power to you, and please consult your psychiatrist. Im neither a doctor nor a psychiatrist and I’ll never diagnose or treat you; I’m not even recommending anything here, I’m just sharing what I’ve seen in the community because its breathtakingly beautiful when people get their groove back.