Mushrooms spread their love by sporing. They generously release millions of microscopic reproductive spores into the air.
Since the movie Fantastic Fungi, Mushrooms are my Super Hero! From composting toxic waste, to culinary delight, to journeys to outerspace, Mushrooms Take Us There!
My professional practice centers around Psychedelic Assisted Therapy, yet mushrooms are more than therapeutic. Living here in the Pacicfic NW, they grow all around me, keeping me enchanted along my walks.
Come join me for a few minutes for a peek at the magic that dwells in the forest.
Fresh Mushroom News
Instead of doom scrolling, here’s to shedding light on what nature offers humanity.
Facilitators shape outcomes
Psilocybin experiences (Psilocybe spp.) varied little by facilitator in healthy volunteers, with guides explaining just 0.8% of experience differences, but varied strongly in clinical populations, where facilitators accounted for 13.6% of variance across 298 participants and 670 sessions. In patient trials, facilitator influence exceeded typical therapist effects in standard psychotherapy (≈ 8%), directly shaping the intensity and quality of acute psychedelic experiences. In everyday terms, who supports the session matters far more for people seeking treatment than for healthy volunteers, making training, consistency, and therapeutic skill critical as psychedelic therapies scale.
Pleasure returns
Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (Psilocybe spp.) helped people feel interest, enjoyment, and reward again, even when standard antidepressants had failed. The results saw reduced anhedonia scores by an average of 3.1 points on the SHAPS scale at 2 weeks in people with treatment-resistant depression, with clinically meaningful improvements lasting 3–6 months. 90% of participants started with significant emotional numbness, and reductions in anhedonia occurred partly independent of overall depression score changes, showing a distinct effect on pleasure and motivation.
And now for a bit of yumminess…
Comfort flavors unlocked
Adding edible mushrooms to chicken soup changed both taste perception and emotional response in 104 consumers, with shiitake mushroom (Lentinula edodes) scoring the highest overall acceptance and strongest links to pleasantness, joy, and eagerness. Soups with shiitake, Agrocybe aegerita, and Agaricus blazei were rated significantly higher for umami, fullness, and saltiness, while 29 measured emotional attributes differed across formulations. Mushrooms don’t just make soup taste better, they actively shape comfort, satisfaction, and mood, helping explain why mushroom-rich broths feel more nourishing and emotionally grounding.
This information comes to me by Shroomer Newsletter.
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