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What is a Psilocybin Experience Like?

What is a psilocybin experience like? After seeing the popularity of my recent post: What is an LSD experience like? I decided to do a follow up about psilocybin. Psilocybin is the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms and truffles, and although very similar to the LSD experience, it does have one or two differences.

As with the LSD post these were taken from a study which looked at aspects similar amongst people‘s psilocybin experiences. All of these findings were presented in a talk by Katrin Preller which you can view online:
How Psychedelics Can Help Us Understand Social Cognition and Self-Experience.

I think the list provides an excellent summary of common psilocybin experiences.

Subjective Effects of Psilocybin

  • Elementary visual alterations
  • Vivid imagery
  • Audio-visual synesthaesia
  • Changed meaning of percepts
  • Experience of unity
  • Blissful state
  • Disembodiment
  • Impaired control and cognition
  • Insightfulness
  • Religious experience
  • Anxiety

The diagram below shows us which of the subjective effects were felt most strongly under the influence of psilocybin. I have ordered the list above in order. As you can see, elementary visual alterations scores highest, and anxiety lowest.

Subjective effects of psilocybin. From Vollenheider & Kometer, 2010.

Course of Subjective Effects of Psilocybin

This chart shows the course of a psilocybin journey including the intensity of the effects over a timeline. As you can see the peak is around 1 hour in with ‘transient peaks of self transcendence’.

Course of subjective effects of psilocybin. From Preller & Vollenweider, 2017.