Psilocybin mushrooms are surrounded by numerous myths. In this interview, we try to separate fact from fiction. That’s why we’re talking to Piotr Kwiatkowski, founder of MYKOLAB.EU, who turned his knowledge, experience and fascination into a professional business. Enjoy the read!
What is the most common myth about psilocybin mushrooms that you hear? Where does it come from, and why do so many people believe it?
I think one of the biggest myths, constantly repeated, is the idea that individual varieties of Psilocybe cubensis have specific, predictable effects. One supposedly makes you more relaxed, another encourages philosophical thinking, while a third delivers more intense visual experiences. Like probably any entrepreneur in this industry, I’d love for that to be true. The problem is that we don’t have reliable research confirming these properties. Of course, individual varieties can differ significantly in potency and chemical composition, but that doesn’t mean we can use those differences to predict the nature of someone’s experience. You can read more about this in our guide to comparing the effects of different psilocybin mushrooms.
What’s more, psychedelics can increase susceptibility to suggestion. The so-called set and setting also play a huge role in shaping an experience: our mental state, expectations and surroundings. Imagine someone buying mushrooms advertised as particularly philosophical. Before they’ve even consumed them, they already have a certain idea of what to expect. And they might actually spend the evening contemplating philosophical questions. The next day, they’ll tell their friends that this particular variety works exactly that way. And so the myth perpetuates itself.
Of course, things might look a little different if someone consumes an absurdly large quantity of mushrooms. They may still spend their time philosophising, but not necessarily about the topics they had planned to explore that evening. 😉 I think this myth has survived for so long because it works brilliantly as a marketing tool. It’s much easier to sell people the promise of a specific experience than to admit that reality is considerably more complicated.
What attracts people to this subject today: curiosity, the search for new experiences, or the hope of changing their lives?
I think these motivations change with age and life experience. Younger people are more often driven by curiosity and the desire to experience something new. Among people in their thirties and forties, however, I increasingly notice a hope of changing something in their own lives.
I’ve personally gone through all these stages. Initially, I was interested in psilocybin mushrooms and psychedelics primarily because of their philosophical nature. I was fascinated by the possibility of experiencing and exploring the world from a completely different perspective, sometimes much deeper than the one available to me in everyday life. Over time, my motivations changed. The last time I had contact with psilocybin was as part of my own therapy.
Of course, everyone has their own individual story, and I wouldn’t want to reduce this to a simple relationship with age. It’s more of a pattern that has emerged from my own experiences and hundreds of conversations with people interested in psychedelics. I’d also highlight another motivation that deserves its own category: optimisation.
I’m primarily referring to people interested in microdosing. They’re not looking for a psychedelic experience in the traditional sense. Their goal is more about improving everyday functioning, concentration, creativity or general well-being. It’s an interesting group because we’re talking about the same substance, but with completely different expectations. One person wants to gain a new perspective on their life, while another simply hopes to work a little better on Monday morning.
The internet promises “self-discovery” and “a new dimension of consciousness”. Where does the description of a personal experience end and marketing that promises too much begin?
I think that to answer this question, we first need to look at what people actually expect from psychedelics and what they do to make those expectations a reality. I get the impression that there’s quite a bit of confusion here.
Personally, I’m someone who follows a plan. If someone tells me that achieving goal X requires eating three lettuce leaves every morning at nine, then I’ll eat those three lettuce leaves. Every day, at exactly nine. And if I happen to change time zones in the meantime, I’ll carefully calculate the correct time in advance and make sure I have enough lettuce. 🙂 So, if there’s a method that genuinely works and its effectiveness depends on following certain rules, I’ll do everything I can to stick to those rules. Meanwhile, people often like to change the number of leaves, the time they eat them and everything else. Then, at the end, they complain: “Hey, I was supposed to be healthy, but I’m not! This lettuce therapy is rubbish!”
I see a similar problem in the way people approach psychedelics. If someone genuinely wants to discover themselves, explore their own consciousness or work through certain problems, it’s worth first learning how to create the conditions that support such an experience. Preparation, mindset, surroundings and what we do with the experience afterwards all matter. For a practical introduction, see our guide on how to prepare for a psychedelic trip. Otherwise, we might end up like a certain guy who spontaneously ate an absurd amount of mushrooms on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. He then spent two or three hours lying motionless before announcing to his wife that he wanted a divorce. He didn’t actually get divorced.
Did he look deep inside himself? I’d venture to say perhaps a little too deep. But was he prepared for it? Was that even his goal? Definitely not. And could the very same experience, under different circumstances and with proper preparation, have brought something valuable into his life? Perhaps. There’s no way to know. And this brings us back to marketing. I believe the line is crossed when someone’s individual experience starts being presented as a promise to others.
You can say: “Psychedelics helped me look at my life from a completely different perspective.” But you can’t honestly promise someone that exactly the same thing will happen to them. Even if we eat all three lettuce leaves at precisely the right time, there’s still no guarantee that we’ll achieve the desired result. Although, admittedly, the chances might be considerably more realistic in this case.
We might also achieve a completely different result, one that’s equally important, or perhaps no result at all. Psychedelics don’t follow a script that we can write in advance. Neither does therapy. And that’s exactly why I prefer talking about possibilities rather than promises. There’s a fundamental difference between the two.
Microdosing is often discussed in the context of creativity, concentration and well-being. What’s your take on these claims?
Research into microdosing is still somewhat inconclusive. Some studies suggest it may encourage more original ideas. But when it comes to improved concentration or well-being, the picture isn’t quite so positive. You can explore the topic further in our article on microdosing psychedelics: effects and benefits.
Then there’s the placebo effect, because our expectations can have a significant influence too. In short, it’s an interesting subject, but we still don’t fully know what microdosing actually does and what we simply think it does. That’s what science tells us. I can also share my own experiences.
I remember someone who was microdosing once telling me: “You know what? I’ve been incredibly pissed off since this morning. But now, after microdosing, I finally understand why.” And I think there’s something in that statement that captures my own experiences rather well. It’s like connecting the dots into a logical picture, without all the fog that can obscure our perception of reality in everyday life. I definitely felt more creative while microdosing. But there’s one thing I think needs to be made absolutely clear: that creativity was already there. It didn’t suddenly appear because of the substance. I was simply able to use it more consciously, without all the things that, at that particular time in my life, felt like a heavy stone resting on my head.
Let me illustrate this with a very simple example. There’s a sheet of paper on the table. I want to cut it in half, so I need scissors. I go to the kitchen and start looking for them, but I can’t find them. I get a little irritated. They’re kitchen scissors. They must be somewhere around here. I haven’t taken them out of the house. Maybe someone moved them? Or perhaps I used them for something recently? Wait, what exactly did I cut last time? I start searching through more drawers. Time passes, my frustration grows, and the piece of paper and the original purpose of the whole exercise gradually become less important. Now, the only thing that matters is finding those damn scissors. Now let’s look at the same scenario from my experience with microdosing. There’s a sheet of paper on the table. I want to cut it in half. I need scissors. Can’t find them? Okay. I’ll fold the paper in half, press the crease against the table and simply tear it. Done. Goal achieved. Maximum optimisation. 🙂
In both situations, I had exactly the same problem and the same options for solving it. The difference was that in the second case, I didn’t allow the problem of finding the right tool to completely overshadow my original goal. And for me personally, that’s the essence of microdosing. It’s not about some magical increase in intelligence or creativity. It’s about being able to make freer use of what we already have.
Fewer unnecessary thoughts, less frustration, and less getting tangled up in problems that don’t really matter when it comes to achieving our goals. Of course, this is my subjective experience, not a scientifically confirmed mechanism of how psilocybin works. I also don’t know whether someone else would experience the same thing. But that’s how it worked in my case.
Why do legends about the unique effects of particular mushroom varieties emerge? How much of these stories comes from users’ experiences, and how much from suggestion and marketing?
I’ve essentially already answered this in the first question. I can add, however, that these legends are created primarily by people. Their stories, personal experiences and incredibly powerful visions, which they sometimes spend months analysing. Over time, these stories begin to take on a life of their own, and particular experiences become associated with particular varieties.
Meanwhile, behind all this, we’re primarily dealing with the same substances: psilocybin and psilocin. There’s something else that I think may further fuel these legends. Individual varieties can differ significantly in potency. And it’s not simply a matter of having to consume a little more of one variety and a little less of another. When the differences are really substantial, things get interesting. Let’s take Golden Teacher and considerably more potent varieties, such as Enigma or MVP, as examples. For a closer look at high-potency varieties, see our article on the most intense Psilocybe cubensis strains.
To better illustrate what I mean, I’ll use an analogy. Imagine espresso. In one scenario, we drink it just as it’s served in a coffee shop. In another, we dilute exactly the same espresso in several litres of water. The amount of caffeine remains identical. Theoretically, we could achieve the same effect. The problem is that while drinking a small cup of coffee is no challenge at all, getting several litres of liquid into your system is a completely different story. Before you reach the end, your stomach and bladder might have rather different opinions about the whole idea. 😉
So perhaps some of these legends originate right there? Someone experiences something unimaginably intense for the first time and attributes it to the unique nature of a particular variety. When in reality, perhaps they’ve simply never experienced such a high amount of the active substance before.
What common perceptions of mushroom cultivation don’t match reality? Do social media platforms make it look easier and more predictable than it really is?
It depends on what you want to achieve and which technique you use.
If you want to start completely from scratch, buy a pressure cooker, sterilise everything and do all the inoculation yourself, the risk of failure, particularly at the beginning, is genuinely high. I remember perfectly well how I kept throwing everything away, time after time. The entire house smelled of corn and dampness, and underneath my bed there was a bag of grain I’d bought at a nearby market. I’d throw away another batch of mouldy jars, go online, and there it was: a picture of a kilogram of enormous mushrooms with the caption “MY FIRST TRY”.
Seriously? YOUR FIRST TRY?! My twentieth attempt that week was probably already underway. And if I was lucky, one jar of grain would survive, although there was still no guarantee that anything would actually grow from it. Eventually, I realised that either I was coming across exceptionally lucky people, or what they meant was their first successful try, rather than their first try overall. And I think that’s exactly the kind of reality social media often presents. We see spectacular successes, but we don’t see all those mouldy jars, failed experiments and hours spent wondering what went wrong this time. In short, growing mushrooms from scratch really is an activity for people with patience and perseverance.
And although I’m not particularly fond of slipping marketing into conversations like this, I have to say it openly: that’s exactly why I created this company. I wanted your homes to keep their natural smell and humidity, and your nerves to be spared the constant stress of repeated failures and the lottery of whether anything would grow at all this time. I’ve been through that journey precisely so that you don’t have to. That’s the whole idea behind my brand. Hassle-free grow kits that don’t require you to become a home microbiologist.
You simply set them up and watch. And the only time you’ll need to worry about mould is when you remember that sandwich you pulled out of your backpack back in September. 😉 And that’s a promise I can genuinely stand behind. Having produced tens of thousands of units, I can say that with confidence.
If you could change one thing about the public conversation surrounding psilocybin mushrooms, what would it be? What do people talk about too much, and what topic is still being overlooked?
We definitely talk too much about bad trips. Or, more precisely, we use them to scare people far too often, while doing far too little to explain what they actually are and where they come from. Interestingly, when we take a closer look at the stories of people who’ve had these experiences, we often discover that instead of eating three lettuce leaves at nine in the morning, they ate fifty at 1:13 p.m. And then they’re completely surprised when something goes wrong. 😉
Of course, I’m not suggesting that every difficult experience is the result of irresponsible behaviour. Psychedelics can be unpredictable, even when someone has prepared properly. However, I get the impression that people very often confuse a bad trip with what is simply a challenging psychedelic experience. And those aren’t necessarily the same thing. To understand the difference, read our article on what a bad trip on psychedelics is.
Sometimes we come face to face with something we never wanted to see. Our own fears, problems or emotions that we’ve been pushing aside for a long time. Such an experience can be incredibly unpleasant while also bringing something genuinely valuable into our lives. Of course, it can also bring nothing at all, or even leave us with difficult consequences. Suffering doesn’t automatically lead to personal growth. And that’s precisely the distinction I feel is missing from the public discussion.
To sum up, there’s too much talk about bad trips in the context of frightening people, and far too little education about how psilocybin mushrooms actually work. About how important dosage, mindset, surroundings and preparation can be. What we might expect, and what we absolutely cannot predict. I’m not suggesting that we should downplay the risks. Quite the opposite. I believe reliable education is far more valuable than yet another sensational story about someone who ate mushrooms and experienced the worst evening of their life. Because mushrooms don’t need to be demonised, nor do they need to be credited with magical properties. They’re fascinating enough just as they are.
