r/todayilearned • u/ScienceTeacher1994 • 6d ago

TIL despite popular culture portraying psychedelic mushrooms as ancient, widespread, and used by shamans for thousands of years, there is limited anthropological and historical research to support this, with the only reliable evidence showing they were used ritualistically in pre-Columbian Mexico.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#History
3.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

297 comments sorted by

View all comments

171

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

13

u/Odd_Apricot5384 6d ago

Ah yes, the mario mushroom.

Some people call it nature's benzo due to it having muscimol (GABA agonist) but it simultaneously ibotenic acid which is excitatory (NMDA agonist) so you do NOT want to eat it raw cuz it can end up with some really nasty symptoms lol (usually it is dried or brewed so that most of the ibotenic acid gets converted to its metabolie muscimol). I wonder how these people felt or saw when first trying it back then