How to Microdose Mushrooms, Ayahuasca, and All Plant Medicines
In two decades of doing this work, never did I imagine everyone and their grandma would want to take a ride through the psychedelic cosmos. Sure, not everyone is altering their consciousness, but it sure feels close. It’s mind-blowing and liberating and thrilling and terrifying but most of all, walking this path comes with intense responsibility; that’s not something the Western world has an excellent track record with, but all of us with sincere intentions can certainly break the mold.
Perhaps the area that is most alive with growth and potential right now is the oft-discussed but rarely understood process of microdosing. Thanks to people like Mushroom Guru Paul Stamets’s work, and the brilliant and revolutionary James Fadiman, microdosing Magic Mushrooms / Psilocybin in particular has lit up the world’s curiosity. Is it true that small yet frequent doses of psychedelics / plant medicines really have the same possibility for transformation and healing and ceremonial doses?
Why yes, they most certainly do, but as is always the case with this masterful teaches it’s complicated. Let’s investigate.
Does Microdosing Psychedelics and Plant Medicines Really Create Lasting Positive Effects?
Science and spirituality both agree that Plant Medicines offer huge benefits for our minds and bodies. There’s scads of studies these days showing us the biology of how these sentient substances work to create physical healing for our fragile beings, and folks way smarter than I have written gobs on the subject. I’ll speak to what I know intimately: How this healing happens on from a spiritual and emotional perspective.
Illness manifests on the physical because of toxicity, and trauma. Microdosing plant medicines helps with both. We know that plants like Ayahuasca have high degrees of anti-fungal and anti-viral properties. Mushrooms literally help alchemize the forest floor of dead and dying matter, turning it back into life. So it stands to reason that they both do wonders to help eradicate toxicity in our bodies.
What really reflects the magic of these sentient beings, however, is how they help us heal the trauma stored inside our bodies.
The best analogy I can give is this: Imagine that the communication lines in our brains are like ski hills. Deep grooves from experience and repeated patterns have formed, creating an attachment and identification with dysfunction and suffering. Plant Medicines like Ayahuasca and Psilocybin Mushrooms come in and shake us like a snow globe. They allow us to view these events and patterns from a more spacious perspective, and equally important, they help us to create new grooves and pathways that promote healing and positivity. And this works just as well via micrdosing as it does in a big old grand ceremony; the caveat is that is simply takes more time.
When we partner with these medicines with the intention to look at, move, and heal traumas and physical pain, this stirs us up can help us actualize our hopes and dreams. But there is a key component that is often overlooked in the microdosing world; and without it, we are likely to be disappointed at best, or taught very difficult lessons at worst.
Asking Permission to Work with a Plant Medicine
Before you go about forging any intimate relationship with a plant spirit, first ask for permission. Again, this mirrors the ideal way to relate to our fellow humans. Never, ever assume that the being wants to be connected to you, too. Ask them. Opening up to spirit in this way is so magical and empowering. It allows us to start to cultivate a deeper relationship with our innate intuition, and it sets us on a path to treating everything, and everyone, with reverence and sacredness.
How do you know permission is granted? You feel it. Deeply. Synchronicities manifest to further emphasize the alignment. If neither of these have surfaced, wait to dive into the microdosing relationship. You will be so rewarded for this willingness to ask for permission. One of the diseases of the Western world is entitlement; humbly waiting for an invitation to move forward with anything spiritual in nature is the antidote.
The Shamanic Method of Microdosing
Most of us in the Western world are well acquainted with the process of popping a pill or supplement and then forgetting about what might be happening in our bodies and beings as a result. Yes, this can still bring about positive change, but it’s not the method that holds that most potential or power.
When we microdose with a powerful plant spirit, we are creating a relationship.
What’s the secret to successful microdosing? In essence, it’s doing the opposite of what the Western world has taught us. Most of us take supplements and pharmaceutical drugs in a wholly unconscious way. We pop a pill, down it with water, and go about our lives; rarely giving these substances a second thought.
For any mergence with Plant Medicine to be effective, however, we have to bring our awareness and intention to the mix. Working with plants in any fashion is at its foundation a relationship. Imagine if you treated your friends in the same way; no dialogue, no deep listening, no reverence. It wouldn’t be much of a relationship.
Whatever medicine you choose to work with, in whatever manner, deserves your full attention. Every time you decide to ingest, smell, or otherwise merge with a Plant Medicine, take the time first to make a connection. Tell the plant what you are seeking. Let them feel your vulnerability around the things you aim to heal. Ask them to reveal more of who they are. And then take the time to listen.
It helps, too, to bring your awareness to the parts of your body that you seek healing for as well. Visualize your body receiving and merging with the medicine as you take it. Bring light and movement and joy into your beingness. Treat the whole, beautiful process with respect and excitement. We get what we give. Put all of your effort into connecting with these sentient beings, and they will do the same.
This simple yet limitless commitment to focus and intention can be the one factor that catapults your success with the plants. If you want them to give their all to you, give that to them first. Be wholly committed to reciprocity. That’s the formula for co-creating magic.
Choosing the Right Plant and Protocol
The first step if you’re called to microdosing is to choose the perfect plant (and to make sure they choose you, too). This is a general breakdown, but it’s a good foundation to start from:
Ayahuasca – Treats anger, depression, PTSD, frustration, and a lack of clarity. Helps to find inner strength and guidance, relaxes the nervous system, heals the mother wound, provides nurturing and support. Offers a reconnection to the divine feminine.
Magic Mushrooms/Psilocybin Mushrooms – Treat anxiety, depression, restlessness, and a lack of connection. Helps heal the brain of imbalances, confusion, trauma, and stress. Helps us feel more aligned, balanced, grounded, and focused.
Iboga – Treats OCD, addiction, disassociation, poor memory, ADHD, and the inability to hold oneself accountable. Vibrates in clarity and truth, so he helps people with integrity issues, lack of motivation and drive, and overall malaise.
Huachuma – Treats broken heart syndrome, a lack of energy/vitality/motivation, alcoholism, and fatigue. Helps heal trauma with the masculine, provides fluidity and expansiveness, and brings back access to lightness and joy. Finds stuck grief and provides a feeling of safety to process our various portals into sadness.
Cannabis – Provides pain relief and facilitates loads of physical healing. Connects one to their inner intuition, helps to heal amnesia and blockages from our past, and works with the element of fire to provide creativity and overall empowerment. Ideal for shadow work too.
As for protocols, there are two prominent schools of thought, depending on your intention. Both of these were conceived specifically for Psilocybin Mushrooms, but the wisdom holds true for all of the entheogens.
The first popular process is called the Fadiman Protocol, named after famed psychedelic researcher James Fadiman. This is a very simple foundation that is best for folks looking to improve psychological and mental health, especially addressing anxiety and/or depression. This is the one to start with if you’re new to microdosing too.
Fadiman’s process looks like this:
Day 1: Microdose
Day 2: Reflect and integrate
Day 3: Pause/rest/relax
Follow this pattern for about 2 months, then take 2-4 weeks off to integrate and assess.
Another prominent method is called the Stamets method, created by the God of Mushrooms, Paul Stamets. This process works better for increased neuroplasticity and cognitive functions, as well as deep healing and release. It’s also called the “stacked method”. The protocol is as follows:
Day 1: Microdose
Day 2: Microdose
Day 3: Day of integration and reflection
Day 4: Microdose
Day 5: Microdose
Day 6: Day of integration and reflection
Day 7: Day of rest + play
Follow this pattern for 4-6 weeks, then take at least a month off to integrate and assess.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to take time to reflect and integrate what happens with these medicines – it does us zero good to work with these substances and not take the time to really listen to what they are showing us. Again, this is relationship building, and requires lots of effort, intention, and attention on our part.
The Dangers of Microdosing that Nobody Talks About
Anything that has the power to literally transform our bodies and emotional beings also can stir the pot and cause problems too. Welcome to duality. As such, there are dangers with microdosing that even the most brilliant minds rarely speak of; namely because it takes wisdom beyond the mind to see and understand these potential challenges.
Because these plants are sentient beings, a relationship with them can indeed be healing and rewarding, but it can be equally complex and dicey as well. If you need humbling due to hubris and immaturity, they will deliver it. If you cease to create a sense of safety and protection, they will teach you the ramifications of this recklessness. Plants are in unity consciousness – we are in duality. As such they are teachers of what it takes for us to meet them in that space of purity. We have egos, they do not. So we must contend with these aspects of our consciousness – grounded in the experience of separateness – in order to achieve results we can celebrate.
Here’s an example of what happens when we create these relationships with anything less than conscious reverence; this is a deeply personal share of how I learned this vital lesson myself.
My second self-guided Master Plant Dieta, after a decade of shamanic training, was with the Ayahuasca brew. (If you’re new to Master Plant Diets, read this.) I was at a massive crossroads in my journey as a shamanic facilitator, and I turned to her to get clarity on how to move forward. My relationship with my teacher of many many years was crumbling, and it left me in an all-out panic about my future as an Ayahuasquera. I figured a diet with this beloved brew would bring me to the next phase of my path.
As is always the case, my intentions were honored, but in the absolute opposite way I anticipated. She had a lot to teach my innocent yet ignorant self.
The diet itself was magical. I did my best to create a container of sacredness, but looking back, I can honestly see where I was not taking this as seriously as I ought to. I literally did not know what I was getting into, and was new to holding a spiritual container of safety for myself. Truth be told, I had no business dieting her, but hey, sometimes this is precisely how we learn.
I was also working with a brew that was brand new to me. Since my connection to my primary teacher had imploded in the worst possible way, I agreed to do the diet with a brew from a shaman I barely knew. My justification to this was it was also an opportunity to get to know his medicine, to see if I wanted to work with him. Again, I got my clarity, but my God did it have a high cost.
I ended the 3 month-long diet on a Tuesday and went out to dinner with my then-boyfriend to celebrate. I did not respect Ayahuasca’s journey out of me, I instead was focused on getting “back to life”. I was also in a tremendous state of denial around the utter devastation I was feeling around the recent fallout with my beloved teacher. So at the same time I formed an unbreakable bond with a powerhouse plant teacher (Aya) by working with her daily for three months, I was also obsessively hiding from my emotions, and ultimately, my truth.
She got my attention by – no exaggeration – blowing up in my face.
I had left a small tincture bottle on my altar with the Ayahuasca brew inside. I hadn’t paid attention to the fact that she was fermenting – I got lazy about checking her and cooking her down. And so one morning, shortly after I closed the diet, she literally exploded on my altar, sending droplets of her viscous, uber sticky tea all across the walls, ceiling, and floor.
I needed this loud AF wakeup call.
This culminated in a cascade of immensely important and much needed lessons, and was the precipice of my choice to leave the medicine world. At the time I thought that was a permanent choice, but instead it became my rite of passage around learning to walk this path with a higher degree of reverence, safety, and awareness.
I share all this to clearly articulate that merging with plant consciousness is a very, very big task. As well it should be – we go to these beings with requests of the highest and most tender order; to heal, to awaken, to release, and to learn. Master Plants have the profound capacity to answer every single intention we can possibly imagine, so it stands to reason they ask for a lot in return. Reciprocity is not requested, it’s required – not because they are demanding, but because there must be a balance of the dance of giving and taking. It would never serve us for the plants to give without asking us to give in return. Being ignorant to their potency and the necessity of reciprocity does not save us from avoiding the repercussions of our ignorance. No, they love us too much to enable this lack of respect.
So if you are called to microdose a plant, and seek the healing and alignment they offer, do so with the utmost respect and intention. Get to know who they are; ask and be curious about what they share. Take the time to integrate and listen to what’s coming through. Above all, treat them as conscious, sentient beings: If you don’t, they will show you this error in whatever unique way will get your attention, and it will surely delay or even block your quest for healing.
Are you called to the microdosing adventure? Drop me a comment and ask me anything.
About the Author
Tina “Kat” Courtney is an 18 year veteran of Plant Medicines, and a traditionally trained Ayahuasquera and Huachumera, and the author of Plant Medicine Mystery School Vol 1: The Superhero Healing Powers of Psychotropic Plants. Kat is a pioneer in the Psychedelic Integration space, as well as an expert in cultivating life-changing relationships with plant spirits. She leads Master Plant Diets both in person and remotely, and is available for coaching and consult about this in all shamanic topics. Kat is also a certified Death Doula honored to help people make peace with the inevitable and beautiful transition into the afterlife. She has spent her adult life cultivating a bonded and trusting relationship with the darkness, and she’d love to help you do the same.
