Pictures And Words

I’ve had a recurring theme in my dreams throughout the years, and its the mushroom known as the Fly Agaric, or its Latin name Amanita Muscaria. Last night I had one of these dreams again, I wont bore you with the details of the dream, other than the mushroom was growing all over like it normally does in this recurring theme in my dream. Its been about 5 years since I last dreamed of them. So to pay homage to this dream invading mushroom i’ve compiled a list of photos from the net.

For more of this most beautiful of mushrooms, just click more. Also don’t forget you can click on each one for a full sized picture.

There are lots of myths and what not about this mushroom. It is often said to be deadly, whilst it does cause a fever, its not deadly, and it can be treated to strongly reduce the negative effects. There are two main chemicals in the mushroom, one called ibotenic acid, which causes a fever and nausea along with hallucinations and muscle twitches, and then another chemical called muscimol, which doesn’t have any of the undesirable effects of ibotenic acid, it causes drowsiness and a dreamlike state. Ibotenic acid will decarboxylate (A carboxyl (-COOH) group is broken off, forming carbon dioxide and i guess one hydrogen atom) into muscimol at about 80c, however at around 100c muscimol is broken down into simpler and effect-less chemicals. Its interesting that this mushroom induces a dream like state since with me it simply invades my dreams

A few interesting facts about it :-

In England in times gone by a certain upper class would harvest these mushrooms when they were in season, they would then treat them by simmering them in a stew. Then they would all binge on them with the intention of having some kind of group lucid dreaming session. Whenever they needed to pass urine throughout the night they would urinate into a trough which drained off outside their dwelling. Waiting for this golden river outside would be a lower class of people who would gladly drink the mushroom laced urine also becoming quite intoxicated from the muscimol in the urine!

In Finland and other northern European countries there is a rumor that you can get high from drinking reindeer’s urine, this is because reindeers enjoy to eat this mushroom, and quite usefully the ibotenic acid would decarboxylate to muscimol in its guts, the desirable muscimol coming out in the urine, which would then be ingested by the urine drinking fun time seekers, causing them to believe that the urine got them high.

Its gained its name “Fly Agaric” because it can be used as a fly deterrent. It is boiled in milk then left out in bowls. For some reason this is said to keep flies away.

This beautiful mushroom isn’t so innocent after all. There’s a reason why it crops up in so many ornaments and paintings, maybe its creeping into other people’s dreams just like its coming into mine.