It's been a BIG week. A video of the largest documented psilocybin dose on record went viral. The 100% remission result we covered last week got pushed back on by the facilitators who actually run these sessions. And a new personality study answered a question a lot of people ask before their first trip: why did my friend see geometry breathing and I just felt calm? Let's get into it. 🌱
🔬 LEAD STORY
How Important Is the Therapy in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy? A New 5-MeO-DMT Trial Raises Questions
Last week we covered GH Research's trial: inhaled 5-MeO-DMT, 100% remission in postpartum depression, within a single day. The result was striking. Within hours of that piece going out, experienced 5-MeO-DMT facilitators got in touch to flag something that hadn't made it into the published paper: formal complaints submitted to the UK Health Research Authority before the trial even ran.
Their concern centres on a specific design choice. Severely depressed, often psychedelic-naive new mothers were given one of the most intense compounds in the field with limited preparation beforehand and minimal integration support after. GH Research's own pitch deck frames this as a feature, arguing the drug works "without the need for lengthy and complex patient preparation."
A 2025 survey of 40 experienced practitioners found genuine, scale-spanning disagreement on how much psychological support this work actually needs, splitting cleanly along training lineage: MAPS-trained practitioners leaned toward the relationship mattering most, Compass Pathways-trained practitioners leaned toward the drug doing most of the work. A more hopeful data point arrived from UCLA, where psilocybin paired with structured CBT got 9 of 16 depressed adults into full remission, holding at three months, with the gains tracking changes in emotional regulation rather than the dose itself.
Pharma has a clear commercial incentive here. Therapy is expensive, hard to scale, and impossible to patent. That doesn't make the minimal-support model wrong. It does mean the question deserves to be asked in public before the regulatory frameworks lock in.
→ Read the full breakdown: https://thesporereport.com/how-important-is-the-therapy-in-psychedelic-assisted-therapy-a-new-5-meo-dmt-trial-raises-questions/
📰 THIS WEEK'S STORIES
🎭 June 22 · Personality Psychology · Psychedelic Research
Your Psychedelic Experience Depends on Your Personality, New Study Finds
Two people, same dose, same room, same night. One sees colour bloom and geometry breathe. The other gets a milder version of the same trip. A New Zealand study of 426 psychedelic users found one trait predicted the difference more than any other, by a wide margin: absorption, your natural tendency to get fully lost in music, daydreams, or a film. It correlated with 18 of the 20 sensory effects measured. The Big Five barely registered. It's retrospective and correlational, so it shows the two travel together rather than proving cause, but there's a genuinely useful idea in it: absorption isn't fixed, and it's something you can cultivate before you ever sit down for a session.
→ Read the full story: https://thesporereport.com/your-psychedelic-experience-depends-on-your-personality-new-study-finds/
⚠️ June 20 · Harm Reduction · Case Study
He Took a Mega Dose of Psilocybin Mushrooms. Here's What Happened (Do Not Try This Yourself)
A viral video shows a man named Jesse, working to break free from opiates and methamphetamine, consuming the psychoactive equivalent of well over 200 grams of raw mushrooms. He spent eight hours unresponsive in a backyard pool and needed an IV the next morning. Two days later he called the session a permanent "rewiring." There's no clinical precedent for a dose that size doing more therapeutic work than a moderate one, and the actual research on psychedelics and addiction points to a process: preparation, a carefully chosen session, then weeks of integration. The mushroom interrupts the pattern. It doesn't do the months of work that come after.
→ Read the full story: https://thesporereport.com/he-took-a-megadose-of-psilocybin-mushrooms-heres-what-happened/
🧪 June 19 · Neuroscience · Controlled Trial
One Dose of LSD, and Your Brain Learns Faster the Next Day
A tightly controlled University of Bern study had 43 healthy adults take both a real 100-microgram dose of LSD and a placebo on separate visits, so each person acted as their own comparison. The day after the real dose, people improved nearly a third more on a learned motor skill after resting, the kind of "step away and come back better" effect that marks the brain consolidating something it just practised. A week later: less stress, more flexible problem-solving. The lab tests built to directly measure "increased plasticity" didn't behave as predicted here, which says more about our measurement tools than about LSD. The days after a trip aren't a comedown to wait out.
→ Read the full story: https://thesporereport.com/one-dose-of-lsd-and-your-brain-learns-faster-the-next-day-new-study/
📚 June 17 · Culture · Reading List
7 of the Most Influential Psychedelic Books Ever Written
Long before clinical trials, a handful of writers built the entire vocabulary this field still runs on. Huxley's "reducing valve." Leary's "set and setting." A pseudonymous 1976 cultivation manual from the McKenna brothers that quietly democratised access to psilocybin for an entire generation. Pollan's How to Change Your Mind, which dragged the conversation into the mainstream almost overnight. If you only read one entry, make it the McKenna one. The ripple effects of that single book are still showing up in the data behind today's clinical trials.
→ Read the full story: https://thesporereport.com/7-of-the-most-influential-psychedelic-books-ever-written/
🫂 June 16 · Trauma Research · Naturalistic Study
New Study Finds That Taking Psychedelics at Raves and Ceremonies May Help Heal Childhood Trauma
85 adults with histories of childhood maltreatment took psychedelics at group events, ceremonies and EDM festivals alike, with explicit therapeutic intention. Two months later: large reductions in complex PTSD symptoms and internalised shame, and marked increases in felt connection. The detail that stood out: outcomes were equivalent whether someone attended a ceremony or a rave. What predicted lasting change wasn't dose, it was communitas, a sense of profound shared humanity with the group. For trauma rooted in relational wounding, the healing arrived through relational experience. No control group, so we can't isolate the substance from the setting, but it's a serious attempt to study the social container as part of the medicine rather than noise to be controlled out.
→ Read the full story: https://thesporereport.com/new-study-finds-that-taking-psychedelics-at-raves-and-ceremonies-may-help-heal-childhood-trauma/
🧫 June 16 · Pharmacology · Analysis
Natural Psychedelics vs Synthetic Psychedelics: Can Science Engineer a Better Trip, or Does Nature Know Best?
Evolution wasn't optimising for human healing, so researchers are asking whether lab-designed psychedelics can outperform what nature handed us. The case for engineering: ibogaine analogues that may keep the anti-addiction effect without the cardiac risk, faster-metabolising psilocybin variants, an AI project mapping 70,000 trip reports against receptor activity. The case for nature: Stanford's Boris Heifets points out that recreational users take the same molecules at festivals constantly without reliably transforming, and a recent Scientific Reports paper found eight separate brain-active compounds in psilocybin mushrooms, not just psilocybin, that may explain why a crude extract outperformed pure psilocybin at a sixth of the dose in mice. Neither camp has the full picture. The most interesting researchers in this space seem to be taking both seriously.
→ Read the full story: https://thesporereport.com/natural-psychedelics-vs-synthetic-psychedelics-can-science-engineer-a-better-trip-or-does-nature-know-best/
🌱 DIRECTED NEUROPLASTICITY PROGRAM — CLOSES FRIDAY
AfterGrow: Six Weeks of Microdosing Integration
Every story above points at the same gap: the experience opens something, and most people have no structure for what comes next. AfterGrow is the six-week container built around neuroplasticity, daily practice, and the Regenerative Mind framework, designed to complement a microdosing protocol and turn an experience into an actual change rather than a good story.
Enrollment closes Friday, June 26th. The programme starts July 1st.
→ Join AfterGrow: https://www.skool.com/aftergrow-6456
🍄 WANT TO EXPLORE THE MEDICINE?
Whether you're curious about microdosing or growing your own, here are the most trusted options we've found, vetted and used by our community.
Microdosing (pre-made)
🇺🇸 US — Serenite Labs · 10% off with code MUSHIES https://serenitelabs.com/shop-2/?ref=mushies&utm_source=affiliate
🇪🇺 EU — Go-Microdose · 10% off with code MUSHIES10 https://go-microdose.com/?wpam_id=16/
Grow your own (mushroom kits)
These are beginner-friendly, fully sealed grow-at-home kits. Legal to purchase in many countries, but always check your local laws before ordering.
🚀 Martian Mushrooms (UK/EU) · Easy, fast, beginner-friendly https://www.martianmushrooms.co.uk/product/mushbag-grow-kit/?ref=8
🌍 Spore Buddies (UK/EU) · The world's only auto-fruiting, fully sealed grow bag · 10% off with code CANNADO10 https://sporebuddies.com/
Retreats (the guided route)
If you want a fully supported, legal psilocybin experience, Beckley Retreats are the gold standard, backed by 25+ years of research from the Beckley Foundation. Upcoming programmes in Jamaica and the Netherlands.
Our community gets $500 / £375 off with code: BRAP-MUSHIESUK https://www.beckleyretreats.com/upcoming-retreats/#programs-2025
All trusted links in one place → https://thesporereport.com/trusted-links/
⚠️ Spores and grow kits are sold for microscopy and research purposes. Growing psilocybin mushrooms remains illegal in the UK and many other countries. Please check your local laws. What you choose to do is your own responsibility.
Keep Reading
Can Psilocybin Protect the Ageing Brain? Jun 13, 2026 https://thesporereport.com/can-psilocybin-protect-the-aging-brain/
Lion's Mane Extract Reduced Alzheimer's Symptoms in Mice Jun 15, 2026 https://thesporereport.com/lions-mane-extract-reduced-alzheimers-symptoms-in-mice/
New Study: 5-MeO-DMT Achieves 100% Remission in Postpartum Depression Patients in a Single Day Jun 11, 2026 https://thesporereport.com/new-study-5-meo-dmt-achieves-100-remission-in-postpartum-depression-patients-in-a-single-day/