Effects
Many of muscimol's effects are consistent with its pharmacology as a GABAA receptor agonist, presenting many depressant or sedative-hypnotic effects, similar to ethanol. Unlike ethanol however, muscimol can present sensory and psychological effects somewhat reminiscent of a psychedelic drug, including dissociation, synesthesia, auditory and visual distortions and hallucinations, altered thought processes, and perhaps most notably micropsia and or macropsia, as these effects may have provided the inspiration for the effect of Alice eating the mushroom (changing size) in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The mushrooms that bear muscimol have also been reported to induce lucid dreaming when an individual falls asleep under its influence. Many of muscimol's hallucinogenic effects would not be regarded as psychedelic in the traditional sense though and bear the strongest resemblance to the hallucinatory effects of similarly-acting drugs like zolpidem, the symptoms of delirium tremens or benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, and hypnagogic hallucinations. Jonathan Ott describes the effects of Amanita pantherina below:
| “ | About 90 minutes after ingestion ... I noticed that I was experiencing changes in visual perception. These effects became stronger over the next hour or some, and were characterized by sensing an 'alive quality' in inanimate objects, wavy motion in the visual field like a Van Gogh canvas ... and mild distortion of size, distance and depth perception. Auditory hallucination were also prominent -- especially the effect, called 'anahata sounds' of yoga, of hearing fine high-pitched sounds like bells and violin strings. | ” |
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