What is it like to orgasm on psilocybin?
An Exploration of Microdosing & Masturbating
Introduction 🧐
I recently combined two activities that are not usually done at the same time: microdosing and masturbating. Or, as my friend Erica described it: putting the “o” in “shrooms”. Let me explain how I got here.
A couple of months ago, I got my hands on a psilocybin tincture. It was given to me by one of my psychotherapists (@psy.lum), and it contains psilocybe cubensis, one of the most common strains of magic mushrooms. She prescribed it to help me deal with my chronic anxiety and depressing things we were processing from my childhood (yikes).
Weeks later, I mentioned that I was taking psilocybin to my inspiring friend Anna Lee, the founder of the smart vibrator company Lioness. As we talked about the new era of orgasm data, suddenly, we had an idea. What if I took some psilocybin and recorded my self-pleasuring sessions using the Lioness? How might this psychedelic compound found in over 200 species of fungi impact the stimulation, pleasure, or experience of my orgasms? What might we be able to learn? With this new sexperiment on the cards, there was only one thing left to do: I had to flick the bean for science!
My Psilocybin Protocol 📋
The psilocybin itself comes in a small glass bottle with a squishy blue cap. I started taking it and followed the protocol my therapist sent me below: four droplets on the tongue every morning when I wake up (consumed with citrus fruit juice if I want an enhanced effect) for four days, followed by three days off.
What was taking psilocybin like for you?
I will be honest here and say that, generally speaking, the psilocybin protocol was not working well for me. I was not supposed to drink coffee while following the protocol, which altered my daily routine in a way I didn’t want it to. Combined with the pressure of client work, this left me feeling more stressed and overwhelmed than anything else. I am a woman with a lot of stuff to do, so the prospect of losing control just that little bit each weekday morning by giving myself the psilocybin tincture made me feel like my life was out of balance. While I was taking psilocybin, I missed feeling mentally sound enough to face my most pressing work challenges.
How else did microdosing make you feel?
I have previously microdosed and macrodosed on magic mushrooms a number of times (you can read more about my experiences here and here). However, the experience of microdosing with psilocybin was different.
Firstly, I just felt a bit out of it. My eyes were more sensitive to light, and my vision was enhanced. I didn’t see any visual distortions like I’ve seen on LSD, for example. But it did feel like more light was coming into my eyes if that makes sense. It felt like I was having a stronger sensation of whatever I was seeing and getting more stimulation and information through my eyes.
My mood was neutral to bad. The psilocybin seemed to have a light numbing effect. As I discussed later with a friend, the psilocybin may have just been heightening whatever I was feeling when I took it each morning. So, if I was feeling fear or work stress when I woke up in the morning and began the microdose, then those feelings might be amplified. I also considered that maybe I could have been in an even worse mood had I not been microdosing. That was entirely possible, but there was no way to tell. Everything, including my emotions, just felt a bit more intense.
How do you know your emotions were more intense while microdosing?
Well, the first few times I took it, I cried at my desk in my house. It was bringing up some really hard feelings, including my deepest existential fears. One morning, for example, when I sat down to write a scene in my second book, I cried with joy and felt overwhelmed by nostalgia. I had wanted to write this scene in my new book for weeks, so when I actually started to write and I let myself feel things, it was very intense, and then I started crying more while I was writing. I’ve considered that this may make my writing better. As Robert Frost said, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” So yes, since I’ve been microdosing, I’ve had plenty of tears.
Why did you decide to stop following the psilocybin protocol?
As I mentioned, I don’t like microdosing on my weekday mornings for a number of reasons. First, I am trying to get my day’s work done. But secondly, if I’m talking to a friend or attempting a complex task, I don’t want to feel out of it. When I was microdosing, I just ended up napping, sleeping, or resting when I felt most out of it, which was very counterproductive. Maybe it was helping me feel things I needed to feel. But maybe I also shouldn’t be messing with my brain chemistry. If it ain’t broke, maybe don’t fix it? Indeed, I might have to solve my anxiety and depressing memories in another way.
The Sexperiment 💦
Still, I had promised Anna that I would pleasure myself for science while microdosing and describe my experiences doing that. So, I decided to follow the psilocybin protocol one last time. Then, I masturbated a lot so I could get as much data as possible. Then I talked to my psychotherapist, and we decided that I will not follow the psilocybin protocol anymore. Amen.
During this sexperiment, I recorded five sessions using the Lioness to measure my pelvic floor contractions, and I orgasmed five times. These sessions lasted from about 12:06 pm to 12:35 pm on May 10th 2024. I experimented with the following methods:
Magic Wand Only (recorded orgasms incorrectly)
Lioness Only
Freestyle (Manual with my hand) + Butt Plug
Freestyle + Holding my breath
Magic Wand + Butt Plug
Overall Observations
What I find fascinating is the peaks in the session where I used my hand manually and freestyle, combined with the butt plug. The intensity was off the charts!
Though I might have recorded a couple of these things wrong, my average session length was 2 minutes 34 seconds (16 seconds faster than most people), and my average orgasm length was 28.6 seconds (8.6 seconds longer than most people).
My Variety of Devices
Here are some of the pictures of the tools that I used in addition to my hand. Remember: lube is your friend!
Data: The Five Orgasms
Magic Wand + Butt Plug
Freestyle (Manual with my hand) + Butt Plug
Freestyle + Holding my breath
Lioness Only
Magic Wand Only
This last session only took me 1 minutes and 32 seconds to orgasm. Pretty quick!
Observations
How was masturbating while microdosing different than usual?
Enhanced sensations
As I mentioned before I started the sexperiment, the experience of microdosing made my eyes a bit more sensitive to light. So, I had a feeling that many of the senses in my body would be heightened while I was masturbating. I was right.
Closing My Eyes
I closed my eyes for most of these sessions. In this sense, despite my meh mood about 10 minutes before I started the sexperiment, I was able to focus on the sensations of my body in the moment and orgasm using this variety of methods very intensely and very quickly. Closing my eyes helped me be present and focus on my physical body sensations rather than distracting any of my brain’s attention with stimulations or sensations through my eyes.
Less Focus on Fantasies
As I’ve shared in my previous orgasm data, I’ve been fantasizing about this one guy, August, in particular. Mostly, these fantasies involve him impregnating me. I also fantasized about a hot couple I had seen at the pool the other day wanting to have a threesome with me. Normally, when I masturbate, I rely a decent amount on these fantasies to get me over the edge to orgasm.
However, in the context of microdosing psilocybin, I found that I wasn’t thinking that much while I was masturbating because the physical sensations I was experiencing were so intense. At that moment, I felt like my body’s receptors of fear, pain, and stress were briefly turned off. This same mental state that had made me anxious about work only half an hour before now made me feel more relaxed and in the zone of the moment. Probably, my resistance to being relaxed while I was trying to work earlier made my experience of psilocybin more difficult. But as soon as the goal of my sessions was to masturbate and enjoy myself, I was able to do that very easily.
Once I had decided to focus on pleasuring myself and left my work behind me, I felt the pleasure so intensely from the butt plug and whatever clitoral stimulation I was using that I didn’t have any extra brain space to fantasize. It was slightly easier to supplement with fantasies when I was pleasuring myself freestyle, but it didn’t feel necessary.
Reduced Inhibitions
In general, I think that microdosing helped me commit to the experiment more. Once I was able to compartmentalize my anxiety about work, I had a “now or never” realization because I had promised myself that I wouldn’t microdose after this experiment for quite a while.
In my normal daily masturbation sessions, I sometimes see pleasuring myself as a chore. But with this sexperiment I wanted to explore as many devices, styles, and modes as I could. So maybe this is one of the upsides of microdosing: I gave a little bit less fucks, and I wanted to take advantage of the intensity of the sensations that I could experience. That included taking the extra time to use my butt plug, which personally is a huge source of pleasure for me while I’m masturbating.
Holding My Breath
While recording some of the sessions, I experimented with holding my breath. In this chart below, in particular, you can see how intense the entire session was until the drop of the orgasm at the end. The quick conclusion here is that while microdosing, the less oxygen I had access to, the more intensely I felt pleasure.
Alternatively, sometimes, I also find that hyperventilating (quick breaths in and out in quick succession) can help push me over the edge.
Conclusion 🫣
Extra Warmed Up, On Repeat
I ended up having shaky legs because I hadn’t eaten that much (low blood sugar), and yes because I had a bunch of very intense orgasms. Sometimes, when I masturbate alone, it’s hard to want to keep going and orgasm over and over again. That wasn’t the case with this set of experiments. By orgasm four and five, it was pretty easy for me to cum.
By my fourth orgasm, where I used the Lioness, I recorded,
“Very intense. Sweating a lot.”
And I described it in the notes of my last orgasm:
“By the end of the session, I began to squirt / release fluids.”
So yeah, it was a pretty great middle of the day for me all-round.
Discussion
It’s clear that microdosing on psilocybin enhanced the physical sensations of my orgasms: I gave less fucks and focused more on my pleasure, and so I took more time to bring different toys and methods that I know that I like. I then orgasmed harder and faster and for longer than I do in my regular, daily masturbation sessions. I came five times and probably could have kept going if it wasn’t midday on a random weekday.
When, if ever, would you microdose and masturbate on psilocybin again?
As you can tell from my experience, I would not necessarily recommend microdosing on psilocybin on your regular weekday morning. This was especially true for me because I had a bunch of stressful deadlines and complex tasks to do, and I hated feeling like I was not in control. Plus, I missed drinking coffee.
That being said, I would consider taking psilocybin if I went on a romantic weekend away with just myself or a partner. Psilocybin seems to be the type of substance, at least for me, that enhanced my pleasure a lot once I committed to getting comfy and pleasuring myself for at least an hour.
So, I would consider doing psilocybin on a lazy weekend or during special times alone with my partner. For example, one of my ex-boyfriends took me to Mont St. Michel, a beautiful island town in France, for my birthday, and he spent a good part of the afternoon pleasuring me. An afternoon experience like this would be perfect for psilocybin-enhanced bean-flicking.
Would you recommend psilocybin for sex and pleasure compared to other drugs?
Depending on the drug, definitely. Again, there is a delicate balance between enhancing the experience and having a full-blown macrodose or high episode on a substance where you totally lose it. In that sense, microdosing psilocybin would be a lot better for sex performance and enjoyment than other drugs, such as smoking marijuana or doing MDMA. With the slight sensory and sensation enhancement that I experienced in psilocybin, I would rather do that again than risk being messed up by too much MDMA, LSD, or something worse.
I hope you enjoyed reading all about my orgasms on psilocybin!
Have you ever tried microdosing and masturbating at the same time? Would you?
💌 ✍️