How Long Do Shrooms Last?

Understanding how long your trip will last is a vital piece of information to know before you embark on your journey. The more planning and preparations you can do beforehand, the better the experience will be; however, the length of the trip is not the only part of the experience for which you need to make time. 

When taken in doses that produce a profound experience, shrooms are not something you want to try and squeeze in between your day-to-day activities. It is recommended that you give yourself at least twenty-four hours after the trip in order to process and integrate the experience into your life. Be sure to give yourself enough time to get the most out of your experience. 

Read: How To Take Shrooms

Also, the trip is not the only experience tied to shrooms. The residual effects of shrooms—which can look like a shift in psychological symptoms or an added burst of creativity—have been reported to last for days, and even weeks, later. 

In short, there are many factors that can affect the duration of your shroom experience, and the length of the trip is just one piece of the experience that needs to be considered. So, as we dive into the specifics of how long shrooms last, be sure to keep the whole picture in mind as you plan out your experience.

Mushroom Trip Length

There are a lot of factors that can affect the length of your trip. The dosage and type of shroom you decide to ingest will play the biggest role in deciding how long the trip lasts; however, it is common for a standard dose of shrooms (about one to three grams) to peak around an hour after onset and last between four and six hours. 

How you choose to ingest the shrooms can also greatly affect the onset time. For example, it is believed that lemon tekking or making shroom tea can speed up the onset of the trip by helping your stomach more easily convert and absorb the psilocybin. 

Read: How To Make Shroom Tea – The Ultimate Mushroom Tea Guide

Experienced psychonauts have reported that lemon tekking and shroom tea will produce a more intense and shorter experience than eating dried mushrooms. The theory is that these types of consumption methods produce a stronger and shorter experience because they help your body with the difficult task of digesting the body of the mushroom (or avoid it altogether), which houses the psychoactive compounds. 

In other words, instead of getting a staggered dose of psilocin and psilocybin—gradually released as the shrooms get digested—your stomach is given access to all of the psychoactive compounds at once. By decreasing the time it takes for your body to absorb all the active compounds and increasing the amount of active compounds your body has access to at any given moment, it makes sense that the trip would be shorter and more intense. 

It is a commonly held belief in the shroom community that lemon tekking works because it converts psilocybin to psilocin; however, there is no scientific research to backup this claim. It makes more sense to believe that the acid from the lemon juice (or other acidic food) helps break down the body of the mushroom before it hits your stomach. Your stomach doesn’t need to work as hard to digest the shroom; therefore, the feel the effects quicker and more intensely.

Effects of Shrooms

When most people think about the effects of shrooms, they think about the trip. They believe that the four to six hours that make up the peak encompasses the entirety of the experience; however, the effects of shrooms are so much more robust than that. 

For example, the afterglow effect, also referred to as “the sparkle period,” is an effect that is often, but not always, experienced by people that ingest shrooms. In short, it is an elongated comedown from the trip. It can last anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks, during which time the individual continues to feel the benefits or after-effects of the mushroom trip. 

This can look like a few different things. It can manifest as a time of decreased symptoms or a time of increased sensitivity to the wonders of the world. For some, however, in the case of a “spiritual emergence/y,” it may look like mania or psychosis. However it is experienced, the sparkle period needs to be handled with care. It may not be as intense as the trip, but it is a sensitive time that needs to be cultivated. 

This is why it is not recommended to jump right back into your day-to-day life after tripping. Like any profound experience, you will need time to reflect and integrate the experience into your life. If there is intention behind your psychedelic experience, be sure to ruminate long enough to fully grasp everything it has to offer. 

The residual effects of shrooms—which can look like a shift in psychological symptoms or an added burst of creativity—have been reported to last for days, and even weeks, later. 

In many ways, the sparkle period is the space that microdosers are looking to inhabit. They aren’t looking for the intense experience of a trip; however, they want the benefits that are associated with the comedown. 

So, if you do not have sufficient time for lengthy integration work, you might be better served to try microdosing. This is not to say that those that microdose would not benefit from integration practices; however, given the low-key nature of microdosing, it is realistic to develop practices that blend integration work within your quotidian routine. 

How Long Do Shrooms Last In Your System for a Drug Test

Shrooms typically won’t stay in your system for longer than 24 hours; however, everyone is going to be different depending on things like how much you ingested, your age, and how efficient your bodily systems process the active compounds. 

The most commonly used standard drug tests (5-panel drug tests) are not designed to detect shrooms. They are looking for THC, cocaine, PCP, amphetamines, and opioids. In other words, unless there is a reason to specifically look for shrooms, it’s most likely that the test being used isn’t going to be looking for them. 

There are specialized tests that have the ability to detect shrooms, and the detection window for each test varies. Most of these tests are urine-based, as our bodies metabolize shrooms too fast for blood and saliva tests to be practical. 

Some people have trace amounts of shrooms in their urine for up to a week after ingestion, and there are hair follicle drug tests that can detect shrooms for up to 90 days; however, the former is not typical and the latter is rarely used, as it is expensive. 

It is still wise to make sure that, if you do decide to consume shrooms and have to take a drug test, you give your body as much time as possible to rid itself of any trace of psilocybin. No need to take unnecessary risks—especially if your job is on the line. 

Are There Ways to Get Shrooms Out Of Your System Faster?

It is a common misconception that there are ways to flush drugs out of your system so that they do not appear on a drug test. This is not to say that there are not products that can help you successfully pass a drug test; however, these products are not flushing the drug out of your system as much as they are making sure that none of the drug makes its way into your urine for a window of time. 

There is no way to get shrooms out of your system faster than your body can do it naturally; therefore, if you are looking for something that can help you beat a drug test, make sure you are using something that acknowledges the limitations of the product and is working within the limits of your natural bodily processes. 

Some products are designed to mask the drugs with a different compound and/or dilute your urine to the point where the drug becomes undetectable. Most drug tests these days are also looking for masking agents and will produce a positive result if the urine is too diluted with water. 

It is becoming harder and harder to trick a drug test; however, if you are in a position where you are left without a choice, be sure to do a little research and find a product that will get the job done. 

Closing Thoughts

At the end of the day, it is best to give yourself as much time as possible for your shroom experience. With a standard dose, the trip is only going to last a few hours; however, the afterglow effects can last for weeks. You will also need time to set time apart to process the experience and integrate it into your life. 

When taken with sincere intention and ample preparations, your mushroom experience can be profound—even life changing! It’s definitely not something you want to rush. So be sure to give yourself enough space to experience everything the shrooms have to offer. 

The effects from shrooms are not going to last forever; however, creating rituals and practices in your day-to-day that reflect your shroom experience is a great way to stay connected to the gifts you received and help prepare you for your next journey.