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Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) * 1
    #29666215 -

Hi all. I am a doctoral candidate at Walden University, posting with permission from the staff. I am studying how real-world psilocybin use relates to depression and self-esteem, because nearly all the existing research comes from clinical trials and leaves out how most people actually use it.

You are invited to complete an anonymouse survey (average time is 5 to 8 minutes) for a study titled: Associations Between Naturalistic Psilocybin Use, Depression, and Self-Esteem in Adults.

Seeking volunteers that meet these requirements:

  • 18 years of age or older
  • Currently reside in the United States
  • Able to read and complete the survey in English
  • Have used psilocybin ("magic") mushrooms at least once outside of a clinical trial or supervised medical or research setting


The survey will be open until November 30, 2026. Questions should be directed to jeff.welch@waldenu.edu.

Complete the survey: https://jwelchwalden.limesurvey.net/232248

The survey is completely anonymous. No name, email address, or IP address is collected, and your responses cannot be linked to you. There is no compensation for taking part in this study. Participation is entirely voluntary and unpaid.

This study does not encourage or endorse the use of psilocybin or any illegal substance. It has been reviewed and approved by the Walden University Institutional Review Board (Approval No. 08-12-26-1202521).

Happy to answer questions in the thread. I will not ask anyone for identifying details here or by private message, and the survey itself never asks who you are.

Edited by jwelch2017 (09/14/26 02:28 PM)

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: jwelch2017]
    #29666523 -

I think questions 9 and 10 should be handled differently as I was experiencing some or most of the line items before ever starting micro-dosing and full on trips. It seems like the questions were pointed at post use symptoms or issues


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I have gone down the mycology rabbit hole and would like to learn more.

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: Rocknbob69]
    #29666527 -

Thanks for taking the time to write that out. It's a fair read and worth answering directly.

Those two sections aren't asking about symptoms after use. The challenging-experience items ask what you experienced during your most significant experience, and the mood section is the PHQ-9, which asks only about the past two weeks and makes no claim about what caused anything. Both are standard validated instruments used word for word, which is why they read the way they do instead of being tailored to this study.

The larger point you're making is the right one, and it's the study's first listed limitation. This is a one-time survey, so it cannot tell whether psilocybin changed anything for anyone. There's no before-and-after measure, and people who were already struggling may be more likely to seek psilocybin out to begin with. That's a documented pattern in this literature, which is why everything here is framed as an association rather than an effect, and why the write-up will say so plainly.

So having had some of those symptoms beforehand isn't a problem for the data. It's part of what that limitation exists to acknowledge. I appreciate you raising it here.

Thank you so much for taking the time to go through the survey. I truly appreciate it.

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: jwelch2017]
    #29668802 -

jwelch2017 said:
Thanks for taking the time to write that out. It's a fair read and worth answering directly.

Those two sections aren't asking about symptoms after use. The challenging-experience items ask what you experienced during your most significant experience, and the mood section is the PHQ-9, which asks only about the past two weeks and makes no claim about what caused anything. Both are standard validated instruments used word for word, which is why they read the way they do instead of being tailored to this study.

The larger point you're making is the right one, and it's the study's first listed limitation. This is a one-time survey, so it cannot tell whether psilocybin changed anything for anyone. There's no before-and-after measure, and people who were already struggling may be more likely to seek psilocybin out to begin with. That's a documented pattern in this literature, which is why everything here is framed as an association rather than an effect, and why the write-up will say so plainly.

So having had some of those symptoms beforehand isn't a problem for the data. It's part of what that limitation exists to acknowledge. I appreciate you raising it here.

Thank you so much for taking the time to go through the survey. I truly appreciate it.



I did my best to think critically about each question and complete your survey in earnest.  For some of us heavyweights, some of the questions would seem irrelevant.  For example, ive used mushrooms likely thousands of times.  I wonder if asking "what is the longest number of consecutive days you've used mushrooms?" Would
Be of any value to your study.  For me, it was around 120 days. 

At this point it seems crazy to most of us in this community that people are still trying to determine its efficacy with regard to depression symptom cessation.  For a lot of us, its saved our lives or at least vastly improved our quality of life.

This is more than merely a repository site of information, we are a rare and intimately connected community unlike any other I have ever found.  We are connected not only by the shared experiences of cessation of depression symptoms, but the "spiritual" experiences that are uniform and mutual among our members.

I would invite you to the confessional booth to witness this firsthand.  What started as a fun way to share embarassing mistakes weve made as cultivators over the years, turned into something quite profound and wholesome.  Members have become great friends here and shared their experiences and reasons for finding this place, and eachother.  You would see that there is often a common element of depression, addiction, and ultimately underlyng trauma that has brought us all together to eachorher.  The confessional is more than just a chat room.  Its a sortof global  psychedellic group therapy. 

Many of us have have survived uncommon horrors and hardship.  Most of us--in my experience--have overlapping  clinical diagnosises  and have been "through the ringer" so to speak in terms of psycho therapy and psych-medication prescriptions.  We have sadly lost a considerably number of beloved members to suicide or overdose.  We've witnesses our members going through psychotic episodes, depressive episodes etc.  ive personally been "talked off the ledge" so to speak by my beloved friends here.

Personally, ive made it my personal ardent mission to "pay it forward" so to speak and have dedicated--like many others--countless thousands of hours to currating this community and helping new members find their place among us. Ive helped hundreds of members learn to grow their own medicine and break free from the endless cycle of psych-meds/psych therapy/ insurance/medical system nightmare.

Point being, im a person who has commited myself to spreading awareness and information so of course i always feel compelled to participate in these surveys and I may be able to help encourage others to participate as well.  Please let me know how else I can help and do feel free to drop by the confessional.  I think you would find that the members there would be open to questions and discussion if thats helpful.  Youll find that everyone seems to have different ways of using mushrooms.  Some of us are micro-dosers; some of us are weekend space cadets.  Im a bit of both personally.  Theres a few absolute psychonauts in our ranks who like to push the outer limits using exotics that make cubensis seem like a placebo.  Youre welcome to drop your link there as well. 

-beef


--------------------
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Shroomery
Visit our cultivation museum
The Hitchhiker's guide Pt. 3

Edited by BeefExtreme (09/14/26 10:47 PM)

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: BeefExtreme]
    #29668807 -

I finished it
:feelingfunky:


--------------------

The Shroomery Manual
Wanna Play?
Dream Interpretation
GC’s Ayahuasca Recipe
Free Therapy

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: GenesisCorrupted]
    #29668882 -

I finished it. But some issue in the within use. Your missing daily users on there .
"Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much" should have been 2 questions.


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The better guide to grow mushrooms.
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/8553541

Beware the power of one.  The power of two. The power of many.

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: vicepope]
    #29668978 -

vicepope said:
I finished it. But some issue in the within use. Your missing daily users on there .
"Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much" should have been 2 questions.


I think the survey seems to miss a majority of our community by a certain margin. Most of us are heavyweights.  Severe PTSD people who dose daily if not twice daily.  The survey is more intended for "normal" people who do mushrooms a few times a year.

Sometimes I fit into that category.  I forget to take my medicine and the slow descent into my old ways of depression and mania are so subtle that I don't notice until I stop taking care of myself and think about doing the ol' exit stage left routine. Its usually by then I catch myself and remember "oh yeah... the medicine". 

I tend to really avoid the medicine the worse I get. I know that first hour is going to be agony, but each time I drag myself back from the depths I always think "why did i do that again? Why did I let myself get that bad when the medicine is so easy to take... Should have done this a long time ago".  Then you do the traditional "rounds of apologies" to family and friends you treated like shit when you were depressed.


Anyway.  The sleep question is part of the standardized psych health survey every clinic in the country i think is required to administer.  I've always felt the same vice.  Especially the one about appetite.  I really over-eat when I'm depressed.  "Dopamine eating" I call it.


--------------------
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Shroomery
Visit our cultivation museum
The Hitchhiker's guide Pt. 3

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: BeefExtreme]
    #29669024 -

Beef, thank you. This is exactly the kind of feedback that helps, and I appreciate you taking the survey seriously.

On the frequency question: you are right that the survey does not do justice to people at your level of experience. The lifetime-use item tops out at "10 or more times," so someone with ten trips and someone with thousands end up in the same category. That was a deliberate trade-off to keep the survey short and to match how earlier naturalistic studies grouped people, but it means the study cannot tell moderate use from very heavy use, and I will say so plainly in the dissertation as a limitation. A follow-up study should measure this with much finer resolution, and your point about long daily runs is a good example of what it should capture.

On efficacy: this study is not trying to prove or disprove whether mushrooms help with depression. It looks at how real-world patterns of use, both how often and in what kind of setting, relate to current mood and self-esteem, in the population that clinical trials leave out. Almost everything published comes from supervised settings with screened participants. What people here have actually lived is the missing piece, which is why I asked to post in this community rather than somewhere more sanitized.

Thank you for the invitation to the confessional and for offering to spread the word. Anyone here is welcome to point other members to this thread. I will check with the staff before posting the link anywhere else on the site, since I told them I would keep it to one place. One limit I have to respect: my IRB approval covers the anonymous survey and nothing else, so I cannot gather stories or observations outside of it, and I would not want anyone to think a conversation with me was being recorded for the study. I am glad to answer any questions about the study right here in the thread.

I am sorry for the members you have lost. The survey's closing page lists 988 and the Fireside Project peer support line for anyone who wants them.

Jeff

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: GenesisCorrupted]
    #29669025 -

Thank you!

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: vicepope]
    #29669027 -

Thanks for finishing it and for the notes.

You are right about daily users. The survey asks how many times in your life, when you last used, and what form, and none of that captures a regular or daily regimen. Someone microdosing every day and someone who has tripped a dozen times over five years end up answering the same way. I could not add a question mid-collection without invalidating the responses already in, so that will go in the dissertation as a limitation and as the first recommendation for whoever does the next study.

The sleep item is the standard wording from the PHQ-9, a depression screener used in thousands of studies. It combines the two because either kind of sleep disturbance counts toward the same criterion. I agree it reads awkwardly, but it has to be scored exactly as published or the results cannot be compared with anything else. The study is not looking at which direction sleep goes, only whether it is disrupted.

Appreciate you taking the time.

Jeff

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: jwelch2017]
    #29669084 -

Finished it honestly


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An enigma some caerulescens n a mono 😎

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: bloodssonnew]
    #29669124 -

Thank you, truly appreciate you taking the time.

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: jwelch2017]
    #29669144 -

Personally I would've had questions about how you felt before and after dissolving your ego. I think that's a very important part of the possible therapeutic benefit.


--------------------

The Shroomery Manual
Wanna Play?
Dream Interpretation
GC’s Ayahuasca Recipe
Free Therapy

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: GenesisCorrupted]
    #29669167 -

GenesisCorrupted said:
Personally I would've had questions about how you felt before and after dissolving your ego. I think that's a very important part of the possible therapeutic benefit.


You're right, and it's a fair hit. The survey asks about the hard parts of your most significant experience (fear, grief, paranoia, that scale) and asks nothing about the other side of it, ego dissolution or the mystical quality of the trip. There is good evidence from the clinical trials that the quality of the acute experience predicts how people do afterward, so leaving it out was a trade-off for survey length and IRB requirements, and I'll say so in the limitations rather than pretend it wasn't a gap. The next study should carry both.

Before and after is the harder one. This is a one-time snapshot of how people are doing now, so it can't measure change across an experience at all. That takes a design that follows people over time, which was out of reach for a dissertation survey, but it's the obvious next step and it will be in the recommendations.

Appreciate the read.

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: jwelch2017]
    #29681629 -

Thanks for your research.

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: divineverdance]
    #29683416 -

Thank you, I appreciate that. Hopefully, it will help the field and those who need it.

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: jwelch2017]
    #29683446 -

I took the survey but I wanted to comment on the part about taking other drugs in combination with mushrooms.

I also have taken hundreds of doses of mushrooms and feel misrepresented by the 10+ doses category, and when it came to the part about other drugs, to answer truthfully, I had to say yes that I've combined mushrooms with alcohol, but early on I learned that the combination is obviously not a good one, and that I rarely combine those two (except for maybe a small dose of alcohol like a glass of wine once nearly all effects of mushrooms had subsided).

Mainly I wanted to say this, asking if we've combined mushrooms with stimulants (like cocaine or whatever) after a question asking if we've combined them with MDMA, is redundant, and nobody could truthfully answer yes to the MDMA question and then say no to stimulants. Also, when you say stimulants but don't say (*not including caffeine or the aforementioned MDMA*) then you are going to get a variety of interpretations, because the way it is worded (by saying like cocaine etc.) implies that there is a certain definition of stimulants that you are implying, but not defining clearly. I've never combined mushrooms with any stimulants other than MDMA or caffeine-(in the morning before the mushroom dose), but I had to say yes on that one.

Other than that, things seemed pretty clear.

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: jwelch2017]
    #29684041 -

Thanks for the research.  Anything to add to the pile of evidence that psychedelics are not universally bad for everybody, always.

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Re: Anonymous research survey on psilocybin use, mood, and self-esteem (18+, US, Walden University, IRB-approved) [Re: Generic]
    #29685201 -

Thank you for taking the survey and for taking the time to write this up. This is exactly the kind of feedback that only comes from people with real experience, and I'm going to address each point directly.

The 10+ category. You're right that it flattens a lot of people. Someone with 12 lifetime doses and someone with several hundred land in the same bucket. The reason it's capped there is that the analysis groups frequency into bands rather than treating lifetime count as a continuous number, partly because recall gets unreliable past a certain point and partly because the statistical design needs groups of a workable size. The trade-off is that the high end of experienced users gets compressed. I'll name that as a limitation in the write-up, and if I run a follow-up study the top band will be split further.

Alcohol. The item as built asks what you used "concurrently during the period of your psilocybin use," and I want to be honest that "during the period" is doing a lot of work there. It was meant to capture co-occurring use across that stretch of your life, not only the same session, because the study is about context of use broadly.

MDMA and stimulants. On the survey, MDMA has its own checkbox, cocaine has its own checkbox, and the Stimulants box lists amphetamines, methamphetamine, and prescription stimulants used non-medically as the examples. Caffeine was never meant to be in scope. But you're right on the substance of it: pharmacologically, "stimulants" is a class that includes MDMA and caffeine, and the item doesn't say "not including MDMA or caffeine." Anyone reading it carefully and literally could land where you did.

If anyone else hits a spot like this, I'd like to hear about it.

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