Editor's note: We received this as a guest submission from a reader who asked to stay anonymous. Some months earlier, they'd done a controlled, intentional psilocybin session specifically to work on anxiety and depression. This piece is about something separate: afterward, on a friend's recommendation, they tried Mantra Dose Euphoria — a capsule sold direct-to-consumer — recreationally, not as part of that earlier clinical work. They found it effective for what they wanted from it and offered to write up the experience. We're running it as a firsthand account, with our own reporting and sourcing added around it — not as an endorsement of the product, and not as evidence it treats anything.
Disclosures and warnings, before anything else:
- Mantra Dose Euphoria is not FDA-evaluated, and psilocybin mushrooms are federally Schedule I in the U.S. outside approved research and a small number of state and local programs. Buying, possessing, or using this product is illegal in most of the country.
- The product's own labeling discloses two of three active ingredients — 3.5g of psilocybin mushroom extract (concentration unstated) and maca root (dose unstated) — and does not disclose the third, a 120mg compound the manufacturer calls "HEART," with no ingredient name, source, or chemical class given anywhere. Nobody outside the manufacturer knows what this is — we found no basis anywhere for guessing it's MDMA or any other specific compound, and we're not going to speculate.
- The manufacturer's own guidance warns against combining this product with SSRIs, MAOIs, or lithium, due to serotonin syndrome risk — a real and serious interaction, not a marketing caveat.
- The main reseller listing for this product shows patterns consistent with seeded reviews: one reviewer name appears seven separate times with an identical date, and 22 of 24 reviews are five stars, with none below three.
- This is one person's self-report of recreational use, not a clinical trial, and not connected to their earlier clinical work. It should not be read as evidence the product treats anxiety, depression, or anything else.
- This is not medical advice. Anyone considering anything like this should talk to a doctor first, particularly about current medications.
In the reader's own words:
I'd already done a controlled psilocybin session months earlier, specifically to work on anxiety and depression. This was different — a friend recommended Mantra Dose Euphoria, and I tried it afterward, recreationally, not as part of that earlier work. Here's what I noticed, and what Altitude's editors tell me the research says about why.
1. Physical Effects
The first thing I felt was a headache, fairly early on. My palms were sweaty for a chunk of the session. That night, I had real trouble falling asleep despite feeling physically worn out — my body wanted to rest, but my mind wasn't landing. At some point I also noticed myself tapping, a rhythm I recognized from my earlier controlled session — not something I did on purpose, just something my hands picked back up.
Altitude's note: The headache and sleep disruption both track with documented psilocybin effects, even though we can't confirm this product's actual psilocybin dose. A 2024 meta-analysis of six randomized trials (528 patients, JAMA Network Open) found headache, nausea, dizziness, and blood pressure changes occurred significantly more often with psilocybin than with comparators, with blood pressure fluctuation the most consistent finding. A separate 2022 review of 88 psilocybin trials found headache specifically tends to appear about a day after dosing and resolve within one to two days. On sleep, a 2020 placebo-controlled study in Frontiers in Pharmacology (20 healthy volunteers) found psilocybin delayed REM onset and reduced early-night slow-wave activity, with participants subjectively taking about 10.5 minutes longer to fall asleep than on placebo, recorded roughly 12 hours after dosing. Sweaty palms isn't separately measured in the literature we found, but it's consistent with the same autonomic activation behind the blood-pressure findings. The tapping has no documented pharmacological basis in any study we reviewed — rhythmic bilateral tapping is a deliberate technique used in some therapeutic settings, including EMDR and some ketamine-integration protocols, so this reads more like a body carrying over a learned technique than a drug effect.
2. Rewiring: What It Does to the Brain
Mentally, I felt alert, present, and genuinely in touch, with myself and with other people. I found myself wanting to pull the people I was talking with toward their best selves, encouraging them in a way that felt natural, not performed. I felt open, positive, and, this is the best word I have for it, held.
Altitude's note: This maps onto specific findings in the psilocybin literature, separate from whatever "HEART" may have contributed. Carhart-Harris et al.'s 2012 imaging study in PNAS found psilocybin reduces activity in the brain's default mode network, the circuitry involved in self-monitoring and self-referential thought. Less self-monitoring is one proposed reason people report feeling more outward-focused and less socially guarded. Pokorny et al. (2017, International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology) found psilocybin significantly increased emotional empathy in healthy adults, the capacity to feel what someone else feels, without changing moral decision-making. And Preller et al. (2015) found psilocybin blunted the brain's response to social exclusion in the anterior cingulate cortex, the region associated with "social pain," a plausible basis for a felt sense of being held rather than exposed in conversation.
Worth holding against that, though: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the related compound MDMA (Borissova et al., 2021, Journal of Psychopharmacology, 35(5):547-555) found the drug raised people's self-reported closeness and warmth toward others, but produced no measurable change on actual behavioral tests of trust, empathy, or cooperation. The authors' own read: feeling more connected and being more empathetic may not be the same thing, even when the feeling is completely genuine. None of this research involved Mantra's formula specifically, or recreational use. It's controlled-dose compounds, alone, in supervised settings.
3. What It Means
The mental effects described above, reduced self-monitoring, increased empathy, reduced social threat response, are mechanisms researchers are actively studying for anxiety and depression specifically. But that research describes this reader's earlier, separate, clinically controlled session, not this one. This particular experience was recreational, with an unmeasured dose of psilocybin and an entirely undisclosed second ingredient, and nothing about how good it felt changes that. A positive recreational experience with an unregulated product is not evidence the product is safe, well-dosed, or doing anything therapeutic. Those are two different categories of experience, even when they involve the same compound.
The practical risk here isn't the psilocybin itself, which, dosed and monitored, has one of the better-studied safety profiles among psychedelics (Johnson, Richards & Griffiths, 2008, Journal of Psychopharmacology). It's that this product combines a variable, unmeasured amount of it with a completely unnamed compound, sold by a storefront whose own review page shows signs of being seeded. That combination is the real story here, however the experience itself felt.
Feeling connected is not the same as becoming more connected. A tablet can lower the walls that make a conversation feel guarded for a few hours. What happens to that openness once it wears off, whether it changes anything about how someone actually shows up for people day to day, depends entirely on what they do with it afterward, not on the capsule.
This is a firsthand account from a guest contributor, not medical advice, and not an endorsement of any product by Altitude. Psilocybin is federally illegal in the U.S. outside approved research and limited state and local programs. Anyone considering something like this should talk to a doctor first, especially about interactions with SSRIs, MAOIs, or lithium.
Sources
- Mantra Chocolate Bars — Mantra Capsules: The Complete Guide
- Magicfly — Mantra Euphoria Capsules product listing
- Johnson, M., Richards, W., and Griffiths, R. (2008). "Human hallucinogen research: guidelines for safety." Journal of Psychopharmacology, 22(6), 603-620.
- Carhart-Harris, R. et al. (2012). "Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin." PNAS, 109(6), 2138-2143.
- Pokorny, T. et al. (2017). "Effect of Psilocybin on Empathy and Moral Decision-Making." International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, 20(9), 747-757.
- Preller, K. et al. (2015). Social-exclusion and anterior cingulate cortex response finding under psychedelics.
- Borissova, A. et al. (2021). "Acute effects of MDMA on trust, cooperative behaviour and empathy: A double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment." Journal of Psychopharmacology, 35(5), 547-555.
- JAMA Network Open meta-analysis (2024), 528 patients across 6 RCTs, on headache, nausea, and blood pressure incidence.
- Frontiers in Pharmacology (2020), "The Effects of Daytime Psilocybin Administration on Sleep: Implications for Antidepressant Action."
Photo: Unsplash