"Trend" Is Measured Two Different Ways, and They Tell Different Stories
Articles about microdosing and wellness trends usually point to the same handful of signals: growing mainstream acceptance, rising search interest, more products on shelves, more people talking about it. Amanita muscaria gets folded into that story as one more "plant medicine" riding the wave. What that framing skips is that two genuinely different things get measured under the word "trend" — how many people are searching for or buying something, and how many people are actually using it — and for Amanita muscaria specifically, both numbers became measurable only very recently, and they don't tell a simple story of growing, informed acceptance.
The Population Number Nobody Had Until 2025
Until late 2025, there was no nationally representative data on how many Americans actually use Amanita muscaria — every "trend" claim about it was inference from search volume or retail sales, not a measurement of real usage. That changed with a RAND Corporation survey of 10,122 U.S. adults conducted September 9 through October 1, 2025 (margin of error ±1.33 percentage points), the first to publish nationally representative past-year use data for Amanita muscaria specifically. The result: an estimated 3.5 million U.S. adults used Amanita muscaria mushrooms in the past year — putting it fourth among the substances surveyed, behind psilocybin (11 million) and MDMA (4.7 million), but ahead of ketamine (3.3 million) and LSD (3 million). RAND policy researcher Beau Kilmer said he "was a bit surprised to see another mushroom, Amanita muscaria, so high on the list" — a reaction from the people who study this space closely, not casual observers. Whatever else is true about the "trend," it is not a fringe one anymore; the population using it is now larger than the population using LSD.
The Search-Growth Story Is a Different Measurement Entirely
Separately, a University of California San Diego team analyzing Google Trends data found that the rate of microdosing-related searches grew 1,250% from 2015 to 2023, with over three million searches in 2023 alone, a rise the authors linked to loosening cannabis and psychedelic policy across U.S. states (Yang, Satybaldiyeva, Allen, Ayers & Leas, JAMA Health Forum, 2024). That's the number usually cited as evidence of a "growing trend" — but it measures curiosity and search behavior, not verified use, and it isn't broken out by substance. A person searching "microdosing" in 2023 could be looking into psilocybin, cannabis, or Amanita muscaria; the trend line bundles all of them into one curve. The RAND usage figure and the UCSD search-growth figure are answering two different questions, and only one of them — the harder, more expensive one to collect — tells you what people are actually doing.
The Same Demand Surge Outpaced Product Identification
The gap between "people are searching for this" and "people know what they're getting" isn't hypothetical. The senior author of the UCSD search-trends study, Eric Leas, warned that products marketed as "magic mushrooms" for microdosing "might not disclose ingredients or could contain harmful substances like Amanita muscaria" — meaning the reverse of the "sourcing transparency" story wellness-trend pieces like to tell. Rather than a market maturing toward disclosure, the demand surge documented by the search data has, in at least some cases, outpaced the ability of buyers to know which mushroom is actually in the product they bought. Leas summarized the underlying problem plainly: "Using these substances poses legal risks for consumers and concerns of product impurity because of a lack of manufacturing standards." A 2025 analysis of retail Amanita products separately found that lead and cadmium levels varied measurably by how the mushroom had been processed (PMC12474102, 2025) — a second, independent line of evidence that "the market has matured" and "the market is transparent" are not the same claim, and only the first one is well supported.
"GABA-Active Alongside Serotonergic Options" Is a Bundling Problem, Not a Feature
Wellness-trend writing tends to list Amanita muscaria next to psilocybin and other serotonergic psychedelics as parallel options within one "plant medicine" category — exactly what the stub version of this article did. Pharmacologically, that's not a minor imprecision. Amanita's active compounds work on entirely different receptor systems than classic psychedelics: ibotenic acid is a glutamate-receptor agonist and muscimol is a GABA-A agonist, versus the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor that psilocybin, LSD, and their relatives act on (Michelot & Melendez-Howell, Mycological Research, 2003). Grouping them as adjacent "wellness options" lets research findings, safety data, and cultural framing built for one mechanism quietly transfer to a substance that doesn't share it. Our breakdown of why psychedelic set-and-setting practices don't transfer to a GABA-A sedative covers one concrete way that borrowing goes wrong; the same logic applies to research citations and safety claims, not just ritual practices.
"Integration with Mindfulness Practices" Assumes a Substance It Isn't
The other trend item worth pausing on is the claim that microdosing is being "integrated with mindfulness practices." Mindfulness-based frameworks for psychedelic use are built around substances that heighten present-moment perceptual and emotional processing through 5-HT2A activity — the entire theoretical basis for pairing "set and setting" with the drug experience. Muscimol's dominant effect is GABA-A-mediated sedation: drowsiness, incoordination, and impaired attention, not the kind of heightened present-moment awareness the mindfulness-integration framework was built to work with. Listing "integration with mindfulness" as a wellness-trend bullet point for Amanita specifically borrows a practice designed for a different pharmacology without checking whether the fit is real.
What the Trend Data Actually Supports
Put the honest pieces together and the picture looks different from a simple "growing wellness acceptance" story: real, substantial, newly-measured population use (3.5 million past-year users, more than LSD); a search-interest boom that measures curiosity rather than verified use and isn't specific to this substance; a documented gap between demand and product-identification standards, from a researcher directly warning that "magic mushroom" products can secretly contain Amanita; and a category-bundling habit that imports research, safety framing, and practices built for pharmacologically unrelated substances. None of that is an argument that the trend is fake — the RAND number settles that it isn't. It's an argument that "trending" and "well-understood, safely sourced, and appropriately framed" are different claims, and current data supports only the first one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people actually use Amanita muscaria for microdosing?
A RAND Corporation survey of 10,122 U.S. adults (September–October 2025) found an estimated 3.5 million U.S. adults used Amanita muscaria mushrooms in the past year — the first nationally representative data on this substance specifically, ranking it fourth among ten surveyed substances, ahead of ketamine and LSD.
Is the growth in Amanita muscaria search interest the same as growth in actual use?
No. A UC San Diego study found microdosing-related Google searches grew 1,250% from 2015 to 2023, but that figure measures search behavior across all microdosed substances combined, not verified Amanita-specific usage. The RAND survey is the separate, harder measurement of actual past-year use.
Does rising demand mean products are more reliably labeled?
The opposite has been documented. The senior author of the UCSD search study warned that products marketed as "magic mushrooms" for microdosing may not disclose ingredients and can contain undisclosed Amanita muscaria, and a separate 2025 analysis found retail Amanita products vary measurably in heavy-metal content depending on processing.
Why is it misleading to group Amanita muscaria with serotonergic psychedelics as parallel wellness options?
Amanita's active compounds act on glutamate and GABA-A receptors, while classic psychedelics like psilocybin act on the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor — a different mechanism entirely. Bundling them under one "plant medicine" category lets research, safety data, and cultural practices built for one mechanism transfer to a substance that doesn't share it.
Does the mindfulness-integration framing used for psychedelics apply to Amanita muscaria?
Not straightforwardly. Mindfulness-integration practices were developed around substances that heighten present-moment perceptual processing via 5-HT2A activity. Muscimol's dominant effect is GABA-A-mediated sedation, which is pharmacologically different from what that framework was designed around.
Does any of this mean the wellness trend isn't real?
No — the RAND figures make clear real, substantial use exists. The issue is that "trending" doesn't imply "well-understood," "consistently sourced," or "accurately framed." Those are separate claims the trend data doesn't settle.
Bottom Line
The wellness-trend framing around Amanita muscaria conflates two different measurements — search curiosity and verified use — and skips what the underlying data actually shows: a real and larger-than-expected user population, a documented gap between demand and reliable product identification, and a category-bundling habit that borrows credibility from a pharmacologically unrelated substance. See our main microdosing guide for the practical picture, and our breakdown of why "sub-perceptual" dosing is harder to hit than it sounds for what that means once you're deciding on an actual amount. Our Grade A dried caps and tincture are wild-foraged and sold as-is — trend growth is not a substitute for knowing exactly what you're using.
Written by Viktor at Amanita Store. This article is educational, not medical advice. Amanita muscaria is not an FDA-approved food ingredient or treatment for any condition. Legal status varies by jurisdiction — verify locally.