White Rabbit Mushroom: Potency, Trip Effects, Dosage & Growing

White Rabbit[i][ii] is a cultivated strain of Psilocybe cubensis. It was deliberately bred by a group of cultivators in Holland, who hybridized two popular strains, Albino Penis Envy (APE) and Moby Dick and then worked to stabilize the genetics. Their aim was to produce a strain that combines the high potency of APE with the easy cultivation of Moby Dick. They more or less succeeded.

White Rabbit is not an albino strain, despite the multiple albinos in its parentage (not only are both its parents albinos, but Moby Dick was derived by hybridizing Golden Teacher with Albino A+). Instead, it is leukistic—that is, minimally pigmented. Its spores are dark purple-brown, like those of most Psilocybes, and while the rest of the mushroom can be almost white when grown in darkness, it does color up a bit if exposed to light. But it earns the “white” in its name honestly.

Because White Rabbit is still a relatively knew strain, it can be hard to find, and not much is even known about it yet. It hasn’t had time to develop into many sub-strains (though there are a few), nor is it known to have been used to create further hybrids. So far, though, the reports seem good.

Identification and Description

The White Rabbit strain, though a descendant of Penis Envy, does not look especially penis-y (nor does it appear envious). It is somewhat shorter and thicker-stemmed than typical for a cube. It is pale yellow to whitish, depending on light levels during growth, with gray gills that turn purple-black as the spores mature. The flesh bruises blue-green when damaged. Veil remnants form spots on the top of the cap and a ring around the stem—the ring may turn black as spores land on it.

Look-alikes

There are other leukistic or albino cube strains, some of which look a bit like White Rabbit. Aside from the color, most cubes and some other psychoactive species, look similar. But since White Rabbit does not grow wild, the risk of mixing it up with something else is fairly small.

Effects

Ah, yes, the perennial debate—do strains have unique effects of their own, or is a cube basically a cube? At this time, we hold the latter view—there are so many other factors that influence the course of a mushroom trip, including your setting and mindset, your personal biochemistry, and the size of the dose that the effects of any variation of mushroom biochemistry between strains are probably overwhelmed. That being said, White Rabbit is sometimes said to be particularly visual and introspective.

Potency and Dosage

White Rabbit is extremely potent, often testing at double the psilocybin concentration of the average cube. That means does should be no more than half what most users expect—though many users take something much closer to their usual dose and therefore get a much stronger trip. Please be careful with this; the risk of undesirable side-effects goes up with dose size, especially for uses used to taking less. Don’t use high potency as an excuse to take more than you are ready for.

Growing

Although White Rabbit was bred to be easy to grow, it’s actually more intermediate—it’s not recommended for beginners because it is vulnerable to contamination, meaning the grower’s sterile technique needs to be pretty much bomb-proof. Also, this strain produces a lot of aborts. However, unlike it’s more phallic-shaped parent, its spore production is at least moderate, and yields are normally quite good. Colonization time and growth are often good, and some growers are working on breeding for greater contamination resistance.

Any method normally used for cubes will work for White Rabbit, though it seems to like rye grain specially. Manure or enriched soil is a close second.

Toxicity, Safety, & Side Effects

White Rabbit isn’t known to have any dangers or risks that other cubes don’t—that said, magic-mushroom use is not risk-free.

The most obvious danger is that use or possession of psilocybin is illegal in many jurisdictions, and penalties can be severe. Buying shrooms involves black-market purchases unprotected by legally-enforceable standards of quality and fair play—you might not get what you pay for, and what you get could be unsafe. Growing your own means controlling quality yourself, but it’s not an option for everybody.

As for the mushrooms themselves, psilocybin is a relatively safe drug, as drugs go, but there are side-effects. Common side-effects, such as nausea and excessive yawning, are mostly mild. Severe side-effects, such as convulsions, are rare, but can occur. Psilocybin is known to both calm anxiety and exacerbate it, a paradox that may be at least partially explained by the idea that psilocybin doesn’t actually alter a user’s mood but exaggerates it—going into the experience with a calm, open, positive mind-set and in a safe, enjoyable setting seems critical for avoiding the dreaded “bad trip.” Now, an experienced user can find value even in a trip filled with intense anxiety and dark thoughts, but that requires a lot of personal and spiritual work—which brings us to a final point.

Many people value psilocybin trips not simply for pleasure but for the personal and spiritual insights that mind-alteration can bring, but those insights won’t lead to actual personal growth unless you put in the work to prepare for and then integrate and process the experience. Without that work, mushroom-use is, at best, wasteful.

So, for safety, those interested in psilocybin mushroom use should learn about and pay attention to the law and make sure the source of mushrooms is reliable. They should properly calculate the right dose size for the kind of trip they want, and always err on the side of taking too little rather than too much. They should mentally prepare for the experience and prepare a safe and enjoyable place in which to trip. It’s always a good idea to have a tripsitter on hand to help deal with any problems that might come up. And it’s always important to do good after-care, to properly process and integrate the experience.

References:

[i]      McElroy, C. (2023). White Rabbit—A Highly-Potent Psilocybe cubensis Strain. Tripsitter

[ii]     (n.d.). White Rabbit Genetics. Spores-Lab

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