"Microdosing…It’s not meant to do much, yet what does it do? Everything!"-- Part 1
Another paradox of psychedelics, even at infintesimal doses you can't feel, they can effect huge changes.
I’ve been taking tiny doses of LSD for about 4 years on and off, and I’m convinced that is an unheralded secret of youth. While it is not stopping the inevitable decline of my body, it has boosted the amount of energy and motivation that diminishes with age. In my previous post I cited Will Durant’s definition of aging — “a hardening of the arteries and of the categories” — and while microdosing hasn’t affected my cardiovascular system, it has softened some of the ossifying ideas I have about myself and the world. That’s youthful! It also helps keeps me focused, makes it easier to get to my desk every morning, and enables me to greet some of life’s disappointments with more equanimity. I have more stamina for my workouts and dare I say, it has amplified feelings of love. Of course, there’s no research proving any of these contentions, and it could all be the result of the placebo effect, but I don’t care. Given a choice between vitamins, supplements or diets, I’d put my money on microdosing any day.
I know—the claims are big and you may be thinking that I’ve sipped a bit too much from the acid-laced Kool-Aid. But please understand that a) I am a proud skeptic, b) I have nothing to sell, and c) I’m not alone in finding benefit from microdosing. Hundreds of thousands of people have been documenting the effects of microdosing for years — check out the many subreddits on the topic.
I also find it ironic that some 60 years after the first wave of psychedelics crested, the paradigm has flipped. Instead of taking an heroic dose to blow your mind as the hippies did, people today are taking infinitesimal doses to grow their minds and support their emotional well being. Still, there is a fair amount of confusion about what microdosing is and especially about how it works.
Put simply, microdosing is the process of taking a subperceptual amount of a psychedelic (most commonly one tenth of a standard dose of LSD or magic mushrooms) on a regular basis for a period of 6-8 weeks. “Subperceptual” or “subthreshold” means you do not feel any effect – no visual distortions, no dazzling colors or oceanic feelings of unity with animals, rocks or trees. At its worst, you’ll feel nothing. At its best, the immediate effects can be compared to a double espresso that lasts all day without the jitters, but a deeper understanding of what microdosing can do reveals itself over time.
When asked how microdosing benefits me I can only say that it works across a broad spectrum of subtle effects. It makes me feel better – about almost everything. It’s not a happy pill; it works more quietly, as if addressing the underlying conditions that contribute to happiness. Some days my outlook is sunny in ways that surprise even me. Like aspirin, it doesn’t call attention to itself. It’s not dramatic. Wait! Let me rephrase that. The results of microdosing are really dramatic – you just don’t know they’re happening until one day you wake up and you feel pretty damn good…or Wow, that was a rough day, I can’t believe I’m still smiling.
Microdosing may be therapeutic, but it is definitely not psychedelic.
When you first begin a microdosing regimen it may take a little time and a few tweaks to home in on the right dose. If the screen you’re staring at goes wavy you’re taking too much. If you feel a strange itchiness in your brain that you can’t scratch, if your heart is revving at a speed that makes concentration difficult, if all of those unanswered emails make you want to hurl your laptop across the room, you’re taking too much. I know this from years of personal experience. The good news is that these effects won’t last long and you can reduce your next dose.
You see, while microdosing may be therapeutic, it is definitely not psychedelic. It affects everyone differently but the benefits should be subtle yet persistent. It can assist people weaning off medications that are helping them but hurting them too. Michael, a colleague who suffers from ADHD, was using Adderall for years, but his mood swings were driving his wife crazy and causing concern among his employees. Since replacing Adderall with microdosing mushrooms he’s noticeably calmer and more balanced. He has become a more patient husband and friend. His co-workers find him more attuned to what they’re saying. He’s not a new person, but he’s more present and serene. It’s easier for him to be himself, is how he puts it.
In her seminal book, A Really Good Day, the charmingly irritable psychedelic skeptic Ayalet Waldman began microdosing with LSD after years of battling an intractable depression. She had tried SSRIs, mood stabilizers and a pharmacopeia of other medications to no avail. Microdosing was a last resort. At first she felt as if nothing was happening but one day she was staring out the window at work and noticed the beauty of a tree. Until that moment she had been incapable of appreciating beauty. After a few weeks of microdosing, her sadness lifted, her marital struggles eased and her anxiety lowered, all of which unexpectedly revved up her creative output. “I became so immersed in my work that I didn’t notice time passing,” she recounts. “Getting lost in work, what’s known as “flow,” is one of the most exciting things about the process of creating…”
Flow is the state of “intense emotional involvement and timelessness that comes from immersion in challenging activities,” she continues. “It can happen when you are creating computer code or scaling a mountain. It’s a gift that arrives rarely, when you are most focused and present.” She wrote the first draft of her book in one month. Is there anyone who doesn't want more of that?
Before you download the TOR browser (which conceals your location and identity so you can’t be surveilled) to scour the dark web for a dozen tabs of acid or begin growing magic mushrooms in your closet, let’s be clear: there is scant clinical data supporting the benefits of microdosing. Nor is anyone certain of how it began. One of the original LSD-OGs, William Leonard Pickard, told me it first came to light in the 1960s and 70s in the underground LSD labs that were turning out millions of illegal doses. Those chemists were exposed to tiny doses – no matter how effective their protective garments, it was impossible to keep flocculent particles from dissolving in the aqueous tissue of the eye. Later, as the orange groves of what’s now Silicon Valley were replaced by Intel offices, programmers who were staying up for days on end also found their way to microdosing – some claimed it fueled the insights that today power some of our most ubiquitous technologies.
Now, as then, microdosing is difficult to study. There are no big metabolic changes that produce dramatic line graphs. Very few granting foundations will support a proposal that gives subjects illegal substances to self administer at home. Most small clinical studies conclude that microdosing does little to nothing, while self-reported studies describe benefits ranging from enhanced creativity, focus, and empathy to improvements in 30-plus mental and physical health conditions including Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD), Long COVID, PMS, and Pornography Addiction. Interestingly, fMRI scans of microdosers show similar changes in brain wave patterns that occur on high doses of LSD and psilocybin. That’s interesting: similar changes are occurring but at a much lower signal and with very different effects.
It’s not surprising that the results of self-reported studies are more positive. People who join studies or post on Reddit are more likely to have better outcomes than people who feel nothing. The latter group tends to avoid studies – this bias is one of the problems with self reporting.
The other concern with self reporting is what researchers call expectancy effects. People who take a supplement to boost energy will likely feel more energetic. “That doesn't mean it's a false effect,” says Dr. Zack Walsh, a clinical psychologist and professor at University of British Columbia, who also leads the world’s largest mobile microdosing study, microdose.me. “Something inert can still have an effect. But microdosing isn’t inert. LSD or psilocybin cross the blood brain barrier and antagonize serotonin receptors. It’s possible that these neurochemical effects interact with expectancies, so it needn't be either or. Expectancies are an important aspect of many well validated drug effects.
“I'm a big fan of small changes and little effects accumulating over time,” he adds. “If microdosing has a modest positive effect on your relationships, if it helps you to go to sleep easier, if you drink one less beer a day, all of those subtle things could have a broad effect on general health.”
If nothing else, he adds, it shouldn’t be illegal. “It's one of those things where the benefits may be modest, but the risks are modest as well, in which case, leave people alone.”
In my next post I’ll dig into some of the conditions micodosing reportedly addresses. I’ll also share some fascinating preliminary research from microdose.me, indicating that that subthreshold doses of magic mushrooms may help improve physical coordination in people who are aging — that’s no small thing, especially since one in four people over 65 take a bad fall at least once a year.
Meanwhile, have a look at this quick video in which I explain some additional info about my own microdosing protocol.
And here’s a link to James Fadiman and Jordan Gruber’s book mentioned in the video: Microdosing For Health, Healing and Enhanced Performance.
If you have questions, be sure to email me. And no, I can’t help you find microdosing materials, but if you’ll consider sharing this post with friends, it might just lead you to a helpful cultivator.