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Comment by erokar | Hacker News Reader

While I think LSD is a very interesting drug that can give people valuable insights and improve their (and thereby also others) lives, I would not do microdosing on a daily basis myself.

LSD increases serotonin significantly, and it's plausible that some of the well-being effect of microdosing is caused by this. The problem is that the brain tends to down-regulate its own production of a neurotransmitter when it is induced by a drug over time. Since the brain is plastic it will probably up-regulate the serotonin production once the microdosing is stopped, but there is a theoretical risk that neurotransmitter production and/or functioning is permanently changed.

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This makes me think of a long time ago, when I was diagnosed with ADD as an adult. I started medicating with dexadrine, which really did work wonderfully. Changed my life. A couple of years later, I had the worst mental breakdown of my life. I was a wreck. Borderline suicidal. I'm amazed that I didn't lose my spouse or my job over it, and I did lose a number of friends.

Quit taking dexadrine, and it cleared up. Serotonin imbalance is no laughing matter. I technically still have a prescription, but I haven't taken it in years. I've learned to just live with the issues the ADD causes.

On the subject of LSD... personally, I think LSD is a wonderful invention with enormous therapeutic potential. Back when I was just a bum kid in a college town, I probably tripped at least 50 times. I learned a lot about myself and the world, and don't regret a moment of it. With that in context, I find the research into microdosing really fascinating. I can easily imagine the benefits.

But that serotonin thing. I'd want to know more about that.

What did you learn about yourself and the world?

Not the one you asked, but psychedelics inject a ton of entropy into the system, allowing you to break out of the "bound states" humans tend to get stuck in.

Taking shrooms pretty much rewired my value structure from the ground up. I went from caring about traditional things like a good career (therefore social approval and everything else), to valuing spending time in the sun with good friends more than our usual ego-centric living patrerns.

LSD is great for the visual/aesthetic experience - it's so stimulating and kinesthetic - but it leaves your mind a little more intact.

DMT is a really interesting and profound psychedelic, and one that is massively misunderstood and, IMO, unfairly judged. Doing large amounts of DMT improved my ability to visualize hyperdimensional systems, and gave me (in my subjective opinion) a better understanding of the nature and structure of existence

How do you know your understanding of the nature and structure of existence, is actually the nature and structure of existence?

You don't.

The trip logic works like this. Your brain-organism evolved in the context of our 4-dimensional universe. Psychedelics tend to alter patterns of perception in a way that releases a flood of images. Your brain itself is a hyperdimensional problem solver so when flipped on its head with DMT you can experience really fascinating hyperdimensional universe-images.

As to revealing anything of the real structure of existence...nothing can be said. They reveal the structure of our brains, which themselves are a micromodel of our universe (compare the branching pattern of the brain's neurons to a zoomed out picture of the universe to the branching pattern of a tree to the lichtenberg patterns of lightning to the branching pattern of mycelia...they all tend to converge to the same fractal).

DMT can never give you "real" knowledge of the universe...but neither can any kind of experiment. All of our observations are really just images formed via some form of interaction. All you can really do is get hunches, and hope that as a prt of the universe, its greater structure is reflected in the microcosm that is you.

If I was forced to guess, I would say we exist in a 4d pocket universe within a fractally infinite hyperdimensional bulk multiverse. Universes are constantly being born and dying, with the net effect that the fundamental nature of reality is timeless (time is a psychological abstraction). But that brings us no closer to true understanding, which is probably an illusion anyway.

Dextroamphetamine has a bit of serotonin action, but not a ton.

D-amp primarily releases DE and NE so I doubt it was directly related to serotonin

This will hopefully be validated by some of the controlled clinical studies that are just springing up after a decades long moratorium.

I think it's helpful to distinguish between the more recreational, or life-boosting user, and those who might use it to alleviate conditions that would normally warrant psychiatric medications. For the former, you're definitely messing with a stable mind.

For the latter, this is totally a new frontier. This mechanism at least on the surface seems to mimic SSRIs, so presumably tuned properly could be a more holistic replacement, considering LSD's ability to allow people of all conditions to also do some soul searching on a personal level. Similar to how the recommended, accepted treatment is medication + therapy.

IMO most "stable minds" should be messed with. Stable is relative. Most minds are "stable" in that they are crystallized into arbitrary activity patterns. This is why deep personality change is extremely difficult without psychedelics (you need a transformative experience, psychedelic or otherwise, to change)

LSD doesn't release serotonin itself like MDMA, it stimulates the 5-ht2a receptor (among other ones).

As someone who's microdosed for several months now, with a dose of 5-8ug I haven't experienced any negative mood disturbances.

IMO microdosing is really effective (I went into it thinking it would be bullshit)

wouldn't tolerance make it pointless to do this everyday also? Seems once every 3 days would be more beneficial.

Claim is it's not just serotonin.

No, microdosing is different from outright tripping. The underlying stimulating effects of LSD don't go away

What about those with chronic depression and/or going through a form of depression? I find myself struggling quite a bit at times, often lacking motivation. I would welcome anything to help me sort it out in a controlled fashion so I can become more functional.

have you tried full doses of psychedelics, taken once every 2-3 months or so? the research done by Roland Griffiths et al has shown a lot of promise for this application.

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