Results from placebo-controlled LSD microdose human study
newatlas.com
newatlas.com
Potentially one of the reasons that people like to take small amounts of LSD while they work is due to its slight stimulant effect. You'll note in the article that blood pressure increased with higher doses. LSD also reduces any sensation of need/wanting to sleep. So it will definitely perk you up better than a strong cup of coffee
Most of the most amazing and important experiences of my life, the ones that I would choose if I were forced to say which were the ones that made life worth living, fall into that category.
There is nothing magic about it, and lots of drugs make you think you're smarter than you really are.
Since psychedelics would mostly be used for treating psych disorders, I hardly see a difference.
I honestly preferred the predictable nature of opiates/meth or the other prescription medication I was on. Drugs in these class are pretty honest about what they're offering.
In any case, you're right about the "lots of drugs make you think you're smarter than you really are" bit.
That's not to say the experience isn't worth having though. At the very least, it shows how fickle our brains and our perception of the world around us is. Also, I've never laughed so hard in my life, so that's good.
My most profound realization, and the one I can most easily put into words is that we don’t experience reality as it is, but only inhabit an imperfect simulation created by our minds based on incomplete information from our senses.
Which is not anything particularly new or insightful or useful for me to say at all for anyone who hasn’t used psychedelics — but that thought wasn’t generated by the lsd, it was generated by the direct experience of my reality and consciousness shattering. I can put the realization derived after the fact or during the experience into words to an extent, but the experience itself is so far beyond words that I can only make the barest sketch of it. At the same time, there’s no amount of reading about the mind and philosophy that can convince you of the fundamentally unreal and imperfect nature of your subjective experience the way that one lsd trip can.
It’s not my interpretation of my subjective experience that I found worth while. I’m not a particularly insightful thinker, and lsd doesn’t make you one. It was the experience itself. Just like any other experience one can have in life that enriches it.
When I'm high on weed, I've learned the hard way, to not share those ideas with the world of the sober until I myself have sobered up. Those ideas are typically the product of profound feelings. Sometimes they're deep or novel... but it's rare.
I've been much more judicious about my LSD use. I use it when I'm in a rough spot emotionally. The thoughts and feelings can be similar to a rollercoaster ride -- I'm often all over the place from introspective to giggly. I see my problem from many perspectives and emotional states. Often times, something will click. And that's something I can bring back up with me because what I was looking for was resolution of an emotional knot. Am I finding profound truths about the universe? No. Am I making profound discoveries about my inner truth? Yes, and the discoveries result in enduring solutions to problems -- often, problems which have plagued me for month.
The explanation that a drugged man loses his ability to think critically is waaay more simplistic, than an explanation, that the drug somehow gives useful thoughts, that change lives to the better, but for some reason can't be put to words.
The first option is additionally supported by people who after an experience fully regained control over their sanity, and claim, that there were no enlightening thoughts at all, they just thought there were. The second theory can't explain that without further complication.
If you think it must be the former, I can assure you it isn't.
Basically, in my (probably excessive) experience, you can't just drop a tab and expect the universe to give you answers. You need to be taking it in a conducive environment, and actually make an effort to guide your mind. LSD disinhibits your mind and puts it into what I'd describe as a malleable state. You end up with a whole lot of different thoughts and realisations, a lot (or even most) of which are just bullshit loopy acid thoughts that aren't grounded in reality.
I don't think that LSD allows us to think anything we couldn't already think or conceptualise, it just makes it a bit easier for some people. Of course, it's a complicated drug, and everybody has different experiences with it.
Education helps develop the language necessary to explicate such profundity. E.g. the behavior of coupling between different "forms" of energy at the same energy level suggests that it really is all vibrations, in one completely valid and predictive model of the universe.
A person describing something they lack the language to describe does sound stupid, as you might notice when someone ignorant talks about a field of your specialty. Or when a child talks about adult social interactions which they observe.
If I did not have a doctorate in chemistry, I might totally dismiss some stinky longhair ranting about coupled vibrations. But I do, so hearing this I am more likely to participate in a dialog, help anchor the metaphor in the physically observable, and maybe even learn something unexpected.
In my personal opinion, a little belief in profundity leads people take better care of their environment (including social), pay a little more attention to the world immediately around them, and find a little more existential meaning in the everyday quality of things.
Of course, people do go crazy and ignoring that isn't helpful. But the real harm is in action, not in belief. Some religious people feel compelled to do charity work. Some religious people fight wars. Some religious people stand on the sidewalk and preach in rags. The first case is objectively good, and the third case is mostly harmless.
Instead of framing profundity as an inherently problematic sense, maybe we could frame it in terms of getting trapped in local minima and of acting inappropriately. If someone believes they are Jesus Christ reborn, for example, maybe everyone else is also Jesus Christ reborn and nobody needs to make a big deal about it!
> In the end, the researchers conclude the LSD microdoses did not affect the majority of mood, cognition and physiological measures that were examined.
It goes on to say:
> However, it is also noted this is not at all a final determination on the ultimate veracity of LSD microdosing, either as a cognitive booster, or an anti-depressant. This is merely the first step in trying to empirically understand the acute effects of this oft-reported anecdotal phenomenon.
More research is always good, but it's important to remember that cases like this where the purported effects are on things like mood and creativity (which are tricky to measure and probably have significant day-to-day variation) are going to be especially vulnerable to placebo effects and wishful thinking. When you combine this with gwern's also-negative result, I don't think you can escape the conclusion that LSD microdosing probably does nothing.
I have a feeling that a lot of the people who think microdosing works, are actually taking that level of dose, rather than a true microdose.
Gwern level of tests are way not rigorous nor sensitive enough. Which is why this is much more useful.
Blinding is relatively easy with substances that are active at very low doses and have relatively unpredictable effects.
This was on HN in 2013, and the same results were reported. https://www.gwern.net/LSD-microdosing
First-everness struck from title above.
That said: I know firsthand that people who are borderline schizophrenic can have a very bad, long-lasting outcome from a regular dose of LSD. I doubt a microdose would do them any good. I hope that in studies like this, they screen the participants carefully.
This is a within-subject experiment: each participant got all 4 possible doses. The paper (https://www.gwern.net/docs/nootropics/2019-bershad.pdf) doesn't discuss power that I can see, but the power of a within-subject design will be a lot higher than the between-subject you're probably thinking of, where n=20 is generally way too little. So, might be decently powered after all.
Also, why did they not go for a dose every 3-5 days like the anecdotes, but instead of went for every 7 days. And then say it might be different when done every few days. Were they trying to avoid testing on the weekends or something?
Poor headline, the results are not actually intriguing.
So it's worth following up if this study's finding is a lasting effect too, actually I almost think it'd be irresponsible not to.