Hacker News Reader

Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

The author’s conclusion that the overall effect was generally positive seems strangely dismissive of the fact that anxiety and confusion scores were increased.

Anecdotally, I had a few coworkers go through a phase of LSD microdosing enthusiasm. From my outside perspective, this study matches what I observed: Vaguely better moods associated with increased confusion. They were more immersed in their tasks, but that was partially because even easy tasks were more difficult on their microdosing days.

The most concerning part of their experiment was how it distorted their own perceptions and judgment. They’d feel like they had arrived at great epiphanies or accomplished something impressive after solving trivial or obvious problems. They were convinced that their LSD days were full of breakthroughs and leaps forward, when in reality the drug was just making even small tasks feel like great victories. We politely hinted that they should stop when they struggled to keep up in meetings and conversations.

For another perspective, Gwern has some self trials with LSD that also showed some worrisome negative trends: https://www.gwern.net/LSD-microdosing

View on HN

I agree with this from personal experience - LSD makes you feel more productive, but actual tasks that require concentration are more difficult. I would not recommend it for healthy people.

However, I strongly recommend it for people who struggle with chronic depression or anxiety. Microdosing is a way to break rumination, the asshole uncle of meditation whose constant shitty thoughts in the back of your mind are the fuel that keep you feeling depressed or anxious.

LSD Microdosing is the Aspirin (and I use that word very intentionally, it is not a cure, it is relief) that lets you start to interrupt that cycle, which will give you back enough of your life that you can start to make other more long-lasting changes

| will give you back enough of your life that you can start to make other more long-lasting changes

This is it. It gave me enough of a bump to move forward in a positive direction. It's a good tool.

Thanks for your analysis.

It seems like it could be an ativan for chronic depression or bi-polar.

I have either very volatile MDD or bipolar type 2 (I don't think it matters which one specifically).

My thoughts fundamentally change depending on if I'm up, down, or center. It'd be incredible to be able to give a "kick" to the negative thoughts a bit when I'm down.

I imagine it could be similar to klonipin for panic attacks - it doesn't fix anything, but it temporarily allows my mind to function (instead of spiraling), and allows me to work on treating the cause of anxiety.

The real benefit of it is not mind blowing creative epiphanies, but breaking yourself free from unhelpful mental pathways. The change in chemistry temporarily gets you to think in different ways, which is a big help for people who are stuck in negative ruts.

I suppose that sort of thing also might lead to creative breakthroughs to brilliant people who have been stuck on problems for a long time, but lets face it -- while lots of developers are intelligent people, we aren't working at the edge of science. Deciding to throw in a Redis cache to speed up requests or something isn't a groundbreaking innovation.

Code monkeys deserve mind blowing creative epiphanies, too.

Or the surrogates thereof.

Depression and anxiety are independent. It's possible to be depressed and anxious, depressed and non-anxious, anxious and manic, and manic with no anxiety.

I wouldn't recommend LSD to people with anxiety, as raises anxiety. I would _mildly_ recommend it to people who suffer with depression, but have a low level of anxiety. And yes: it does help break out of rumination cycles, and weaken old neural connections.

You make it sound like negative thoughts are the _cause_ of depression. This is not the case, although they are correlated: when you're depressed, you tend to have negative thoughts, which can drive you deeper into that very depression.

What I would recommend strongly to people with depression is a prescription anti-depressant (it can take a long time working with a good psychiatrist to find one). Possibly light smoking as well, if the person is otherwise healthy.

There is no silver bullet here. Certain people have certain imbalances in neural chemistry, and small doses of the right prescription drug can help correct that. For chronic symptoms, people have to be on the drug for a lifetime; for others, a few years.

Can you expand on the light smoking? Haven't heard that one before!

I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that it’s for the MAOIs in tobacco, which is cute and I thought about that occasionally when I was smoking. I would highly suggest that no one smoke, because if you’re getting a benefit from the MAOIs in cigarettes then you’d probably be a great candidate for any number of low-dose ssris and the rest of the pro/cons list tilts heavy con for smoking.

Not to mention there are much less unhealthy ways of consuming nicotine, such as gums and patches.

Yep, use the gum instead, 99% of the benefits with 2% of the downsides

MAOIs are distinct from the nicotine, which is why smoking is more addictive than vaping; they're sort of a pleasure-catalyst in my understanding. In some ways its dissapointing there isn't a vaping product containing these.

I think there is; the cigarette companies came up with a stick of tobacco (looks a lot like a cigarette) that gets inserted into a vape that heats it up.

I just found snus, which purports to lack many of the health drawbacks from other forms of tobacco, as well as any heartburn issues that come with smoking or gum. Most of that is hearsay from old Swedish men, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

"Chemical imbalance" is a dangeous over-simplication or at worst a total fabrication; pharmaceutical marketting copy. Whether SSRIs are helpful or not, I'm always surprised by the lack of awareness of side effects and the fact that the medical system is simply not equipt to help you in dealing with discontinuation. ACT therapy, for instance, has been immensely beneficial in reframing my own mental health issues (Anxiety being primary), and I get the added bonus of not having to treat the side effects of my side effects' side effects, which is kind of a relief...having witnessed the fallout of this drug or that when taken chronically for years and the little help that can be given at that point; chemical imbalance indeed.

As a sufferer of depression and anxiety, I would love to do this, but I have no real idea where to safely get LSD. :/

Order it on darknet, send one tab off to get tested and start dosing with the others.

"Buy an illegal substance via completely tracable means from someone you've never met who therefore has no "skin in the game" whether or not you'll live or die because he's never going to see you again."

Yeah, don't do that.

Most people who buy LSD consider darknet sources to be much more reliable than street sources. Of course, there are bad apples everywhere, but with LSD if you’re reagant testing it to at least verify the presence of indoles (LSD or one of its many analogs), you can be pretty sure it’s not an NBOME substance, because there’s no good reason for a seller to put both LSD and NBOME in the same tab. Or you can just swallow it instead of taking it sublingually, apparently NBOMEs are not metabolized by the stomach.

You’re more at risk of screwing up security and getting phished (and money stolen) or busted than you are getting bad stuff. Trusted vendors exist for a reason, and small quantities of LSD are virtually undetectable in transit.

depends on where you live. have a look at 1cp-LSD.

An alternative approach is to grow your own magic mushrooms, lots of step by step instructions on reddit, youtube instructional videos, etc. Psilocybin has the additional advantage of shorter trips.

https://doubleblindmag.com/shrooms-vs-acid/

> In addition to the contrasting content of the experience, the onset, duration, and intensity of the trips are distinctly different. Psilocybin takes approximately 45 minutes for effects to be felt and lasts between four and six hours, with these effects peaking around two hours into the experience. Psilocybin highs are also sometimes described as “coming in waves” with emotions oscillating between extreme euphoria and bliss to anxiety and trepidation. There is also anecdotal evidence to suggest a mushroom experience and can be potentiated or re-invigorated by ingesting cannabis a few hours into the experience. Alternatively the effects of LSD can last around twelve hours and are typically reported to be more steady, gradually intensifying until a peak around two hours into the experience, plateauing, then gently declining from approximately seven to nine hours in.

> They’d feel like they had arrived at great epiphanies or accomplished something impressive after solving trivial or obvious problems.

I can totally relate to this. Simply going to the store on LSD to buy snacks can become like some kind of deeply symbolic adventure. I remember going “ghost hunting” on a high dose of mushrooms with my buddies which consisted of us marching around in the snow with beers in the middle of the night through downtown urban parks laughing our asses of at “no ghosts here. We’ll get em next time” etc. I once ate a perfectly ripe orange bell pepper and it was the sensory equivalent of an actual religious experience. I’ve balled my eyes out crying like a bitch on acid while watching a very cheesy and manipulative infomercial about supporting a kid in Africa for only one dollar a day.

One of the powers of psychedelics are their ability to transform basic tasks and cliches into meaningful experiences. Opening you mind to the wonders of the universe, of being alive briefly somehow and here. A bazooka joe bubblegum comic can become charged with more meaning than Finnegans Wake.

But I don’t see the value of microdosing. I actually find the practice a little repugnant? maybe that’s too strong of a word or not strong enough but I feel like the whole point of something like LSD is to enrich, deepen, unravel, perplex, and push forward that little spark of awareness inside. It’s not a performance enhancing drug like a creativity steroid for like power working at the office.

All drugs are enhancers IMO, some less like weed, and some more like Shrooms and LSD.

Posts like this always make me feel like I’m doing psychedelics wrong somehow because I can never relate to them. I’ve done mushrooms 3 times, LSD once, and I’ve never felt that way. I recently did 3.5g of mushrooms and yeah, there were fractals covering most of my vision, but overall I felt pretty normal. I was definitely more relaxed, emotionally open and introspective, but it wasn’t anything particularly special. Going outside for a walk with the leaves changing wasn’t a mystical experience and having the same police car pass by me twice within a few minutes wasn’t anything unusual. I feel less anxious and depressed in the aftermath, but everyone talks about the psychedelic experience being life-changing and ineffable. And there’s a part of me that wonders why I don’t get that :/

You're describing a mild trip. More can take you into other worlds where your brain can make you believe you're in tune with the universe, or black out and scare yourself because you can't remember how or why you got where you are, and everything in between. But definitely more intense than you describe.

I guess I must just have a high natural tolerance to psychedelics, or maybe weight matters more than people say it does.

Also the dosage can be unreliable. LSD tabs aren’t regulated (obviously) and mushroom can vary wildly in their potency.

Neurochemistry can play a big role, too. I feel that psychedelics can have great benefit for those of us with ADHD, as an alternative to more traditional stimulant treatment.

The fractals are typical, for me, of the onset of the rising peak of a mild to moderate dose which is actually just about perfect for a recreational experience with friends or a party. Moving your hand should produce a hazy trail of after images in the early part of a moderate or stronger dose. I find mushrooms to be way more visual than LSD but you have to do a bit more to tip the balance into a otherworldly trip. I also think mushrooms are safer to play with than LSD since the most intense phase will peak up and come down between roughly 90 minutes. There is a second or third wave after some hours but nothing like the peak.

Since potency can vary a great deal between strains (one type of mushroom could be very intense at 2 grams [this is rare] while another maybe require 6, and so on) I recommend buying much more than you need at one time. Like 20 grams. Take two, see how it goes. Few weeks or whatever later take three grams. My experience From back in the day is that on average, 4 or 5 grams will usually do the trick. 5 grams of dry magic mushrooms usually tastes pretty gnarly so chew them up with a nice premium chocolate bar.

Be careful here. Make no mistake about it, magic mushrooms and LSD can definitely be a humbling, pants-shitting experience that one can’t merely nope out of. So exercise caution and don’t feel pressured to do too much at once.

If you really want it, buy 50x Salvia from a head shop. Fill a bong with the powder, use a torch lighter (the crystals release from the extract at a high temperature, regular lighter won’t be enough) inhale and hold the smoke in for 15 to 30 seconds. Exhale, take another hit. Inhale, hold, and be sure to send the funhouse gnomes my warmest regards.

I'm very suspicious of the advocating of any sorts of drugs, hallucinogens included. Each to their own, but for myself, these are surely not something to be taking like a coffee or tea. And even then I don't think coffee, tea or processed sugar is something we should take regularly either! But I'm a bit hardcore.

Pretty much the only circumstance that I think it is ok to take hallucinogens is when you believe you have adopted a negative approach in viewing reality, when you've gone down a cul de sac of sorts. If this is a day in day out experience perhaps a 'pattern interupt' is a good thing.

Hallucinogens can be a way appraise the world and enjoy its many manifest glories - daily I look at trees or clouds and am in admiration of the wonder of nature in this experience. So, in the right circumstances, if LSD et al help you break out and get closer to one's more natural, feral state, then great :)

>take hallucinogens is when you believe you have adopted a negative approach in viewing reality, when you've gone down a cul de sac of sorts. If this is a day in day out experience perhaps a 'pattern interupt' is a good thing.

I don't really agree with the rest of your post, but this i do think is probably the best usage of hallucinogens as far as therapy goes. I don't really think microdosing is the way to go about it. In my experience, that 'big reset' to harmful thoughts and patterns of actions is the primary benefit to theraputic hallucinogen use.

I liken it to when you've got like 50 apps open on a desktop, a few with memory leaks, CPU's running hard all cores, memory usage is at 100%, swap's totally used.

So you reset, everything shuts down and restarts, all that's running are the system init processes and memory's cleared and ready to go.

I don't really feel like microdosing is the best way to go about this and i'm not even sure if LSD is a very good drug for that. I've never really had any introspective experiences with LSD. They've just been kind of shallow and fun. Psilocybin on the hand gave me far more of a theraputic trip with one high dose. I tried the microdosing thing. It just made feel like I was stoned all the time.

I've never heard of anyone describe an acid trip as "shallow" before. For most people it is the most profound experience of their lives.

Acid was fun, don't get me wrong. But it felt shallow. I don't know how else to describe it. With mushrooms and other natural hallucinogens, i've felt more of a connection with things and had more of an introspective time. Especially at high doses.

With acid, it was always just fun. There wasn't really much introspection about it. It just made everything feel profound and fun. Whereas, especially mushrooms, but also a few other plant based substances, the trips always led to more self reflection and more positive changes post trip.

I like acid more. I wish i could get some acid as nice as i had years back now, but when i want to deal with real life issues or emotional problems, mushrooms are where i turn to. Acid is more for those times when i just wanna take a vacation for a few hours and go on a magical journey.

> when you believe you have adopted a negative approach in viewing reality, when you've gone down a cul de sac of sorts.

Anxiety and depression affects up to 20% of the population every year, and if I had to guess, I might speculate that number is higher for developers. (Many of us turn to computers to avoid people, which means less social support.)

Pattern interrupt is generally a good thing for everyone. Patterns typically are not intentional; not borne from mindful action. The idea with microdosing is you get 'awake'/mindful without getting too blissful and distracted by all the other mind-manifesting phenomena you get when the dose is higher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcYeQxSFa8Y Terry Bush is asking: 'do you know what you're doing? - you should know just what you do, watch out, you might be dying!'

I had friends doing microdosing and your post is 100% align with what I have seen. They also experienced periods of paranoia, after people weren't that impressed with their results.

Can you provide any greater detail about the behaviors you observed?

yes, and ... there are perceptual modes, cognitive modes and yes, learning, that goes on that is not in line with quick replies, sharp puzzle solving and responding to external cues in predictable ways - i.e. the signals that our species use to "check" on other participants. How do you know what new insights or creative solutions were brewing in those 'confused' moments? Your "simple tasks" imply a repetitive, mechanical style of problem solving. Yes, OK, but is that the only way to be ?

Your cautious use of authority in the situation is warrented, to your credit. But even if every thing mentioned is actually the case, from a creative or learning point of view, I am not convinced this is the mild disaster you paint it to be. There are other factors in intelligence and brain activity, and some of those are the fertile soil of emergent invention or personality and character change. Some tasks are not well suited for creative people, maybe you need less creative people to struggle less in meetings?

It's an extraordinary claim, and it requires extraordinary evidence.

"I'm actually way smarter, just only in the ways you can't measure" isn't falsifiable, and contributes to the reputation that psychedelic-advocates indulge in pseudoscience and word games rather than useful research.

Unfortunately, 'useful research' has been all but outlawed for nearly half as long as anyone on this site has been alive. All because we have an arbitrary legal distinction that's a hangover from the Nixon era.

Oh yeah, I totally agree there. Personally I think this stuff should all be legal for recreational use anyway.

Interesting. It also stands to reason that small amounts of LSD are more like a miniature LSD high (small things seem amazing, mild confusion, uplifted mood) than some sort of magical creativity drug.

> The most concerning part of their experiment was how it distorted their own perceptions and judgment. They’d feel like they had arrived at great epiphanies or accomplished something impressive after solving trivial or obvious problems. They were convinced that their LSD days were full of breakthroughs and leaps forward, when in reality the drug was just making even small tasks feel like great victories. We politely hinted that they should stop when they struggled to keep up in meetings and conversations.

This sounds like extremely distorted cognitive behavior, when microdosing is "supposed to be" done at sub-perceptual levels (suggesting they weren't actually microdosing). Can you give some specific examples of the "great epiphanies", "making even small tasks feel like great victories", "they struggled to keep up in meetings and conversations" that you observed?

I love that you "politely hinted" that they should stop doing freaking LSD at work

Seriously. I'm dumbfounded that we had to regress all the way to this point in order to discover why the social norm existed in the first place.

From the outside, the West Coast (I'm assuming... with great confidence) seems like a delusional bubble at (many) times.

> Seriously. I'm dumbfounded that we had to regress all the way to this point in order to discover why the social norm existed in the first place.

Is that a bad thing? It's good to question social norms...as long as you're open to coming around to the idea that they might be well founded.

Yes it definitely is ... to a point.

Sure, we shouldn't "give murder a try" to see if our biases against it are unfounded. But LSD seems like fair game.

The social norm in question is "LSD at work", not "LSD in general".

It's hardly a social norm. LSD was discovered in our lifetimes, and hasn't yet reached its peak popularity, I don't think, due to legal status quashing its growth. Its omission from the workplace is hardly a well-established norm because its presence—basically, anywhere—is hardly a well-established norm.

The workplace, meanwhile, is far, far from finished in development. I expect it'll be unrecognizable by the end of the century, and who knows what molecules might join caffeine?

>For another perspective, Gwern has some self trials with LSD that also showed some worrisome negative trends: https://www.gwern.net/LSD-microdosing

As usual with gwern always an interesting article. I admit that I only skimmed but his experience seems to me very atypical. He talks very little about his experience with the 250μg dose, almost dismissing it. 250μg is a very strong dose for a first timer. I would be very surprised to get a meh reaction from anyone after such a first experience. He then took only a week for a tolerance break when the recommended amount is 2 weeks. Then for the experiment he ingested 25μg. I took that amount a couple of times (my first experiences) and while it's not the classic LSD experience you are in no way unsure if you are drugged or not.

I think he just got bad tabs...

> I admit that I only skimmed but his experience seems to me very atypical. He talks very little about his experience with the 250μg dose, almost dismissing it.

He doesn't dismiss it. He writes:

> During the walk, I notice my body seems to be feeling ‘mechanical’ and my movements weaker, with my skin feeling like a flesh glove (if that metaphor makes sense), although at the same time, the bright sunlight and cool wind feel exceptionally vivid to my senses; I was reminded of when I went skydiving and on the way down, the world seemed to ‘pop’.

> One persistent problem was my jaw or neck muscles seemed to be rigid or clenching and I had to keep relaxing them or they would create a sort of want-to-vomit feeling, which was pretty strange when I focused on it. But I still wasn’t impressed by the experience.

> I happened to spend a little time cloud-watching, and I realized that the clouds were strobing like stop-animation as I focused on individual patches; in particular, I realized that I could force a visual flip (like the young/old woman optical illusion or the rabbit-duck illusion) from seeing a sky of blue with thin clouds to a roiling stormscape where the blue was the black, and the white clouds were just the illuminated underside. Quite interesting, and an unexpected figure-ground inversion. I also could temporarily force pareidolia by visualizing and willing the clouds to form claw or grasping hands or vaguely human-like shapes.

> Back home, I spent the next 2-3 hours listening to music by Explosions in the Sky tracks, which while planning I had thought would sound better on LSD. I was right - the experience was amazing. Lying in bed with my eyes blindfolded and just listening carefully, I have never followed the music so well, or been so moved emotionally or physically by it. My misanthropic soul was moved twice to tears.

There's no way he'd have those experiences with "bad tabs". I think you're mistaking his prose style here, which is attempting objectivity, with "dismissiveness".

None of that sounds like microdosing to me.

Correct, it's from 250μg

I didn't mean to say that they were a total dud but that the tabs were severely underdosed. His experience sounds like a 50μg trip at most, not 250.

I always had a similar concern about people experimenting with alternative sleep cycles, self reporting their moods and never taking any sorts of cognition tests during the process.

Are you feeling better, or are you feeling euphoria from being punch-drunk tired all the time?

Interesting. That explains why the results are so positive. These are "Motivation Myth" style wins which have a good effect on mood. Not a bad tool when you're in a rut.

> The most concerning part of their experiment was how it distorted their own perceptions and judgment.

Isn't that just the thing about LSD it allows you to view things from a perspective that makes them look beautiful. It makes ordinary things look great.

It's not what you should take if you are truly trying to accomplish something, other than be able to change your point of view.

Problem with your co-workers may have been that they didn't assume they were on drugs, that of course it will affect your productivity when everything starts looking good enough already. That's what drugs are like, if you take drugs, be aware you will be under their influence.

LSD is not a "performance enhancing drug" like perhaps could be said about amphetamines. The effect of those is truly detrimental to your health. But they make you more productive. A fighter-pilot on amphetamine might shoot down 3 enemy planes and then get shot down themselves. Productive but not so healthy.

Well you’d be lucky if you were able to define your goals as such that psychedelics or meditation were attributed as productive, instead of in many ways the polar opposite of amphetamines, I think.

I microdosed LSD every now and then for a while before I had been diagnosed with ADHD and my experience with microdosing and adderall are very similar. I feel more alert and my moods are improved. I'm sure LSD was also doing similar work to the adderall, but my ability to do work and focus with clarity is basically the same.

Similar experience here. Although, the adderall always comes with this hard edge, which is enjoyably absent with microdosing. I know quite a few people who have stopped taking adderall because of the mood swings and increase in irritability / aggression, that would have benefited from having this as an alternative.

I don't know if its how I'm wired or a symptom of ADHD but I don't get much relief from completing tasks or projects. That reward trigger most people get doesn't seem to fire with me, to me I just finished something and now I'm either waiting for the next thing to do or moving on to another thing.

That's a major reason I have so much trouble motivating myself to get anything done. Even after I finish something, it has no effect on my mood.

If I'm having trouble with something and suddenly circumstances change where I don't have to do it anymore, it actually is a big relief to me and thats the only time I feel an elevated mood after crossing something off a list.

It would be interesting to see if microdosing LSD somehow changes that or not.

I did not read it. Did they know that they were going to take psychedelics? That may explain the anxiety. The confusion alone may have induced the anxiety. I am not sure, I did not have that[1], but confusion could be low to severe. Low would be equal to a head scratch, nothing much to make out of it, where severe would be delirium. I highly doubt LSD causes delirium. For one, it is not a deliriant, nor it is an anticholinergic agent. Was the anxiety and the confusion present prior to consumption?

[1] I can imagine someone being confused on psychedelics though, especially if it is their first time, but I doubt it would be much of an issue, and could possibly be reduced by reading more about the effects to know what they should expect and so forth prior to consumption.

The reason trivial tasks appears challenging is because on LSD you are trying to solve those tasks with different neural connections than usual. That can be incredibly confusing if you don’t introspect about it. Some tasks are difficult or pointless to try to master all new again, but if you find the right task to focus on you there’s a chance you’ll love these strange new connections being drawn. But it is not easy and not for everyone. Most notably for me personally is that it can let you forget habits, those habits that you are not even aware of

Incidentally I have found that I am more productive when I have a hangover because all the boring shit I have to do becomes more challenging and thus more interesting.

I don't drink very much these days.

It might be due to a reduction in anxiety. When you're hungover you feel too "beat up" to worry, procrastinate and second guess yourself.

I've found I get the same benefit from distance running. I can have anxiety-provoking conversations more easily if I've run 10 miles because I'm too tired to get upset.

In fact, as someone with anxiety and ADHD I've finally realized in my thirties that I basically need to exercise (almost) every day to get more usable hours out of my day.

It likely is.

I need to start doing more running. I do have ADD but the medications fuck with my heart, which means my life is difficult all the time. Sigh. The meds work so well... it really sucks being unable to use them (including the atypical ones)

I used to go for a run at lunch. Then my co-worker started complaining about how I was leaving my desk to get exercise. I'm still with that company but I hope for not much longer.

i'm so fucking depressed the last few days. i've applied for a lot of different jobs. I have a 'final' interview today with a job that I don't really want, but it's an avenue out of the toxic situation that I'm finding myself in and if I take it, I'll be able to do a couple weeks of vacation time between jobs that I badly need.

I've got so much going wrong right now I'm just feeling beat the fuck up.

Remember, it's not all or nothing. Long walks help too. Or temporary short walks.

Or if you're not a distance runner yet, it's okay to jog slow and take frequent walk breaks. In a lot of ways, volume is way more important than intensity.

My healthcare plan gave me a watch that reminds me to walk 500 steps every hour or so, and a daily goal of walking 10000 steps. That small nudge has made me way more consistent, because I'm a cheap asshole who likes the idea of saving $3 on my healthcare plan every day.

There was a study that says you make better car buying decisions if you do a crossword puzzle instead of sit there and think about buying a car. Same thing goes for technical tasks. I'm more productive if I walk around frequently, forget about my problems and come back to them with a clear head.

How often have you saved a day's worth of hard work by just doing something a slightly smarter way?

Walks give your subconscious brain time to chew through problems and solve them while you're not actively thinking about them.

I hope you get that new job. Having a non-toxic environment is more important than almost every other factor and I strongly recommend everyone leave their toxic jobs if at all possible.

I fully agree with you. When it comes to technical problems, I find the conscious mind is useful for absorbing the facts of the matter, but the subconscious seems to do most of the heavy lifting. It does the heavy lifting better when it's given space to work.

& thank you. It's far from a dream job but it will buy some time.

Good luck. It might be a good move. As long as you keep learning and moving forward, you're going to get where you need to go - even if it means a temporary income reduction or loss of prestige. Those things don't matter but your mental health does!

Hope you find a better job with better co-workers. Exercise during work, within reason, should be encouraged imo since it leads to healthier employees as well as breakthroughs in problem solving usually comes to me when exercising or in the shower.

Why do you care what your co-worker says?

There are plenty of medications to deal with all of the issues that "micro dosers" claim are solved through taking acid. I think it takes a certain amount of arrogance mixed with naivety for a person suffering from mental health issues to intentionally consume a mind altering street drug in the hope it will solve their problems.

If you are a mentally healthy person and want to take a trip to possibly open your mind up to new ideas and empathetic feelings, have at it.

Also the whole idea of micro dosing is a misnomer as the way acid works is by setting off a chain reaction along neural networks very simmilar to how the black widow spider's venom works. It is possible to suffer from or enjoy a chronic condition from micro dosing LSD simmilar to how second hand smoke or air pollution affects you but that is a real stretch.

I would like to know. Are there are any "micro dosers" out there that have NOT also at some point taken an larger dose at some time? I bet they don't exist.

It’s very possible that their silly enthusiasm for trivial breakthroughs was due to placebo effect, not LSD

>Vaguely better moods associated with increased confusion.

Better mood: "I feel better because I've overcome the fear of LSD!" (also...adrenaline)

Ensuing confusion as the adrenaline subsides: "Why was there a fear in the first place? Am I doing it wrong? I don't feel like this was as scary as it was supposed to be. Did I take actual LSD? Maybe it was just a placebo that some jerk sold me! Maybe I didn't take enough? I have been working out lately and I ate an apple the other day. I should take a tiny bit more to find out. Wait, why am I so worried about all of this? I'm typically so chill. Was I drugged??"

Meanwhile, the rest of the team is staring at you waiting for your opinion on the new landing page, starting to look a little confused/worried - perpetuating your inner fears as you are now surrounded by confused, concerned people.

Don't do drugs kids. Why? Not because the drugs themselves are that bad (some are), but because there is so much social stigma around them that it is really hard to take a drug without psyching yourself out.

Or do drugs and enjoy the chaotic ride directly into homelessness as you find ways to rationalize it as "reduced rent living, a back-to-the-earth lifestyle, and non-materialism" to your friends - if you still have any.

Option 3: Continue reading articles on the internet that random internet strangers wrote explaining their experiences with drugs and ponder whether or not you should try them yourself

Edit: Y'all saying my post is just FUD. I think you have seriously misunderstood my tone and intent. The point is this article and ensuing discussion is about other people's experiences doing a thing that is "scary". Literally the entire topic and approach is built because people already have a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt on the subject.

My point isn't even about LSD directly, but about engaging in activities that have a very strong social stigma attached to them. If you think X is scary, then you have already built up years of conditioning to believe that X thing is a no-no - that FUD is intrinsic, and not my doing. The above train of thought is common for someone who start tip-toeing into drugs for the first time. They are usually completely fine physically. Great even. But frequently this leads to a little soul-searching and rethinking things in their lives. Which is a huge reason to do drugs for many people.

Source: Have used a variety of drugs and know many people who have as well.

TL;DR: You will most likely be fine, but shaken up by your own mind as you break past a mental barrier that you didn't know existed or why it exists in the first place. And the process of breaking past that barrier can disrupt your familiar routines and comforts, including: your job, home situation, and social life. None of this is inherently a "bad" thing. It is your life. Maybe losing that comfy SV paycheck is just what you need to grow personally, but how do I, or any else know what you need in your life? We don't. The three options I lay out are essentially me saying...":shrug_emoji: some people do well with drugs, other don't. Do what you want"

If you think LSD will cause you to lose your comfy SV paycheck think again. The safety net doesn’t go anywhere if you have built rapport and have experience even if your cadence drops. It could be that you are no fun to be around and so you cannot build rapport with people, but I doubt that too. No one goes homeless from micro-dosing. That is FUD.

Edit: typos from mobile

Option 4: Do drugs moderately and responsibly, and enjoy life without any negative effects commonly associated with doing drugs.

As someone who naively tried that approach multiple times (with more than a layman's knowledge of what 'responsible' actually means), but ended each with eventually disastrous consequences, I don't recommend doing drugs in any form or fashion.

That's what I mean by responsibly. Like alcohol, some people can enjoy it responsibly, and some can't. It's all about knowing your limits, and operating within them to do what's best for you. Of course, you can't know your limits if you don't at least try to find out what they are.

Well, maybe you shouldn't do drugs. It doesn't follow that no one should; not everyone is you.

The problem with your statement is that you won't know if you should or shouldn't be the type of person to do it, until after the damage has been done.

I think your post is kinda FUD, you can experiment with drugs, dosing, microdosing, assess how you feel about it, and decide if it's working for you. If you're experienced with LSD and know how it affects you then you don't necessarily get paranoia - if anything LSD makes me less paranoid as it gives me a sense of not worrying about the insignificant things (embarrassment, failure, mortality).

Obviously don't bosh 300μg for the first time ever and head into the office at rush hour.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com