How LSD microdosing made a mega difference in one woman's mood, marriage, and life

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/26/how-lsd-microdosing-made-a-meg.html

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I better start doing this for the next 2 years.

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So publishing that you’ve been using an illegal substance doesn’t get you investigated or arrested?

I agree 100% that LSD shouldn’t be schedule 1; I’m just curious about why an attorney would publish an account of herself breaking the law.

Aren’t laws typically against using (possessing, selling, etc) drugs, not typically against having used drugs in the past?

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So where does one find a supply of such substances? For academic purposes, of course. Asking for a friend.

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this doesn’t sound unlike an acid trip.

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Since Jerry and the Dead stopped touring, it’s completely disappeared around here.

If you’re seriously interested, checking out this subreddit might get you on the path to discovery.

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I think it’s considered anecdotal, and not acceptable as a “confession” by law. IANAL.

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Try somewhere playing psytrance.

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Yeah, she’d have to get caught attempting to buy LSD or possessing it. Publicly talking about it does not incriminate someone, especially in her case since she did not plan on continuing… or at least has publicly said she isn’t.

Anyway reading this interview does give me hope. I’ve commented several times in similar posts here in BB about microdosing. I don’t have severe depression, but i do regularly struggle with it and more so with anxiety. I’ve considered medication but the side effects sort of terrify me and i low key would like to microdose to see how much it helps. I also have a friend that suffers extreme anxiety and depression and is unable to work or be in public often, medication never helps as much as it should… i think research into this would help her immensely.

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because it beats suicide?

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I’m fairly sure a constant supply of LSD is one of those things that does more long-term physical damage to your brain than ‘binging’ on it.

Effective dose amount takes a while to cycle back around again… the professionals all seem to think 2-3 months between harrowing trips is the best approach. That shit lives with you for a while and is very much perceptually front and centre. It seems to me that the major difference between introspective, big trips and microdosing is the actual dealing with your perceptions of the contents of your mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for enabling your subconscious to more effectively deal with neuroses but IME you abso-fucking-lutely HAVE to deal with them on a conscious level at some point.

Which, I guess, is just way too much bullshit for people to deal with but if I know LSD hangovers, and I do know them, building up a backlog of neural debt, no matter how small each individual dose is, sounds like a recipe for reinforcing long-term issues.

Microdosing does not cause a trip, and is not done every day. However i’m not naive enough to think it has no ill effects, but it does seem less harmful than even current medication. My hope though is that with proper research it may lead to safer compounds based off LSD or something similar to it.

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That’s the premise my comment is based on.

Actually dealing with it, consciously, at some point, is what I’m saying is very important. Especially if that work is done against a background of sub-conscious alteration.

Are the LSD hangovers you refer to from night trips? I never heard of hangovers from day trips, except disrupting the circadian rhythm for a day. What I’ve heard people call LSD hangovers sounded like lack of sleep to me.

Do you know any studies indicating damage from long term use (or any use of LSD, barring other contributing factors like a tendency toward schizophrenia)?

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Yes, because we have such a thing as freedom of speech. This doesn’t count as a confession, and the statute of limitations also may have run out.

I don’t think I’ve ever tripped for anything less than 48 hours so there’s a large component of exhaustion, both physical and mental, in my recovery period. But What I’m referring to as the hangover is the re-cycling your body goes through before you can trip to full efficiency again.

You can take a bit o’ hair of the dog, but it’s just putting you further in the hole.


Man, the studies I reviewed were over a decade ago. I can’t even remember the specific names of the regions of the brain that produce neuro-chemicals under the influence of LSD, which then go on to continue to produce those chemicals long after use, promoting events like freebies or flashbacks or whatever you want to call them. If I remember properly, the more LSD you take, the more sites in your brain which produce the chemistry underlying hallucinations you will have, effectively, for as long as that tissue exists. I’d have to do some real research to dig this hearsay up though.

I should add, this only constitutes damage if you believe creating little trip-factories in your brain is a bad thing.

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Holy shit. I thought 13 hours was a long trip.

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Freedom of speech does not free you from the consequences of confessing to a crime. Try stealing something, then writing the paper about it if you’d like to test that.

It is not confessing anything, because it’s not a valid confession, and because the statute of limitation may have already passed. I’m not even sure what the statute of limitation is on having used drugs or having possessed drugs. If using drugs is a meaningless crime, having used drugs a year or more ago is an even more meaningless crime.

Memoirists talk about past drug use all the time. The last President of the US did as well. None of them get locked up for writing memoirs.

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