Now just as a disclaimer, and so Andrew doesn’t get the wrong idea, I have never experimented with LSD nor do I plan to. Although, plenty of people have and some believe to have discovered a way to take it in which it improves their overall way of life.
LSD or “acid”, referred to by the scientific world as lysergic acid diethylamide is a hallucinogen created from a fungus called ergot. The ergot is crystallized with along with other ingredients and is then diluted into a liquid. This liquid is then dropped or fused into edible items such as small blotter papers called tabs, gelatinous squares, sugar cubes, gummy candy etc. LSD can have a multitude of effects on the users mind, including visual and audio hallucinations and delusions. Users experience varying mood swings and have a lack of an ability to identify their own senses. Depth perception is thrown off and some senses blend to gather such as sight and sound. Many of these, “trips” are very euphoric and others are filled with terrible hallucinations, extreme fear and anxiety which are referred to as a, “bad trips”.
Most people take LSD for recreational use, to find inner peace, or try and discover more about themselves. Although a small minority of LSD users take it not to trip, but rather to enhance the workings of their daily lives. This is called micro-dosing. LSD stimulates the pre-frontal cortex which includes mood and cognition. So by reducing the dosage and eliminating the hallucinogenic side effects, some believe that, that specific area of the brain is stimulated, yet to a point where people can still live their daily lives.
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Dr. James Fadiman, Ph.D is considered to be the godfather of micro-dosing as he was the first one to truly invest time and money into researching whether or not micro-dosing had any beneficial effects. Dr. Fadiman is currently still conducting an experiment in which he himself and other volunteers take 10-20 micrograms of acid every third day and then record their feelings, productivity, creativity, and sleep habits. Fadiman began the study in 2010 and claims to have improved his life through his micro-dosing cycle. Back in 1966, Dr. Fadiman and a team of other scientists did an experiment on the effects of psychedelics on problem solving, but it was stopped abruptly after the FDA deemed the experiment unsafe as Fadiman and his team were using human subjects band were giving them doses of up to 50 micrograms. Overall though the experiment had the same idea as the micro-dosing experiment, which was to discover if psychedelics enhanced peoples cognitive abilities.
Dr. Fadiman is currently still conducting his experiment on micro-dosing so there has been no published empirical evidence, but Dr. Fadiman has given his two cents and claims that he and his volunteers have experienced a spike in their creativity, productivity, and overall mood improvements. You can view his micro-dose regiment and comments in this VICE piece.
Skeptics of this experiment bring up the idea of the placebo effect, which is extremely plausible. People who are taking extremely small doses of a drug that is known to have very intense effects, are bound to in the back of their mind perceive improvements that aren’t actually happening. Especially when the usual side effects are not supposed to be present, it is only human like to perceive that somehow the body is being affected. It is very likely that in some peoples cases they simply just believe their lives are better, when in reality the small dose has done nothing but change their perception on their lives. But that in itself could be a reason people feel that micro-dosing improves their lives.
Personally, one of my friends from high school has a brother who micros-doses LSD based upon Dr. Fadiman’s schedule and he is currently a junior at Harvard studying criminology. Not to say he wasn’t intelligent to begin with but it does make us non-ivy leaguers think a little about what micro-dosing can really do.