The Beginner’s Guide to Microdosing LSD

Microdosing is far from becoming mainstream yet, but the practice seems to be shifting from the under belly of Silicon Valley biohackers who made it popular to a wider circle of wellness and productivity enthusiasts. In other words, the trend is growing, with more people joining the microdosing community every day.

What’s more,is that devotees who take these crumb-sized amounts of psychedelics tout its benefits, saying that it makes them anything from more creative to more self-aware, to best of all…happier.  Sounds great, but where do I sign up or find out more,you maybe wondering.

Well, if you’re interested in starting, but don’t have a clue as to how to go about it, this article is for you. In this beginner’s guide to microdosing, we will share some considerations for choosing a substance, dosing, acquiring it, timing…to more pressing concerns.

Starting with the basics, here’s everything you’ve ever wanted to know about raising the happiness and self-help bar when it comes to taking minuscule amounts of psychedelics.

Legal Status

Before you begin your microdosing journey, part of the beginning is learning what you’re getting into legally. The following links provide information about these substances’ legal status and their derivatives by country and region.The sources are up to date at the time of publication and are always subject to change. 

• Legal status of psilocybin mushrooms
• Legal status of LSD

Disclaimer: This guide is only for harm reduction purposes and educational and entertainment value. The author and publisher also acknowledge that this article is not promoting psychedelic use where the use of this guide. Know more about Microdosing

What is Microdosing?

Microdosing is defined as consuming tiny amounts of psychoactive substances, and many hallucinogens can be used this way. People who microdose use a wide range of hallucinogens, although LSD and psilocybin are the most commonly discussed in online forums. The goal is to achieve positive results of the substance without the extreme, trippy side effects associated with a recreational dose. In the end, the amount you take stops short of crossing the threshold that gets you high and instead gives you better equilibrium and targeted benefits.

Proper Dosing

To learn the most about proper dosing is beyond the scope of just one article. For this reason, psychedelic substances are sometimes known as research chemicals. In short, the microdosing community suggests that you do your research and due diligence. The best way to start learning more about it, according to psychonauts, is by reading “The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide” by psychologist and microdosing research pioneer James Fadiman. Also, “A Really Good Day” by psychonaut Ayelet Waldman is an excellent and informative read about the benefits of microdosing.

“A Really Good Day” chronicles Waldman’s month-long LSD self-study that made James Fadiman’s protocols famous. After that, the microdosing community strongly suggests getting a very accurate scale or balance and using the table below to reference baseline hallucinogen dosages. Make no mistake; the need for a high- quality balance and capabilities for reading it is very real. As you can see from the table, LSD is an extremely potent hallucinogen, meaning a tiny amount in one direction or the other will result in a huge difference!

Source: Psychedelic Support; *μg = mcg = microgram or microgramme.

Other sources for Dosing

Meanwhile, don’t forget influencers and other like-minded people know the ropes regarding microdosing; psychonauts of the past and present are good sources for information. Just the Reddit microdosing community alone has 122K members that you can bounce ideas off of.

As an example, one Redditor pointed out on r/futurology, a psychedelic Reddit community that has 14.8m members, it’s “very difficult to measure a proper 5ug,” hence the need for a high-quality and accurate scale or balance. Podcasters such as Joe Rogan and Tim Ferriss are also some of the psychonauts that impart wisdom about microdosing and other ways of biohacking your life that probably has never even occurred to you.

ProcurementMethods

Janet Chang is a former Olympic speed skater, and now she blogs about the benefits of microdosing in the category of Better Humans on Medium. She would be one of the last people you think would write about the benefits of psychedelics and how to get them, yet she does.

Her psychonaut journey started after she received a spinal injury. She’s now a trauma survivor who advocates consuming tiny quantities of hallucinogens to help your career, relationships, and happiness. Chang, who has used psychedelics such as LSD, magic mushrooms and ayahuasca, explains in her latest article that there are three ways people procure psychedelics, and that’s through “order of ease, reliability and safety.”

Use a trusted local source

Buying from someone you know and trust is the most common way to source psychedelics, and they are readily accessible in big cities. However, it may take a few attempts to locate someone reliable that you can count on. Unfortunately, this option is not as viable, or may altogether not exist, in smaller areas or countries with strict drug legislation on the books. Look for someone that has access to a source at concerts, festivals and house parties.

Use the Dark Net

The dark net, or dark web as it is sometimes called, is a shady part of the Internet that search engines don’t index. Accessing it also requires the use of an anonymizing browser known as Tor, which, once downloaded, opens a whole can of worms by itself. You’ve no doubt heard talk of the dark net on Dateline’s TCAP and other places as being a hotbed of criminal activity – which it is. It is also an outlet to buy substances to microdose, and Janet Chang has the following to say about procuring drugs from the Dark Net,

“Only procure from the dark net if you’re highly tech-savvy and know what you’re doing. Install Tor web browser. For secure browsing, set up a VPN, and always use a private network. Find a reputable marketplace on DeepDotWeb, such as TradeRoute or DreamMarket (active at the time of this writing). Find your substance of choice and make a purchase using bitcoin. Avoid using your home address for deliveries. Encrypt your contact information using PGP when sending to the seller. Note that this is the riskiest option for several reasons — your IP address can be tracked and people *do* get caught.”

DIY Kits

If trying to score psychedelics from the seedy side of the Internet or at a house party alarms you, then you can always purchase a ‘DIY’ kit and do it yourself. The best option for doing it is through magic mushroom grow kits. These mushroom grow kits come with spores that are available legally in several countries, but sometimes they can be unreliable. It takes several attempts with perfect growing conditions to yield a successful harvest of magic mushrooms, but once you learn the ropes, psychonauts say it’s worth it.

When shopping for DIY grow kits, look for vendors that have been around for a while that also have solid reviews across the board. Reputable companies want their customers to do well, so they’ll offer detailed instructions to go with their kits, along with knowledgeable and helpful customer support.

One company in Canada offers ready-made kits containing the acid analog, 1P-LSD you can order. The psychedelics community also provides DIY guides for cooking up your own acid, like LSD and magic mushroom discoverer Albert Hoffman did. However, cultivating or preparing a psychedelic that is illegal in your country can leave you wide open to drug possession charges. In light of that, you may want to leave it to the professionals.

Choosing a Substance

Although there are some patterns in the way acid and magic mushrooms affect people at recreational doses, it’s hard to tell how those effects will be experienced by each individual. Your substance of choice will depend on two things: Your goals and your unique response to your psychedelic of choice.

• Your Goals – Do you want to achieve more focus, creativeness or become more emotionally attuned or logically oriented? In fact, there are a bevy of different benefits that are associated with microdosing psychedelics. Furthermore, the goals you want to achieve will be different with each different substance, and selecting one focus over the other is not better or worse for you. They will, on the other hand, dictate your hallucinogen of choice.

• Your Unique Response – Your dentist may have prescribed an opioid medication such as Percocet short-term for relief of dental pain. For some, the nausea and vomiting that comes as a side effect with Percocet are so bad that it’s better to live with the pain than to take it for toothache relief. Some people may not feel the effects of Percocet much at all. Hallucinogenic drugs, for the most part, can act on you in the same unpredictable way that pharmaceutical drugs do.

Likewise, you’ll get very different benefits with different psychedelics. For example, when Janet Chang microdosed with psilocybin, she said that she noticed “more creativity, empathy, and openness, and less focus, logic, and analytical thinking.” When she microdosed with LSD, she noticed the exact opposite, saying she had “more focus and logical thinking, less empathy and openness.”

How Often Should You Do It?

The consensus among psychonauts is that you microdose twice a week and preferably outside work hours until you know what you are doing. Also, “one day on, two days off, for one month and afterwards, people dose as they wish” is a recommended regimen Dr. Fadiman lists in “The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide.”

The experts say professionals should supervise you if you are taking small doses of hallucinogens as therapy. They also say to take periodic breaks so you don’t build up a tolerance and diminish the drug’s effectiveness. It is also a good idea to read the Double Blind article, “Why I Quit Microdosing LSD” by Erica Avey to figure out when it’s high time to quit microdosing and fix the things troubling you in life instead.

What Forms Do They Come In?

Microdoses come in raw or liquid form (extracts), depending on which drug it is. For instance, psilocybin can come in raw form, capsule or extract, and LSD can come in liquid or tab form. Also, some psychedelics are found in nature. Here are a few, but keep in mind that morning glory and Hawaiian Baby Woodrose plant contain a strong psychoactive substance (ergine), and people have gotten very sick trying to determine the right dosage to take.

• Mimosa Hostilisis: This plant is found in the jungles of South America, and its bark and roots are endowed with varying levels of DMT.

• Morning Glory: The primary psychoactive substance in the flowering morning glory plant is ergine, also known as LSA. The substance is very similar to LSD, but the side effects are more severe.

• Hawaiian Baby Woodrose Plant: This ornamental plant, also known as elephant creeper, is related to morning glory. Like morning glory, its more famous function is as a hallucinogen. It also contains ergine, the ‘not quite like LSD’ substance.

• Magic Mushrooms: Magic mushrooms contain the neurotropic psilocybin. There are several different species of them, and one of the most prevalent one is Psilocybe semilanceata, also known as liberty caps. Liberty caps can be found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but they are the only mushrooms growing in the Netherlands which contain psilocybin.

The Takeaways

Microdosing is becoming an increasingly popular practice. Proponents claim a wide variety of psychological and social benefits that are considered to be anecdotal evidence or speculative by the medical and scientific community. These psychonauts often take to online forums to discuss how taking tiny doses psychedelics provide benefits to them, including increases in creativity, energy, cognitive functions, social ability, positive mood & mindfulness and more.

On the flip side, with limited research, come questions that surround safety, especially when it comes to long-term use. These are important factors for beginning and seasoned psychonauts alike to consider. The good news is that clinical studies suggest that established psychedelics we know a lot about such as psilocybin and LSD have few serious adverse events and low toxicity, even when taken in recreational-sized dosages.

If you do decide to begin microdosing, the amount and how often you take it will determine your unique response. Also, your mileage will differ so stick with what works for you. In brief, your choice of psychoactive substance is highly personal, and their effects can vary widely from person to person.

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