I was reading Pinchbeck's "Breaking Open the Head," in which the idea of our brain being analogous to a radio was revisited. In it, he mentions the possibility of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the receptor sites behaving like a channel to our "consensus reality;" whereas serotonin mimicking molecules (LSD, Mescaline, Psilocybin, Ibogaine, DMT, etc) to be channels to alternate/expanded realities. So, following this logic, even if the molecules of these psychs are present in microdose levels in our receptor sites, they should still have some effect upon the brain in aiding the expansion of perceived reality, no matter how subtle. Thus the following questions for you guys out of curiosity:

what substances have you guys experimented microdosing with, and for how long?
What were the effects (short-term, and long-term), and at what dosages?
Which aspect of your life did it influence the most?
Any that you would recommend in particular from personal experience?

Feel free to add any other opinions/experiences you have regarding microdosing that are perhaps not covered under the domain of the above listed questions

Much love, and peace
<3

That's an interesting theory Phantastica. I have no personal experience here, but I'd like to know more about others experiences with microdosing myself. Thanks for the post.

I don't think this qualifies as microdosing, but...

I've been playing around with very low doses of DMT smoked from small (~0.25g carrier, ~10mg DMT) joints made of inert material. With a bit of practice I've been able to maintain a level where CEV consists of 1-3 travelling sine waves drifting in the visual field and OEV are not obvious. In this state there appears to be a visual enhancement of patterns or differences, and watching a movie or TV entertainment show is frustrating/annoying/? because even the good actors are obviously acting (perhaps the "suspension of disbelief" [see: http://www.mediacollege....ension-of-disbelief.html] mechanism which allows one to `get into' a show is impaired or wiped out).

SWIM microdosed for two-and-a-half weeks with 50mgs of full spectrum Peruvian Torch extract. She would have a nice emotional glow lasting for 6-7 hours. It was also accompanied by about an hour worth of slight nausea each time. Over the period, she found herself becoming more emotionally erratic and ungrounded and so stopped the experiment. No noticeable tolerance developed.

She has been microdosing caapi brew or sublingual extracted rue harmalas two weeks a month for about 5 months now. It's definitely helped her meditation practice, and she feels overall healthier and happier. She has never measured doses, with the caapi, it's a small sip of strong brew. With the extracted rue, a matchhead's worth under the tongue.

There's a slight shift that lasts for about an hour, which is always nice.

I microdosed LSD for the last half of my senior year in highschool. 1 blotter tab every other day for about 3 months.

It made me an emotional basketcase. I was weeping or laughing at he most banal things. In particular, reading the news made me weep.

I started to become a hypochondriac. This was good in that it helped me make corrections to my diet and other aspects of my lifestyle that have made me more healthy but it was quite stresfull for a time.

It was really good for my interpersonal relationships. My emotional brittleness made me painfully empathic. I took joy in my chores because it pleased my parents and pleasing my parents filled me with pleasure. (before this time I was always a little sullen and pissy about my chores. I grew up in a rural environment and there was a lot of work for me as a teen.)

On balance that was a good year. I learned how my laziness effects the people around me emotionally. Just going through the normal day-to-day with a slight twist really showed the the meaningfullness of the boring day-to-day tasks. I would have kept it up if it weren't for the hypochondria.

I have been microdosing harmalas every night for like 4 months. Sometimes I take melatonin with them as well. It makes me more sensitive to everything and my dreams are more like otherworldy journies. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in visionay states comparable to taking admixtures with the harmalas.

I took a full dose of bufotenine every night for about a month once a little over a year ago. I had so many nights on end of insane visions and my dreams were really intense then as well..I was taking harmalas with the bufotenine as well. I only experiences minor tolerance really if at all. No really negative side effects. After a month of that I felt satisfied for a long while with bufotenine and went on to play with other things.

Thanks a lot for all of your inputs guys!!
will keep the above mentioned substances in mind and experiment around, and post my experience if any produces significant effects over time.
currently, i'm microdosing with mushrooms, and can def feel it affect my mood, and affect my thought/language processing centers much better. I've also noticed a higher receptivity under a self-hypnosis trance, and more effective meditation sessions. will continue to experiment further with more substances.

Phantastica what amount and what variety are you microdosing with daily?

I would like to know what doses you are taking as well for the mushrooms..

Thanks for asking those questions Mitakuye, and Fractal; helps shedding more light on the topic which i had forgotten to include before.

I've just recently started microdosing with shrooms (cubensis) 4 days ago...been taking ~0.4g dry. i've also been taking Piracetam since ~11 days. Shrooms are def more noticeable with it, even at low doses. However, keep in mind that my tolerance is also very low, and i have tripped pretty hard many times in the past from only ~1.5g of cubensis from different sources (esp with lemon tea).

When i took ~0.4g shrooms today ~1.5-2 hrs after the ingestion of 3g piracetam (with ~3.3g choline bitartrate), i felt a distinct but brief "rush" that usually signals the beginning of a shroom trip (at least for me). i've never felt this "rush" b4 at such low doses without piracetam; so there's def an interaction there. soon after the rush, i also felt the "sleepy" feeling that also accompanies the beginning phases of a shroom trip for me. Visual acuity also seemed improved. I listened to some self-hypnosis to gain a higher degree of control over my mind (i was more receptive to this, and visualization was easier), and fell asleep at the end of the self-hypnosis track. It was hard to open my eyes and wake up from this deep sleep after a couple hrs. Dreams may have been more vivid, but it could also be placebo, so i'm not sure about that aspect.

However, i took microdose shrooms yesterday (~0.4g) in the evening, (~6 hrs after ingestion of 3g piracetam with choline), and felt an improved visual acuity, and higher energy levels. Yesterday, i neither felt sleepy, nor did i experience the initial accompanying "rush" feeling. I felt uplifted, and reading was enjoyable.

So, now i'm considering taking the shroom microdoses during the evenings, or b4 bed at night, so that my piracetam regimen does not interfere with it, and make me sleepy. i will play around more with it, and report back if significant effects are noticed.

its a little tricky to deduce which specific effects are coming from shrooms, and which from piracetam. i need to explore the interaction between the two further; however, from the experiences so far, i feel that microdose shrooms synergise with piracetam quite well, if taken at proper timings.

I had a period when i always trained brazilian jiu jitsu after smoking a few hits of bud, For a good while i think it helped with my flow of movements and while i don´t do it anymorei still think i learned alot from doing it.

Now i´m thinking about taking this a step further by taking about 1/5 of a hit of cid and trying it out.

Anyone tried working ouut on cid?





here´s highlight of a favorite bjj player of mine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsGkB8jS8dA

Not yet, but I also train in BJJ and am planning to roll on a light dose soon(ish)...post-peyote ceremony training was much enhanced

Someone has been microdosing caapi, not sure of exact dosage but has used caapi copy and forestrx.com 4:1 ayahuasca extract dosage in size 0 gel caps, two at night and two in afternoon. Someone has noticed positive changes in personalities, not so quick to get angry or frustrated, clearer perception, has been able to understand themselves more and why they over ate , why they were depressed at specific times, it seems to help smoothen any major life transitions a psyche has to go through whether it is dealing with divorce, cancer, childhood abuse, etc. Someone has also noticed that they can now feel comfortable loving people without feeling like they are weak or powerless...also at times someone has been sort of thrust into another person's experience and been able to become that person for a few seconds enough to have much more understanding and empathy for others. Someone cannot speak enough high praise about the idea of microdosing and getting to know a particular plant,/fungi spirit. Someone thinks that those people who became a little unbalanced on their microdosing of mushrooms needed to have a guide who knew the mushroom and had at least 20 or 30 years experience on them to help them understand what was going on. Someone tend to think that maybe those unpleasant experiences may have been what was needed to gain a clearer perception. Someone has also been microdosing amanita and mary jane as well. Wonderful revelations, have had a kind of kinetic inner dialogue for lack of a better word. This dialogue is not vocal or hearing, it's on a gut level, kinetic. Someone has begun to have this even while sober.

Working out on lsd is AWESOME.
You feel the movement, you have a very fine perception of the rigthness of your moves..
Try it if you can, it's amazing.

I agree with lsd exercise

microdosing psychadelics might not be a good idea atall , from swims perspective

swim tried microdosing on LSD a few years back in 2003 or 2004 sometime , he would have 1/4 of a good quality tab when going to party with the drunkards , feels like coke

swim started taking LSD regularly for a few months everyday when he accuired two vials of ICE mints about at the same time ,sometimes 1 drop , then 2 and then 3 and he reached till 5 and nothing much would happen , this was not good atall , LSD started to become like MJ for swim ,also he started getting pretty nasty headaches , also when regularly dosing there comes a time when 5 tabs of acid does nothing but cause an intense headache and sends you to blackout sleep

also pls know in the year of 2005 swim went for a job interview on 2 tabs of acid , not only that he also got the job , later he realized that he was fine that day only he looked constipated to others , swim has preformed , worked and done everything you can imagine on LSD

when eventually swim stopped taking acid for a month or so after finishing the first vial , he just took a regular 1 drop dose and was blown out of his imagination , eversince then swim promised never to microdose ,
microdosing also prepares swim for less of an experience and when taking it after a break or the right dose swim ends up being unprepared for it

on the other hand when swim does regular doses about at regular intervals like a week or two apart , the experience is what it should be , swim believes its best to smoke MJ rather than microdose on psychadelics

to swim personally , PSYCHADELICS are strong medicines and should be used sparingly about a few times in a month , and in the strong way to get the right experience ,
on microdosing there is not much of an experience , swim wants psychadelic experiences when he does psychadelics , not something that feels like MJ ,

Jin, I'm not surprised that acid did nothing for you after using it for everyday for a while. My tolerance after one tab means that nothing can happen the next day unless I double my dose. My question is why keep doing it if it just made you feel bad? Anyway I don't think it's safe to make the conclusion that microdosing isn't a good idea just based on your experience with LSD.

The only things worth microdosing IMO are harmalas and DMT. Some use iboga but I dont know much about that personally. Maybe very small 5meoDMT doses as well.

DMT and harmalas do not initiate a tolerance in the body like LSD will. DMT and harmalas are not hard on the body like LSD is(in my experience). DMT and harmalas do not spin you out for hours like LSD can. I dont see lots of ayahuasca causualites..actaully I dont really see any.

I would not want to microdose something daily that would cause tolerance or cross tolerance to build up, becasue DMT, ayahuasca and mushrooms are important to me and I would not want to become insensitive to the experience. I have microdosed caapi and very very light doses of mimosa(like 1/5th of a gram if that) nearly every day for probly 6 months. I have only become more sensitive to everything.

I can see some people microdosing mescaline for brief periods..but not something to keep up for any length of time due to tolerance issues and also it taking a toll on the body.

SWIM recently went through a week of mescaline/harmala alkaloids microdosing. He started with 50mg mescaline, and 25mg of rue hcl's dissolved in his morning coffee the 1st time, moving down to 25mg/25mg from there on. Affects were very apparent the first few times, very empathogenic, emotionally warm, and a good stimulation. Over the next few days, the combo seemed to become less "magical" and more just speedy & amphetamineish. Tolerance definitely developed. but oddly the stimulation seemed to grow as desired affects dropped.

Anyway, its not recommended to micro-dose mescaline/harmalas. SWIM might however try them separately micro-dosed in the future.

Well, there are certainly at least 3 philosophies concerning microdosing.

1) Tiny amounts daily or on a regular schedule
2) Small amounts spaced out over longer intervals (i.e. weekly)
3) Light doses alone or in combination with other substances. (not repeated with regularity)

All three have their value. Each method might be more suited to different substances. And any combinations you might make (not just with psychs, but supplements, herbs, nootropics, superfoods, and even yoga) should be noted for accurate comparisons.

It is difficult to understand the exact effects of anything even without accounting for interactions and synergies.

It seems logical that use of any microdosing method will give you insight into the substance that full blown tripping might not. At the very least, it can give you the opportunity to work with these things in other environments and modalities than you might normally be able.

Going to a public spa, for example, could be impossible or at least unwise while full on tripping. However, a cleverly "dialed in" microdose might be AMAZING in terms of your ability to utilize the facilities to a higher and more thorough effect. Saunas, steambaths, mud baths, jacuzzis, massages etc. are all enhanced by even tiny amounts of entheogens. Be careful. Know yourself, your substances and your wellness techniques. We don't need anyone getting dehydrated or overheating.

Any-eay, SWIM can vouche for LSD as an amazing thing to combine martial arts with. Probably best not to make a habit of it, but if you find yourself dosing... SWIM can hardly do LSD without practicing his internal arts. In his younger days, he achieved remarkable results with hiking, running & leaping through nature (often in the darkest night) and pausing to bust out some kung fu, tai chi or whatever. The chi flow one can generate on a simple 100mcg trip this way rivals anything achievable with 5x as much. Superhuman things are possible for sure. Less stimulating things combined with calmer chi kung and meditations is more his speed ATM, but he still enjoys doing a few forms in the middle of a huasca session.