Exciting news!

http://www.nytimes.com/2...ed-for-therapy.html?_r=0

"After about two months of weekly therapy, the eight participants who received full doses of LSD improved by about 20 percent on standard measures of anxiety, and the four subjects who took a much weaker dose got worse. (After the trial, those patients were allowed to “cross over” and try the full dose.) Those findings held up for a year in those who have survived."

Interesting that the four subjects who took a weak dose actually had their anxiety get worse... Which resonates with some of my experiences to some degree.

Yes, I've always held the position that weak doses of LSD in particular were actually dangerous. I think one has to fully immerse in the experience to receive benefit from it. At lower doses, you have one foot in one world and one in another, and it can can cause more confusion and anxiety than one began with.

This is a very interesting study.

I tend to agree null but I don't think that's always the case, since I've had some low doses that were fairly beneficial. And many report great results through "microdosing" as well. I guess its complex

I was surprised by that too--which I s'pose makes some sense to a degree. I personally really enjoy small doses of acid on occasion, but I can see how it might just exacerbate someone's pre-existing anxiety for the reasons you both mentioned.

I prolly shouldn't be so black and white, since nothing is ever so simple. While not rescinding my earlier statement, I do have to nod in agreement with you there, at least as far as micro-dosing goes. I have suffered from severe depression the majority of my adult life, ever since I came home to my apartment being burglarized and was basically beaten and tortured for three hours, ending with a 12 gauge shotgun in my mouth, watching the burglar's.finger tightening on the trigger. Obviously, and fortunately for me, the gun jammed and he just knocked me unconscious with the stock and left. The resulting PTSD led to years of addiction to heroin, depression, and three suicide attempts. Looking for help, I've attended therapy and I rode the psych med rollercoaster for years trying nearly every pharmacological approach to find relief that didn't include self harm. I've been prescribed anti-psychotic meds like seroquel (sp?) to help me to stoop thinking about the event and suffering flashbacks, but those left me unable to think about ANYTHING. SSRIs were also tried on several attempts, but I was unable to tolerate any of them as well-they would put me into unprovoked rages that had me putting a fist through a door on one occasion-for no reason and that terrified me.

Then,a couple/few years ago, after being turned back onto psychedelics and joining this community, I discovered micro-dosing. My regimen is not like that of most anecdotal (since there's no actual research) accounts I've read; I use psilocybin on a monthly/twice monthly basis at just above threshold levels, and it seems to level out my serotonin levels and brain chemistry very well, but doesn't otherwise give me side effects. If I'm unable to access psilocybin I use dmt, but that is not really micro-dosing, and that's what I'm doing at this time in history.

As far as this post topic goes, I do still stand by my previous statement, but again, there's things to consider. I'd never suggest one go for a high level dose without psychedelic experience, at least without being accompanied by someone who does. And I really can't speak to.LSD as far a micro-dosing goes I haven't seen the stuff since 1990, and I frankly wouldn't do it these days with all the rc substances posing as acid on the market.

Sorry to go off topic like this and I'm sure I failed to clarify anything (I've been fighting insomnia for several days now, not helped by sharing a bed with my partner, who moves around ALOT in.her sleep, and strangely coinciding with an absence of THC, go figure) and am losing coherency as I speak. Anyway, yes it's great to see a study like this being done today and hope it portends more. I hadn't even taken micro-dosing into account, since it really isn't "tripping " or if so, just barely.

Okay, I gotta lay down.. Peace, everyone, night night.

Keep in mind that these were really small numbers of people involved, so we should be careful when generalizing this to the population at large.

I can't think of a pharmacological reason why the dose-response would be such that low doses made things worse, while high doses made them better, but perhaps we've left the clinical world pretty well behind us at this point.

Blessings
~ND

The paper is attached below:

Gasser, P., et al. 2014. Safety and Efficacy of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-Assisted Psychotherapy for Anxiety Associated With Life-threatening Diseases. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Online.