Microdosing: Breakthrough or Buzzword?

Microdosing, we’ve all heard the term.  It seems every other day a new article is being posted. It’s set Silicon Valley on fire, and there are more diseases and ailments being addressed with it than you can imagine. Is it everything it’s made out to be?

Let’s take a moment to talk about the psychedelic big picture before we get into the microdosing talk, specifically. The word psychedelic is derived from the Ancient Greek words psyche (soul) and deloun (to make visible, to reveal) and translates to “mind-manifesting.”  I think it’s safe to say you would be hard pressed to find someone more pro-psychedelic than me.  Perhaps that is why I feel like the microdosing conversation is not just a conversation worth having, but one worth actually challenging. 

Let’s get on the record and establish the common ground with the psychedelic community before shouting heresies from the mountaintop.  First and foremost, let’s recognize that perhaps the most important thing we can do for psychedelics on a macro level is normalize the conversation surrounding them.  So, it isn’t lost on us how important the palatability of the conversation is to convince people with little to no experience in the psychedelic realm. We’ve long contended momentum forward is afforded by a measure of pragmatism.  It’s hard to find radicals compelling, and I’ve personally never found hysteria convincing, so the measured, balanced conversation currently surrounding psychedelics is refreshing. I definitely have some reservations with microdosing becoming the de facto law of the land, or even the baseline for how we approach such powerful chemicals.  In other words, I appreciate microdosing removing the stigma and normalizing the conversation, I just hope it doesn’t become the normal for the masses’ introduction to the experience.

Imagine going on vacation with your friend who’s never seen the ocean.  Your room overlooks the great blue expanse.  Beautiful people buzz around the pink sands, frolicking in the tide, soaking up the sun’s rays, and you can’t convince your friend to come down from the room because there is a jar of sand in the window from down below and a small bottle of salt water next to it.  They’ve seen it, they’ve felt it, and out of pure curiosity, they opened the bottle and tasted it. They’ve had the experience, and they just don’t see a need to go down there.  The experience was comfortable, their senses were sated, and it seems like a lot of steps to take for something they’ve already “gotten.”  That’s what microdosing looks like to me.  When trying to explain the ineffable that is the psychedelic experience, a friend of mine once said it’s like going to the ocean, cupping your hands, bringing back the water, and saying, “here it is, here’s the ocean.”  I mean, technically that’s correct, but do you feel that sufficiently sums up the ocean experience? I personally don’t.

The idea of microdosing, seems nearly antithetical to the psychedelic experience to me.  If you never heard the D.A.R.E scare stories of the kid who took so much acid “they never came back” or the one that took so much they thought they were a glass of orange juice afraid to spill, would fear still dictate your outlook.  Don’t get me wrong, set and setting are of the utmost importance. Even with major precaution, you may experience horror through senses you didn’t know you had.  Preparing yourself for the experience and mindfully consuming the chemical with intention will almost certainly make for a more pleasurable experience, but perhaps we don’t set our grading parameters on a comfort scale.  Perhaps the talk we have with ourselves before the experience is one that makes you at peace with the ride to be, in whatever form it takes, for who it can help make you afterwards.  Perhaps the thing you teach yourself to be at peace with is being comfortable being temporarily uncomfortable.  Easier said than done right?  I mean how many billion-dollar industries are propped up by the mentality that there is a quick fix pill?  How many people have the hard talk about physical fitness?  Ultimately, they know they can’t outwork a bad diet, or better yet, expect results from a pill without going to the gym and putting in the work. That applies to everything.  Want to be better than you were yesterday?  Push yourself out of the comfort yesterday provided and see where that takes you.  Take note on the hard days that you survived them; their challenges weren’t enough to defeat you. 

There are several psychedelics that represent no harm to you physiologically, even if during the experience, your brain says otherwise, this is where set and setting is key.  The point is, you’re bigger and stronger than your fears, and the light that defeats that darkness isn’t found in a microdose.  Dare to be scared and you’ll know how to accept it and move through it as it comes.  This is your bug out bag.  This is you being prepared.  Of course, the big, bad, dark, scary trip isn’t an inevitability, it’s merely a possibility, and in my subjective experience, and many other people’s subjective experiences, the better you become with surrender and acceptance, the quicker that darkness moves on.  Don’t expect a bad trip, just train yourself before the experience to navigate it should it arise.

Who would you be tomorrow if you experienced death, yet lived to tell the tale?  Would you be empowered?  Would tomorrow’s air taste a little better? Its sky be a little bluer?

Who would you be if you saw a loved one, or hell, all your loved ones, die a thousand deaths?  Would you make more of the time you spent with them?  Would you hold them tighter?

Who would you be tomorrow if you saw the instant this universe was created, or wacky aliens that seem to know you better than you know yourself, or ethereal spirit beings that helped you literally puke up your pain?  Would you entertain the idea of an existence bigger than your eyes and ears could ever dream to measure?  Would you participate in as many internet arguments or still cringe at the thought of talking to your family that “just doesn’t get you” during the holidays?

Would the mundane in the world still weigh on you like Atlas’s stone?  Or would you start to see the profundity in a dandelion and find joy in the ordinary?

No one can ask the questions for you, let alone answer them.  But what if what you brought back from the experience was a vital piece of the puzzle?  The experience is yours and yours alone.  A purely subjective experience with very real objective parallels to others’ experiences.

Can microdosing make you more productive?  Sure, but are we trying to solidify our place in a program?  Can it make you feel a little sharper? I think it probably can.  Can it make you more creative? Many creators certainly think so.

Should it be your first experience with psychedelics? After years of study and self-exploration my answer is simply, no, I don’t think so. That being said, this is about you and your experience. What does your gut say to you? Are you making this decision out of the avoidance of perceived danger or has your ego maybe convinced you to live and act in fear? The long and short of it is each one of us is responsible for doing the research and figuring this thing out for ourselves. Talk to people you trust and seek guidance from established leaders in the community. The journey inward is ironically one you must take alone but is best when you have a group of people around you to help you integrate your experience.

The biggest test, the real work, is integrating the experience and applying what you’ve learned to your daily action.  If you remember telling yourself, you weren’t going to take those friends and family for granted, or you would still look at that flower with a childlike sense of wonder.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to get the most out of your physical self, and there is a case to be made that microdosing can help enhance your output.  Fear isn’t the only motivator that keeps people from doing more than a threshold dose. There are some, who only seek out total human optimization and don’t seek to give up the control necessary to have hard programs challenged and potentially deprogrammed.  There is no wrong answer, here.  After all, this is only an opinion piece.  It’s more important to me that more people become comfortable talking about and taking psychedelics, than it is getting people to do things my way, I just hate to see anyone sell what can be such a huge experience, short.  Because I believe total human optimization is much more likely to occur when we’re willing to get lost in the labyrinth of our minds from time to time and bring back the wisdom we forgot.

Thanks for reading.