Just a little bit
The idea of taking small doses of psychedelics has been around for a while. The inventor of LSD, Albert Hofmann, was known to microdose in his old age and told a friend that microdosing was an under-researched area. But microdosing gained greater visibility when James Fadiman, a psychologist and researcher at Sofia University in Palo Alto, California, described it in his book "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide" (Park Street Press, 2011).
Since then, Fadiman has received about 50 anecdotal reports from microdosers around the world. Most report positive, barely perceptible shifts while microdosing, Fadiman said.
"What people say is that whatever they're doing, they seem to be doing it a little better," Fadiman told Live Science. "They're a little kinder, a little bit nicer with their kids."
People with creative jobs report improved focus and an ability to enter the state of flow more easily. Some report a desire to eat healthier or start meditating, Fadiman said.
"It's like they tend to live a little better," Fadiman said.
Still others report taking the teeny doses of psychedelics for psychiatric conditions, said Brad Burge, the director of marketing and communications at Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in Santa Cruz, California, where scientists study the effect of psychedelics on medical conditions uch as PTSD.
"I've heard anecdotally of people using it for depression, seasonal affective disorder, anxiety, OCD [obsessive compulsive disorder]," Burge told Live Science. "With microdoses, the point would be to create subtle changes in people's psychopharmacology or experience, in much the same way as most traditional pharmaceuticals are used now."
Plausible mechanism, no evidence
The effects people report with microdoses of LSD, psilocybin, DMT or other "classic" psychedelics aren't completely implausible, Johnson said. All of these drugs work by activating a particular receptor in the brainknown as the serotonin 5HT-2A receptor. This receptor fuels the release of the "feel-good" brain chemical, serotonin, which creates a domino effect in the brain that leads to many other brain changes.
At high doses, these drugs temporarily, but radically, reshape brain networks; for instance, one study found that magic mushrooms create a hyperconnected brain. But antidepressants like Prozac also target serotonin receptors, so it's possible that a low, constant dose of a psychedelic might work in a similar manner, Johnson said.
Still, there's absolutely no evidence to suggest microdosing works as people claim it does, Johnson said. The effects described are so subtle — on par with having the caffeine in a cup of coffee — that they "fall within that category of barely perceptible, and it's right in the range where people can so easily fool themselves," Johnson told Live Science. That means microdosing is particularly susceptible to the placebo effect, in which people taking a sugar pill who believe they're taking a drug report perceptible effects, he said.
To prove that microdosing has an effect, psychedelics researchers would need to do a double-blind study, in which neither the people administering the drug nor the recipients know whether a particular participant is getting a microdose of a psychedelic or something inert, like a little sugar dissolved in water, Johnson said. Some groups of people are allegedly doing these trials — but because LSD is illegal, and is only approved for research use in a few small trials in a few locations, all of these people are off the grid and not publicizing their efforts, Fadiman said.
Unknown side effects
What's more, microdosing could have side effects, Johnson said. The few microscopic grains of LSD — just 10 micrograms — typically used to microdose are too tiny to measure even on a professional laboratory scale, Johnson said. To get around this, people who microdose typically take a blotter paper laced with one hit of LSD, soak it in water and then drink some of the water. But since LSD is an illegal substance procured on the black market, there's really no way to know exactly what you're getting, Johnson said.
Even in the lab, with carefully measured doses of drugs administered in a controlled environment, Johnson has found substantial variation in the way that people react to the same dose. Combined, those two uncertainties mean people may not be able to reliably microdose.
