Around 1 in 4 people experience mental health problems, with depression and generalised anxiety disorder the most common. Could microdosing psychedelic drugs be the answer?

For many, the conventional treatments do the trick. Doctors prescribe drugs such as Citalopram (Celexa), Fluoxetine (Prozac) and Pregabalin (Lyrica), which in conjunction with therapy can often bring considerable improvement.

But for some these treatments don’t work, or in some cases can make the problem worse. Allergic reactions to medication, disastrous side effects, or even just a lack of efficacy all mean that sometimes conventional medicines just aren’t the right choice. So what then? Could microdosing mind-altering substances be the answer?

So what is microdosing?

Microdosing is about taking small (micro) amounts of psychedelic drugs on a regular, controlled basis. Advocates identify this as a practice that can make positive psychological changes in the brain, including generating increased productivity, improved focus and awareness, and sense of general happiness and wellbeing. The drugs most commonly taken in microdoses are LSD and psilocybin (magic mushrooms), and a growing number of people are endorsing their effects.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Hallucinogenic drugs have a long and storied history, and have been known and used by mankind for millennia. Undoubtedly, they are most commonly associated with their meteoric rise in recreational use from the late 1950s, and their association with counterculture groups like the hippies.

The late Steve Jobs described experimenting with LSD as “one of the most important things in my life.”

Psychedelics at high doses alter perception and cause vivid hallucinations. Their uses for creative and spiritual purposes are well documented, with famous musicians, entrepreneurs and philosophers endorsing the drug. The late Steve Jobs described experimenting with LSD as “a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life.”

It’s only in recent years that psychedelics have come to be appreciated for their effects in microdoses, usually somewhere around a tenth of the strength of a recreational amount. Ingesting the drugs in these small quantities has far less pronounced effects. Think warm and clear-headed instead of hallucinations and profound spiritual awakenings.

Research into psychedelics for the treatment of mental health disorders is limited, but seems to suggest that there is some merit to claims about their therapeutic properties. A study undertaken by Dr Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College London found that psilocybin (magic mushrooms) could be an effective treatment option, and that the stigma against psychedelic drugs is unfounded.

Jane’s story

As there has been little scientific inquiry into the effects of microdosing, much of the information on the subject is anecdotal. We spoke to Jane, who has been microdosing on and off for around six months, and feels that it’s made a positive impact on her recurring depression.

“As someone with depression I’ve done the rounds with traditional drugs like SSRIs and I’ve had a ton of therapy and counselling too, which does help. But isn’t great when I’m so depressed I can’t get off the sofa. And the drugs seem to work for a bit then stop and for years I’ve been going round and round in circles, having good periods and bad periods.

There’s this scene in Withnail and I where one of the characters says ‘Why trust one drug and not another?’ and I was thinking well here I am, taking all these antidepressants…

“A friend suggested microdosing. I’ve taken drugs recreationally a lot in the past and was really concerned that this wouldn’t be a good idea for me, particularly as I’ve had a bad experience on acid before. It sounded completely counter-intuitive for someone with a delicate mental balance. But I was intrigued enough to do some research and the more I read about it, the more it felt like something I could at least try.

“There’s this scene in Withnail and I where one of the characters says ‘Why trust one drug and not another?’ and I was thinking well here I am, taking all these antidepressants. Why exactly am I OK with that and not with something else? So I thought I’d give it a go.”

Where to start?

For most people, the biggest concern with microdosing is about getting the dose right, and for those trying acid as opposed to mushrooms, the key is finding a consistent source that is the same strength. Finding a reliable supplier and clean acid in a world where drugs are unregulated is no easy task and one that Jane was wary of.

“Acid is illegal, so I can’t say too much about this, just that I researched my source carefully and worked with someone who I felt was honest and had integrity in terms of the supply. And I started out really, really carefully with absolutely tiny doses! It was roughly a tenth of a trip. I cut them up into tiny squares wearing gloves. It was like a surgical operation!

“The first thing I had to do was make sure I was clear of other drugs. If you’ve taken anti-depressants before you know you can’t just stop them, so I went through the withdrawal process. I was a bit nervous but actually the drugs I’d been taking I don’t think were working any more so I didn’t feel any sense of loss. Mostly I was worried I’d have a huge downer after stopping but actually you get a period of grace afterwards anyway. So I waited two weeks and then tried my first micro dose.”

I didn’t have any clue what to expect with such a small dose. I didn’t even know if I’d feel it, but I did… the day seemed brighter

“As someone who only used to do things at full pelt I didn’t have any clue what to expect with such a small dose. I didn’t even know if I’d feel it, but I did. Not in a big trippy way, not hallucinating or anything like that. But the day seemed brighter. That’s about all I can describe it as. I felt clear-headed, and in that space where you remember all the right words for things, and like everything is flowing nicely. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s the best way I can put it into words.”

Getting the right amount

Without proper research into doseage and effect, it’s impossible to gauge what size dose and how often a patient should take something like LSD or mushrooms. We asked Jane how she decided to regulate her doseage.

“Because it was such a nice day the first time I was tempted to just take a microdose every day, but wasn’t sure what the cumulative effect would be. So I started off taking a dose (a tenth of a trip) every three days. I found that the brightness and slightly sparkly edges wore off within 24 hours of taking each dose, but that the clear-headed feeling and sense of positivity lasted longer, so this felt right for me.

I tried also not to take it reactively – so if I had something negative happen I didn’t reach for the acid to escape bad feelings. I wanted it to be a long term, measured solution, not a way to drown out the challenges of life. Plus also I feel like the antidepressants I’ve been taking for years do that – they knock the hard edges off everything and actually I want to feel stuff properly – good or bad.”

And how has this worked out longer term?

“I started this experiment about six months ago, and as each month passed I have reduced the dose by having longer gaps in between. So now I’m literally down to one tiny dose per week. I haven’t felt depressed since I started this, although overall I think I feel more ‘up’ than I would as a normal person and I’m concerned about that, because what goes up must come down. So I’m thinking of just stopping for a bit and seeing how that feels. Maybe it’s something to do in bursts rather than long term regular useage.

…it would take a lot to get me back to taking antidepressants again

“Other things I’ve noticed are a feeling of generally being more relaxed, less bothered by the small stuff. I sleep well but my dreams are pretty vivid although not upsetting, just super clear and quite detailed. I’d say so far it’s been a success although I am a bit nervous of what might happen when I stop taking it. One thing’s for sure – it would take a lot to get me back to taking antidepressants again. Not when I can do this and feel this way without all the side effects.”

The jury is still out on whether microdosing is an effective and more importantly safe way of treating mental health disorders. But with the focus increasingly on useage of other ‘recreational’ drugs like marijuana, it seems likely that psychedelics will come under the microscope soon too.

Ongoing research will no doubt shed some light onto the viability of microdosing for the majority of us – and excuse us for sounding cynical, but much of that is likely to depend on whether the large pharmaceutical companies are able to harness and sell the drugs legally. In the meantime we urge anyone trying this to be extremely careful – we don’t advocate, only highlight this treatment.

Disclaimer:

Drugs are illegal, risky, unpredictable etc
Silver doesn’t condone illegal drug useage, just to be clear. We don’t want to get into trouble so do this stuff at your own risk, OK?

See what Robin Carhart-Harris has to say

Find that lockdown has changed your alcohol habits?

Ellis Fergar

The post Could microdosing psychedelic drugs improve mental health? appeared first on Silver Magazine.

Therefore this is a far from fresh look; but even so, though I may be silver I am not stale yet, because despite everything, I have NOT got off the bus . . . still FURTHER . . . I sit hunkered down in a cafe on the edge of Edge City and I finish it for the second time, an old friend . . . The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test . . . Vale Tom Wolfe 2018 ::::::

I love reading for its own hallucinatory power. Even so there is only a handful of novels that have grabbed me by the synapses and thrown me against the wall. Melville’s colossal Moby Dick; the pure dread of Janet Turner Hospital’s Oyster; Burgess’ dystopian fairytale A Clockwork Orange; Thompson’s terrifying and hilarious Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (my first adult book, 1979) and more recently the mad The Sell Out by Paul Beatty.

And of course Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

This became more than a book to me . . . more a template for my work as an agitprop performance artist prankster

This became more than a book to me and way beyond any sort of bible . . . beyond catastrophe . . . more a template for my work as an agitprop performance artist prankster through the punk years of the late 70s to the dreadful yuppie 80s and the Generation of Swine, to the present-day swamp that is the New Dumb.

I am by no means a student of Tom Wolfe. There are many of his works I ain’t read, but maybe it was my childhood desire to be an astronaut, or maybe it was my late teen desire to rebel that drew me to Wolfe and The Right Stuff, his expose of the early American Space Program, and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, his expose of the early American LSD program.

Both books dealt with opposite ends of the American Dream. The Super Straight world of the American Astronaut to the Super Freak world of Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters. Both these subjects have informed all my work as an artist, from the sheer prankster joy of bringing civil disobedience to the stage, and the daring bravery that is necessary to take a revolutionary stance while all around the innocence and enlightenment of the 60s and 70s was being stomped by Thatcherism and Reaganism and the reactionary world of profit and the free market.

WTF . . . even the coppers wear Day-Glo NOW . . . KAPOW!

Tom Wolfe dies . . . immediately I am moved to read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test again. I was gifted a first edition copy by my wife Cathy this century as she, more than anyone, was aware of The Merry Pranksters and Ken Kesey’s influence on my work. Almost simultaneously this very mag, Silver, approached me to do a review of this classic. In the early 60s in the world of Tom Wolfe’s masterpiece this would have been called ‘beyond coincidence’ — the ‘collective consciousness’ — ‘intersubjectivity’, BUT cynical old 21st-century me knows it’s because I posted condolences to Tom Wolfe on Facebook.

No need for Cosmic Collective Consciousness, our metaphysics has been turned inside out like a gutted animal . . . it’s called the social network . . . nothing cosmic about algorithms . . . pure mathematics . . . like rolling news . . . rolling soullessness 24/7. . . DM me.

WTF . . . even the coppers wear Day-Glo NOW . . . KAPOW!

So . . . a review . . . Ha! I can honestly say I have never seen a review of the Bible or the Quran or the Torah or the Talmud or the Tripitaka or the Upanishads. They are taken as read. As an Anarcho-Utopian Neo Pagan, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is sacred text . . . a masterpiece of New Journalism that looks at the transition from not only beatniks to the birth of hippy, but also the very discovery of LSD itself and its mind expanding abilities to reopen the human doors of perception that modernity was quickly fusing shut with a slam.

An amphetamine-fueled, embedded ride on Ken Kesey’s Magic Bus as it careened and giggled in and out of control down the metaphysical superhighway of modern America

For the new psychedelic generation, Tom Wolfe had quite literally created the beatnik Kerouac’s On the Road on acid. An amphetamine-fueled, embedded ride on Ken Kesey’s Magic Bus as it careened and giggled in and out of control down the metaphysical superhighway of modern America . . . It is a trip, an innovative literary masterpiece capturing those heady Head days of the American Freak that would eventually seep into the collective consciousness of a whole generation and spawn the Hippy Movement, a movement that had the power to warp culture . . . The Counter Culture . . .

WTF . . . even the coppers wear Day-Glo NOW . . . KAPOW!

Reviewing this book creates similar hazards that Wolfe faced when writing his account of Kesey’s adventures with ‘The Pranksters’. How do you describe an LSD trip? How do you describe the first LSD trip? How do you describe a whole commune on LSD before the world even has a whiff of its existence. . ? KAPOW . . . When I read this book at 19 years of age it was all about Kesey and the Pranksters. I was enthralled and wanted to, like Kesey, go beyond acid and spread the enlightenment amongst all. But . . . but . . . but 40 years on?

The reading is all about the genius and bravery of Wolfe to create his own style, an amphetamine stream of consciousness spiked with LSD. Joyce on Acid . . . and by God, hang on tight . . . because it takes all ones intellect and spirituality to Keep up . . .
. . . Keep up
. . . Keep up…

Are you on the bus . . ? Or are you off the bus . . ? KAPOW!

I was born in 1959 and I have never identified as a baby boomer. As a late ‘boomer’. I identify more as a punk than a hippy of yore. Except for these hardcore frontier people, these hipsters who stir a similar feeling that punk did for me as a teenager.

Brave, adventurous pioneers with a sense of danger and fun as they ploughed new cultural furrows. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a story of daring

Brave, adventurous pioneers with a sense of danger and fun as they ploughed new cultural furrows. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a story of daring by those who dared. Only by daring in the face of the Right can they wipe away the smear and the ugly stain of fascism that was seeping back into the culture. Wolfe’s book also comes with a warning. BEWARE THE NEW RIGHT. . .They will stomp or steal every nuance the counter culture creates.

WTF . . . even the coppers wear Day-Glo NOW . . . KAPOW!

So if you haven’t already, come and meet The Pranksters, Babbs, Hassler, Mountain Girl, The Hermit, Gretchin, Mal Function, Cassady (the driver), Augustine Owsley Stanley the Third (the Chemist of the World’s most righteous acid of the day), and of course, Chief Broom, Ken Kesey himself, as he hovers over the cuckoos’ nest as the Neil Armstrong of LSD aboard an old 1939 International Harvester school bus daubed in Day-Glo paint and innocence.

The Pranksters shake the very foundations of conservative modern America off their gourds on LSD, speed and marijuana. It is a trip . . . not only a trip down memory lane but also a trip of possibilities for a future rebellion against the new modern conservative America . . .

Take the Test . . . Take back your freedom . . . KAPOW!

Mark Little

The post Mark Little picks up The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test again and finds… WTF . . . even the coppers wear Day-Glo NOW . . . KAPOW! appeared first on Silver Magazine.