Yeah, that was the bit that caught my eye when I scanned it.
Participants correctly unblinded the experimental condition in 49 of the 64 measurement weeks (75%). Of the 34 weeks corresponding to the active dose, 25 were correctly unblinded by the participants (73.5%), with a similar percentage for the placebo condition (70%).
So: not a sub-perceptive dose and mostly unblinded.
Elsewhere I saw mention of visual analog scales. Just an opinion but:
Unblinded + VAS = clusterfuck
j
Define “perceptible”. If you take a certain dosage regularly for a year, and after the year, you find that you’re more creative or whatever, isn’t that perceiving it?
I think that there need to actually be two parallel claims, here:
1: A dose of X grams of psilocybin mushrooms per day does not produce deleterious “tripping” effects.
2: A dose of X grams of psilocybin mushrooms per day does produce other, positive, effects.
The value of X here is unknown, but should be specified by anyone claiming that “microdosing works”. And of course, the larger the dose, the harder to prove 1, and the smaller the dose, the harder to prove 2.
I had a client who did it daily.
He described it as “not enough to trip, but enough to put a smile on my face.”
(I smoke way too much cannabis. It doesn’t really get me high, but it does change my mood. Same thing, I imagine).
Perceptible means that you take a dose and feel the effect of the drug on that occasion for the purposes of this discussion. That’s what it means in the literature and academically (or pseudo academically). It applies to the daily dosing, not long term effects.
Years ago when I was torturing cancer cells with chemo drugs in combination with a natural chemical made in the body, I found that at the lowest dose of the natural chemical (0.5 nanomoles) that the cells grew. At higher doses of the chemical, the death rate rose as expected. I was stumped by this until I ran across a phenomenon called hormesis, where very low doses of something have an unexpected level or direction of effect. Hormetic responses to microdosing are possible, but I don’t know that anyone has tested this rigorously in psylocibin, LSD, cannabinoids, or MDMA.
Here’s an enlightening experiment anyone can do: google “self-blinding citizen-science”. What you will discover is a world of literature on (specifically) psychedelic microdosing studies. OK, I’m being superficial about this (because it appears to be a waste of my time) but “citizen science” (in this context) appears to be recruiting distant volunteers on social media et al to take part in a “study” in which they are not controlled by investigators, who themselves do not know if Inclusion, Blinding (nope, no idea), Dosing, Testing etc etc have been performed properly. Here’s a big old study run in that manner. As a sort of TLDR, I’ve set it up (hopefully) at the eLife digest, which is a brief explanation in lay terms of what is going on.
From which
The team found that microdosing significantly increased a number of psychological measures, such as well-being and life satisfaction. However, participants taking placebo also improved: there were no significant differences between the two groups. The findings confirmed positive anecdotes about microdosing improving people’s moods, but at the same time show that taking empty capsules, knowing they might be microdoses, have the same benefits.
And
The study’s innovative ‘do-it-yourself’ approach to placebo control may serve as a template for future citizen science studies on other popular phenomena where positive expectations and social factors could play a role, such as cannabidiol (CBD) oils, nootropics and nutrition.
All of which raises the question – has anyone done a conventional, randomized study? Well yes, I didn’t know it at the time but the study I posted upthread is, unusually, just that. In that study, the blinding largely broke down because people guessed whether they were on placebo or active.
From the abstract of that study, with my bolding
The reported acute effects were significantly more intense for the active dose compared to the placebo, but only for participants who correctly identified their experimental condition [ie, active rather than placebo]. These changes were accompanied by reduced EEG power in the theta band, together with preserved levels of Lempel-Ziv broadband signal complexity. For all other measurements there was no effect of microdosing except for few small changes towards cognitive impairment. According to our findings, low doses of psilocybin mushrooms can result in noticeable subjective effects and altered EEG rhythms, but without evidence to support enhanced well-being, creativity and cognitive function. We conclude that expectation underlies at least some of the anecdotal benefits attributed to microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms.
So, people on the active, who had worked out they were on the active (presumably from its effects) were the only people to show a benefit. But wait… as far as I can tell (first para of discussion; line 1 of Table 1) this was measured by visual analog scale – that is to say, asking the subject their opinion.
@hajario – I would appreciate your thoughts on this. Mine: I’m open minded – I say it’s bullshit until someone convinces me otherwise. But hey, if it helps… there’s nothing wrong with benefiting from the placebo effect.
j
I am a huge proponent of the recreational and therapeutic use of mushrooms in general and I completely agree with you about microdosing. It’s so far anecdotal and very far from proven.
Microdosing is a great excuse to over-micro-dose. Gives plausible denyability to whoooaah! look at the carpet move!
I wouldn’t go that far. The difference is a factor of like six or more. The microdoses that one typically buys are in little capsules. One or a half is just subperceptive. Six to ten is a full blown trip. I’m a lightweight and I will sometimes take one before a show at a club for a very slight sparkle. I’ll take three for an all day fest and could probably safely drive at the peak (but definitely wouldn’t).
“Fun” doses start at about 1 gram, by 2.5 you’re seeing things. For fresh mushrooms, multiply by 10, they’re 90% water.
Microdose is something like 0.15 g.
Ketamine is another drug used for recreation that’s being investigated for therapeutic uses. I got offered it but didn’t take it up at this time.
I don’t participate myself but I’d think a microdoser would be motivated to keep it light. Like how some cough syrups can have psychoactive or narcotic at high recreational doses but most people ‘use as directed.’
For me it means you can feel some mild sensory effects after taking it, some heightened senses, such as better vision including night vision effect, time slowing down, sound more audible and more in depth, sense of touch intensified, sense of your self in spacetime changes like Alice in Wonderland big and small drinks. It’s sort of random what will happen and subtle at that dose level, but still noticeable that it is not the norm. I think experiencing those things using macro dosing helps me define them in micro dose level.
For a sub-perceivable dose there is nothing out of the ordinary that one might achieve, however you may realize you are in your creative zone, but this is something you can do without the shrooms.
For an example on a perceptible microdose I may notice a tree, look at the bark, see such fine detail and clarity and the tree is rather far away. I know I wouldn’t see it that way normally, it’s too far. For a sub-perceivable dose it could be just really enjoying the woods, I may look at the tree and appreciate a bit more but I’m not seeing any extra detail I can claim.