"... so he could finish up an album that had been taking him years. Then, a few weeks later, I was at a different friend’s house when he walked into his kitchen, took a teeny-tiny, shriveled-up mushroom stem out of the freezer, snapped off a minuscule amount, and popped it into his mouth, a thing he now does regularly to feel 'more open' while on the many work calls he has throughout the day. This was while telling me about another friend, who’s devised a way to, as precisely as possible, dilute liquid LSD into 10-microgram doses. That guy uses it for painting...."
From
"Microdosing’s Micromoment Consuming crumb-size amounts of psychedelics — not to get high but to feel more focused and creative and present — has moved a tiny bit mainstream" (The Cut).
Nice photograph, by the way, by Bobby Doherty. Oh! That reminds me. Here's a photograph I took at the LBJ Library last month (not the best photograph but I love the sentiment):
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64 comments:
Confident nobody will miss me, but this is my first check of Althouse this morning and I've gotta throw in with others complaining about the first world problem of that screamingly loud autoplay on the Scott Adams video - I'm taking an Althouse vacay until that is rolled off to the second page. I had more than enough of it yesterday, and nobody wants that kind of grating noise on an otherwise happy Friday!
Scott Adams covered it recently.
Scott Adams covered how he hijacked Althouse? I too will chime in on the blaring uninvited audio.
It wasn't playing out loud for me, but I put a page break in to take it off the front page. Thanks for letting me know.
In more traditional times, without modern highly standardized agriculture, all kinds of things would get into the diet, including "microdoses" of this or that. A well known one is ergot (in rye).
I would like to try this when I'm heavy into a writing project. I had tremendous success with LSD in the early '90s, and think microdosing could be very beneficial. Or psilocybin. It really does seem to open the brain up to receive and process signals differently.
You know that button is a white supremacist micro aggression, right? LSD was a rich white people drug, and LBJ ended Jim Crow.
They're pursuing a voluntary confrontation with the tragedy and malevolence of being at the boundary between chaos and order.
Ah, but are they more focused and creative and present?
Feelz is one thing, beez is something entirely different.
Quaestor said...
Ah, but are they more focused and creative and present?
Gummint sez that's forbidden knowledge. More accurately, the gummint said that they already know the answer, which was arrived at by decree, so there's no need for messy "studies" and "data".
... so he could finish up an album that had been taking him years.
The Slacker Hitchhiker Diaries.
I used to know a guy I met hitchhiking, and he was good friends with a guy in law school. The law school dude would drop acid, turn on the TV, and then study his law books. He was getting straight A's!!
This is the shit THEY don't won't you to know!!
David Crosby says different. An expert in drug use.
I support access to LSD and think it's a matter of freedom of religion and freedom of thought, but I'm not interested in this micro-dosing. When I read the descriptions of how it makes people feel, I just think, that's how I already feel. I am interested in the full-blown LSD trip, however, with hallucinations. Not saying I would do that while it is illegal. I think it should not be illegal.
"I used to know a guy I met hitchhiking, and he was good friends with a guy in law school. The law school dude would drop acid, turn on the TV, and then study his law books. He was getting straight A's!!"
You can really understand Justice Kennedy that way.
The donut photos in the article supposed to analogize "normal" and "microdosing" makes a point, but for me it's a negative point. Every phone and web service has filters to burn out mid range tones and turn your colors into candy. Everything's a sunset or a silhouette. Magical mystery tour.
The donuts are an analogy of course. Maybe that's why you have to microdose a multidose.
want not won't .......darned auto-correct!!
The trick is, if you can get rid of the pain, then that itself is a high.
Pain being purely a brain function. If you can cure pain, you will block a feature God installed to fuck with us. Just below hallucinations or a high.
I used to take Vioxx after it first came on the market. Since I have arthritis it was a wonder drug. It had no high, as it had no narcotics.
You took just one pill a day, and poof, you had your life back. It was an amazing drug, and I miss it. If I could cook some on my stove, I'd do it.
The fucking ambulance chasing lawyers all got rich and transferred the wealth to their coffers.
If a drug kills you, and you are pain free, is that worse than no drugs with pain, and living in a nursing home? Judges think that God is the answer and you should die like a run-over dog. Amen.
Gummint sez that's forbidden knowledge. More accurately, the gummint said that they already know the answer, which was arrived at by decree, so there's no need for messy "studies" and "data".
A totally predictable evasion.
In an address to a joint session of Congress on November 27, 1963, President Lyndon Johnson requested quick action on a civil rights bill. (LBJ Library)
Just five days after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson went before Congress and spoke to a nation still stunned from the events in Dallas that had shocked the world.
Johnson made it clear he would pursue the slain President's legislative agenda—especially a particular bill that Kennedy had sought but that faced strong and vehement opposition from powerful southern Democrats.
"No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long," Johnson told the lawmakers.
Then, serving notice on his fellow southern Democrats that they were in for a fight, he said: "We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law."
That chapter became the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
LSD never came close to what LBJ accomplished.
Pain being purely a brain function. If you can cure pain, you will block a feature God installed to fuck with us. Just below hallucinations or a high.
Is pain the only function of Etienne's brain, you know, subordinate clause and all that... whatever.
There are people who never feel pain.
They are not happy.
Vioxx is the one and only thing that worked on arthritic, degenerative disc back. Ever.
It was truly a wonder drug. Assholes.
Vioxx is the one and only thing that worked on my arthritic, degenerative disc back. Ever.
It was truly a wonder drug. Assholes.
Etienne gives yet another reason to kill all the lawyers.
Really, you all should ban this lawyer thing.
Its not about the laws, or the process, or anything inhuman like that. All that is just harmless paper. Its the people you need to get rid of.
I support access to LSD
I disagree. You don't want to deal with the flotsam, and jetsam of self-medication.
I think that people over the age of 65 should be able to do anything they want, that might even kill them.
In fact, if that thing does kill them, then this is good for children in our low-carbon economy.
After all, we need to protect the children.
Vioxx was proven to have an increased risk of cardiovascular events if used for greater than 18 months, such as myocardial infarction and CVA's. The FDA did not require the recall of Vioxx it was done voluntarily by Merck. Although it was a multi-billion dollar block buster profit source for Merck the company faced potentially billions of dollars of years-long litigation.
There were alternative COX-2 inhibitors (i.e. Celebrex), w/o the increased CV risks.
There was criticism on both sides for Merck and later even for the FDA.
A no-win for everybody.
I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. No marijuana for me, no LSD (anymore). No pills and suchlike. However ... back in the day I did enjoy the occasional mushroom. I would enjoy them now, on occasion, if I knew where to get them. I mean real mushrooms, not cooking mushrooms bought at the grocery store and dipped in PCP by biker gangs.
If anyone knows if and where it mushrooms can be legally obtained, please let us know. Asking for a friend.
It really does seem to open the brain up to receive and process signals differently.
No. Shit.
SayAahh expands the case for the extermination of the legal profession.
Non symptom inducing, micro doses of psylicibin have been known to be used by sufferers of episodic cluster headaches as quite often standard headache meds do not work well for them. This is self medicating and illegal but ppl research and try remedies regardless of laws and conventional medical thinking. If you've ever witnessed someone suffering a cluster headache attack you wouldn't judge them for taking it. Clearly this substance has clinical benefits that should be researched far beyond the boring cliched druggie ones.
Mushrooms - Anywhere in the rural Philippines. They make a tea of them.
You used to get it from the rural cops - the Constabulary in my day also. We used to rent guns too.
I don't know these days. Duterte has made changes.
Microdose Marx.
Homeopathic-style.
My drug of choice to feel "more open" in the morning is 1 or 2 shots of espresso.
Café Bustelo is my choice properly brewed in a stove top maker and carefully dosed either straight up; as an Americano (cut with boiling water); or 'smoothed' as a café con leche with scalded milk. Sweetened with ample sugar on special occasions.
Safe, if no existing cardiac arrhythmias, and legal (so far).
Re coffee - I'm in it for the drugs.
Who cares about the taste. Cheap as possible for my fix.
A pint of Nescafe instant every am.
Far out, Man!
Althouse, based on my experience of various dosages, I think microdosing LSD does not fundamentally change the experience, only the intensity and duration. So instead of heavy tripping with audio-visual hallucinations for 8 to 12 hours, which can be difficult to endure for some people, microdoses (or quarter-doses) can induce the extreme focus and creative thinking while minimizing the transient effects of streaking colors and distracting auditory ephemera. Thus it can be applied within a 4- to 6-hour window of "work" when used this way.
I think these baby steps, lower or microdosing, would be the way one would introduce themselves to LSD in a safe and structured manner. But one might also want some medical marijuana on hand just in case there's a need to take the edge off a bit.
Althouse said: I am interested in the full-blown LSD trip, however, with hallucinations.
Well, it's GREAT until ... it isn't. If only one could be sure of having a good trip. And of getting real, pure, LSD.
If when you do decide to "get experienced": Be. Very. Careful.
What's the difference between a microdose and a placebo?.......I'm sure LSD and mushrooms have legitimate therapeutic functions and that the best way to test those properties is to use a control group of blocked writers. I'm sure LSD can lead to a waterfall of creativity, if you catch my metaphor.
What's the difference between a microdose and a placebo?
Uh, what's the difference between an appetizer and a photo of an hors d'oerve?
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
I support access to LSD and think it's a matter of freedom of religion and freedom of thought,
When you say access, what do you mean? Do you mean full legalization, perhaps for adults, of course with FDA regulation. Would you require that it be prescribed or could it just be sold over the counter like aspirin?
I see "access to" and I see weasel/lawyer words. Perhaps not your intention but that is how it reads.
Interesting too why you support it. Not for freedom of choice, sovereignty over ones own body.
Suppose I want to take LSD in large doses? (As I did in the 60s) just for the pure fun of it? Not to think, not as a religious expression, just because it is there?
Would you support my access to it then?
Would you support my access to MJ? Cocaine? Speed (A/K/A Adderall)? Heroin? Opium?
What is the principle on which you would decide I can have LSD (If I have the right reasons) but not, say, heroin?
FWIW: I took copious amounts of LSD in California in late 66 & early 67. It was fun and I do not think it harmed me. I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT!!! Ditto every other drug including alcohol. I did them all in copious amounts in my youth.
Don't touch my coffee, though.
That I do not recommend them doesn't mean that I would make any of them illegal for adults. Strictly because, as they say "My body, my choice." My choice is to be clean. Your choice may be something else and I am fine with that as long as you leave me alone.
John Henry
To be clear, a microdose is not like that homeopathic thing where you water down something until it so diluted it is almost absent from the solution. A microdose is still a legitimate dose of LSD or mushroom. It is simply a small enough amount that the effects are much more predictable and of shorter duration. This analogy is better: taking tiny aspirin is prescribed for some heart disease prevention, but has a different effect than taking two full-size aspirin for a headache.
Unknown said...
Non symptom inducing, micro doses of psylicibin have been known to be used by sufferers of episodic cluster headaches as quite often standard headache meds do not work well for them.
I turned on the TV to a guy pacing back and forth and holding his head - "cluster headache!" sez I. Turns out he grew his own 'shrooms and ate some about once a month but didn't like the mental effects so he sat in a dark room until he "came down". Old guy on a farm, IIRC. The headache was his experiment to see if he still needed the 'shrooms.
I had those suckers for 10 years, in classic "clusters". Regular doctors including a neurologist, were a waste of time and money and no treatment, but finally got them taken care of at a headache clinic run by a non-MD physiologist (a one week "prednisone burst" and 30 days of some old standard beta-blocker. Pretty damned easy, really, and almost 30 years cluster-free! Come to think of it, the MDs had a better business model than the clinic since since actually curing something doesn't result in repeat repeat repeat repeat customers). Lots of Asians at that clinic for some reason.
If you've ever witnessed someone suffering a cluster headache attack you wouldn't judge them for taking it.
I have no problem with people taking 'shrooms or whatever else they feel like ingesting for whatever reasons.
Professor - I would not expect you to comment here relative to your use or non-use of LSD, but you would have certainly had the opportunity if it interested you. It is difficult for me to believe that you would be a person who would enjoy a full-on trip on LSD with its attendant ego dispersion. I think you are pretty comfortable in your normal mind. The frilly edges of a partial dose might please you, but I can't envision you enjoying more than that.
Mike: you mean it’s supraliminal.
"You can really understand Justice Kennedy that way."
funniest comment I've read here in weeks
"I disagree. You don't want to deal with the flotsam, and jetsam of self-medication."
I don't consider it medication. I think it's freedom to do something with your mind, like think a thought or read a book. It's closing a door that we should be free to open.
I think the same thing about marijuana, which got caught up in the whole "medical" marijuana presentation in an effort to legalize. It is something people want to use to get a mental and bodily effect, such as disinhibiting or happiness or modifying vision and hearing. It's no more "medical" than music or orgasms or jokes.
I am interested in the full-blown LSD trip, however, with hallucinations. Not saying I would do that while it is illegal. I think it should not be illegal.
A trip to Ecuador where possession and consumption of LSD (and probably mushrooms and ayahuasca as well) is legal.
"Althouse, based on my experience of various dosages, I think microdosing LSD does not fundamentally change the experience, only the intensity and duration. So instead of heavy tripping with audio-visual hallucinations for 8 to 12 hours, which can be difficult to endure for some people, microdoses (or quarter-doses) can induce the extreme focus and creative thinking while minimizing the transient effects of streaking colors and distracting auditory ephemera."
I'm willing to believe that something like that is happening, I'm just not personally interested in it, because I'm not troubled by any attention deficit or creativity deficit issues. The strong experience is interesting to me, however. But I can see why many people would find that too disturbing or dangerous.
This problem reminds me of religion. Most people want a microdose -- something uplifting and helpful in keeping on the path of reasonable goodness. Some people want a profound bolt of lightning that changes everything and sends them veering out into the unknown, away from the normal life their parents raised them to live. Suddenly, the parents are the dead and "let the dead bury their own dead."
"A trip to Ecuador where possession and consumption of LSD (and probably mushrooms and ayahuasca as well) is legal."
I would never choose a foreign country as a place to become more vulnerable and confused. Horrible! I'm averse to breaking the law in the U.S. because I'm very self-protective, so it's certainly no solution to go to a foreign place to eliminate the one factor that make me feel unsafe in my own country.
Re Ecuador:
A very large percentage, perhaps 50-80% of all drugs in third world countries are counterfeit or adulterated.
Even other, first world, countries, are nowhere near as tightly controlled as in the US. That includes high percentages of counterfeit drugs in circulation.
Counterfeit in the sense that you go to a licensed pharmacy and buy, say, Bayer aspirin. They look like Bayer aspirin but are made in some guy's garage.
You may agree or disagree with me that the FDA regulates too tightly. But it is the reason why most drugs made in Europe and Canada can't be sold in the US. (Labeling is another reason) It is also why non-US drugs are so much cheaper.
My daughter spent a year working in a French plant, supposedly the flagship plant in France, of one of the top five pharmacos. The stories she told me would curl your toes.
John Henry
I started out on microdosing Althouse but soon hit the harder stuff.
We've heard story after story about "date rape drugs". Can you imagine if LSD was easy to get legally? How funny would it be when someone drops a couple of LSD tablets in someone's drink at a bar or cafe or house party?
@Laslo
The joke was on you.
AllenS said...
We've heard story after story about "date rape drugs". Can you imagine if LSD was easy to get legally? How funny would it be when someone drops a couple of LSD tablets in someone's drink at a bar or cafe or house party?
I, too, am afraid of everyone and everything.
“I used to know a guy I met hitchhiking, and he was good friends with a guy in law school. The law school dude would drop acid, turn on the TV, and then study his law books. He was getting straight A's!!”
Friend in college was kinda that way. But he would get his homework done by early afternoon, drop, and then come down to go to sleep. Rinse and repeat. Maybe too smart - he had transferred in from Harvard. I think he kept it up through at least some of law school. Went on to make a bunch of money.
You may agree or disagree with me that the FDA regulates too tightly. But it is the reason why most drugs made in Europe and Canada can't be sold in the US. (Labeling is another reason) It is also why non-US drugs are so much cheaper.
My daughter spent a year working in a French plant, supposedly the flagship plant in France, of one of the top five pharmacos. The stories she told me would curl your toes.
Here in South Texas a lot of people get pharmaceuticals from Mexico, including OTC antibiotics. I can't fathom doing that because I don't trust, even a little bit, that they have in them what they are supposed to have in them.
I would never choose a foreign country
Don't we all know someone that shouldn't-have-eaten-that-second-brownie in Amsterdam??
So what were you holding in that late 60's photo of you before a Grateful Dead concert. You asked everyone to guess. I guessed a matchbox.50/50 it's a tab. Are you ready to tell?
How funny would it be when someone drops a couple of LSD tablets in someone's drink at a bar or cafe or house party?
This happened to me in Boulder, Colorado in the early 70s.
Twice.
We call it "getting dosed."
Why does this burst of creativity not work with artists? Why don't mathematicians drop acid and figure out a simpler solution to Fermat's Theorem or physicists remember where they misplaced Higgs Boson? Can someone name something more useful than a ten minute drum solo on Dark Star that has been facilitated by taking acid?
because I'm not troubled by any attention deficit ... issues.
Nor self-awareness issues.
Not that you don't have them... But clearly they do not trouble you.
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