Truffle Talk #2

Truffle Talk #2

Microdosing - the basics.

Welcome back to Truffle Talk. In this edition, we’re going to cover microdosing.

Based on customer feedback, I have skipped the editions on the legalisation of psilocybin. I have uploaded these to truffletalk.com instead, where they are now available to read.

We’ll briefly go through:

• what microdosing is

• its history

• its benefits and risks

• the best way to get started

This edition will be longer than the previous one. Hit reply and let me know if you’d like future editions to be shorter.

What is microdosing?

Microdosing is the practice of regularly taking 1/10 to 1/20th of a psychedelic in order to obtain long-term benefits without psychoactive effects. Psilocybin and LSD are the most popular psychedelics for microdosing.

The long-term benefits that microdosers report include:

• mood

• focus

• creativity

• productivity

The below diagram shows how a sample of microdosers rated the different benefits of microdosing.

A greater percentage represents the benefit as being rated on average as more significant, and more noticeable, to each microdoser.

The above diagram shows how a sample of microdosers rated the different benefits of microdosing.

As you can see, improved mood is by far the most commonly reported benefit.

How do you find your ideal microdose?

The general rule with microdosing is to ‘start low, and go slow.’ Start with the lowest possible dose you can measure, and slowly build up from there.

That way, you can find your perfect dose without ever having an unexpected trip at Sunday brunch.

If you’re taking truffles, we recommend starting with half a cluster.

How did microdosing become popular?

Microdosing was popularised by the book ‘The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide’ (highly recommended), written by the psychedelic researcher James Fadiman.

Today, microdosing has a dedicated subreddit of over 200,000 members, and is widely associated with the productivity-hungry culture of Silicon Valley.

Microdosing is popular in Silicon Valley due to its reported benefits to focus and performance on analytical tasks, like programming. In this case, LSD is usually the psychedelic of choice, due to its stimulant effects.

At Noetic, we’re much more interested in the other type of microdosing - psilocybin. Microdoses of psilocybin are generally less stimulatory, and more emotional, than those of LSD.

Psilocybin microdoses are often associated with improved mood, but also greater emotional awareness, which makes them an excellent companion to journalling.

How often do people microdose?

The most popular regime when beginning to microdose is the Fadiman protocol.

Fadiman recommends taking a microdose every third day:

• Day 1/3 - Dose:

  • So you can feel the effects of the microdose.
    

• Day 2/3 - No Dose:

  • So you can feel the after-effects of the microdose (the ‘afterglow’).
    

• Day 2/3 - No Dose:

  • So you can feel normal, and compare that feeling to your feelings during the microdose and afterglow.

The Fadiman protocol was initially designed to study microdosing, rather than to obtain the greatest benefits from it.

The idea is to enable users to clearly distinguish between their microdose, afterglow, and non-microdose states, so that they can identify what kind of effect the microdose is having.

Once you’ve discovered your perfect dose, you may wish to either:

• reduce the frequency to once per week (Sunday is a popular choice of dose day)

or

• increase the frequency to every second day (the Microdosing Institute protocol)

The Microdosing Institute protocol was designed for people who microdose to ease the symptoms of depression.

These microdosers often wish to avoid the second No Dose day in the Fadiman protocol due to their low mood, so they microdose every second day instead, so that they are always in either a microdose or an afterglow state.

That’s it for the second edition of Truffle Talk. If you have any feedback or questions, reply and let me know.

In the next edition:

Next week, we’ll cover the basics of macrodosing.

• How to prepare for a macrodose

• How to integrate the lessons from a macrodose

• How to choose a trip supervisor

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