Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris: The Science of Psychedelics for Mental Health

The typical story goes [microdosing] will improve well-being and maybe, maybe, it could improve certain aspects of cognition—say, related to creative thinking. I emphasize the maybe there because that's another angle with microdosing; we're kind of waiting for some compelling evidence. As things stand right now, I'd say we lack that compelling evidence.

But microdose, one definition is that it's a dose of typically a classic psychedelic like LSD or psilocybin that has sub-perceptible psychedelic effects. It doesn't put you into a noticeable altered state of consciousness that feels like you're tripping. And if that was LSD, it looks as though the threshold is around about, let's see, 10, 11, 12 micrograms.

1g (1000mg) of magic mushroom would contain about 10mg of psilocybin.

One of the major differences to psychedelic therapy versus taking a psychedelic is you shut your eyes. It's a world away from taking a psychedelic at a rave or something. In a sense, good luck with that.

Some, like Jim Fadiman, one of the popularizers of microdosing, I think would say that a true microdose should be sub-perceptible; you shouldn't feel it. Yet, the assumption is it's going to change you in some way on a kind of trait level more than a state level.

I've spoken to several people who have gone through this, and the way that they describe DMT almost across the board was... 'the most profound experience of my entire life, even greater than the birth of my children', 'like being attached to the shock wave of an atom bomb,' 'there's no way I would do another dose because the first one was so unbelievable.'

I think the percentage... of psilocybin in the mushroom mass... is something in the 1%— little bit higher, maybe—range.