Psychedelic microdosing benefits and challenges: an empirical codebook

Abstract

Background: Microdosing psychedelics is the practice of consuming very low, sub-hallucinogenic doses of a psychedelic substance, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin-containing mushrooms. According to media reports, microdosing has grown in popularity, yet the scientific literature contains minimal research on this practice. There has been limited reporting on adverse events associated with microdosing, and the experiences of microdosers in community samples have not been categorized.

Methods: In the present study, we develop a codebook of microdosing benefits and challenges (MDBC) based on the qualitative reports of a real-world sample of 278 microdosers.

Results: We describe novel findings, both in terms of beneficial outcomes, such as improved mood (26.6%) and focus (14.8%), and in terms of challenging outcomes, such as physiological discomfort (18.0%) and increased anxiety (6.7%). We also show parallels between benefits and drawbacks and discuss the implications of these results. We probe for substance-dependent differences, finding that psilocybin-only users report the benefits of microdosing were more important than other users report.

Conclusions: These mixed-methods results help summarize and frame the experiences reported by an active microdosing community as high-potential avenues for future scientific research. The MDBC taxonomy reported here informs future research, leveraging participant reports to distil the highest-potential intervention targets so research funding can be efficiently allocated. Microdosing research complements the full-dose literature as clinical treatments are developed and neuropharmacological mechanisms are sought. This framework aims to inform researchers and clinicians as experimental microdosing research begins in earnest in the years to come.

Keywords: Anxiety; Depression; Grounded theory; LSD; Microdosing; Mood; Open science; Psilocybin; Psychedelic; Self-efficacy.

Fig. 1

Categories of microdosing benefits and challenges. Values indicate percentage endorsement of outcomes. Values were generated through open-ended responses, and thus magnitude is descriptive and should be used for hypothesis generation. These data indicate reported outcomes, not confirmed effects

Fig. 2

Percentage of microdosers endorsing improved behaviours and reductions in substance-use. Prevalence rate should be used for hypothesis generation as these data indicate reported outcomes, not confirmed effects. *Note: Anxiety refers to improvements to anxiety-related experiences, not to increased experience of anxiety

Fig. 3

Difference in raw count of reported benefits and challenges. Positive values indicate greater endorsement of benefits in the indicated category; negative values reflect greater endorsement of challenges. Comparisons are exploratory thus differences, regardless of magnitude, should be used for hypothesis generation. These data indicate perceived outcomes and do not indicate confirmed effects