I see the occasional post about long term microdosing but not too many, so I thought I'd share my thoughts for the sake of those folks who just started and are interested in what went on, at least for me, over the course of one year of microdosing. It's hard to pinpoint what exactly has changed over the past year, because just living life changes us and a lot can happen in a year. That said, I think the experience has been a very good one.
The Technical Stuff: I started with 1P LSD but found it gave me neck pain. Regular LSD does not, so I've been sticking with that for the last 9 months. I kept pretty well to the Fadiman protocol of dose-off-off-dose. I know acid isn't consistent in concentration across the tab, but I figure that if I was using psilocybin, even with a consistent weight the dose would also vary from day to day based on what part of a mushroom I was consuming (the chemical is concentrated more in some parts of the fungus than others). Mostly it's a sort of exercise in surrender and going with the flow. Practice in keeping mentally steady and grounded is part of why I started all this to begin with.
The Effects: Early on I found myself doing things like wanting to eat frozen peas and enjoying the sensation of coldness and vegetable texture. I was very appreciative one day that I happened to live on a planet with such an excellent moon. Those are both examples that make it sound like I was tripping, but they're thoughts that I had in the context of a perfectly normal day where I did all my normal things. And that's really the trick, isn't it? To shake up my thinking a little bit so that I can experience the world from a slightly different perspective without being intoxicated. Microdosing disrupts my established patterns of thinking just enough that I can see them as exactly that — habitual thought processes that may or may not be serving me.
One Year On: It might be a result of the microdosing, or a result of continuing with meditation, or just being a year older, but I'm mellower, more positive, more self-confident, and generally behave in a way that is more consistent with what I want to be. I have ups and downs and days where nothing is right, but overall I'm the better for it.
But now I've stopped. The last month of my year experiment I began to feel like I didn't need to MD to feel gratitude, connectedness, and appreciation of life. It was actually distracting me in my ability to think deeper about the elements of my life and relationships that I want to reflect and build on.
To sum up: I've learned that my thoughts and ideas are much more plastic than I used to believe. I'm a little more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. I can face those things with less fear. Because of those fundamental changes, I can continue to grow in a more effective way without the microdosing.
Random changes over the year:
- Started eating better, less junk food
- Moved in with my girlfriend, something I thought I'd never do — and it's been great
- Work a retail job and the nasty customers don't bother me as much as they used to
- Watch less TV, have much less tolerance for violent shows and movies
- Sit outside and read more often