If you’ve been following the news at all over the past few months, chances are you’ve come across the term “microdosing.” Research has now shown that microdosing magic mushrooms or trufflesoffers a wide range of benefits, and one of them is that it’s said to give your creativity a huge boost. This would make it a fantastic tool for people with creative professions or hobbies, such as artists, performers, journalists, musicians, designers, and so on. But how exactly do truffles or magic mushrooms enhance your creativity? We’ll explain it all in detail in this article!
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Microdosing Truffles
If you visit the Dutch-Smart website regularly, we certainly don’t need to explain what microdosing is. But for those who’ve never heard of it, here’s a quick explanation: microdosing involves taking very small doses of psychedelic substances like LSD, magic mushrooms, or truffles as part of your daily routine. Not to trip, but to reap a host of subtle benefits. You can read more about this in our previous blog post on microdosing.
So if you thought hallucinogenic mushrooms were only meant to unravel the secrets of the universe during an insane psychedelic trip, you’re wrong. According to recent research, these substances, when consumed in small amounts, can enhance your creativity. A research team from Leiden University in the Netherlands made the discovery and shared their findings in a publication in the scientific journal Psychopharmacology. The study explains the effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms and other sources of psychoactive substances, such as peyote and LSD, on task performance.
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Cognitive skills
We have known for a long time that some mushrooms and truffles cause hallucinations, but these scientists discovered that people who ingested microdoses of these substances could temporarily improve certain cognitive skills. One of the biggest effects it is said to have is a boost in creativity, problem-solving ability, and open-minded and creative thinking.
To demonstrate this, the researchers invited 36 people to participate in an experiment. All received microdoses of psychoactive substances derived from psilocybin or hallucinogenic mushrooms. To be precise: they received exactly 0.37 grams of psilocybin. The participants had to complete two tests. One was the “Concept of Image” task, which required convergent thinking—namely, finding the best solution to a problem. The other was the “alternative use” task, which required divergent thinking to generate many unique solutions to a single problem.
The results of these tests showed that all participants performed better after receiving microdoses of psilocybin. In fact, they improved their performance in every area of the tasks (fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality).
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‘Thinking without limits’
The researchers concluded that these microdoses induce a state of “thinking without limitations.” This implies an enhancement of the recipient’s creative abilities, as explained by author Luisa Prochazkova: “All in all, our results suggest that consuming a mushroom microdose allows the participant to generate more ready-to-use alternative solutions to a problem, thereby providing preliminary support for the assumption that microdosing improves divergent thinking. In addition, we also see an improvement in convergent thinking, that is, better performance on a task requiring convergence toward a single correct or optimal solution.”
Many scientists now also believe that the psilocybin in magic mushrooms and truffles could have a beneficial effect on our mental health, but numerous studies are currently being conducted to confirm this.
Are you curious about the effects of psilocybin microdosing? In the Dutch-Smart webshop, we sell super convenient Psychedelic Microdosing packs!