The positive research on psychedelics just keeps coming, and here at Dutch-Smart, we’ll keep you updated on it! Because, as you might have guessed, behind the scenes at your favorite smart shop, we’re huge fans of these hallucinogenic substances. Not only because some varieties can give you the trip of a lifetime, but also because you can actually derive some positive effects from them. This is also shown by a new (partly Dutch) study, which was published in a medical journal.
Read also: 4 North American psychedelics that are becoming increasingly popular
More focus?
For this placebo-controlled study, published last weekend in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, scientists from the University of Basel in Switzerland and Maastricht University in the Netherlands gave volunteers either a small dose of LSD or a placebo. The participants were then asked to process information, pay attention to specific tasks, and track their mood.
Like most studies on psychedelics, this one was somewhat small and limited, so all findings should be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, the team of researchers did find clear differences between LSD dose levels, allowing them to identify at which dose the drug was beneficial, but also at which dose it ceased to be beneficial.
Read also: Study: A joint after work is totally harmless!
Microdoses of psychedelics
Psychonauts among us know that a “normal” dose of LSD is around 100 micrograms, but in this case, the volunteers received much smaller doses. The 24 volunteers in the study—who reported having used psychedelics an average of 2.75 times before the experiment—were given either five, 10, or 20 micrograms of LSD, and a fourth group received a placebo to ensure that any changes were caused by the drug itself.
Ultimately, there were only six volunteers in each group, so a larger study will be needed to validate the findings of these groups, but this is also the first experiment to distinguish the variety of individual responses at each dose level.
Read also: Will scientists soon create the perfect magic mushroom?
Still, the effects were quite remarkable. At five micrograms, the volunteers were able to concentrate and pay attention better—an effect that reemerged in the group receiving the highest dose of 20 micrograms. However, this group also reported greater feelings of anxiety. According to the study, the five-microgram group also felt friendlier and more sociable.
At 10 micrograms, the study found that participants began to feel a “heightened sense of awareness,” an effect that was also present in the 20-microgram group. It is not surprising that the most significant effects occurred at the 20-microgram dose, where participants reported the most notable improvement in their mood, but at the same time also felt the most confused.
Read also: This is why cannabis gives you such a massive munchies
Or should you microdose truffles after all?
If you’re microdosing with these psychedelics yourself, the study doesn’t offer much information on how best to do so, except for the suggestion that there’s no point in taking less than five micrograms. What the research did achieve is to draw up a roadmap for other scientists by determining which effects of LSD occur at which dosages, and by clarifying how scientists can expect this to play a role in their own studies.
Would you like to start microdosing yourself, but want to do so with a completely legal substance that has also amply proven its effects? Then choose microdosing with magic truffles. Magic truffles contain the active ingredient psilocybin, the same substance found in magic mushrooms. You can find those here at Dutch-Smart as well, in the form of convenient grow kits!
