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Controlled experiment: microdosing mushrooms

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VoidTraveler

VoidTraveler

Traveler's pet cactus
Senior Member
OG Pioneer
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Quite recently I've been researching and attempting to unravel the effects of micro-dosing P. Cubensis. Most of the experiments that have been done are either done by individuals or are done for varying periods of time and/or different dosages. This makes interpreting results difficult, sketchy and an incredible amount of work.

I personally want to start experimenting with P. Cubensis for 2 to 4 weeks in a steady dose and with a larger group, so that we can share our experiences and collect some actual information that we might share with other people. What I am looking for is several people(hopefully at least 10) that are willing to take a small micro-dose of 0.1g of P. Cubensis over the course of April. (Participants should therefore have 3 grams of dried P. Cubensis in their possession).

The idea is to take a gelcap with 0.1g of mushrooms every morning on an empty stomach and after 15 minutes consume breakfast(or whatever you normally do in the morning) and keep track of the effects over the course of the day, weeks and the entire month. Ideally we would have a questionnaire that participants should fill it several times to see if we can find collective effects. If it turns out that 0.1g is too low, we will increase the dose to 0.2g in may.

I specifically want to start out with 0.1g of P. Cubensis to see what the effects are over the course of a month. Starting with higher doses might yield for effect but collecting data with small increments will provide more definite information.

Requirements for this 'experiment' to start
- At least 10 (healthy) participants(more is better)
- A community developed questionnaire to collect results
- Anonymous way to collect information through a questionnaire [looking into this]
- Well defined experiment parameters

I'm by no means a scientist, and I'm not a doctor either. However, I'm really interested in the effects of micro-dosing mushrooms. If you're interested in participating or if you have ideas on what kind of questions we should have on the questionnaire, leave a reply.

Participant information
If you have interest in participating in this experiment please make sure you qualify for the experiment. To weed out any potential factors that could affect the results I have compiled a short checklist. Just leave a reply in this thread if you wish to participate and I'll PM you with extensive details on how we will approach the experiment a week before starting.

To qualify you are:
- in good health
- not taking any anti-depressants
- not micro-dosing harmalas or other psychedelics
- in possession of 3g of P. Cubensis and a scale
- willing to spend a few minutes on a daily basis to fill in a questionnaire

Alternative ways to help
I can use some help with the following things:
- Designing three questionnaires: pre-experiment, post-experiment and a daily questionnaire
- Data collection system
- Data analysis

Results
The results from this experiment will be made public here on the Nexus, including all the raw data. However, your anonymity will be guaranteed through the means of assigning you an unique identifier before the experiment starts. All data you submit will be done through this unique id and NOT your Nexus username. My goal is to have a system through which your identity cannot be determined, not by me and not by anyone else. This will ensure anonymity and prevents the possibility of being linked to illicit activities.
 
Collecting information
I've been discussing the topic in the chat and a few good suggestions have been made. I think it's a good idea to test for the following things(note: list is subject to change as suggestions come in):
- General well-being / happiness
- Mindfulness Attention & Awareness Scale (MAAS)
- Creativity (still researching ways to determine this).

If you feel something is missing or if you have suggestions, please reply to this thread. Any help is appreciated!
 
rOm said:
I'm in !!! awesome idea
but could I mix with some low caapi dose too ?
Click to expand...

I appreciate it, but I would prefer not. Adding caapi to the equation might / will skew the results as it's impossible to determine whether the effects are caused by the mushrooms or the caapi.

However, once this experiment is over I think it would be a very good idea to repeat the experiment with other substances, such as (extracted) harmalas. But adding them in this equation would make the results unusable.
 
VoidTraveler said:
rOm said:
I'm in !!! awesome idea
but could I mix with some low caapi dose too ?
Click to expand...

I appreciate it, but I would prefer not. Adding caapi to the equation might / will skew the results as it's impossible to determine whether the effects are caused by the mushrooms or the caapi.

However, once this experiment is over I think it would be a very good idea to repeat the experiment with other substances, such as (extracted) harmalas. But adding them in this equation would make the results unusable.
Click to expand...

I understand that, but I'm not sure I can only microdose mushroom without anything all month. I'm too much into weekly dose of harmalas and the like, all sorts of medicinal plants.
So what I can do is participate and dose everyday but once in a while dose caapi or mescaline F.E.
 
This kind of survey´s are usually based on questions where people have to rank certain aspects of their functioning on a scale (say, one to five or one to ten).

Something like: mood (positive, negative, neutral), energy level, mental focus, sleep, appetite, experience of pleasure (enhanced, neutral or diminished), experience of agony or pain (same), memory, sensory experience (enhanced, neutral or diminished), experience of emotions, reaction speed, active or passive mood, imagination (richer, unaffected, poorer), social skills....

so it would look like:
--= very negative, -= negative -/+= neutral, +=positive, ++= very positive.

Mood: -- - -/+ + ++
energy: -- - -/+ + ++
Focus: -- - -/+ + ++
etc...
 
I am quite interested in this venture, and may be able to participate.

I think it's possible for daily test, .1 per 150lbs body weight may be a bit high for functioning, I've found .1g to be high enough that waiting two days after to integrate are beneficial for me. However I do not hold that perspective with extreme confidence.

.05g per 150lbs may be a better starting number. Regardless it's a plan I like a lot and would like to participate in, although there are a couple life events coming up which may prevent me from doing so. That may be part of the reason I think starting with .05 would be a better idea, I think that might be a more realistic amount for people to continue dealing with practical issues during the trial. Personally I've found that at .1g there does not seem to be a physical tolerance after a day, which I also think is relevant.

Polytrip has great questions for the survey. I think expanding on questions about social skills would be useful, empathy/ability to read/connect deeply with people seems to be heightened unless there is anxiety in my experience. I think this might be one of the most significant benefits.

Also, I think completing a daily survey along the lines of polytrip's recommendation, something quick and easy and short would be useful in examining the shifting of perception of the experience, and individual consistency in different aspects. A daily survey completed the same time every night or such.

my 2 cents on a great plan :)
 
since p. cubensis is known to have wildly varying levels of psilocybin per specimen, wouldn't it be a much better idea to use other psilocybes such as azurescens or semilanceata? or a different genus completely like panaeolus? the latter is a more likely candidate for cultivation, granted not as easy as cubensis.
 
I am very interested in this, but agree with hexagonal - 0.1 g of one strain (or even the same strain under different growing conditions) can vary by as much as a factor of 3, so all your subjects would probably be taking varying amounts of psilocybin, psilocin (and let's not forget baeocystin!). The most productive way of doing this would be to have everyone taking a measured amount (of ideally the same sample) of extracted psilocybin, but clearly this is not realistic.

I think this is still worthwhile, but I just wonder how truly valuable the info would be with such a huge variable in the equation... At the very least, each individual sample should be from the same batch (and ideally the same flush) of the same strain for each person.

Count me in also, but I may have to opt out in the middle - if a contract comes up out of town or out of country, well...:)

JBArk
 
If the researcher would supply me with psilocybe cubensis, I'd happily take part. I'm not being altogether serious, but it would be helpful if everyone were taking the same strain from the same cakes. I estimate that I will have my first flush of the B+ strain in 6 weeks time BUT I have never "grown" before, and now come to think of it I have never eaten psilocybe mushrooms before. I can only hope DMT has prepared me.
 
Better powder the shrooms beforehand to homogenize the alkaloid content, since not only flushes or batches can vary but even one part of a mushroom can have different alkaloid content than another.

Very interesting idea, btw, VoidTraveler :)
 
Perhaps we could put together a pre-trial prep questionnaire, which would attempt to align the effects? I'm not sure if this is possible, but I think there is potential to find question/actions which could bring the trial to a decent piece of info. If things are too affected, lower the amount, not enough, raise the amount.

Try a certain amount one day, then answer questions, and attempt certain exercises.

How much is the meaning of time effected? (looking for pretty close to 0)

Attempt to complete homework, work project, goal planning project, putting shopping list together for a week, going to store.
How much are these things effected?

How much more "drawn" are you to music, yoga, or meditation? :)

Just brainstorming here, have no idea if this part can be done.
 
im most definitely in. by april i should have about 100g dry cubensis or at least 50g dry by then.(2 kits, one is ahead of the other)

i can microdose nothing but shrooms for a whole month for sure. not sure about going about 200-300mg though as i have to work a physical job from 8am-5pm. cant be tripped out in any real way that would be noticeable!
:p

however micro doses daily like 100mg - 200mg wouldnt make my strangeness any more noticable at work than it currently is in the opinion of my colleagues :p
 
I am surprised by the overwhelming amount of responses! In a good way though. Lemme address a few things:

Why P. Cubensis and dosage
I've chosen for P. Cubensis because this is the most available kind of mushroom. Any person capable of washing their hands and preventing their saliva from falling on the cake is capable of cultivating these mushrooms. They're easy and quickly to cultivate if a simple growkit is used. Anyone willing to participate can have their first flush ready in just over 2 weeks after deploying their growkit.

Other kinds of mushrooms are less available and/or require a lot more effort to cultivate. So using another kind of mushroom significantly reduced the test group.

For the dosage I picked a low dosage. I've never experimented with micro dosing anything and most of the micro dosing experiments I've found on P. Cubensis ranged from 200mg up to as much as 400mg. However, the dose is not fixed and this needs to be discussed. If people feel that 50mg is a safer dosage then we shall go down that route. However, if you feel that 100mg is too much, please explain WHY you believe it is too high. We need a fruitful debate on which route we go. Perhaps we should present people the option between 50mg or 100mg so that those sensitive to Psilocybin aren't tripping out.

Endlessness suggestion to chop up the mushrooms into tiny bits and mix them thoroughly to guarantee an equal distribution of the Psilocybin is a very good idea. I shall note this down and make sure it goes into the participant instructions.

The dosage is VERY important however, as RebornInSmoke stated, we cannot be (negatively) impacted in our daily lives.

And that also brings shines light on another problem: Drug testing. Certain companies feel they need to infringe into the personal lives of their personnel by actively drug testing them. I shall take this into account when writing the participant instructions and make sure they know the risks they might be taking.

Problems with this experiment
As said by various people, this experiment is far from scientific. In an ideal world, I'd like to have a group of 100 people and do a double blind test using capsules that are either filled with pure Psilocybin or an inactive mushroom compound. However, P. Cubensis and Psilocybin are illegal in most countries. So that is NOT possible, this is the next best thing without me(or someone else) mailing an illegal substance around the planet.

Because we're using mushrooms that have extremely varying amounts of Psilocybin in them it is impossible to determine if there is a placebo effect or not. Technically we could all do an extraction on the mushrooms we have and then cap the resulting Psilocybin, but even that isn't pure enough. However, that also brings me to the reasons behind this survey.

Goals
The reason I want to do this experiment is twofold:
- Unveil the effects of Psilocybin in sub-hallucinogenic dosages on healthy adults
- Stir up something in the world

There are several research projects done into mushrooms. It has been shown that people who took mushrooms in hallucinogenic dosages have a greater feeling of well being, are more open minded and a whole list of things. If we can draw attention that low doses might have the same effects, perhaps it will inspire people with a proper scientific background to do some real research to the subject. This will create awareness, spread the story of the mushroom and perhaps in time will result in legalizing it. And if none of that happens, we've learnt something and documented it for others to build on.
 
My concern with 100mg per 150lb:

This amount has had a strong enough effect on my psyche that 2 days to integrate seems potentially necessary each time. This may be enough to cause more unnecessary negative outcomes resulting from daily use for 4 weeks. I have done this days in a row, but have been left feeling a bit nervous about it.

This amount has effected my ability to perform practical tasks. Not significantly, but enough to be worrisome to dedicate 4 weeks to.

I have found a very slight, rare, loss of balance at times.

For such things, it's often better to start with a safer amount. It's easy to say after two weeks let's go up 50mg, not so easy to say that was a bit too much. If it's not enough, it's kind of a tease to go further. If it's too much, it's kind of overwhelming and may reduce motivation to try again at lower doses.

There's a study I've heard Mckenna talk about, where people given small amounts showed increased ability to perceive things accurately and quickly, done by a "straight" scientist. I've never researched this but knowing the amount used might be pertinent.

---

I think it might be good for everyone considering joining, to try 100mg, attempt some of the references I spoke of, and decide if they can perform all necessary practical tasks they would need to for two weeks/four weeks, and then we can discuss this info for deciding.


Edit:
Also, successful microdosing I've read of has revolved around dosing every 3 days or so, so the amount consumed reflects this. Daily microdosing would, I think, require lower than those amounts. But again I do not have confident opinion on this.

Maybe, I have only done this with potent cubes, perhaps this reflects my experience. Would be another good reason for persons to try some sort of reference test for how affected they are.
 
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