Microdosing

What microdosing is

Repeatedly taking a small amount of a psychedelic, usually psilocybin or LSD, meant to stay sub-intoxicating: below the level where the effects impact your daily function.^1,2

Researchers haven't agreed on how small, or how often.¹ Studies generally describe low doses taken on some days and not others, over a period of weeks.^2,3

This guide gives no amounts or schedules. The work offered on this site doesn't include dosing guidance.

Safety

Medications

Reports link lithium taken with a psychedelic to seizures. In one analysis of 62 such reports, 47% described a seizure.⁸

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are the other pairing with a mechanism behind it. A classic psychedelic acts mainly at one serotonin receptor rather than flooding the synapse, so serotonin toxicity from one alone is unlikely. An MAOI removes a route the body uses to clear it, which lengthens and strengthens the effect and makes toxicity a real concern rather than a theoretical one.⁹

Across combinations more broadly, a systematic review of 52 human studies of psychedelics taken alongside other drugs reported no serious adverse events outside a few case reports.¹⁰

People taking common antidepressants, SSRIs and SNRIs, often report weaker psychedelic effects.^11,12 One controlled study found escitalopram, an SSRI, left psilocybin's positive effects on mood in place.¹³

GLP-1 medications are a different kind of question, and the honest answer is that nobody has measured it. They slow the stomach, and an oral dose that absorbs slowly is one that can arrive late, weakly or unevenly. That is an argument from how the drugs work rather than from a trial, and what exists beyond it is anecdote. It is on the application's screen because the protocol may not do what it is meant to, not because anything has shown it to be unsafe.

Questions about a prescription belong with whoever prescribed it. This guide is education, not medical advice.

If you are in crisis, call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number.

Who research screens out

Research safety guidelines exclude people with a personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder, and people who are pregnant. Because psychedelics raise pulse and blood pressure, the same guidelines check the heart first.¹⁴ Data on use during pregnancy are very limited.¹⁵

Those guidelines were written for research at full doses.¹⁴ Return to Baseline has its own screening, which its application sets out before asking anything.

How the work here fits

The work offered here is education, preparation and integration support around a protocol someone has already decided to run.

It doesn't include supplying, recommending or dosing any substance, or being present for anything illegal where it happens.

Most of the attention goes to the practices around a protocol: breath, movement and attention, done daily and tracked. They keep going after the protocol ends.