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Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

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Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#41

Post by nickysielicki »

bichiliad wrote: post #5

> Meanwhile, those who consumed the drugs but thought they were taking a placebo experienced no significant increase in wellbeing. It's wild that there was a part of this study in which people were told that they weren't taking a psychadelic, but they were taking a psychadelic.

From the abstract:

> This study used a ‘self-blinding’ citizen science initiative, where participants were given online instructions on how to incorporate placebo control into their microdosing routine without clinical supervision. The study was completed by 191 participants, making it the largest placebo-controlled trial on psychedelics to-date.

So everyone in the study presumably was interested in microdosing and, given that they would have sourced the drugs themselves, knew what they could have been taking.

Unless I’m misunderstanding. Either way, the methodology here seems really suspect to me.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#42

Post by the_only_law »

ketamine__ wrote: post #33
alacombe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychedelics are not all controlled substances, eg 1P-LSD is generally legal in North America.

It's a big risk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act

Even ignoring the federal analogue act, they can still hold you in jail while they “wait for testing” of whatever substance.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#44

Post by poopsmithe »

This is my first hand experience. My life was a codependent mess, I was depressed and having suicidal thoughts.

I took a "heroic dose" of psilocybin, and during the ~4 hour trip I fell asleep and I was convinced I had died. I re-experienced my forgotten birth and felt the pain of my circumcision. I experienced a bunch of unexplainable things, fractal patterns and music, and explored a Interstellar(2014)-like tesseract where I could choose any place in time to return to. I decided to return to myself in the present time, rather than pass on to whatever comes after my life.

I awoke in a puddle of urine and vomit. My body felt like it had been hard-reset and I felt little pains here and there which I had completely forgotten about and my brain had just become used to and ignored. I immediately felt better about my mess of a life, and happy that it's what I get to work with and make better. I used that positive momentum to get pumped about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, where I did a lot of good work on myself.

For therapeutic effect of psychedelics, I think the uncomfortable mind-body separation experience is necessary.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#45

Post by hellbannedguy »

shric wrote: post #26
seibelj wrote: post #20

My drug of choice is placebo. Minimal side effects. Inexpensive. The more I use it, the better it works. Has effects on a variety of ailments, both physical and psychological. I'm surprised they don't sell branded placebo at the pharmacy - "Super Placebo - now with organic filler". I think it could be a hot seller.

It's called homeopathy.

And Chiropractic. I would like to throw Psychiatry is there too, but they do seem to have some drugs that get people through short term misery. Read this the next time you wonder if that expensive antidepressant is really doing anything.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#46

Post by thatswrong0 »

Tenoke wrote: post #9
Nbox9 wrote: post #4

To the people illegally micro-dosing: Why would you open yourself up to the liability of committing a felony crime for a placebo effect? The risk vs reward doesn’t seem to pan out for me.

I think you greatly exaggerate the risk and ignore that people who do it don't think it's placebo.

Yeah you’d have to be pretty arrogant or careless to actually get in trouble for this

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#47

Post by porb121 »

wyqydsyq wrote: post #36
cmeacham98 wrote: post #12

Unless I'm misreading, the study seems to only analyze the participant's self-evaluation of their emotions. In other words it provides no evidence for/against "boosted levels of creativity, empathy".

The thing I find hilarious is that microdosing is literally taking a dose so small that you don't actively feel or notice the effects, and this study decided to research to what degree the subjects feel the effects of a dose intended to be unnoticeable. The conclusions this "study" reached could also be arrived at by just reading what microdosing is.

> The conclusions this "study" reached could also be arrived at by just reading what microdosing is.

there's tons of anecdotal reports of people experiencing tangible benefits from subperceptual microdosing; this study is valuable in that it tests those hypotheses in a semi-controlled setting.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#48

Post by porb121 »

wyqydsyq wrote: post #32

Incredible, who could have ever guessed that taking something in such a small dose that it's effects are imperceptible to the subject would reveal that the effects at such a dose are... imperceptible to the subject? Can we do a study on whether water is wet or ice is cold next?

"imperceptible" refers to the actual psychidelic experience; microdosing is not supposed to produce the auditory or visual hallucinations of macrodosing. that such a dose would or would not have other effects is not analytically obvious.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#49

Post by wyqydsyq »

asidiali wrote: post #40
wyqydsyq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I find hilarious is that microdosing is literally taking a dose so small that you don't actively feel or notice the effects, and this study decided to research to what degree the subjects feel the effects of a dose intended to be unnoticeable. The conclusions this "study" reached could also be arrived at by just reading what microdosing is.

So then why microdose if there is no measurable effect?

Because the only things it does tangibly effect are your mood and mental perspective, things that are entirely subjective and do not have concrete metrics that can be used for measurement, especially when comparing that between different subjects.

The only really noticeable effect of microdosing is at the end of the day you might notice you feel it was a really good day and you're happy. The thing is though this isn't distinguishable from someone simply having a good day and feeling happy. The data collected in this study would have essentially been irrelevant noise, based more on the aggregate of day-to-day experiences of the subjects rather than whether or not they received a placebo.

Microdosing inherently is indistinguishable from a placebo effect as far as empirical measurements go. If the participants who received a microdose were able to somehow measure their experience with a different result to those in the control group, then they weren't microdosing, they were actually tripping.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#50

Post by admiral33 »

asidiali wrote: post #40
wyqydsyq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I find hilarious is that microdosing is literally taking a dose so small that you don't actively feel or notice the effects, and this study decided to research to what degree the subjects feel the effects of a dose intended to be unnoticeable. The conclusions this "study" reached could also be arrived at by just reading what microdosing is.

So then why microdose if there is no measurable effect?

No measurable effect is not the same as volunteer's perception of it's effect. A comprehensive psychiatric evaluation uses a series of smaller evaluations that includes a self assessment as well as other assessments for memory, speech etc [0][1].

[0]: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-t... [1]: http://www.brooklynlearningcenter.com/services/what-it-consi...

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