I'm going to post the Shulgin scale here for careful consideration:
Shulgin Rating Scale
PLUS / MINUS (+/-)
The level of effectiveness of a drug that indicates a threshold action. If a higher dosage produces a greater response, then the plus/minus (+/-) was valid. If a higher dosage produces nothing, then this was a false positive.
PLUS ONE (+)
The drug is quite certainly active. The chronology can be determined with some accuracy, but the nature of the drug's effects are not yet apparent.
PLUS TWO (++)
Both the chronology and the nature of the action of a drug are unmistakably apparent. But you still have some choice as to whether you will accept the adventure, or rather just continue with your ordinary day's plans (if you are an experienced researcher, that is). The effects can be allowed a predominant role, or they may be repressed and made secondary to other chosen activities.
PLUS THREE (+++)
Not only are the chronology and the nature of a drug's action quite clear, but ignoring its action is no longer an option. The subject is totally engaged in the experience, for better or worse.
PLUS FOUR (++++)
A rare and precious transcendental state, which has been called a 'peak experience', a 'religious experience,' 'divine transformation,' a 'state of Samadhi' and many other names in other cultures. It is not connected to the +1, +2, and +3 of the measuring of a drug's intensity. It is a state of bliss, a participation mystique, a connectedness with both the interior and exterior universes, which has come about after the ingestion of a psychedelic drug, but which is not necessarily repeatable with a subsequent ingestion of that same drug. If a drug (or technique or process) were ever to be discovered which would consistently produce a plus four experience in all human beings, it is conceivable that it would signal the ultimate evolution, and perhaps the end of, the human experiment.
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The elegance of the Shulgin rating scale is the fact that each category is essentially determined qualitatively, so there is no need to "calibrate" it. For example, the difference between a (+/-) and a (+) is quite stark where in the (+), the drug is "quite certainly active", i.e. barring exceptional circumstances like an inexperienced drug user in a state of crisis (see Shulgin and the orange juice), the user can be confident it is real, which really implies the ability to identify the chronology also.
If there's an murkiness in the scale, it's between (++) and (+++) because I think the ability to "continue with your ordinary day's plans" is a very context dependent. I mean personally, I don't think driving on a (++) is really a great idea, even if most of us could do it without trouble. While at the same time, most of us may still be capable, most of the time of driving, (or answering the phone, or acting sober around parents) on a (+++) under emergency circumstances. We should also consider that for Shulgin, "ordinary day's plans" likely involved working in his lab with all the hazards that entailed as well as possibly driving and maybe even giving lectures. As such, I think we should recognize that (+++) really captures a wide range of intensities in experience. The scale is not intended to distinguish between i.e. a heavily-moshed MDMA-like state and a DMT breakthrough. The scale design sacrifices expressiveness precisely in order to avoid the kinds of ambiguities that arise with more quantiative measures of effects like "how strong or layered the visuals are" or whatever.
Of course, I think a lot of people haven't read and considered the scale carefully. For example, a common error is to assume a (++++) to be higher intensity than (+++) when in fact the (++++) really should be its own metric, maybe something like a "T" (for transcendence?) that is appended to the plus rating. Because in fact it's entirely possible to have a legit (++++) experience from a trip that's only (++) level or even (+/-) level. The (++++) really doesn't belong on the scale, which I think Shulgin himself clarified later down the road.
The other common error I think is with regard to the murkiness between (++) and (+++) in which a lot of people "under-rate" their trips because they don't realize that the (+++) designation actually captures a wide range of intensities. They tend to think too much in quantitative terms. i.e., if the trips isn't "full on" or "head smashing" or "overwhelming" or whatever, then it can't be a (+++) and must be some kind of (++) or "+2.5" or something. Again, the scale is defined qualitatively not quantitatively, so don't be deceived by the fact that the plus-rating involves a number when it really is a categorical thing. What many people consider to be a "light" trip may still touch on a (+++) near the peak, even if most of the rest of the experience is at (++) level or below. In which case, it was a (+++) experience.
I would also point out that the scale wasn't really intended to rate the intensity of the experience at all (which is fundamentally a difficult problem) but rather to assess and classify the activity for purposes of drug discovery. That is, if a (+++) experience can be attained at some reasonable dose (without bad side-effects), then the drug should be considered a full and proper psychedelic. If trials only lead up to a (+) or (++) then the experience will always be rather incomplete as a psychedelic. That doesn't necessarily mean the drug wouldn't have some utility in a "museum dosing", "mini dosing", or even "micro dosing" context. However, for psycholytic psychotherapy, which is what Shulgin was most interested in, the (+++) psychedelic experience is of key interest. This is also why I believe the "Dosage" published by Shulgin for each psychedelic reflects the range within which almost everyone will be able to have a (+++). To be clear, not everyone will have a (+++) at the minimum of the range, and at the maximum of the range, many people will find the effects to be overly heavy. However, for almost everybody, there exists a dosage in that range that will produce a comfortable (+++). Hence, in a psycholytic therapy setting, almost all the doses used can be be expected to fall in that range. I think this also explains why the max dosage shown for LSD is 200 ug, because above 200 ug almost everyone experiences substantial ego-dissolution effects that interfere with the psycholytic process. I will concede there is some inconsistency in how to interpret this range for the short-acting tryptamines, like DMT. Realistically, DMT is not well suited for psycholytic therapy at all because it's so fast and intense, so he probably just opted to publish the dose ranges that are typically used by people in practice.
I've lost the point of what you are discussing in the first place.
If I may be so blunt, that's because
unodelacosa seems to be suffering from some kind of Micro-dosing Derangement Syndrome, possibly due to spending way too many hours arguing with people on the Internet about the efficacy of micro-dosing, which has caused him to grossly misrepresent and even outright misquote things I said and then arguing against these misrepresentations while attacking my credibility on the subject matter. I spent a lot of time trying to clarify my positions in my responses, and instead I got responses that demonstrate either a lack of comprehension of what I wrote or a bad faith effort to "win" the argument by deceiving other readers about the actual claims I've been making. I'm sorry to say it's not worth my time and effort to write an additional direct response. I will attempt to summarize my original views as follows:
I expect (meaning I believe it's highly likely but not certain) that I can distinguish a 10 ug LSD dose from placebo, based on extrapolation of experience with a wide range of carefully measured doses on a wide variety of other psychedelics and partially supported by a peer-review study which hints at the threshold for most people falling somewhere in the 6-13 ug range. I contend that any above-threshold dose is not a micro-dose, because by definition a successful micro-dose does not produce acute subjective effects but is hypothesized to produce cumulative benefits, like a vitamin or supplement, when repeated over the long-term. In contrast, a mini dose is active but of course provides a small fraction of the level of effects felt in a full experience. I would consider anything in the (+) or (++) categories to be a mini dose, and on the basis of the "1/6th minimum Shulgin dose" (based on the "Dosage:" range published for each fully active compound) rule, I expect a 10 ug LSD dose to be a (+) mini-dose experience for many people but not necessary all people. So 10 ug could also be a(n) (inactive) micro-dose for some people. The study I posted suggests most people familiar with the effects of LSD identified activity at 13 ug, and I believe I've seen older studies suggesting that most subjects naive to LSD can identify effect from it at 20 ug. I do of course expect experienced users to be able to detect effects from a drug like LSD at a lower dose than naive users.
I also want to repeat that I maintain skepticism about micro-dosing, which actually means I don't take a strong position on either side. While evidence is lacking for benefits (or effects of any kind) from micro-dosing, I don't believe the studies that have been published
disprove the utility of micro-dosing either. To actually disprove benefit or effect from micro-dosing is actually a much more ambitious undertaking than has been performed in any studies to date. I'll take a guess that micro-dosing does indeed have effects, but they may not be what are expected by the user and may be more like the effects of chronically using other serotonin-active drugs like SSRIs or some atypical anti-psychotics. I'm not interested in those other drugs, nor am I interested in micro-dosing. I am interested in mini-dosing (and taking full doses too) in which at least (+) level of effects are sought.
… Are you reading what you're writing at all? Do you hear yourself? Maybe I'm missing some important tonality lost in translation, but that statement is nauseatingly self-righteous and melodramatic.
