Reading on LSD?

[Cohesion]

Can you read or study complicated material on a microdose? (<10micrograms)?

Would you lose a desire for tackling intellectual endeavors on a microdose? I am highly motivated to do my current work. I'm focusing on my passion and am in grad school. I've tried to read on psilocybin in the past, and my mind wandered quickly- and that was reading Rumi. Thoughts welcome

 

[Vediog]

If you get the microdose right, sure. I usually seem to overshoot it though. The struggle of only getting strong tabs...

 

[Cohesion]

How do you split the tab- what tools for cutting and measuring?

 

[Volsam]

Tryptamines are not very suitable for reading IME but reading anything on LSD is amazing! Even on a full dose - its extremely immersive and the meaning of whatever you are reading becomes crystal clear. I read a lot of books on acid...

The best way for more precise dosage is to put the blotter in purified water (never tap!) and let it sit there for 20 minutes, knowing the amount of mics and the amount of water, you can easily dose exactly what you need - volumetric dosing.

Otherwise you can cut the blotter in very small pieces (almost powder like) and eyeball it knowing the amount of mics. Cutting the paper precisely will not be as good as making the powder out of it because of "hot spots" - some spots on the paper are more saturated than others, so if you cut the 100 mcg blotter in the middle thinking you have two 50 mcg now, you might actually have 80mcg and 20mcg instead.
Powdering the paper in fine pieces (using small scissors) and dosing it by volume is better approach IMO.

 

[VerbalTruist]

Shouldn't be an issue, but YMMV.

 

[pupnik]

I often do on 1/4 tabs which are more than microdose. Walking around town is my fave.
but, even tough, in the first 2 hours I cannot force myself to sit in a chair, and after that I have to get up and unkink the muscles.
I commonly do do focused intellectual work, with body breaks - breathing and allowing body signals to flood awareness.
I can read books, screens, e-books, emails (best to try not to answer business emails), forums.
I can design software and read and write javascript, html, css.
I can review and test code written by others, and run diagnostic software, create reports.
I can do electronic art and pen drawing, or acrylic painting, critique artwork by colleagues.
I cannot trust myself driving, or cycling in traffic. Even rollerblading is too hectic.

 

[herbavore]

Cohesion--how great to see your name and avatar again! I'll stay out of the discussion because I have no experience with microdosing but just wanted to pop in and say congrats on grad school and hello.

 

[Xorkoth]

A true microdose does not intoxicate you at all, it seems to heighten your performance like a prescribed dose of Adderall might or something (I mean, it's not like amphetamine, but it does increase mental performance). So yes, reading is perfectly easy. I actually like reading on a full but light dose of LSD. Of course I've tripped a whole bunch.

 

[Vastness]

I often do on 1/4 tabs which are more than microdose. Walking around town is my fave.
but, even tough, in the first 2 hours I cannot force myself to sit in a chair, and after that I have to get up and unkink the muscles.
I commonly do do focused intellectual work, with body breaks - breathing and allowing body signals to flood awareness.
I can read books, screens, e-books, emails (best to try not to answer business emails), forums.
I can design software and read and write javascript, html, css.
I can review and test code written by others, and run diagnostic software, create reports.
I can do electronic art and pen drawing, or acrylic painting, critique artwork by colleagues.
I cannot trust myself driving, or cycling in traffic. Even rollerblading is too hectic.

This post inspired me to take 1/4 tab, ~40ug of acid this morning knowing that I had a bunch of development type work to do. I found that I was still quite capable of doing this and it did probably make it a little more interesting but I'm not sure if I was actually more effective at it. I also found myself doing a lot of reading about other topics that have recently piqued my interest. I'm not sure if it had any real impact on my focus except that when I was distracted I was distracted by something else somewhat intellectual rather than an urge to check social media or something equally inane. I would definitely put this down as a good outcome though.

Certain music that I would normally listen to while working was sometimes a little too distracting and contributed to both a feeling of physical restlessness and cognitive restlessness that impaired my ability to focus. On that note, I found that I noticed physical sensations a lot more than I have on acid before, I definitely felt the need to take frequent "body breaks" to move around.

Do you find that acid has any affect, positive or negative, on your performance of the intellectual tasks you mentioned? Or do you mainly do it just because it's fun?

I am pretty skeptical of the usefulness of actual sub-perceptual microdoses but I think it's possible that low-dose, or even, higher dose LSD and other psychedelics could be nootropics in certain contexts. I don't think that for me it is that focus-enhancing however, but I do take modafinil a little too often so my brain might be a little burnt out. Definitely more experimentation is needed.

 

[pupnik]

To tell the truth, I do not know, I have been self medicating moderate doses of lysergamides every few days for years, I know of few people my age who still do code development, so I can definitely say it does not negatively affect my skill in this competitive sector, few people in my field are older than half my age it seems - or else they just seem young. Then again I am a contractor so those who are employees may be going up through the ranks and that means they enter management so that only the young people are in development. They can tell I am older but I do not say "Hey, I'm 66, and I want to do it all in json objects, and then we will jam them into SQL using this blob encoding over Ajax...

 

[Cream Gravy?]

I started reading the Catechism of the Catholic Faith once on acid (well, 125ug ALD-52) and it was a bit difficult, but rewarding. I realized that I actually think that God is very similar to what the Catholic faith believes him to be.

Catholics themselves? They don't know shit about God. And they probably haven't read any of the CotCF lol.

 

[pupnik]

...
Do you find that acid has any affect, positive or negative, on your performance of the intellectual tasks you mentioned? Or do you mainly do it just because it's fun? ...

I missed this question. Answer is, resoundingly, "YES!"

because, it gives my mind more "hands or hooks" with which to hold ideas, and an ability (or curse) to hold those ideas longer.

Normally things naturally fade pretty quickly as you pick up the next thing. With psychedelics I hold onto an idea or image longer just naturally, and the next idea or image overlays the previous like a semitransparent film. These impressions stack up producing interesting artifacts that otherwise are less obvious.

Sequences or progressions of thought objects become more strongly established which can be appreciated as a stronger grasp, or as delusional looping.

Sorry I missed answering that point among your questions yesterday.

 

[Volsam]

Normally things naturally fade pretty quickly as you pick up the next thing. With psychedelics I hold onto an idea or image longer just naturally, and the next idea or image overlays the previous like a semitransparent film. These impressions stack up producing interesting artifacts that otherwise are less obvious.

Sequences or progressions of thought objects become more strongly established which can be appreciated as a stronger grasp, or as delusional looping.

I like the clarity with which you put your words in this one, pupnik! I immediately visualized the process :D

 

[Cohesion]

Great replies, everyone.

I ended up getting liquid on sugar cubes, so the blotter question was a non-issue. Volsam explained how to dissolve blotters in water very nicely. This is what my friend suggested to do with the sugar cubes. One question- why never tap water? Is a better alternative Distilled Water with salt dissolved in it? I have this solution already at home.

I'm also not sure about the value of sub-perceptual microdosing levels. It helped me clean out some cobwebs-- some deep cleaning in my kitchen and I did my taxes.

Starting with microdosing (quarter-to-half dose) initially. This was a little irritating to do. I even built some tolerance between half-doses. The day I took a full dose, I hardly felt the effects- just more relaxed and less anxious. But the following day? I was super productive and efficient at my studies. Like an intellectual after glow-flow.

Vastness, I also was distracted by more intellectual work and not by inane work when I was reading. And I had the same experience with music.

Herbavore - Hi!! Your post made me smile! It's so good to see you around, too. Your presence/wisdom was reassuring when I needed sound advice in the past. Thanks for the congrats I'm studying Applied Behavior Analysis.

 

[Moxious]

I ended up getting liquid on sugar cubes, so the blotter question was a non-issue. Volsam explained how to dissolve blotters in water very nicely. This is what my friend suggested to do with the sugar cubes. One question- why never tap water? Is a better alternative Distilled Water with salt dissolved in it? I have this solution already at home.

Tap water contains chlorine which destroys LSD. From what I hear technically you can evaporate it off by letting tap water sit out for 24 hours, but I've never taken the risk and used distilled/deionized water. I've never added salt, you only need to consume a few ml so there's really no substantial risk of throwing off your ion balance. If you intend to dilute the acid considerably then you might as well though I guess.

You'll also want to add a bit of ethanol to the solution if it will be stored for any period of time to prevent bacteria from building up.

Volsam suggested cutting tabs into tiny pieces, this would be even easier with sugar cubes as they can be pulverized and dosed by weight that much more easily.

 

[Cohesion]

Moxious- add ethanol, really? I can see adding something to prevent bacteria buildup.

Also GREAT info on the chlorine destroying LSD. That would be an alternative explanation to what I thought may have been a "tolerance" effect.