NOTE: What’s up people. This is a mini-series I’m doing on a 100 day LSD microdosing experiment. Microdosing is where you take an imperceptible dose of something (usually a psychedelic) that offers some physical benefit without the full effects of the drug. You can read more about it here.

Previous entries are at the bottom of this article.

Wew, yesterday was rough. Really rough. Definitely not the same magic that I experienced on day 1. But I’m pretty sure that was my fault.

I think I mentioned this before, but I feel like microdosing shoves your face in all of the things you know you should be doing but are procrastinating on. Then it makes you feel SUPER uncomfortable if you aren’t actually doing anything to fix it. No idea why this happens or if it happens to anyone else but me, but for the past two days that’s been my experience.

Wassup gurrrrrl

And based on the other times I’ve taken LSD it kind of makes sense. You’ll read trip reports of people who will say things like, “I realized that I need to make major life changes blah blah blah” and then they go and fix whatever their problem is after the trip is over. I think that’s why they recommend it for people with depression and mental problems.

Strange how nobody mentions that in their stupid Vice articles. They just try to make it seem how it’s this magical experience where Silicon Valley tech CEOs write better software and become better people with no negative effects at all. Well let me tell you, if you do not respect the microdose and think you’re going to do it “just for fun” then you’re in for a nasty surprise.

Yesterday for example, I took my MD and got to work as usual. I mentioned before how I had already bought a plane ticket to Vegas, which in my mind signified a major step towards changing my life. I wanted to do the RSD Immersion program and just by purchasing a ticket, I’d sort of subconsciously gotten myself one step closer towards actually doing it.

I was talking to my mom about this the other day actually. My parents are trying to rent out their house and leave this place called La Quinta. They moved there from LA about 15 years ago because they wanted to buy a house. Sounds like a great idea, except LQ is a retirement community where the average age of people is 70 years old. And it’s in the middle of the desert so in the summer it gets up to 120 degrees. Not fun.

Anyway, my mom called me and told me that they’re ALMOST done fixing up the house to get it ready to rent, something they themselves had procrastinated on for months. Years actually. But when I came for a visit in July I put the screws to them and they started actually doing something about it.

So now that they’re almost done, my mom called me because they don’t actually know where to go once they rent out the house. They haven’t picked their next location.

I told them something similar to what I wrote yesterday: that it doesn’t matter what they choose, their brain is going to involuntarily come up with reasons why whatever choice they made is the wrong one and why they shouldn’t choose to change.

But that’s not because their brain wants what’s best for them. It’s because their brain is doing everything it can to avoid having to change. Because growth is a painful process even for our brains. That’s why “pushing your comfort zone” is such a popular thing to say these days. It’s not easy.

This is your brain

But the point is that your brain is not on your side. I mean it can be, but when you want to make a drastic change, your brain is going to fight you until the change is actually made and it feels like there’s no turning back. Of course you can ALWAYS turn back, but once you go through the motions of actually taking a step towards change, the whole process becomes much easier.

Or so I thought.

When we were on the phone, I told my mom:

“Look, I just went through the same thing. I just bought my ticket to Vegas yesterday, but since doing it my brain has been coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why I shouldn’t go. I’m not even consciously trying to think about it. It’s like they just pop into my head involuntarily and I have to wave them away.”

The point is that just because I spent $130 on a plane ticket doesn’t mean that I MUST go. I can skip the flight, stay in New York, buy a ticket somewhere else, etc. But by actually taking one step in the direction that I want to go, my brain’s argument gets a little weaker and I gain some additional leverage on myself to actually make it happen.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

What actually happened is that I think I unconsciously realized that buying this ticket didn’t mean shit, that I still had plenty of escape routes, and that I could just as easily fuck off to Thailand for another six months and do Muay Thai and get a nice tan instead of forcing my brain to change drastically.

And then I started to feel very, very uncomfortable. I KNEW that I had more things to do to prepare for my trip, and it was killing me that I wasn’t doing anything about it. Procrastination becomes literally unbearable on this shit.

I had to find someone to replace me in my apartment. I had to find a place to stay in Vegas. I had to find a part time job to support myself while I was there because this program is fucking expensive.

Don’t get me wrong, I was still busy. I wasn’t just sitting there not doing anything. I was working on client accounts, writing my MD report, shit like that. But in a way even that was a form of procrastinating. I forget what they call it: productive procrastination or something?

The fountain of youth

Anyway, I started getting so anxious in my apartment that I decided I needed some air. I walked to the WeWork (a co-working space for those of you who don’t know) in Soho that my friend has a membership at. He lets me work there whenever I want, which is a nice way to get out of the house.

I thought that my going there I would be able to focus or something. But for once, a change in location didn’t allow me to escape my problems. I tried to get some work done there as well, but the feeling of anxiety was still out of control.

It got so bad that I couldn’t even work anymore. My body’s adrenal response was taking its toll and I was getting exhausted. I literally just sat in the conference room by myself and stared out the window. A very different experience from the day before where I had been able to focus on things so easily. And the dose I took was the same - I just took the other half of the same tab that I’d taken the first day.

After spinning my wheels for a bit at WeWork I was like FUCK THIS and dropped my computer back at home. Being back in my apartment made me EVEN MORE anxious and I was like fuck this, I gotta get out of here. But the problem is that NYC is freezing now (for me at least) and “going for a walk” meant that I had to go outside in the cold weather.

But at this point I had no choice. I wasn’t about to stay in my apartment and pull my hair out… for what? Just to avoid putting my apartment on AirBnB and telling my roommates that I was leaving? That’s what I was afraid of this whole time? Stupid.

At the time though I don’t think you could have reasoned with me. I was on a tear and would have done anything to calm myself down. Then I realized something.

The curse of genius

So I mentioned that I’m also taking other supps. I normally break the dosages into two parts: I take the important ones in the morning with my coffee and the less important ones in the early afternoon slash late morning before going to the gym.

One of them is something called phenibut. I don’t want to get too into it right now because this thing is already fucking way longer than I intended but phenibut is a drug invented in the 70s in Russia to keep astronauts from freaking out when they went into space. It’s amazing.

I took that, some creatine and some agmatine and went for my walk.

About twenty minutes into my walk, I started to calm down and my mood improved. I don’t know how I decided to start getting shit done, but I resolved to start knocking out more tasks that I knew I had to do. I told myself that AS SOON AS I GOT BACK, I would do x y and z.

Like for instance I have a cousin who has lived in Vegas for something like 10 years. I had been putting off telling him I was coming, but I needed to ask him if he knew of any apartments I could rent while i was there. I told myself I’d do it when I got back to my apartment.

But then I realized that I had my phone in my pocket and there was no reason I couldn’t just do it right there. So I did. And afterwards I got an immediate reward of good feelings. Interesting.

I tested it again by messaging a friend of mine who I sold hair straighteners with in Texas, asking him if he knew anyone who had kiosks in Vegas. He replied right away that he did and agreed to connect us. And again, I felt a little bit better.

Actually I felt a lot better. And I felt stupid for putting something off that actually made me feel good instead of bad.

Whatever works

When I got home, I immediately put my apartment on AirBnB, messaged a few friends who I heard were looking for apartments, and told our “head roommate” that I was leaving for November. For some reason I thought he’d be mad, or give me shit for saying I was leaving on such short notice. But he didn’t care at all.

Why the fuck was I waiting so long to do these things?

I got on the computer and busted out a few work tasks that I’d been procrastinating on, still feeling pretty good, and ended up going to sleep again at around midnight.

All in all, after these two days I would say that microdosing HEAVILY punishes procrastination and REWARDS action, which is why it’s so effective. Any benefits in creativity or mood seem to be a result of feeling good about taking action. Any anxiety that resembles a mild “bad trip” comes from realizations that you’re fucking up your life and not taking any action on fixing it.

Seems pretty useful to me.

Also, yesterday I decided to fast the entire day. I’ve been eating like shit lately (for me at least) and just felt like my body needed a day or two to detoxify. Fasting while microdosing isn’t really that hard even because you’re not as hungry anyway. Eating doesn’t seem like such a rewarding activity like it normally does. Also I didn’t smoke any weed until late at night so by the time I got the munchies I was already in bed.

Today I woke up at around 8:30, fully rested and wide awake. I had a bit of residual anxiety this morning, kind of like when you wake up and you know you have a lot of important tasks to do that day. Not really a bad thing I would say, very helpful if you know how to approach it.

I’ll probably take my phenibut/creatine/agmatine a bit earlier today to even out the experience. I’ll be heading to the gym in a bit so will take it before then. Will also be sure to take some massive action so I can quiet this dreadful feeling inside of me.

Whatever works I guess.

Previous microdosing entries:

Microdosing Day 2: Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back
Microdosing Day 1: Removing The Adhesion