A Really Good Day(38)

Users have begun to embrace microdosing as an alternative to the cognitive-enhancing drugs that are ubiquitous on college campuses and in Silicon Valley.*7 Stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall, and modafinil are popular because they do in fact increase productivity and focus. However, they’ve been linked to decreases in neuroplasticity, likely as a result of the way they flood neural networks with dopamine, glutamate, and norepinephrine. Psychedelics enhance neuroplasticity, which makes them a compelling alternative. According to one of Rolling Stone’s übersmart twentysomething microdosers, “Microdosing has helped me come up with some new designs to explore and new ways of thinking.”

Hey, I was a techbro all along, and just didn’t know it! Next time you see me, I’ll be wearing a hoodie, sipping a steaming mug of “bulletproof butter coffee,” and railing about the gross homeless dude pissing in the doorway of my four-and-a-half-million-dollar condo in the Mission.

All joking aside, 1960s-era research, though inconclusive and anecdotal, did seem to indicate that psychedelic drugs can improve cognition and creativity. According to Fadiman, his study showed that, for his subjects, “in almost every case, new or unnoticed aspects of their problems opened up novel avenues toward solutions. Emotional residue from prior unsuccessful attempts no longer hindered their creative flexibility.” The question certainly bears further research, though as someone who came to this experience from a place of suffering, who has sought and failed to get help using established treatment models, and who, moreover, has little interest in the recreational use of drugs or even their performance-enhancing qualities, I hope that the therapeutic value of microdosing doesn’t get muffled beneath the desperate hysteria to work better, stronger, faster.





* * *




*1 ?Frustrated at never being able to figure out which silver Prius was mine, I put a second Obama sticker on the bumper, because having only one made it indistinguishable from the rest. I suppose, if I really wanted to make it easier to find, I’d slap a National Rifle Association sticker on it.

*2 ?Interestingly, research shows that walking in nature, especially among tall trees, reduces anxiety and depression as effectively as SSRIs (Rachel Hine, Carly Wood, and Jo Barton, Ecominds: Effects on Mental Wellbeing, an Evaluation for Mind [London: Mind, 2013]). The Japanese even have a name for this: shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.” Their Ministry of Health encourages it as a stress reliever; to my knowledge, they’ve yet to weigh in on the added benefit of a tiny dose of a psychedelic drug.

*3 ?In an odd coincidence, on the way home from Fadiman’s house, I just happened to be listening to an episode of a podcast called Reply All, in which a producer and one of the hosts attempted their own weeklong microdose experiment, with decidedly mixed results. They initially experienced some benefits, but soon became anxious and uncomfortable about keeping the protocol a secret from their colleagues. If my kids are suspicious of my newfound good spirits, I can only imagine how quickly grown podcast employees might catch on. One of the producers became more animated than normal, even hypomanic. He also managed, one day, to take a double dose, which meant he was out of the range of the sub-perceptual and into the perceptual. He did this on a day when he was taking a long and dull road trip. Set and setting, people—they’re everything when it comes to drug experimentation.

*4 ?Of course, government approval and clinical supervision hardly guarantee safety, as we learned in January 2016, when one person died and five others were hospitalized during a clinical trial of a French pharmaceutical meant to treat anxiety, motor disorders, and chronic pain.

*5 ?See, e.g., Robert Glatter, M.D., “LSD Microdosing: The New Job Enhancer in Silicon Valley and Beyond?”; Chris Gayomali, “Forget Coffee, Silicon Valley’s New Productivity Hack Is ‘Microdoses’ of LSD”; etc., etc., ad nauseam.

*6 ?Andrew Leonard, “How LSD Microdosing Became the Hot New Business Trip.”

*7 ?What some people call “nootropics.”





Day 17


Transition Day

Physical Sensations: None.

Mood: Contented.

Conflict: None.

Sleep: More than eight hours!

Work: Productive.

Pain: None!





Today, when my husband was eating his breakfast, I walked up behind him, slipped my arms around his shoulders, kissed him, and said, “I know you love me.” And I left it at that. Even inside my mind.

He pressed his head into my belly, and I felt his shoulders relax beneath my arms. This poor, patient man. I love him so much. And you know what? He really does love me. Of course he does. I’m not a terrible person who doesn’t deserve to be loved. I’m the woman who is crazy about him, who laughs at his jokes, even his puns, who delights in his company. More than that, I’m not actually unlovable. Sure, I’m volatile and mercurial, but I’m also fun. Yes, I’m occasionally bitchy, but I’m also sweet. I’m opinionated, but I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong. It is suddenly so obvious that what I need to do is just get out of my own way and enjoy my marriage and my life.

My mood was so good today that I found myself able to approach with patience a book that I had up until now barely succeeded in paging through, let alone reading. Be Here Now—written, as the title page states, by “Dr. Richard Alpert, Ph.D., into Baba Ram Dass”—is printed primarily on butcher paper, with text that is not black but a pale blue that, depending on my mood, I find either insipid or soothing. One typical page is nothing more than a drawing of a mandala surrounded by the phrase “From Bindu to Ojas.” There are sketches of Indian gods and instructions to the reader that “The energy is the same thing as Cosmic Consciousness” or “Energy = Love = Awareness = Light = Wisdom = Beauty = Truth = Purity.” I have no idea what any of this means. When Ram Dass writes, “When I’m with the guru, there’s nobody home,” I can’t help sympathizing. When I am with this book, there’s nobody home. Until today.