Microdosing psychedelics – Does it have an impact on emodiversity?

Abstract

Background and aimsPrevious research has proposed that microdosing, i.e., the repeated use of sub-threshold doses of serotonergic hallucinogens, has an impact on mood by increasing emotional awareness. We propose that increased emotional awareness could translate into higher emodiversity, a balanced experience of emotions in which emotions are experienced with more similarity in intensity and duration. We examine the effect of microdosing, the day after, as well as the cumulative effect of microdosing on overall, positive and negative emodiversity.MethodsWe use data collected over a period of 28 days sampled between February to June 2020 from 18 users that already had an active practice of microdosing at the start of the data collection. We assessed emotional states using ESM methods, i.e., signal-contingent sampling with triggers sent 5 times a day. The working dataset has a number of 224 observations days. We used mixed effects models to test our hypotheses.ResultsWhen taking into account the level of average affect, we found that during microdosing days positive and overall emodiversity were significantly lower. No evidence was found for a mediating role of the level of average affect. Higher cumulative instances of microdosing were not related to any of the emodiversity indexes. Participants experienced more “awe, wonder, or amazement”, “ashamed, humiliated, or disgraced” as well as less “joyful, glad, or happy” emotions during microdosing days.ConclusionA microdosing practice may increase the centrality of certain emotions on microdosing days, resulting in a decrease in emotional diversity.

Unlocking the self: Can microdosing psychedelics make one feel more authentic?

“…In fact, the magnitude of the effect of the mood variables on authenticity turned out to be quite small in comparison to the overall effect of microdosing, that is after accounting for microdosing days, only daily average negative mood was linked to decreased state authenticity. Regarding the role of microdosing for mood, our results add to the mixed reports from previous qualitative studies, i.e., microdosing practice has been shown in some cases to improve mood but also to increase certain negative emotions or decrease certain positive emotions (Anderson et al, 2019;Johnstad, 2018;Pop & Dinkelacker, 2023). Regardless of the relationship between microdosing and emotional states, suffice it to say that we did not find evidence supporting the idea that it constitutes a path linking microdosing to state authenticity.…”

Snow season: The normalisation of cocaine

“…Self-assessments of state authenticity – i.e., the experience of being true to oneself in a particular moment – collected from microdosers in the Netherlands indicate that feeling and behaving authentically play a central role in explaining the positive effects of microdosing on health and wellbeing that are reported by current research (Pop & Dinkelacker, 2024). Koponen and colleagues (2024) investigate cumulative risk factors for injuries and poisoning requiring hospital care in youth with prenatal substance exposure.…”