Where feminist theory and micro-dosing LSD intersect

A few months ago I started micro-dosing LSD in conjunction with reading Michael Pollan’s book about how psychedelics can help with depressive thoughts and a myriad of other things.

I’ve been excited about the idea of gaining new perspectives in adulthood, and this book felt like the perfect thing for me. My dad has a great motto: “Always be teachable”. I think my interest in expanding my own perspectives started with women’s studies, where I learned about this idea of solidarity; a feminist theory about supporting each other to create our own economy. Men have been helping men since the beginning of time and now they wield all the power and run the economy. What if women helped women helped women enough to create our own economy? This idea struck me so much that it changed my life and the way I see the world. I haven’t been so jolted by an idea until I read about the ways in which our brain pathways start to get more narrow and rigid as we get older and fall strictly into certain patterns of thinking. What a horrible thing! So I was Inspired to try micro-dosing.

A dear friend of mine, who is a brilliant engineer and music maker, sent me a package of LSD tabs. One tab of acid is 150 micrograms of LSD which is then dissolved in 150mL of water so 1 mL ends up being equal to 1 microgram. This helps you to be extremely precise with the dosing. It’s incredible what a difference even half a microgram can make with something as powerful as LSD.

While micro-dosing I would open up my Michael Pollan book and read about this theory called spotlight consciousness vs. lantern consciousness. Spotlight consciousness happens as we get older. Our brain pathways become more narrow and fall into these formulaic ways of problem-solving. Lantern consciousness happens when we’re children, where problem-solving is achieved by taking in everything around you, sort of like a lantern casting light in a bunch of different directions.

Sometimes I don’t even notice that I’ve taken anything, and sometimes the feeling is very perceptual. I start thinking about other people’s inner lives, colours are more vibrant, and I become less self-conscious. I notice that my motor skills improve and I’m a more decisive person.

One time I took a bath while micro-dosing and spent 15 minutes thinking about twins and how they make music together – the twin telepathy. When micro-dosing, the urge to impress the people around me starts to melt away and I tend to say and think these strange, honest things that occur to me in the moment. It’s like being a kid.

How amazing that we can experience something like this in our lives? The idea of solidarity teaches us to question our assumptions about how the world works. Patriarchal thinking and oppression can exist even in the most innocent-seeming parts of our culture and feminism gives us the tools to keep our eyes open to it. It’s like the consciousness expanding power of psychedelics. They both give us the power to better understand our place in the world and how we might (or should) interact with it. What a force!