The endgame for psychedelic drugs isn’t “microdosing Fridays.” It’s treating major mental illness.
The idea of using psychedelic drugs to expand consciousness or disrupt negative patterns of thinking had a well-documented moment in the 1950s and 1960s. Now it’s having a cultural revival.
Podcast host PJ Vogt talked about secretly taking tiny doses of LSD to see if it would improve his work and life. Novelist Ayelet Waldman wrote about using microdoses of LSD to treat her volatile moods. New York Magazine ran a guide on the microdosing movement. In Silicon Valley, tech companies are holding “microdosing Fridays.”
That last tidbit comes from a new book by journalist Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind, in which he offers a winding tour through the history of psychedelics. He also tells the story of a middle-aged man who wanted to find out if it was too late to rewire his own habits, especially his deeply ingrained ways of thinking about the world.