Microdosing psychedelics: Does it have an impact on emodiversity?

Ioana Pop*, Jannis Dinkelacker

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
147 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Background and aims
Previous 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.

Methods
We 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.

Results
When 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.

Conclusion
A microdosing practice may increase the centrality of certain emotions on microdosing days, resulting in a decrease in emotional diversity.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)29-35
JournalJournal of Psychedelic Studies
Volume7
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Keywords

  • emodiversity
  • experience sampling methods
  • microdosing

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Microdosing psychedelics: Does it have an impact on emodiversity?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this