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

Introduction

Authenticity, defined as the subjective experience of being one's true self, is linked to multiple indicators of wellbeing and is usually conceptualised as both a stable trait and a fluctuating state. The authors distinguish state authenticity (momentary feelings of being genuine and congruent with one's values) from trait authenticity (a more enduring disposition), and note prior qualitative reports that ingesting psychedelics can increase feelings of authenticity. Microdosing—repeatedly taking sub‑perceptual doses of psychedelics such as LSD or psilocybin—is a specific practice that community accounts and qualitative studies suggest may increase authenticity, but quantitative tests of this relationship are lacking. Pop and colleagues set out to make the link between microdosing and state authenticity explicit and to provide a first quantitative test. They hypothesised three related effects: that microdosing days would be associated with higher state authenticity via elevated positive mood (H1), that any effect could persist to a lesser degree on the day after dosing (H2), and that microdosing might support value‑aligned behaviour (more activities and greater satisfaction with them), which in turn would increase state authenticity (H3). To examine these hypotheses they used intensive, prospective self‑report data collected from active microdosers over roughly one month.