VANCOUVER – The Microdosing and Meditation Study, led by Beckley Foundation in collaboration with Psychedelic Data Society and Quantified Citizen (QC), seeks to observe how meditation skills evolve over three months of regular meditation practice and whether, how, and for whom microdosing (the repeated use of low sub-perceptual doses of psychedelics) may impact these skills.

‘Enhancing Mindfulness’ was reported as the most widely endorsed motivation for microdosing (Rootman et al., 2021) in the largest microdosing study to date, Microdose.me, which was conducted by Quantified Citizen in collaboration with University of British Columbia and Maastricht University. The study was launched in 2019 and is still running with over 20,000 participants to date. Despite the growing evidence of overlap between the neurophysiology and phenomenology of psychedelic drug-induced states and contemplative practices, no research to date has specifically assessed the effect of microdosing on meditation practice.

“In my opinion, psychedelics can be used as tools to get into a higher state of awareness, which, rather like a farmer preparing the ground for seeding, can help achieve a more fertile ground for either meditation or creative thinking. No research has been conducted so far on the effect of microdosing on meditation practice, and I am very curious to find out if regular meditators do experience measurable benefits from microdosing,” shares Amanda Feilding, director of the Beckley Foundation.

The results of this study will help guide future research and improve understanding of the effects of microdosing. Ideally, this will lead to better safety and insight into potential benefits and risk factors.

The study will gather data from all meditation practitioners, whether or not they use psychedelics.

Quantified Citizen is a citizen science-powered health research app. It has a growing library of studies on interventions, techniques and emerging trends.

To fuel further growth and development of new study capabilities, Quantified Citizen is currently in the process of raising its Seed+ round of funding.

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