Book summary “A really good day”: summary

Introduction

You may find yourself trapped in a relentless cycle of mood swings, irritability, and despair that destroys your relationships and daily life. Traditional psychiatric medications often fail to bring relief, leaving you at the mercy of perimenopause, depression, and unmanageable emotional volatility.

Ayelet Waldman explores a radical alternative in her personal thirty-day experiment with microdosing LSD. Taking subtherapeutic quantities of lysergic acid diethylamide offers a way to regain emotional regulation and mental clarity without experiencing hallucinations.

The book details the pharmacological history of psychedelics, the reality of outdated drug laws, and the internal family dynamics that shape your mental health.

You will discover answers to several pressing questions throughout this journey:

• What does a microdosing protocol actually look like in daily life?
• How do psychedelics interact with brain chemistry to alter mood?
• Why do current drug laws persist despite their evident failures?
• How can you address personal emotional triggers alongside chemical interventions?

1. The Experiment Begins

Taking subtherapeutic doses of LSD heightens sensory awareness and smooths out negative emotional riptides without causing hallucinations.

A microdose is a subtherapeutic amount of a psychedelic drug low enough to cause no adverse side effects while eliciting a measurable cellular response. A microdose is approximately one-tenth of a typical recreational dose. A recreational trip requires between one hundred and one hundred and fifty micrograms of LSD, while a microdose is only ten micrograms.

James Fadiman popularized microdosing and established a simple self-study protocol involving a repeating three-day cycle.

• Take ten micrograms of LSD on Day 1 of every cycle.
• Keep to your normal schedule of work, leisure, meals, coffee, naps, exercise, and social life on Day 1.
• Monitor and write a few notes about mood, physical strength, symptoms, productivity, and the ease of work on Day 1.
• Take no LSD on Days 2 and 3.
• Continue monitoring and noting how the day went on Days 2 and 3.

Sourcing and Safety

Securing illicit substances for a personal experiment can involve surprising and unconventional channels when traditional street or dark web methods are dismissed. Finding herself unable or unwilling to buy drugs on the street or via the dark web, the author casually mentioned her quest to acquaintances, eventually leading to an anonymous package sent by an elderly professor.

An acquaintance passed along a message to an aging professor near the end of his life who no longer needed his remaining LSD and mailed it to the author in a package with a return address reading Lewis Carroll. The bottle contained fifty drops of vintage quality liquid, with five micrograms per single drop.

Because street drugs often contain dangerous substitutes like synthetic cathinones or synthetic cannabinoids, the author bought an LSD testing kit online. She learned that highly diluted microdose solutions barely register the standard color change on testing kits.

The author tested her liquid LSD with a kit bought on Amazon Prime, observing only a faint purple hue because a single drop contained a mere five micrograms. A standard blotter dose contains one hundred to one hundred and fifty micrograms of LSD, while DEA data indicates a range of thirty to one hundred and twenty micrograms of actual LSD on blotter paper.

The First Microdose

The first microdose of LSD produces immediate heightening of sensory awareness, a sense of mindfulness, and calm optimism.

The author secretly retrieved a cobalt blue dropper bottle containing vintage-quality LSD sent by a mysterious acquaintance and took two drops sublingually. On day one of taking two drops of diluted LSD, the author noticed heightened sensory details, felt easier access to mindfulness without traditional meditation, and experienced a calm, unforced sense of happiness and optimism about work and family.

2. History and Science of Psychedelics

LSD has a remarkably high margin of physical safety and alters brain connectivity through serotonin receptors.

Discovery and Toxicity

Dr. Albert Hofmann discovered LSD in 1938 while researching ergot derivatives at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Basel. He was investigating ergot, a fungus linked to medieval plagues of ergotism known as St. Anthony's Fire. Five years later, he felt a mysterious pull to return to the compound and accidentally ingested some during his laboratory work.

Dr. Albert Hofmann stirred 250 millionths of a gram of LSD into a beaker of water and drank it down, later riding his bicycle home during wartime while experiencing severe vertigo, intense fear, and visual distortions. This marked the first intentional self-experiment with the substance, which eventually led to a life lasting 102 years.

You might worry about physical harm from such potent substances, but toxicology data confirms exceptional safety. The compound carries no documented human deaths from an overdose. A dose of 2,000 micrograms sits twenty times higher than a typical tab yet causes no biological side effects.

Severe incidents demonstrate the sheer resilience of the human body against massive quantities. In a 1972 incident in San Francisco, eight people accidentally snorted massive quantities of LSD believing it was cocaine. They suffered comas, vomiting, and internal bleeding, yet all completely recovered within twelve hours.

Neurobiology and Set and Setting

Psychedelic compounds act as agonists of serotonin receptors, enhancing brain connectivity, neuroplasticity, and glutamate activity. When these molecules stimulate 5-HT2A serotonin receptors, they trigger the release of BDNF, which acts like Miracle-Gro for the brain to stimulate neural growth.

This process increases glutamate activity in the prefrontal cortex. You experience loosened cognition, enhanced emotional perspective, and improved neuroplasticity. Neurobiologist Dr. David Presti notes that these compounds foster an environment where the brain can grow and change.

Swiss researchers Vollenweider and Kometer reviewed forty years of psychedelic research in 2010. Swiss psychiatrist Peter Gasser also used 200 micrograms in modern therapeutic psychotherapy.

Your subjective experience depends heavily on external and internal conditions:

• Set: your mental state and expectations before taking the substance.
• Setting: your physical environment and the people around you.

Early researchers found that subjects examined by cold and distant administrators often became hostile and paranoid. Those supervised by warm and gentle researchers experienced feelings of love and joy.

3. Family Dynamics and Personal History

Releasing unrealistic expectations of aging parents and examining personal triggers helps resolve lifelong emotional pain.

You might notice that difficult telephone calls with a demanding father and troubled mother create internal anger. This anger stems from longing for a fictionalized, idealized parent rather than accepting them as they are. Shifting this mental perspective allows you to endure lengthy monologues with patience and newfound compassion.

The author discovered a stack of microcassettes containing her father's 1980s therapy sessions with Albert Ellis. She expected to find deep emotional confessions about her, only to discover they spent six hours discussing communist history and the kibbutz movement. Meeting Dr. James Fadiman in Palo Alto at the youthful age of seventy-six provided another perspective on aging relationships.

You can improve your own family interactions by following specific principles:

• Acknowledge the specific limitations and personality of the parent you actually have instead of mourning the ideal parent you wish you had.
• Stay on the line during repetitive monologues without rushing to invent excuses to disconnect.
• Accept family members for who they are to eliminate the roots of chronic disappointment and anger.

Hormones and Medication History

You might discover that your emotional condition is not bipolar disorder, but rather mild premenstrual dysphoric disorder linked directly to your menstrual cycle. By comparing mood charts to the menstrual cycle, deep mood drops and rage occur predictably right before the period and immediately before ovulation. This matches the hormonal shifts typical of PMDD rather than bipolar disorder.

Eighty percent of ovulating women experience some form of PMS, and nineteen percent suffer PMS symptoms serious enough to interfere with work, school, or relationships. Three to eight percent of women suffer from PMDD with disabling severity. Sixty-seven percent of women's admissions to psychiatric facilities occur during the week prior to menstruation.

The author traumatized a local dry cleaner and picked fights with her husband over loading the dishwasher during her premenstrual rage.

Decades of trying diverse psychiatric medications led to an exhausting cycle of side effects and counteracting prescriptions. You might try numerous classes of psychotropic medications, including SSRIs, SNRIs, atypical antidepressants, mood stabilizers, stimulants, benzodiazepines, antipsychotics, and sleep aids over a period of seven years after an initial diagnosis. Each medication introduces side effects that require additional drugs to combat them. Because SSRIs caused weight gain and deadened libido, additional medications were added, which then caused irritability, leading to yet another prescription found in the Physicians' Desk Reference.

The onset of perimenopause ruined the predictability of cyclical treatments, plunging the author back into chronic irritability and despair. As periods became irregular, timing short courses of SSRIs became impossible. Hormone replacement patches carried cancer risks or negative mood side effects, leaving you in a perpetual state of anger and emotional despair. You might find yourself trapped in perpetual irritability, seething at people and then collapsing in shame at your outbursts.

4. Drug Policy and Harm Reduction

Current drug laws are rooted in racial bias and fear, whereas harm-reduction models and public health approaches offer safer outcomes.

Drug laws have historically been introduced and enforced through racial demonization and bias. African Americans represent 12 percent of total drug users but account for 59 percent of those in state prisons for drug offenses. Thirty-eight percent of those arrested for drug offenses are African American.

Mandatory minimum sentences and federal guidelines replaced judicial discretion with drug quantity metrics, leading to severe disparities. Sentences became determined strictly by the weight and type of drugs involved in the offense. You might represent an undocumented immigrant with an IQ of 85 facing over fifteen years in federal prison solely because a confidential informant packed three kilograms of methamphetamine into a box he carried. This specific amount yields a Base Offense Level of 36, translating to 188 to 235 months of expected prison time.

Media panic and sensationalized reporting following public psychedelic gatherings led directly to the criminalization of psychedelics. Thirty thousand people gathered at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park for the Human Be-In in 1967 where Leary told crowds to turn on, tune in, and drop out. Misleading studies linking LSD to birth defects and emergency room visits for bad trips destroyed the reputation of psychedelics. This panic culminated in Richard Nixon signing the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, placing psychedelics on Schedule I.

The War on Drugs

Decriminalizing all drugs and shifting to a harm-reduction model reduces social ills without causing the feared spikes in addiction rates. In 2001, Portugal decriminalized all drugs, treating possession and use as administrative violations while maintaining criminal penalties for distribution. Drug-caused mortalities, disease transmission, and petty crime dropped substantially, and addiction rates did not increase because freed resources were directed toward treatment.

Providing addicts with clean, prescribed supplies of their drug of choice can dramatically lower crime, disease, and overdose while helping them quit. Dr. John Marks ran a heroin maintenance experiment in Liverpool during the 1990s where patients stopped committing crimes to fund habits. A subsequent Swiss study involving 800 volunteers given heroin, 100 volunteers put on methadone, and 100 volunteers given morphine showed a 60 percent drop in crime and half of unemployed addicts finding jobs. Five percent of Marks's patients stopped using every year without rehab, despite a baseline addiction rate of 24 percent for heroin users.

Parenting and Reform

A harm-reduction approach to parenting rejects abstinence-only dogma in favor of open, honest communication and practical safety strategies. Because teenagers will inevitably encounter drugs in contemporary society, you achieve better safety outcomes by providing accurate scientific information and risk-minimization tools rather than false demonization. Statistics show that 50 percent of high school seniors report trying illegal drugs, and 68 percent report trying alcohol.

You can protect teenagers by adopting practical safety rules:

• Talk openly about which drugs carry high abuse potential and which are relatively safer.
• Provide accurate, science-based information regarding the risks and rewards of drug use instead of blanket fear-mongering.
• Maintain a consequence-free pickup policy so teenagers can call for a safe ride without fear of parental wrath.
• Stock home supplies with drug testing kits to verify the safety of club drugs.
• Utilize published research guides such as Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens and Drugs.

Sourcing illegal drugs on the black market exposes buyers to severe legal hazards, including potential entrapment by confidential informants. While trying to resupply her LSD through a black-market contact named Lucy who pushed for a large bulk order of sixty doses, Waldman realized it mirrored her past federal defense cases involving DEA informants and immediately canceled the deal. Regular-size doses cost fifteen dollars on the black market, but ordering sixty doses legally constitutes intent to distribute.

5. Outcomes and Reflections

A thirty-day microdosing protocol improves daily writing productivity and emotional regulation, prompting a call for rational drug regulation.

Jim Fadiman collects self-reports from global users who follow his three-day protocol, tracking qualitative changes such as reduced anxiety, enhanced creativity, better conflict resolution, and unexpected physical improvements. Fadiman showed the author a heaping cardboard box of user reports and narratives from people microdosing substances like LSD and psilocybin. Fadiman received approximately 300 requests for his protocol and 50 varying reports and narratives returned to him. Only 2 people stopped the protocol mid-month due to negative reactions out of the reported group.

You can organize your own observations by following specific guidelines:

• Complete ten cycles of observation following a specific microdosing protocol.
• Monitor physical sensations, mood, conflict, sleep, work output, and pain levels daily.
• Prepare a final report including insights, advice, concerns, suggestions, or warnings.
• Follow a three-day protocol consisting of a microdose day, a transition day, and a normal day.

Monitoring her moods across ten cycles, the author observed that transition days brought optimism and easygoing behavior, while microdose days occasionally caused heightened anxiety or irritability alongside moments of joy. Her family and friends noted marked improvements in her patience and buoyancy. The total duration of the microdosing experiment lasted 30 days across 10 cycles of observation.

The author's children and husband observing that she was nicer, less angry, and much faster at resetting her mood during domestic conflicts.

Future Models

Legalizing and regulating substances through government frameworks rather than criminal cartels would ensure product purity, proper labeling of safe dosages based on body mass, and robust public education about risks and benefits. Experts like Dr. Carl Hart and Stephen Gutwillig propose that methamphetamine be regulated similarly to Adderall, and psychedelics made available through controlled online markets. An estimated 8 to 10 percent of the US population takes antidepressants.

Rational drug laws would replace criminal prohibition with a public health model focused on education, purity, and unit doses.

Conclusion

Microdosing alters your emotional baseline by smoothing out severe mood fluctuations and increasing your daily productivity.

You can integrate these insights into your own life by following a careful protocol.

1. Consult medical literature and evaluate your personal health history before considering any experimental substance use.
2. Maintain strict control over your dosages to ensure they remain truly subtherapeutic and imperceptible.
3. Track your daily emotional states and writing output meticulously to measure the actual effects of the protocol.
4. Separate the physiological safety of psychedelics from the social stigma imposed by outdated drug legislation.
5. Advocate for evidence-based drug policy reform that prioritizes public health and harm reduction over criminalization.

10 Key Ideas

1. Taking subtherapeutic doses of LSD heightens sensory awareness and smooths out negative emotional riptides without causing hallucinations.
2. The first microdose of LSD produces immediate heightening of sensory awareness, a sense of mindfulness, and calm optimism.
3. LSD has a remarkably high margin of physical safety and alters brain connectivity through serotonin receptors.
4. Releasing unrealistic expectations of aging parents and examining personal triggers helps resolve lifelong emotional pain.
5. You might discover that your emotional condition is not bipolar disorder, but rather mild premenstrual dysphoric disorder linked directly to your menstrual cycle.
6. Current drug laws are rooted in racial bias and fear, whereas harm-reduction models and public health approaches offer safer outcomes.
7. Decriminalizing all drugs and shifting to a harm-reduction model reduces social ills without causing the feared spikes in addiction rates.
8. A harm-reduction approach to parenting rejects abstinence-only dogma in favor of open, honest communication and practical safety strategies.
9. A thirty-day microdosing protocol improves daily writing productivity and emotional regulation, prompting a call for rational drug regulation.
10. Legalizing and regulating substances through government frameworks rather than criminal cartels would ensure product purity, proper labeling of safe dosages based on body mass, and robust public education about risks and benefits.