Dave Asprey defines microdosing as 5 to 10 percent of a full dose, taken below the perceptual threshold. He spent $2.5 million on his own health transformation, reaching 4.8% body fat, and incorporated psychedelics like ayahuasca and ketamine into biohacking practice. He warns that untrained facilitators pose serious risks.
Questions this video answers
About 5% of a normal dose (maybe up to 10% for psilocybin).
He said he microdosed LSD every day for 30 days (and 20 days once to write a blog post).
Around 2011 ("When I started the biohacking movement back in 2011").
Approximately $2.5 million.
About 4.8% body fat.
Chapters
I live in Austin and I go to a lot of parties and people say, oh, I'm taking a microdose. Like, dude, you're taking half a gram of psilocybin. That is not a microdose. That is a recreational dose. A microdose is below the level of perception and it's about 5% of a normal dose, maybe 10% for psilocybin. And you might feel a bit more creative, a bit more sparkly, but quite often people are overdosing with microdoses and you can do this every other day. I did a microdose of LSD every day for 30 days, 20 to write a blog post about it years ago. And you will see subtle shifts in perception. People report their creativity goes up. Most of the ultra marathoners, if they're off camera, will tell you they're microdosing LSD when they're going to run 100 miles because it does something for endurance.
Welcome to the Radical responsibility podcast. I'm Dr. Fleet Mahl and I'm excited to guide you on a journey of authentic transformation. In each episode, I'll bring you insights from leading experts to explore trauma recovery, mindfulness practices, positive positive psychology, and innovative breakthroughs in health, wellness and life optimization. This is a space for real conversations that inspire meaningful change, helping you find alignment with the person you were always meant to be. Let's get started. What if you could harness the power of the mitochondria, your cell's powerhouse, to boost your physical and mental performance? How does psychedelics fit into the puzzle of deep healing and transformation? In this episode we'll we're diving into an eye opening conversation with Dave Asprey, award winning entrepreneur, creator of Bulletproof Coffee and Danger Coffee and father of the biohacking movement. Dave's groundbreaking work has revolutionized health science, helping millions upgrade their mind and body's capabilities through cutting edge strategies and technologies. Together, we'll explore the surprising intersections of biohacking, microdosing and the essential role of integration in in lasting change. Curious about the path to peak performance and expanded consciousness? Let's get started. My name is Dr. Plip Mall, your co host for this session and I'm really thrilled to be here today with Dave Asprey. Welcome Dave.
It's an honor to be here.
Well, it's an honor to have you and to connect with you. I've been familiar with your work for a long time and we chatted a little bit beforehand. I'm a fan of Bulletproof Coffee and we had a little discussion about the origins of that. So, you know, as a leader in the biohacking space, I wonder if you could start us off by sharing how psychedelics and psychedelic assisted therapy might kind of interface with that world of biohacking. And, you know, I guess we could look at it maybe over the course of this interview and we could address the world of microdosing a little bit, if that fits in. We do often have interviews about microdosing on this. But what's the interface between the world of psychedelic, psychedelics, therapy, and perhaps microdosing, and the kind of world of biohacking is a term for really optimizing our physical, mental, cognitive, emotional capacities.
When I started the biohacking movement back in 2011, I really carefully crafted this definition. And it was the art and science of changing the environment around you and inside of you so you have full control of your own biology. And this came about because I used to weigh 300 pounds. I was a Silicon Valley computer hacker. I was also profoundly unhappy. Anxiety that I didn't even know was anxiety because it had been present since I was born. PTSD from the cord wrapped around my neck. And I went on a path of restoring my health. I've spent about two and a half million dollars at this point on reversing my age. I'm 4.8% body fat, not because I'm trying, but because when your body makes all the energy, it can make you just get lean. And I'm in a better place than I've ever been along the way in that definition of biohacking. Well, if you change the world around you so. So that it supports your biology, you have more energy because your body, at unconscious levels, is constantly listening to all of the inputs. The light, the time of day, the temperature, the sound, even the electromagnetic fields, the types of interactions you have, nutrition. And if we set those up, it's a lot easier to have control of your biology. But the definition incorporates the inner world. It's profoundly important. So there's always been the notion of body, where I believe it all starts. And we can talk about why psychedelics do what they do and why breath, work or meditation can also get you to these unusual places. So there's body, and then there's mind, and then there's spirit. And biohacking encompasses all three. It just so happens that making a few upgrades to your biology means that it's a lot easier to deal with aspects of mind and to access the realm of spiritual. And I've incorporated psychedelics into the conversation since the beginning of the movement. And in 2018, this became a new word in the English language. Webster's added biohacking to the dictionary. And my name's in there, which is the craziest thing ever. The first conference on biohacking was a hundred people 13 years ago. It's 4,000 people now. It's called the biohacking conference. And last year, we had Joe Dispenza on stage. He said, what does that have to do with biohacking? Well, in the model that I use, there's a hidden operating system in the body that you're not supposed to be able to see, and it's running all sorts of ancient algorithms and ancient programs that are very fast and very dumb, and they're just designed to keep you alive. And this maps directly into transpersonal psychology. And I've had the honor of hosting a breath workshop with Stan Grof, one of the fathers of transpersonal psychology, interviewing Stephen Porges about polyvagal theory and then running the 40 years of Zen my neuroscience called a mystery school or consciousness school in Seattle. And just recently, we added ketamine as an option to that, because even without ketamine, people would say, this intense neurofeedback. It's like the best plant medicine ceremony I ever had, but without the plants. So we know we can access these states of consciousness. And some of them are profoundly healing. And different lineages I've studied, including shamanic training, meditation in Nepal, Tibet, that in 1999, I went down to Peru and I sought out ayahuasca. And when I was asking around for it, they looked at me and they said, you're white.
You won't like it.
It's for locals. I'm aware of all of these things, and I've done my preparation and my homework. So I found a shaman and had my first experience before it was a tourist industry. It was actually sacred and hard to find. And I'm very fortunate that I found a quality shaman. My perspective on ayahuasca now, which I've included as one of the things ayahuasca or LS microdosing and things like that, from the beginning of the biohacking movement as one of the paths with ayahuasca, I'm a little concerned that a good shaman acts like a firewall. It's their job to keep the aggressive, masculine component of aya at bay while the feminine earth energy does its healing on you. But if you have an untrained shaman who's unaware of these polarities, I think ayahuasca has the power to install malware to kind of put things in there. So this is one of the things that can be sacred. It also has a risk. Just like Fast Path Buddhism. You might become enlightened in a lifetime. You also might go crazy. So you get to choose your path. And I'm just grateful that I've had a chance to experience a variety of psychedelics with very well educated and prepared people helping me hold space. I also go to Burning man, so it's not like I'm always shaking a rattle or something, but where I ended up. I think this would be helpful for all of our listeners. I'd like to explain the framework for how I think our ego emerges and how our body makes decisions that are unconscious with some good science behind it, and then talk about what psychedelics and therapy do independently and then together. Would that be helpful?
Absolutely. And please go ahead with that. And I just also wanted to offer fame. So we're going to be talking about, you know, the potential here for changes in consciousness and so forth. And you were kind of referencing some of that now, but also in the biohacking sense and some of the things you were describing. I would assume at some point. We're also kind of talking about the epigenetic environment at the cellular level and how we are impacting what we now know from the field of epigenetics, how various genes express themselves, and also the healthy functioning and or rejuvenation of the mitochondria at the cellular level. As we go through the interview, maybe we can sort of bridge these different levels.
