What does Chris Bache say about Dose Retrospective?
Why Bache thinks lower, integrable doses beat 500–600 μg: the aim is depth with memory, steering, and healing—not overwhelm.
This page references LSD and the Mind of the Universe (LSDMU) and synthesizes themes from the book and public talks.
“When doses are raised to this level, [awareness] flips into dissociative and/or dysphoric responses for most people.”
— LSDMU ch.1 §4 ¶11
Bache opens by citing Metzner: very high LSD doses often produce blanking (little recall) or struggle/paranoia—conditions that undermine learning and integration. Metzner’s remedy is a psycholytic range (50–200 μg) that preserves engagement and memory.
“Better to work more slowly and be able to integrate more of what one sees.”
— LSDMU ch.1 §4 ¶12
Bache then admits he did choose 500–600 μg—initially to “eat the same karmic meal in fewer bites.” The result surprised him.
“Working with high doses… changed not only how deep my experiences went but also who or what was actually having these experiences… the size of the patient literally expands.”
— LSDMU ch.1 §5 ¶2
At these intensities, sessions rapidly drop beneath the personal into perinatal and collective fields.
“When you work with doses of LSD this high, you tend to drop quickly beneath the personal unconscious into… the perinatal level.”
— LSDMU ch.2 §0 ¶6
That may be cosmologically rich, but it’s harder to steer and harder to bring back.
“I could set all the intentions I wanted, but when one is working with doses of LSD this high, it makes little difference… a larger intelligence [is] in control.”
— LSDMU ch.11 §0 ¶3
For durable growth, Bache stresses recall and polishing—work best served by integrable dosing and disciplined recording.
“Preserving the memory of our experiences… completes the circle of learning and lays a stronger foundation for our next session.”
— LSDMU ch.1 §7 ¶2
His present-day advice—echoed across talks—lands simply: go gentler; favor lower doses and a broader toolset to maximize learning per session.
LSDMU ch.1 §4 ¶11
In his book Allies for Awakening, Ralph Metzner recommends against working with doses of LSD this high. When doses are raised to this level, he says, heightened awareness flips into dissociative and/or dysphoric responses for most people. A dissociative response is one in which the individual essentially blanks out and is not able to remember or describe the experience. The experience may be pleasant, even blissful, but the person can’t bring much of it back. A dysphoric response is one in which one’s innate resistance to losing control triggers an intense struggle and possibly paranoid or schizoid reactions. The trauma of being overwhelmed overpowers any positive insights or visions one may have.
LSDMU ch.1 §4 ¶12
Metzner is trying to walk us back from the turbulent ’60s, when 500 mcg was considered the measure of “true initiation” and Terrence McKenna was promoting “heroic dosages” for those who wanted to “really get the message.” Metzner believes that this more-is-better approach brought with it too much trauma and at the very least wasted a lot of time without yielding longlasting therapeutic gains. Better to work more slowly and be able to integrate more of what one sees. Accordingly, he recommends a therapeutic dose range for LSD between 50 and 200 mcg, essentially staying within the limits of psycholytic therapy.
LSDMU ch.1 §5 ¶2
The choice to work with high doses turned out to have enormous consequences for what unfolded on this journey. It radically expanded not only the depth of consciousness reached but also the breadth of consciousness being activated in each session. It wasn’t simply a matter of eating the same karmic meal in fewer bites, as I had naively thought. Because the web of life is an integrated whole from the very start, working with high doses of LSD activates wider portions of this web. Working at these levels changed not only how deep my experiences went but also who or what was actually having these experiences, what the “working unit” of experience was in a session. In these highly energized conditions, the size of the patient literally expands. What I mean by this will become clearer as we proceed.
LSDMU ch.2 §0 ¶6
Given the emphasis being placed today on the therapeutic applications of psychedelics, it may be surprising to learn that my early sessions did not involve much personal healing. There was some but not much. If I had been working with lower doses, there would probably have been more, but when you work with doses of LSD this high, you tend to drop quickly beneath the personal unconscious into what Stanislav Grof calls the perinatal level of consciousness. Instead of engaging the individual wounds we have collected in life, one goes deeper to confront a universal wound shared by all human beings—the certain destruction of everyone and everything we love and care about, including ourselves.
LSDMU ch.11 §0 ¶3
I was never in control of what happened in my sessions. I found early on that I could set all the intentions I wanted, but when one is working with doses of LSD this high, it makes little difference. From the very beginning, a larger intelligence had been in control of my sessions. I learned that the best thing I could do was simply get out of the way and let it take me where it wanted me to go. And so it was for my last sessions. The same intelligence that had guided me all these years choreographed the ending of our time together before I even knew we were parting.
LSDMU ch.1 §7 ¶2
LSD generates a powerful but temporary increase in the mind’s sensitivity. Our habitual conditioning is interrupted and our field of awareness is dramatically expanded, but after a number of hours our consciousness returns to its familiar patterns. If we don’t take steps to accurately record our experiences as soon as we return, our memory of them tends to fade. What was overwhelmingly powerful one day becomes slightly dimmer the next and dimmer still a month later. Preserving the memory of our experiences as carefully as possible completes the circle of learning and lays a stronger foundation for our next session.
“To start at the end, my advice is: please don’t do it the way I did. I was young and foolish… I’d advise a different protocol.”
00:43:29 — Philosophical Implications of Non-Ordinary States (live) (2024-09-24) • 00:43:29“I chose high doses… I don’t recommend this today, and if I were doing it over, I’d be gentler: lower doses and a wider spectrum of psychedelics.”
00:03:12 — Exploring LSD and the Mind of the Universe (2023-01-05) • 00:03:12“Working with high doses, you completely surrender to the process… you can set all the intentions you want, but… you can’t control them. The strategy is to surrender.”
00:19:38 — Reach Truth Podcast (2022-08-30) • 00:19:38“…even after I let go of the personal model, I found I liked where the high-dose work took me… I don’t recommend that protocol. I’d do it differently now—be gentler, balance high-dose with low-dose… It’s not necessary.”
00:08:49 — Bicycle Day Conversation with Jef Baker (2020-04-19) • 00:08:49“I’ve done low-dose LSD sessions since I stopped… Generally it doesn’t work well with me now. I pushed my system so hard with high doses that it’s as if I’ve developed an allergy.”
01:39:21 — EP.6 – LSD AND THE MIND OF THE UNIVERSE (2020-05-13) • 01:39:21
Metzner’s psycholytic guidance (50–200 μg) anticipates Bache’s retrospective stance: lower, integrable doses preserve recall, allow steering, and support personal healing. Bache’s high-dose path yielded unparalleled cosmological reach but at the cost of control and integration load. His public talks consistently advise gentler, mixed-modality approaches today.
Cite as: Bache Archive — Educational Docs Edition (2025). Based on the works of Christopher M. Bache, including LSD and the Mind of the Universe (2019) and public talks (2009–2025).
Excerpts from LSD and the Mind of the Universe are reproduced here under the fair use doctrine for educational and scholarly purposes. They support study, research, and public understanding of Christopher M. Bache’s work on consciousness and spiritual evolution. All quotations remain the intellectual property of their respective copyright holders.