Microdosing is popular, but is it proven? A live Night School on psychedelics, evidence, and the limits of what we know.

Night School Lecture + Social: Where Scholarship Meets Cultural Life

Microdosing psychedelics is everywhere, but how much of it is actually backed by science?

For this Night School, we’re joined by Rotem Petranker, Director of the Canadian Centre for Psychedelic Science and researcher behind the world’s largest randomized controlled trial on psilocybin microdosing for depression.

This isn’t a hype talk.

It’s a clear look at the quality of the evidence and how confident we should really be in it.

What you’ll experience:

Part lecture, part real conversation.

Rotem will break down what microdosing is, why it’s become so popular, and what happens when you actually test it under controlled conditions.

You’ll get a rare look at how this research is done and what the latest findings do (and don’t) show.

What we’ll get into:

• What microdosing is (and isn’t)

• Why the current evidence is still considered weak

• Inside the world’s largest psilocybin microdosing trial for depression

• Placebo, expectation, and perception

• Why this field is so difficult to study

• The key question: what is the minimum viable dose that actually does something?

The core idea:

We know that large doses have measurable effects.

The real question is how little might actually matter?

Who this is for:

People who are curious about the mind, skeptical of trends, and interested in what the evidence actually says.

No background needed, just curiosity.

About the Speaker:

Rotem Petranker is Director of the Canadian Centre for Psychedelic Science and co-founder of the Psychedelic Studies Research Program at the University of Toronto.

He led the world’s largest randomized controlled trial on psilocybin microdosing for Major Depressive Disorder, bringing clinical rigor to one of the most talked-about topics in mental health.

His work explores psychedelics, attention, and how we understand subjective experience.

About Night School:

Night School is a live lecture series designed to feel more like a great night out than a classroom.

We bring researchers, thinkers, and storytellers into intimate spaces for talks that are engaging, social, and actually worth your time.

Think: big ideas with a drink in hand.