I actually had no idea what dosages were administered by early LSD researchers, until I read this yesterday:
Chapter 11. DOSAGE
Dosages, in our experience range between 100 and 1000 micrograms and possibly larger doses may be used in the future. Doses of 1500 micrograms have been used by Hubbard without unfortunate side effects.
The drug is usually administered by giving an initial dose which is believed to be adequate and, where necessary. Increments of 200-300 gamma are used at intervals of one and a half to two and a half hours, depending on the reaction.
The initial dose may be as small as 100 micrograms in people whose problem is not too severe or whose frame of reference appears to be flexible. In the majority of cases who came for treatment, however, initial doses of 300 to 600 micrograms seem indicated. The larger doses (more than 300 micrograms) are used mainly in individuals who have previously had LSD treatment but have shown insufficient response.
http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/guides/handbook_lsd25.shtml#11
And:
Chapter 3. THE DEVELOPMENT OF TREATMENT METHODS
Therapists found that the ingestion of dosages of 75 gamma or more created perceptual changes and other alterations which provoked extreme anxiety in the subject. Hubbard indicated how to avoid this disruptive feature by training his subjects to be able to relax in the face of the loss of control of physiology and awareness precipitated by breathing CO2. This capacity to remain relaxed and unconcerned by the early symptoms of LSD, permits the use of large doses without the arousal of intense anxiety.
Hubbard went beyond this, structuring the situation such that the subject was provided with a new framework into which the experience fitted. His method employed a religious setting involving religious themes in pictures and music and a general stressing of the spiritual aspects of the experience. In these terms the experience was understandable to the subjects for, with the exception of the psychotic changes, each of the features, outlined by Chwelos and quoted earlier in this report, can be fitted into this pattern.
One of the unfortunate procedures which has been widely used to prevent the arousal of anxiety in the LSD session is the system of beginning with a small dose and gradually increasing the amount given over a succession of experiences. This procedure is used to reduce anxiety. It is reasoned that as the drug effect is being sampled a bit at a time, it will at no time become so overwhelming as to induce distress. Unfortunately, such a procedure is unlikely to be rewarding. Small dosages, when they produce any reaction, are unlikely to induce confusion and psychotomimetic features. When they provoke little or not reaction, the procedure drastically reduced the therapeutic effect of the drug. Psychotomimetic features tend to appear at that point in the experience at which the individual's accustomed concept of himself and the world about him -the frame of reference which constitutes hi ties with reality- is becoming no longer tenable in the face of the habitual perceptions induced by the drug. When the drug effect is sufficiently pronounced, the accustomed frame of reference is overwhelmed. In the process of having his accustomed attitudes and sets demolished and of finding a stability in experience outside this psychological framework, the individual finds he has acquired a new outlook. In instances in which the drug effect is insufficient, the individual is left in a state in which he has a very tenuous hold on the reality ties represented by his accustomed concepts and yet is unable to structure or accept the unhabitual perceptions and concepts which the experience has engendered. This confusing, painful and often frightening state constitutes a psychotomimetic experience.
When small dose techniques are employed, the individual, by learning through gradually increased effort, as the dosage is increased from experience to experience, may well develop methods of controlling the effects of the drug according to his accustomed pattern of thinking. He may never come to the point of accepting and utilizing the alterations which the drug may make in the mould of feeling and thinking which initially induced his difficulties.
While this objection may be felt to be simply a play with words, it is a very serious one. True, the individual eventually learns, in a stabilized experience, to control and use the drug effects. However, this is a control based upon a new level of self-understanding and self-acceptance which alone can permit the acceptance of others. Unless this level of experience can be attained the therapeutic potential of the drug is not realized. If the person learns gradually to fit the drug effects into his accustomed self-concept, he is simply learning how to pigeon-hole the experience within an unaltered frame of reference. It is, in fact, the acquisition of the ability to remain unchanged. Not only is such a procedure unlikely to have any therapeutic effect but it tends to immunize against his ever being able to gain self-understanding through the psychedelic experience.
As Osmond has stated "our work started with the idea that a single overwhelming experience might be beneficial in alcoholics, the idea springing from James and Tiebout". We have discovered no reason to alter this view as regards the usefulness of the overwhelming experience. However, subsequent work has shown that it is often of great value to repeat the experience and has suggested that the method is applicable to the treatment of the neuroses and psychopathy as well as alcoholism.
http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/guides/handbook_lsd25.shtml#3
