LSD and creativity: Increased novelty and symbolic thinking, decreased utility and convergent thinking

Abstract

Background: Controversy surrounds psychedelics and their potential to boost creativity. To date, psychedelic studies lack a uniform conceptualization of creativity and methodologically rigorous designs. Aims: This study aimed at addressing previous issues by examining the effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on creativity using multimodal tasks and multidimensional approaches. Methods: In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study, 24 healthy volunteers received 50 μg of LSD or inactive placebo. Near drug peak, a creativity task battery was applied, including pattern meaning task (PMT), alternate uses task (AUT), picture concept task (PCT), creative metaphors task (MET) and figural creativity task (FIG). Creativity was assessed by scoring creativity criteria (novelty, utility, surprise), calculating divergent thinking (fluency, originality, flexibility, elaboration) and convergent thinking, computing semantic distances (semantic spread, semantic steps) and searching for data-driven special features. Results: LSD, compared to placebo, changed several creativity measurements pointing to three overall LSD-induced phenomena: (1) ‘pattern break’, reflected by increased novelty, surprise, originality and semantic distances; (2) decreased ‘organization’, reflected by decreased utility, convergent thinking and, marginally, elaboration; and (3) ‘meaning’, reflected by increased symbolic thinking and ambiguity in the data-driven results. Conclusion: LSD changed creativity across modalities and measurement approaches. Three phenomena of pattern break, disorganization and meaning seemed to fundamentally influence creative cognition and behaviour pointing to a shift of cognitive resources ‘away from normal’ and ‘towards the new’. LSD-induced symbolic thinking might provide a tool to support treatment efficiency in psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Psychedelics as potential catalysts of scientific creativity and insight

“…Consumption of psilocybin truffles has been found to yield distinct effects on measures of creativity as part of the acute and persisting effects of the substance, increasing ratings of divergent thinking the morning following usage, and enhancing convergent thinking a week following usage (Mason et al, 2019). A moderate dose of psilocybin has been associated with spontaneous creative insights, while decreasing deliberate task-based creativity during the acute experience, with an increase in the number of novel ideas at seven days post experience reported (Mason et al, 2021), while a moderate (50 µg) dose of LSD has also been found to increase originality and novelty in thinking (Wießner et al, 2021b). One study reported an enhancement of convergent thinking sustained for four weeks following an ayahuasca experience (Uthaug et al, 2018) while another assessed participants engaging in several ayahuasca sessions in a ritual setting, and found that ayahuasca users exhibited increased originality on a standardised test of creative thinking, sustained at two week follow-up post experience (Frecska et al, 2012).…”

“…This suggests that while there may be gains in some forms of creative thinking under a psychedelic, there are likely to be accompanying deficits in analytical thinking. This suggests that the psychedelic state may contribute to aspects of creative generation, but not to creative evaluation (Girn et al, 2020;Wießner et al, 2021b). The illumination phase of the creative process is associated with loose, freely associative and non-logical thought and highly subjective ideation or primary process thinking, this being a shared feature of the psychedelic (Kraehenmann et al, 2017), dream (Livingston & Levin, 1991) and hypnagogic (Mavromatis, 1987) states.…”

“…It is important to acknowledge that while there may be gains in some aspects of creative thinking in the acute phase of an altered state experience, there may also be accompanying deficits indicated by a general decrease in psychological performance when assessed by objective performance measures (Prochazkova & Hommel, 2020;Spitzer et al, 1996;Wießner et al, 2021b). Furthermore, it should be highlighted that psychometric measures assessing modes of creative thinking alone may be too specific to accurately and comprehensively characterize the putatively beneficial cognitive changes associated with psychedelic usage (Baggot, 2015).…”

“…According to the recently proposed ALBUS model, this dosage range may allow for "overcoming barriers to breaking typical frames and engaging in non-traditional divergent thinking, so allowing novel streams of imagination to be considered" (Safron, 2022, p. 22). While more conducive of the generation of deep existential insights, the higher dosages used in modern clinical studies may impair cognitive processing (Wießner et al, 2021b) and yield effects likely to be too distracting for this applied context.…”

Springtime for psychopharmacology

“…Wießner et al (2022) employed a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study design with 50 μg of LSD versus inactive placebo to examine the effects of LSD on creativity in healthy volunteers. A creative battery task was administered around peak drug effects.…”