States and traits related to the quality and consequences of psychedelic experiences.

Abstract

Many individuals experience significant positive psychological change after ingesting psychedelic agents such as psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca, but some do not. Such changes appear to be mediated by definable and measurable mystical experiences (MEs) during the psychedelic session, which have been shown in previous research (e.g., Griffiths, Richards, McCann, & Jesse, 2006) to be related to long-term positive personal change. Individual responses to psychedelic agents are characteristically difficult to predict, however, necessitating improved identification of predictors to (a) reduce the possibility of significant challenging experiences and sequelae and (b) increase the possibility of MEs and long-term beneficial outcomes. Our study utilized crowdsourced retrospective survey data from 143 Amazon Mechanical Turk participants who self-administered psilocybin in the past year to identify factors related to MEs and/or challenging experiences. The best performing regression model explained 66% of the variance in ME scores on the 30-item Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MacLean, Leoutsakos, Johnson, & Griffiths, 2012) and 56% of the variance in scores on the dread subscale of the Sacred Emotions Scale (Burdzy, 2014). A state of surrender at the start of the psilocybin session most strongly explained MEs, and a state of preoccupation most strongly explained challenging experiences. The trait absorption was a strong secondary predictor in both models, along with smaller predictors. Additionally, the occurrence of MEs during the psilocybin session explained long-term positive change. Based on these findings, the presented models appear to provide a powerful framework for explaining the immediate quality and long-term consequences of psychedelic experiences. Limitations as well as implications for therapeutic applications are discussed.

Emotions and brain function are altered up to one month after a single high dose of psilocybin

“…Changes in personality traits after psilocybin administration are also notable. While previous studies have noted trait absorption to be a predictor of response to psychedelic drugs 84,85 , this is the first demonstration that psilocybin administration may lead to a shift in absorption. Numerical increases in openness and extroversion and numerical decreases in neuroticism are consistent with previous effects of psilocybin on Big-Five personality traits 86,87 , but surprisingly, the strongest effect of psilocybin on Big-Five traits was on an increase in conscientiousness (d = 0.738).…”

Safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of low dose lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in healthy older volunteers

“…Recent clinical trials have demonstrated potent and enduring antidepressive and anxiolytic effects of classical psychedelic drugs psilocybin and LSD Carhart-Harris et al 2016;Horstmann et al 2010;Ross et al 2016;Griffiths et al 2016;Grob et al 2011). Several studies have highlighted the mystical nature of the subjective experience resulting from administration of high dose psilocybin or LSD as a mediator for the psychiatric therapeutic benefits (Russ et al 2019;Garcia-Romeu et al 2014;Roseman et al 2018;Haijen et al 2018). However, recent evidence of sustained antidepressant-like effects of psilocybin in an animal rodent model for the study of depression after only a single dose suggests that solely biological mechanisms dependent on 5-HT 2A receptor activation may effectively underlie key CNS effects observed for this class of drug (Hibicke et al 2019).…”

How does it feel to be on psilocybin? Dose-response relationships of subjective experiences in humans

“…Although psilocybin dose is the most important determinant of the acute psychedelic experience, there is considerable inter-and intra-individual variability in subjective responses to psilocybin [55][56][57][58]. To what extend responses to psilocybin varied among studies included in our main analysis is reflected in heterogeneity parameters.…”

“…Further, scoring high on trait extroversion was associated with increases in visionary experience [55,63,64]. Peak or mystical-type experiences were associated with the personality traits openness [63][64][65] and optimism toward life [64] as well as being in a state of surrender [57,58].…”

“…Likewise, feeling well prepared, having a recreational intention and emotional reappraisal reduced the occurrence of challenging experiences [56,64] which were associated with preoccupation [57,58] and emotional excitability prior to the experience [55]. While there are indications that challenging experiences are also associated with trait neuroticism [63,66,67], other studies found no such association [55,56,64].…”