Investigating the relationship between changes in metaphysical beliefs and death anxiety following a significant psychedelic experience

Introduction

A growing literature indicates that psychedelic drugs can produce durable psychological changes, including reductions in death anxiety and shifts in attitudes about mortality. Previous clinical and naturalistic studies have reported lower fear of death following single doses of psilocybin or LSD and psychedelic-induced phenomenology that resembles near-death experiences. However, the mechanisms linking psychedelic experiences to reduced death anxiety remain unclear. One candidate mechanism is change in metaphysical beliefs about the nature of reality and consciousness, ranging from physicalist positions to non-physicalist positions such as dualism or panpsychism; early work suggests psychedelics can produce lasting shifts away from strict physicalism and toward broader attributions of consciousness across entities. Moreton and colleagues set out to test whether changes in metaphysical beliefs following a single significant psychedelic experience are associated with changes in death anxiety. The study hypothesised an overall reduction in death anxiety, a shift away from physicalist beliefs toward non-physicalist beliefs, and correlations between those belief changes and changes in death anxiety. The investigators also predicted that acute subjective effects of the experience—mystical-type experiences and psychological insights—would predict changes in death anxiety and metaphysical beliefs, and included an exploratory aim to identify which specific metaphysical beliefs best predict changes in death anxiety.