LSD and Creativity

Introduction

Earlier debate about lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has often included claims that the drug can enhance creativity, but objective evidence has been scarce and inconclusive. Janiger and colleagues note a literature composed largely of self-reports, anthropological anecdotes and a few small, methodologically weak experimental studies; some of those prior investigations suggested enhanced aesthetic qualities among practising artists, whereas studies using unselected student samples tended not to find improvements on standard creativity tests. Capturing the transient and subjective elements of creative experience has therefore remained challenging. This paper reports on an art subproject embedded within a larger experimental programme begun by Janiger in 1955, in which the effects of LSD on artistic production were assessed under controlled, nonmedical conditions. The study aimed to compare artworks made by professional artists before and during the acute effects of LSD, using a repeated-task design in which artists drew and painted a Deer Kachina both prior to and one hour after ingesting the drug, and to subject those works to formal stylistic analysis in order to characterise drug-related changes in artistic style and perception.