Psychedelic Drugs and Creativity

Introduction

Krippner opens by situating the use of psychoactive plants and compounds as long-standing tools for altering consciousness and, by extension, as resources invoked in creative practice. The paper summarises historical and anecdotal reports linking psychedelic substances (for example, mescaline, psilocybin and LSD) to artistic insight, problem solving and changes in aesthetic sensibility, while noting that systematic scientific work has produced mixed and sometimes contradictory findings. This article sets out to review empirical and case-based literature on psychedelics and creativity and to present the author's own interview and survey data from artists and musicians. Krippner aims to clarify what prior studies have observed about acute and longer-term effects of psychedelics on creative processes, to report patterns from a large convenience sample of practising artists and to highlight methodological issues and directions for future research.