The Meaning-Enhancing Properties of Psychedelics and Their Mediator Role in Psychedelic Therapy, Spirituality, and Creativity
This perspective article (2018) looks at the evidence for meaning-enhancing as a mediator in psychedelic therapy, spirituality and outcomes on creativity.
Authors
- Ido Hartogsohn
Published
Abstract
Past research has demonstrated to the ability of psychedelics to enhance suggestibility, and pointed to their ability to amplify perception of meaning. This paper examines the existing evidence for the meaning-enhancing properties of psychedelics, and argues that the tendency of these agents to enhance the perception of significance offers valuable clues to explaining their reported ability to stimulate a variety of therapeutic processes, enhance creativity, and instigate mystical-type experiences. Building upon previous research, which suggested the potential role of psychedelic meaning-enhancement in enhancing placebo response, the paper explores the mechanisms by which the meaning-amplifying properties of psychedelics might also play a role in enhancing creativity, as well as in effecting mystical-type experiences. The wider social and public-health implications of this hypothesis are discussed, and suggestions are made as to the various ways in which scientific understanding of the meaning-enhancing properties of psychedelics might be advanced and utilized.
Research Summary of 'The Meaning-Enhancing Properties of Psychedelics and Their Mediator Role in Psychedelic Therapy, Spirituality, and Creativity'
Introduction
Lebedev and colleagues present the idea that a central, though understudied, property of classic psychedelics is their capacity to amplify the perception of meaning. Earlier clinical reports, historical accounts and contemporary research are invoked to show that psychedelics reliably intensify the perceived significance of mental content and external stimuli. The paper notes that between roughly two thirds (about 66%) and 86% of participants in supportive therapeutic settings rate their psychedelic sessions among the most meaningful or spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Such effects have led to common descriptors of these drugs as "mind-manifesting", amplifiers or magnifiers of consciousness, and to contrasts in the literature between meaning-amplifying psychedelics and experience-flattening agents such as SSRI antidepressants. The study sets out to examine the existing evidence for these meaning-enhancing properties and to argue that this tendency helps explain why psychedelics appear to facilitate therapeutic change, stimulate mystical-type experiences, and sometimes enhance creativity. Drawing on the concept of the "meaning response" (a reframing of placebo effects as biologically potent responses to meaning), the paper proposes that psychedelics amplify placebo/meaning responses and that this amplification interacts with factors such as set and setting. The authors therefore position the paper as a theoretical and interpretive review that links phenomenology, clinical observations and prior empirical work to generate hypotheses about mechanisms and wider implications for therapy, spirituality and creative practice.
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Hartogsohn, I. (2018). The Meaning-Enhancing Properties of Psychedelics and Their Mediator Role in Psychedelic Therapy, Spirituality, and Creativity. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00129
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