People who have used psychedelics tend to adopt metaphysical idealism—a belief that consciousness is fundamental to reality. This belief was associated with greater psychological well-being. The study involved 701 people with at least one experience with psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, or DMT.
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I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-63687-4
From the linked article:
In a recent study published in Scientific Reports, researchers explored the link between past psychedelic use, metaphysical beliefs, and well-being. The findings suggest that people who have used psychedelics tend to adopt metaphysical idealism—a belief that consciousness is fundamental to reality. This belief was associated with greater psychological well-being. Interestingly, other metaphysical beliefs, including other non-physicalist views, did not show a similar relationship.
Psychedelic substances, such as psilocybin (found in certain mushrooms), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), have long been known to induce profound changes in perception, cognition, and even spiritual experiences. These experiences often lead individuals to question fundamental aspects of reality. Previous research has shown that such experiences can result in long-term psychological benefits, such as increased well-being and reductions in anxiety and depression. However, the specific mechanisms driving these changes remain unclear.
The study involved 701 participants, all of whom had at least one previous experience with classical psychedelics, including substances like psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, or DMT. Participants were recruited through an online platform, and the researchers administered a series of questionnaires to assess their past psychedelic use, their current metaphysical beliefs, and their levels of psychological well-being.
The researchers found that participants who had used psychedelics more frequently were more likely to endorse metaphysical idealism, the belief that consciousness is the fundamental nature of reality. This shift in beliefs was not observed with other metaphysical positions, such as materialism (the belief that reality is purely physical) or dualism (the idea that mind and matter are separate entities).
Most importantly, the researchers found that idealism mediated the relationship between past psychedelic use and well-being. In other words, people who had used psychedelics in the past were more likely to endorse idealism, which, in turn, predicted their higher well-being.
I have done shrooms a few times and LCD 1 time when I was in my 20s. It def had an impact on how I perceive my own thoughts.
It is possible to achieve this state without drugs
Perception is reality, that to me is a comforting thought, psychedelics give you an experience that temporarily altered your perception, that experience stays with you.
Trying to explain LSD to people who have never taken it is like trying to explain what going to Spain is like to people who have never been. They really don’t understand until they see it for themselves.
I’m glad but that belief is irrational.
Just because people feel like that on drugs doesn’t make it true.
When I took mushrooms I met a “sea witch” who mothered all humans because we originated from the sea. She was scary looking but for some reason I wasn’t afraid. I felt weirdly at home with her; she was extremely understanding and accepting. I think about her a lot even though it’s been probably a year or two now. I miss her, whoever she was.
Can someone unpack this for me? Were these beliefs adopted before or after their psychedelic experience? Is there possibly a selection bias in this study? I’m not anti-psychedelic, but I’m becoming wary of psychedelic science in light of the Johns Hopkins and MAPS shenanigans.
You can adapt idealism based on evidence, occam’s razor, and sober investigation of reality. However, one hit of 5-MeO-DMT can certainly speed up that process.
here’s Tom with the weather
There is definitely evidence that doing psychedelic drugs tends to affect people belief systems and perspective, in certain ways.
Saying that they all “tend” to adopt ” belief framework X” Is almost certainly sensationalist bullshit. There’s not a common set of philosophies that follow the use of psychedelic agents. There’s a tendency to view the world as more connected yes, to become a little bit more liberal in your thinking, in some cases to adopt a bit more of a spiritual viewpoint, but none of these are ubiquitous. These aren’t mind control drugs, they don’t push everybody into a common framework of thought, they don’t take away our individuality.
Had the exact opposite experience, tripping on shrooms only intensified my materialistic and deterministic view of reality.
If you only ever look at things from one perspective, it’s easy to believe that is the only perspective.
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How could there be any other alternative than consciousness being fundamental to reality? Genuinely curious what actual meaning is contained in those words
Read Carlos Castaneda. That charlatan was the real deal when it comes to the mind.
I wonder if this is the same type of feeling people get when they are about to die. I was injured badly when I was young, and it left me with a bit of odd perspective on reality. The physical world just does not feel as real to me than it does to most others.
Well, imagine that. Psychological wellbeing improves once one believes in consciousness mattering.
I don’t think one needs psychedelics for that, but whatever it takes.
Well seeing is believing. Imagine how’d you change if you were stuck in an AI picture-to-video montage for 3 hours?
I have done a lot of psychedelics (and other drugs) and they had the opposite effect on me, making me more of a materialist than I was before.
Having had spiritual experiences, opening my consciousness and fundamentally changing my perception of reality through ingesting a tiny drop of liquid on some blotter paper really opened my eye to the fact that my consciousness is the result of biochemical processes.
I feel like every other post on this sub is about psychedelics, or does the algorithm just keep pushing me psychedelic related posts?
Mushrooms changed my life in a good way. Still do
Taking DMT coincided with a time of profound change in my life, big big changes. Anyways, the first time I had a DMT blast-off, I didn’t meet mechanical elves or communicate with any beings. For me, I liken it to a corridor of “realities”. After having reading Death’s End (Book 3 of Three Body Problem), those descriptions of perceiving reality from a higher physical dimension resonated with the experience. I did DMT about a dozen more times over this year of change and the experiences were similar. It did, as is mentioned in the article, change my fundamental beliefs about the nature of reality and how it is linked to consciousness. It also acted like a soft reset on other assumptions about myself and my beliefs as a whole. For me, this worked synergistically with the positive changes I was trying to make in my life. It also helped me untangle a lot of the ways that religion had become negative in my life, including how I felt I had lost a community that I felt belonging in for a long time.
Since then I’ve tried LSD and shrooms (backwards, right?). I have very favorable opinions about psychedelics BECAUSE of this way of thinking about reality and my own consciousness it grants. It feels like an ability or secret tradesman’s tool that gives me insight to how I ACTUALLY work.
As an aside, I will never try Opioids until I’m literally at the end of life. Pump me up if I’m in pain getting ready to go, but until then, I avoid prescription painkillers (thankfully have not truly needed them) and will never entertain the idea of using any opioid recreationally.
I arrived at this conclusion without psychedelics.
Via meditation, then I tried psychedelics after and realized my meditative experiences were magnitudes more intense.
>’psychedelic experiences could facilitate the idealistic belief that some type of loving consciousness is the fundamental nature of reality’
Sounds similar to Mahayana buddhist thought. I also wonder if some of the participants were already high in self and other empathy, with psychedelics acting as a mediating factor
Yeah man. However having been around plenty of people who have tripped a lot, I remain skeptical about causation with psychedelic being beneficial to mental health in non controlled situations. Happy people on / post acid being even happier, sure. Not so happy people post acid…lots of people with a spiritual foundation are unhappy.
I am very excited for the Eventual legalization / availability of real psychedelic therapy. Beyond psychedelic retreats. The real deal.
Personally I did a ton of psychedelics and most notably had a super ideal mega ayahuasca trip when I was younger. While it absolutely left me with “metaphysical idealism” I also felt blatantly “cast out of the garden” because you can’t stay there forever, those super great trips are not consistent. And I had serious unresolved issues that needed to be addressed in more basic ways than “hey looks like there is an afterlife / universal conscious / the universe is alive etc.”
Quite a few people who trip hard with frequency, not so great “set and setting”, even up taking their escapism to harder drugs like alcohol, ketamine, heroin. You know there is relief out there but taking a 10 strip every day is in fact less of a viable option than dope.
I think that’s a false conclusion. *Your* reality changed because a chemical caused your brain to “malfunction” and experience it differently. But reality for everyone else did not change.
The fact that people who take psychedelics have similar experiences is simply evidence that the chemical affects the brain in a predictable way. As expected by our understanding of biochemistry.