Creativity Research

In 2008, Ben Sessa asked, "Is it time to revisit the role of psychedelic drugs in enhancing human creativity?". He paints a picture of psychedelics as tools to increase complexity and openness. This may, according to Sessa, challenge our worldview, pre-conceived ideas, and constraints that our ego has put on our cognition.

Griffiths and colleagues (2006, 2008) showed that a single session with a high dose of psilocybin was rated as a uniquely meaningful and significant experience. The participants (n(number of participants)=36), hallucinogen-naïve but spiritually engaged, rated the experience as one of the five most meaningful (58%) and spiritually significant (67%) in their lives. Another study (MacLean, Johnson & Griffiths, 2011) shows that the trait openness is enhanced up to 18 months after a psychedelic experience, for those who had a mystical experience.

Openness and creativity are correlated (Silvia et al, 2009 ). And plasticity predicted various aspects of creativity. But does a psychedelic experience (micro or macro) lead to more creative individuals?

If you just look at survey data on drug use (Humphrey et al, 2014), one is tempted to say no. They found that openness almost perfectly correlated with creativity (n=787, r≈1). Drug use did have a small positive effect on creativity. Yet they conclude that "Many of the drug effects have appeared to be rooted in what people expect from the drugs rather actual physiological changes from the drugs."

Recent experimental studies have tried to come to a more nuanced answer. They look at specific psychedelics and measure creativity at different moments. Creativity itself is somewhat of a fuzzy concept and therefore let us first define it.

Here we will use the 'standard definition' as discussed by Runco & Jaeger (2012): "Creativity requires both originality and effectiveness." In other words, creativity consists of two components, divergent and convergent creativity. One part that generates new original ideas, another to effectively select the utility or value of the ideas.

Divergent and Convergent Creativity

Divergent thinking is often cited as the aspect of creativity that is spurred on by the use of psychedelics. For instance: "... psychedelic substances aiding dissolution of cognitive boundaries and temporarily allowing the individual to escape their reality tunnel. This aid to problem-solving may be just what we need to solve the complex problems facing us today." (Adams, 2010)

A study (Sweat, Bates & Hendricks, 2016) that looked into creative problem-solving (n=68) found that those who had used psychedelics and had a mystical experience (n=11) were faster at solving a functional fixedness task (Duncker’s Candle Problem p(significance)=0.02, d(effect size, large)=–.87).

The mystical experience, now twice mentioned, is most often measured with the Pahnke–Richards Mystical Experience Questionnaire and was rated as being a full mystical experience if participants rated at least 0.6 on each of the seven subscales. One still needs to ask how much the mystical experience is something that causes these outcomes, is a mediator, or is only a measure of the 'fullness' of a psychedelic experience.

Microdosing - Creativity Abound

At the sub-perceptual level, Anderson et al (2019) used a questionnaire (n=909, 65% of which microdosed) which included the Unusual Uses Tasks as a proxy for divergent creativity. They found that people who microdosed psychedelics (mostly LSD (65%) and psilocybin (28%)) were more creative (p<0.001, r(effect size, small)=0.15). The component measures (clever, uncommon, and remote) were all correlated. Noted should be that the relationship between microdosing and creativity doesn't imply causation.

Looking at creativity during a microdose directly, Prochazkova and colleagues (2018) found that both divergent and convergent creativity were improved. They used the Picture Concept Task (PCT) to measure convergent creativity, and the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) to measure divergent creativity.

The study was completed by 27 participants and was done without a placebo (open-label, natural setting). At the 1,5 hour mark, versus before ingestion, the participants scored higher on both measures of creativity. Showing a medium effect size on convergent thinking (p=.017, Cohen’s d(medium)=.493) and significant increases in divergent thinking (fluency, flexibility, originality, but not on elaboration scores).

Macrodosing - Diverge Your Thinking

At the macrodose, this is partly contradicted by Kuypers et al (2016). They looked at creativity during a full psychedelic experience (macrodose) of Ayahuasca. They state that: "It was shown that during the acute inebriation, ayahuasca caused a decrease in conventional convergent thinking [measured on the PCT, p=.017] and enhanced creative divergent thinking [only ratio, p=.023]."

Although it's interesting to see this study that is in line with the brain chemistry we will discuss shortly, the conclusions are presented stronger than warranted. The participants didn't show changes on the PLMT test, nor fluency and originality (the two other subscales of divergent thinking used).

Another study (Frecska et al, 2012) had previously found that originality of thinking (divergent) was increased two days after an Ayahuasca retreat. This was measured on the visual components of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking and only applied to the measure of highly original solutions.

The day after a high dose of psilocybin (27.1mg), participants in a retreat showed a significant improvement in divergent creativity (fluency and orginality, but not ratio). Mason and colleagues (2019) found this effect at one day, but it didn't persist at the seven-day follow-up. They did find at seven days that convergent thinking, both measured with the PCT, was improved somewhat (d=.46).

Taken together, we can currently say very little conclusive about the effects of psychedelics on creativity. Both because the concept itself is difficult to measure, and very little studies have been done to this date. One would also be very curious to see what happens with different psychedelics (including MDMA) and at a variety of dosages (e.g. 50% of a typical macrodose).

Peering into the Creative Brain

Psychedelics enable us to take a closer look at how the brain works. Carhart-Harris and Friston (2019) have presented the most complete model up to this date. Their REBUS, relaxed beliefs under psychedelics, model opens a door into our cranium.

A possible explanation of why creativity could be enhanced by psychedelics is that they lead to a lighter weighting of priors (top-down) and an increased sensitivity to bottom-up signaling. This may allow potential revision of previous information, you become less confident of their trueness, and so come to new creative solutions.

They write: "[C]onfidence in high-level models is first relinquished so that content previously hidden from consciousness by the occluding influence of overly confident priors is now allowed to emerge, thereby enabling fresh perspectives to be entertained. Under conditions of relaxed high-level priors, disinhibited information is allowed to travel up the hierarchy and impress on consciousness as it does. In this way, one may be granted a fresh opportunity to cultivate changes to the relevant assumptions instantiated by high hierarchical levels."

At a higher level, the brain also becomes more unconstraint. Carhart-Harris and colleagues (2012) showed, using fMRI, that there was a decrease in "activity and connectivity in the brain's key connector hubs, enabling a state of unconstrained cognition." The hub regions affected were the thalamus, anterior, and posterior cingulate cortex.

This was also found by Lord et al (2019) and they described it thus "[Psilocybin] modulates the brain's dynamical repertoire by selectively destabilizing a brain functional network (i.e., frontoparietal control system) and promoting transitions towards a globally coherent PL [phase-locking] state." Or put more generally, the psychedelic state leads to more integration versus locally segregating activity.

Girn and colleagues (2020) build on this previous work and fit the creative process in the Dynamic Framework of Thought . They propose that the psychedelic state is one in which both automatic and deliberate constraints are weak. It may therefore be good for idea generation (divergent) but not for idea evaluation (convergent). In the article they also propose that creativity can best be seen as a process of simulated annealing, of moving between weak and strong constraints to eventually come to a creative outcome. "That is, assuming multiple cycles of idea generation and evaluation in the creative process, it may be the case that initial iterations of generation have relatively low/broad constraints, which are progressively increased/focused in successive iterations."

These studies point towards possible mechanisms through which creativity (or at least divergent creativity) may be enabled during a psychedelic experience. When the top-down mechanisms quit down, new and unexpected connections can possibly be made. The sober evaluation (convergence) of the new insights should then happen at a later date.

This is corroborated by a case study on creativity using fMRI. Mayseless, Aharon-Peretz & Shamay-Tsoory (2014) showed that the left temporoparietal areas part of a neural network was involved in evaluating creativity (convergent). And that decreased activity in this area led to more creative ideas (divergent).

Studying spontaneous improvisation also showed that "creative capacity enhancement is associated with reduced engagement of executive functioning regions and increased involvement of spontaneous implicit processing" (Saggar et al, 2016).

As we get a better understanding of how the brain works, we may better map what processes are responsible for divergent and convergent creativity and how to stimulate it. But with a difficult to measure term like creativity, direct connections may turn out to be elusive.

To Go Forward, We Have To Look Back

A review by Baggott (2015) captures much of what has been discussed above. Although there is a link between creativity and psychedelics, it's tentative: "Results are modest and inconclusive but are consistent with reports that psychedelics give rise to unusual or novel [divergent] thoughts. Given the lack of robust changes in creativity measures, I suggest creativity may be too specific of a construct to accurately and fully characterize the putatively beneficial cognitive changes that psychedelic users report."

Studies to this date have not provided spectacular (nor consistent) changes in creativity measures. Results that have been found for depression (Carhart-Harris et al, 2016), PTSD (Oehen et al, 2013), and a variety of mental disorders where rigidity and a lack of fluidity are present.

And earlier studies, best summarized by Krippner (1985), often referenced as evidence for the effects on creativity, were not blinded and often didn't find an overall positive effect on creativity. Divergent creativity was often found to be enhanced, but this didn't always converge on useful outcomes (e.g. more beautiful paintings).

In time, one could expect studies that examine how to stimulate creativity with psychedelics. You could for instance stimulate divergent thinking during a psychedelic experience and offer integration services to converge on truly useful insights. Current integration protocols could be adjusted to make space for that type of exploration.

The experiments may mirror those described by Fadiman (2011) in The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide. Several groups of knowledge workers brought work problems to a session under the influence of a moderately high dose of mescaline or LSD. In some of the experiments, participants reported having creative insights on problems they had been stuck on for months.

A placebo-controlled and larger-scale version of these experiments may lead to more applicable results than only measuring directly what can be found on creativity tests. Yet still, even here the generalizability is difficult to estimate. Would a high dose of psilocybin help an engineer make safer bridges, whilst overwhelming a project manager?

At the neurological level there are also still many questions left unaswered. Kuypers (2018) summarizes where we stand and how psychedelics influence our brains. With clever experiments we can better look at what neurotransmitters are involved in (divergent) creative thinking, and how other factors like mood, openness, and empathy are influenced by psychedelics and influence creativity.

Some of the companies that offer retreats or coaching with psilocybin already incorporate creativity in their marketing. Synthesis for instance advertises their 3-day retreat as a way to "catalyze creative breakthroughs, deepen self-understanding, and feel ready to make their next big ‘leap’ in life."

Retreats like this could be a partner for creativity research (i.e. Synthesis is already working together with Imperial College London). Longitudinal surveys that also take measures before someone has done psychedelics (asking about or testing creativity) might offer more insight too.

It's still a wide-open field, a blue ocean, or a black box when it comes to creativity and psychedelics. Creativity is a skill that we use every day, it would be great to see if psychedelic can reliably make the world a more creative place. As Aldous Huxley describes below, you won't know exactly what you will get, but psychedelics do bring about change.

"I don't think there is any generalization one can make on this. Experience has shown that there's an enormous variation in the way people respond to lysergic acid. Some people probably could get direct aesthetic inspiration for painting or poetry out of it. Others I don't think could. For most people it's an extremely significant experience, and I suppose in an indirect way it could help the creative process. But I don't think one can sit down and say, "I want to write a magnificent poem, and so I'm going to take lysergic acid [diethylamide]." I don't think it's by any means certain that you would get the result you wanted -- you might get almost any result." - Aldous Huxley, interviewed for The Paris Review (1960) found in Manifesting Minds