A Dose of Creativity: An Integrative Review of the Effects of Serotonergic Psychedelics on Creativity

This review (2022, s=11) finds some positive effects on creativity (e.g. increased convergent thinking) after psychedelics use. Still, the number of studies, small sample size, and lack of randomisation are preventing more robust conclusions from being drawn.

Abstract

“This integrative review was conducted to summarize the knowledge pertaining to the effects that serotonergic psychedelics can have on creativity, a multi-dimensional construct referring to the ability to produce original and valuable artifacts. Psychedelics, which have long been hailed as substances that can enhance the creative process in their users, have experienced a recent resurgence in research, allowing the opportunity to better understand this relationship. To this end, I reviewed literature which attempted to study the effects of serotonergic psychedelics on creativity through psychometric methods. A total of eleven studies were reviewed, with four psychedelic compounds represented. Every study assessed components and subcomponents of divergent and convergent thinking, with only one instance of product assessment. Results suggest that convergent thinking may increase during the post-acute phases of the drugs’ intake, fostering the capacity for development of previously generated ideas. However, this evidence may be circumstantial based on the low number of studies available, small sample sizes, overall lack of randomized controlled trials, and significant methodological limitations throughout most studies. Potential mechanisms underlying these effects are discussed, along with the current state of the research and implications for future studies.”

Author: Miguel Â. Costa

Summary

Abstract

A review of 10 studies found that psychedelic drugs can enhance creativity in their users. The studies assessed divergent and convergent thinking, with divergent thinking increasing during the acute stage of the drug intake and convergent thinking increasing in the long-term.

Psychedelics may enhance divergent thinking and convergent thinking in the acute phase and later phases, but more studies are needed to confirm this.

Contents

The psychological and cognitive fundamentals of creativity, the neurobehavioural fundamentals of creativity, the assessment of creativity, the mechanism of action, the psychological and subjective effects of psychedelics, the objective, the literature review, the limitations, the discussion, the conclusions.

1. Introduction

From inventing the wheel to writing Hamlet, creativity has been an essential ingredient in all of mankind’s most striking inventions. Nootropics, so-called “smart drugs”, have been met with extreme skepticism by the scientific community. Research on psychedelic drugs has recently experienced a resurgence, with news reporters eagerly touting about the power of these “wonder drugs”. However, the scientific community has discredited these substances.

Creative thinking can be defined as the process of being sensitive to problems, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on, identifying the difficult, searching for solutions, making guesses, formulating hypotheses about the deficiencies, testing and retesting these hypotheses, and finally communicating the results.

Stein’s (1953) definition emphasizes novelty and usefulness, as well as context, and Csikszentmihalyi (2013) argues that creativity can only be observed in the interrelations of a system made up of three main parts: the domain, the field, and the individual person.

Creative thinking involves combining elements in new ways that either meet requirements or are useful.

Wallas (1926) conceptualized the creative process into four different stages, which are preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. The solution must not only be creative but solve a problem as well.

Cognitive theories of creativity have often focused on the problem-solving process, but not all creative thinking necessarily equates to problem-solving. The arts are more concerned with divergence and self-expression, while the sciences tend towards convergence, problem-solving, functionality and orderliness.

Recent and practical views see creativity as the ability to come up with new ideas, whether in our daily lives or professional setting, improving our quality of life, or in cultural development.

While there are several views offered by several authors at different points in time, the notion that creativity requires both originality and effectiveness is frequently hinted at.

Guilford developed his Structure of Intellect model (1956), which included two factors crucial to creativity: divergent thinking and convergent thinking.

Divergent thinking is the production of original, unexpected, or unusual ideas to an open problem or task, and is considered by Guilford himself to be a significant contributor to creativity.

Divergent thinking is characterized by originality, fluency, flexibility, and elaboration. It requires knowledge, good memory, fluency in associations between sensory and semantic information, and richness of ideas, imagination, and fantasy.

Convergent thinking involves finding a single correct and conventional solution to a well-established problem through the recognition and expression of preestablished criteria. It is emphasized on speed, accuracy, logic, and the like.

Divergent thinking is paired with creativity, while convergent thinking is more often associated with intelligence. Both types of thinking are necessary for the creative process, and open-ended problems allow for divergent thinking, while closed-ended problems call for convergent thinking.

Creative thinking may require greater cognitive control, which is associated with increased working memory capacity, better performance in creativity tasks, and insight. Moreover, increased inhibition is associated with involvement in artistic professions.

Attention is related to creativity in a dynamic way, with leaky attention useful for remote associating and increased cognitive control capacities for shifting allocation of attentional resources and inhibiting unnecessary information as eventually needed.

Although the literature suggests an association between intelligence and creativity, the relationship is still controversial. Intelligence is related to convergent thinking, and creativity is related to fluid intelligence.

The dual pathway to creativity model is based on the notion that creativity is a function of two qualitatively different processes, namely flexibility and persistence. The flexibility pathway requires broad and inclusive cognitive categories, flexible switching among categories, approaches and sets, broad attentional focus, and use of remote associations.

The persistence pathway is characterized by hard work, organized and thorough exploration of possibilities, and exploration of a limited number of categories. This pathway requires more executive control than the flexibility pathway, but they complement each other when employed at different stages of the creative process.

The relationship between mood and creativity is inconclusive, although it leans towards activating positive moods being related to creativity. Positive mood promotes flexibility and disinhibition of cognitive control, resulting in increased attentional scope and breadth of attentional allocation to both external visual and internal conceptual space.

Personality traits can affect creativity in different ways. Openness, extraversion, energy, inspiration, low agreeableness and conscientiousness, and high nonconformity and impulsivity predict increased idea production and originality, while high ambition, precision, persistence, and critical sense predict idea evaluation and formalization.

Some artists may have traits suggesting some form of psychopathology, and several studies have reported that these traits may be associated with increased creative capacities. The relationship between mental illness and creativity is somewhat controversial, with opposite stances arguing for either the existence of anecdotal or empirical evidence supporting this relationship.

Another factor may reside in latent inhibition, a phenomenon of selective attention that is characteristic of schizotypy and schizophrenia alike. This mechanism may foster creativity by increasing the breadth of information available to the individual.

Neuroimaging studies have shown that creativity is a product of several psychological and cognitive capacities and does not appear to rely on any single mental process or brain region.

The functional neuroanatomy of creativity suggests that artistic creativity possesses a central, domain-general system, and that cognitive control of information flow in these areas is an important aspect of creative cognition.

The prefrontal cortex has been considered the central structure involved in creative thinking, and positive mood has been shown to enhance insight through modulation of attention and cognitive control mechanisms via anterior cingulate cortex.

Benedek et al. (2014) found that the left prefrontal cortex, right medial temporal lobe, and left inferior parietal cortex are involved in creative thinking.

The left parietal cortex and left prefrontal regions are involved in semantic retrieval and the construction of new and creative ideas, and the right superior parietal lobe is involved in visuospatial creativity. The default mode network is a set of brain regions that is engaged when individuals are not engrossed in an attention-demanding task, and is then suspended during specific goal-oriented behaviours. Increased connectivity within the default mode network may be associated with creativity.

Dopamine agonists are often used to treat symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases, and have been suggested to influence the creative content produced by these individuals.

Dopamine is likely one of the main neurotransmitters with influence on creativity. Several studies have found that polymorphisms on genes related to dopamine pathways are related to increased divergent thinking and real-world creative achievement.

(1) Cortical dopamine is involved in cognitive flexibility and the balance between flexibility and persistence, two cognitive processes that were previously discussed as supporting creativity. (2) Moderate levels of dopamine enable persistence-driven creativity.

Dopamine may be stimulating an increase in creativity through its effects on latent inhibition. Specifically, D2 receptors may play a significant role.

Dopamine is known to enhance mental imagery in healthy individuals and is related to symptom severity in patients with schizophrenia. This effect may relate to findings that link vividness of mental imagery to creativity.

Studies in both humans and animals indicate that dopamine plays a role in working memory. The overall effect of dopamine on creative cognition follows an inverted-U shape function, such that extreme levels of dopamine on either end hinder working memory, while moderate levels benefit it.

Serotonin modulates dopamine neurons in all three major dopaminergic pathways through several 5-HT receptors in the brain. Antagonist action on 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors results in decreased and increased measures of trait that has been associated with creativity.

Latent inhibition is disrupted by agonists of 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors, while being enhanced by antagonists of 5-HT1A and 5-HT2A receptors.

The lack of good measures of creativity has hampered research in this field, with existing instruments suffering from conceptual and psychometric faults. Psychometric tests of creativity can be grouped into four categories reflecting Rhode’s (1961) four P’s of creativity.

The process approach to creativity is concerned with the cognitive factors involved in creativity that lead to creative production. Divergent thinking tests are possibly the most widely used when studying creativity.

Divergent thinking tests are reliable, but they also reveal mixed results for several aspects of validity related to overreliance on generality of domain. Thus, it is best assumed that divergent thinking tests are not guarantees of creative performance.

Convergent thinking has been overlooked in creativity assessment in favour of tests of divergent thinking. However, recent attempts to develop new tests that integrate the different mental operations involved in creativity have resulted in the Widening-Connecting-Reorganizing test and the Evaluation of Potential for Creativity test.

The person approach involves measuring personality traits linked to creativity, using methods such as personality inventories, self-report adjective checklists, biographical surveys, or interviews. These instruments include the Adjective Check List, the Self Report of Creative Traits, the Creative Perception Inventory, and the Revised Creativity Domain Questionnaire.

This approach for measuring creativity has advantages of ease of use, standardized administration, and scoring procedures, along with reliability, but also some limitations. Furthermore, the relationship between these measures and actual creative performance has revealed mixed results.

Product approach: The creativity of a product can be understood in its subjective judgment to exhibit originality and appropriateness.

Researchers have praised the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) for its ability to reliably assess creativity. The CAT relies on subjective criteria and thus avoids the challenge of specifying objective criteria for classifying products as creative.

The strengths of the product approach lie in the conjugation of assessment with meaningful, intelligence-fair, real-world activities, and high inter-rater reliability. However, the CAT has some issues, such as the selection of appropriate judges and the influence of cultural and personality differences on creativity ratings.

The press approach involves the analysis of the environment in which creative behaviour occurs. It has been established that the social environment can significantly influence an individual’s motivation to engage in an activity, which in turn may affect creative performance.

Psychedelics are a class of psychoactive drugs that induce profound changes in perception, cognition, mood, and conscience. They have been used by humans from several different pre-industrial cultures all around the world from time immemorial for religious and medicinal purposes.

Recent studies have helped clarify the mechanism of action through which psychedelics act in the human brain. These drugs interact with 5-HT1A and 5-HT2A receptors, and the use of antagonists blocks these effects.

While psychedelics are not directly involved in the dopaminergic system, activation of 5-HT2A receptors in the ventral tegmental area modulates the release of dopamine in this region. LSD and psilocybin may also increase dopamine in the nucleus accumbens.

LSD activates 5-HT2A receptors, which lead to disinhibitory processing and the formation of visual imageries. Ayahuasca and psilocybin decrease activity in the default mode network, while LSD increases global connectivity in the thalamus and high-level association cortices.

Psychological and subjective effects of psychedelics are varied, even within individuals and in different occasions, and are attributed to non-pharmacological variables in set (internal state of the user) and setting (physical, social, and cultural environment).

Psychedelics induce a variety of changes in cognition, perception, emotion, and individual feeling of thought and identity, producing a so-called altered state of consciousness.

Psychedelic states are characterized by sensory changes, including visual hallucinations. These effects may be caused by activation of 5-HT2A receptors.

There are accounts that psychedelics acutely impair different aspects of cognitive function, but long-term use of ayahuasca is associated with increased cognition, which may hint at possible post-acute or even long-term benefits.

Psychedelic experiences are often accompanied by a state of euphoria and intensified emotional experience. Goal-directed behaviour is increased with a bias towards positive cues, and positive changes in mood and attitudes and behaviour are sustained up to 14 months after dosage.

Psychedelic substance use is associated with the personality trait of openness, as well as increased self-directedness and self-transcendence.

Personality traits can influence the psychedelic experience itself. Extroverts are more sensitive to the effects of psilocybin, absorption trait is related to synesthesia, and neurotic, rigid and emotionally unstable individuals are more susceptible to anxious reactions from psychedelics.

Ego-dissolution is a key feature of the psychedelic experience, and can be felt as either a blissful mystical experience associated with increased openness, or a psychotic experience where the individual experiences a sense of endangerment to the self.

Psychedelics have been deemed as “psychotomimetic” agents since the early years, and have been used primarily in animal studies as models of psychosis. Activation of 5-HT2A receptors is thought to be responsible for these effects, via its modulation of subcortical dopamine activity.

Psychedelics have long been associated with creativity, and several individuals have attributed their success to the use of these substances, including Nobel prize winner in Chemistry Kary Mullis and architect Kiyo Izumi.

Psychedelic drugs have been reported to induce evident changes in the creative process, even long after ceasing their use. However, it is still poorly understood if and how creativity is enhanced through these drugs.

Psychedelic drugs may increase impulsivity by activating 5-HT2A receptors, and impulsivity is linked to use of hallucinogens in humans.

Psychedelics may enhance creativity by stimulating dopamine release in the mesolimbic pathways, a similar mechanism thought to occur in schizophrenia. Furthermore, psychedelics may attenuate latent inhibition, a feature of schizophrenia.

Psychedelics have been shown to enhance creativity, particularly in divergent thinking. The personality trait openness has been associated with psychedelic use, and may be linked to enhanced creativity through increased bottom-up access to increased remote associations.

Psychedelic drugs impair most cognitive functions, but some studies have shown positive long-term effects on cognition. It can be posited that psychedelic users may benefit creatively from residual and long-term effects of these drugs.

This work reviews evidence on how psychedelics influence creativity. It aims to clarify the effect that psychedelics exert on creative cognition and behaviour alike, evaluate current methodologies, and help set the stage for future studies.

2. Methods

A search was performed on the following databases: MEDLINE, Web of Science, and PsycINFO, and a manual search was performed on the Psychedelic Bibliography of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

The following inclusion criteria were used: human studies with no restriction of sex or age, studies involving the administration of a classic psychedelic, and studies measuring creativity through psychometric measures.

The following variables were recorded from each study: authors, year of publication, type of study, sample population and size, type of drug and dosage, phase (acute, subacute, and/or long-term), creativity test used, and task approach.

3. Results

After excluding duplicates, 314 articles were screened for eligibility by title and abstract, of which 17 were selected according to the criteria established. The full texts of these 17 articles were then analyzed for a more detailed evaluation, of which 10 were selected for qualitative synthesis.

The three different phases of the drugs are represented throughout the studies, which range from 1964 to 2019. The studies assessed creativity through measures of divergent and convergent thinking.

This quasi-experimental pilot study aimed to assess the effects of LSD on normal subjects, and consisted of 15 experimental subjects (5 females) and 14 comparison subjects (5 females). The tests were administered on the day preceding and one week following drug exposure.

The test battery consisted of measures of anxiety, attitude, and performance, and included tests of associational fluency, ideational fluency, alternate uses, alternate signs, and consequences.

This study suggests that LSD does not influence divergent thinking nor convergent thinking in the sub-acute phase as measured one week after intake. However, the study lacks a true control group to specifically determine drug effects.

Twenty-seven healthy male participants were recruited for a quasi-experimental exploratory study to investigate whether the psychedelic experience enhances creativity.

Subjects were given 200 mg of mescaline and instructed to select one or more problems requiring a creative solution. They spent 3 hours quietly listening to music and were then able to work on their chosen problems.

The test battery administered included the Purdue Creativity Test, the Miller Object Visualization Test, and the Witkin Embedded Figures Test. Results showed that 13 out of 18 subjects increased their fluency of ideas from the first to the second session.

This study shows that mescaline may increase fluency of ideas when combined with a proper setting and mindset, but there are too many confounding variables to derive an effect from the drug.

McGlothlin et al. (1967) split 72 male subjects into three groups, one experimental and two controls, based on six matching variables.

The experiment was double-blind during preparation, and subjects received their respective drug in three separate sessions. Two subjects failed to complete the three sessions in the amphetamine group, while 17 subjects completed all three sessions in the LSD group.

Assessments were taken prior to drug intake and at intervals of two weeks and six months following the third session. These tests included anxiety tests, personality, attitude, and value tests, aesthetic sensitivity tests, creativity tests, and projective tests.

All 72 subjects completed the two-week follow-up testing. The 200 g LSD group felt that the drug experience had resulted in enhanced creativity, but all seven measures of creativity failed to reveal any significant changes.

This study was carried out with two placebo conditions, and participants were blinded to the intervention. However, not all participants followed through with all the assessments, and the results may lack generalization since the sample consisted solely of male, graduate student subjects.

This study used LSD to enhance the creative performance of 30 male volunteers.

The 31 subjects were given a battery of projective tests and were classified as predicted to improve (D1) or not to improve (18 subjects) their performance after drug ingestion.

Each subject completed a battery of tests, then received LSD and waited two hours before completing a new battery of tests.

The battery of tests administered included Mednick’s Remote Associates Test, the Modified Word Association Test, and the Mosaic Design Test.

Results showed that the LSD group performed significantly better on the WAT and the RAT than the control group, but significantly worse on the MDT. There were no significant differences between DN1 subjects and control subjects.

This study shows that LSD may enhance originality in the acute phase, while impairing the ability to develop creative products. Individual differences may determine the creativity-enhancing effects of this substance, with those showing a mixture of affect, intelligence, and abstract skill benefiting the most.

A total of 40 healthy volunteers participated in ayahuasca ceremonials in Brazil, and 21 subjects provided control data. Creativity and entoptic phenomena were assessed in a naturalistic setting after ayahuasca ceremonials.

Participants ingested a self-chosen dose of ayahuasca of at least 50 ml on the day of the ceremonies, and drank a total amount of 583 ml during the two-week session.

Volunteers completed creativity tests before and after the two-week ayahuasca session. A third party performed the statistical analysis.

A standardized form of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) was used to measure creativity.

This study shows that ayahuasca can potentially enhance originality in the sub-acute phase, while other parameters of divergent thinking remain unaffected.

The authors of this study used a mixture-compound, which is regarded as unreliable among psychedelics, for their creativity test.

The authors of this study point out that the control group was not recruited from the same population as the ayahuasca group, and that an ethnically comparable, placebo-controlled group gone through a two-week period with conditions similar to those of the ayahuasca participants was required for an optimal investigation.

Although the total amount consumed was recorded, there is still no information on how much each participant ingested. Therefore, homogeneity within the group is not guaranteed.

Kuypers et al. (2016) visited two spiritual ayahuasca-using groups and invited individuals to join the study. They formed two test groups, consisting of 26 healthy participants.

In a non-religious setting, participants took an initial ayahuasca dose and a second one, which they could take or not. The second dose contained 0.96 mg DMT.

Two parallel versions of creativity tests were administered twice: 3 hours before dosing and 1.5 – 2 hours after the initial dose, after which the second dose was offered. The completion time for the battery was around 35 minutes.

Results showed that both groups different significantly in terms of age and education, and that group 1 showed higher fluency and originality scores compared to group 2, while the latter showed higher ratio than the former.

Ayahuasca use may acutely affect creative thinking, increasing divergent thinking while decreasing convergent thinking. However, it is not clear whether improvements in divergent thinking could be attributed to practice effects rather than the drug.

The study found that fluency increased in group 2 while decreasing in group 1 after ayahuasca intake. This may be because group 1 ingested a higher dose of DMT on average compared to group 2, and because group 1 had already higher fluency scores to begin with.

This study’s quasi-experimental design means that there is no guarantee that test groups were similar at baseline, and participants were not blind to the intervention nor were researchers. Therefore, these results may not be generalized to the general population.

A total of 57 participants consented to take part in this observational study, of which 30 were from the Netherlands and 27 from Colombia. The study aimed to assess sub-acute and long-term effects of ayahuasca on affect and creativity.

Methods: Data was collected at two distinct ayahuasca ceremonies (Netherlands group and Colombia group), and 31 participants completed a 4-week follow-up assessment. A 30-minute test battery was administered, including the Picture Concept Task, the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and the Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire.

Four 200 ml ayahuasca samples were obtained and analyzed for alkaloid concentrations. Sample 1 from the Netherlands contained 371.6 mg of DMT.

Convergent thinking was shown to increase 24 hours and 4 weeks after the ceremony, but did not correlate with ego-dissolution. The effect of ayahuasca did not differ between participants with and without previous experience.

The use of ayahuasca can result in long-term benefits to convergent thinking, while divergent thinking remains unaltered. Convergent thinking was also found not to be correlated with measures of ego-dissolution.

Researchers did not keep track of the quantity of ayahuasca ingested by each participant, and the DMT contents differed widely between the two samples of both groups, meaning they cannot reliably indicate an average quantity consumed.

The observational nature of this study raises several concerns. The absence of a no-treatment or placebo control group further interferes with the ability to infer causality, and there is the potential for self-selection bias due to a non-random sample.

38 healthy individuals took part in a quasi-experimental open-label study containing truffles containing psilocybin. All but 2 had previous experience with psychedelic substances.

The psychedelic truffles administered in this experiment were 0.22 g, 0.33 g, and 0.44 g, and the test battery consisted of the Raven’s Progressive Matrices, the Picture Concept Task, and the Alternate Uses Task.

Participants were assessed with three tasks before and after ingestion of truffles. The researchers analyzed the data separately for each task, yielding a sample of 38 subjects for the RPM, 27 subjects for the PCT, and 33 subjects for the AUT.

Results show that microdosing truffles significantly improved convergent and divergent thinking, while fluid intelligence was unaffected. Factors such as weight, body mass index, ingested dosage, and prior experience were not found to interact with the independent factor time-point.

This study provides quantitative evidence that microdosing of psychedelic truffles (i.e. psilocybin) improves both convergent and divergent factors of creative thinking. The researchers argue that individuals are capable of creating more out-of-the-box alternative solutions for a problem.

The experiment was conducted in a quasi-experimental open-label fashion, and several issues are raised, including a self-selection bias, lack of placebo, and expectancy effects. The authors argue that eventual expectancy effects do not invalidate the results, however there is no information on how experienced each subject was with psychedelics.

Some participants were lost in some of the tasks, so the data was analyzed separately for each task.

This study recruited 55 volunteers (26 female) from a psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands to assess the sub-acute effects of psilocybin on creative thinking, empathy, and subjective well-being.

Participants ingested 34.2 grams of truffles containing psilocybin in a tea form, and were assessed at baseline, the morning after ingesting psilocybin, and seven days after.

The Picture Concept Task (PCT) was used to assess creativity. Results showed that convergent thinking remained unchanged after taking psilocybin, while divergent thinking increased significantly compared to baseline when assessed seven days after.

Psilocybin has the potential to enhance divergent thinking shortly after the acute phase, while convergent thinking remains unchanged.

This study raises some concerns about the results found, as self-selection bias, a non-random sample, and lack of placebo condition may have interfered with the results. Furthermore, there is a risk of attrition bias resulting from high drop-out rates at the seven-day follow-up.

Inhalation of vapour from dried toad secretion containing 5-MeO-DMT in naturalistic settings was found to improve measures of affect and cognition in 42 participants. Of these, 32 were healthy volunteers, while 10 had psychiatric disorders.

Data for this study were collected from three distinct sessions, during which participants were administered dried toad secretion. A test battery containing six questionnaires pertaining to affect and psychedelic experience, including degree of ego-dissolution, was administered, as well as a computerized version of the Picture Concept Task.

The number of correct answers provided in the PCT was taken as the dependent measure of convergent thinking. Divergent thinking was assessed by providing alternative answers.

Convergent thinking significantly increased 24 hours after drug intake and 4 weeks later, as compared to baseline. Convergent thinking scores were negatively correlated with levels of ego dissolution and oceanic boundlessness.

This study suggests that 5-MeO-DMT, as inhaled from vapour from dried toad secretion in naturalistic settings, has the potential to enhance convergent thinking in subacute and long-term phases, while divergent thinking remains unchanged. Furthermore, convergent thinking was found to be negatively correlated with measures of ego-dissolution and oceanic boundlessness.

The authors of this study point out that the lack of control over the amount of drug taken by each participant is reflected in the finding that convergent thinking scores differ significantly between sessions. This may have been explained by differences in doses used between sessions, along with other contextual factors.

4. Discussion

An integrative review of studies on the effect of psychedelics on creativity found that psychedelics enhance divergent thinking in the acute phase, and may be able to indirectly modulate dopamine release in mesolimbic pathways shown to be associated with divergent thinking.

A possibility that may explain this finding lies in Carson’s (2018) neurocognitive vulnerability model of creativity and psychopathology, which mentions neural hyperconnectivity as one of the possible elements of shared vulnerability.

Another possibility for the similarity between the psychedelic state and individuals at risk for psychosis lies in the findings that psilocybin increases functional connectivity between the default mode network and task-positive network. This may explain the phenomenon of ego-dissolution.

The psychedelic state does not seem to be conducive to cognitive processes requiring persistence, accuracy, logic, or focus on a limited breadth of categories, but convergent thinking is acutely enhanced when taking sub-perceptual doses of psilocybin. However, larger doses may possibly impair capacities crucial for convergent thinking.

Psychedelics may promote convergent thinking in post-acute phases, particularly in the long-term phase, because they increase self-awareness and reorganize the brain into new networks. Convergent thinking relies on mindfulness capacities, such as sustained and alert awareness, and is stronger during insight tasks compared to divergent thinking tasks.

This evidence suggests that psychedelics may enhance creative thinking by enhancing divergent thinking in the acute phase and convergent thinking in the post-acute phase.

5. Limitations

There are limitations to the evidence reviewed before, such as small sample sizes, lack of control groups, placebos, and double-blind parameters, and lack of randomized controlled trials. Therefore, future randomized controlled trials are needed to provide strong and decisive evidence on how creativity is affected by psychedelics.

This review brings to surface an almost uniform attempt to extrapolate the study of “creativity” from subcategories, and does not assess how psychedelics might affect the way individuals see themselves in creative terms.

Psychedelics influence creativity in a complex and dynamic way, and future studies should consider the dynamic experience that starts from the moment an individual partakes in psychedelic use.

McGlothlin et al. (1967) investigated the effects of psychedelics on creativity using a multiple dosage regime. They found no changes to divergent and convergent thinking, however, increased aesthetic appreciation was reported.

Studies have tried to investigate how individual differences may affect how psychedelics interact with creativity. These studies suggest that a combination of affective, cognitive, and abstract skills may be determinant in eventual creative benefits, and that individuals with a decreased potential for creativity might not manifest any meliorating effects upon taking these drugs.

Positive ego-dissolution experiences may increase openness, while negative ego-dissolution experiences may evoke feelings of anxiety and panic.

The heterogeneity in drugs used may also limit general conclusions. Future studies involving administration of both psychedelics and a specific 5-HT2A antagonist would be interesting to determine the eventual role of these receptors on creativity.

6. Conclusion

This integrative review presented data suggesting that psychedelics can enhance divergent thinking and convergent thinking, which may help clarify how these drugs benefit creativity. However, there are several limitations to overcome, including a limited number of studies and small sample sizes.

The effects of psychedelics on creativity are studied through process methods, but person and product approach is lacking. Further research is needed to overcome these methodological limitations.

A meta-analytic review of the literature on the relationship between schizophrenia and creativity has been published. The review includes a discussion of the role of serotonin in the pathophysiology and treatment of schizophrenia, as well as a discussion of the WCR Model of Creativity.

Psychological Bulletin, 134(6), 779-806; 142(6), 668-692; Bäckman, L., & Nyberg, L. (2013). Dopamine and training-related working-memory improvement. The Torrance Tests were criticized for being unreliable and outdated. A new test, the Consensual Assessment Technique, was developed and is now the gold standard for assessing creativity.

Batey, M., Wilkins, R. W., Jauk, E., Fink, A., Silvia, P. J., Hodges, D. A., Koschutnig, K., Reishofer, G., Ebner, F., & Neubauer, A. C. (2012) found that creative new ideas are generated by a different neural mechanism than creative recall. Benedek, Jauk, Sommer, M., Arendasy, M., Neubauer, A. C., & Berkovich-Ohana, A. (2014). Intelligence, creativity, and cognitive control: The common and differential involvement of executive functions in intelligence and creativity.

Acute effects of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide on healthy human volunteers were investigated. A three-factor creative product analysis matrix model was confirmed. The authors of this article discuss the association between psychedelic use and differences in brain structure and personality. They also discuss the association between psychedelic use and differences in executive function between experienced and occasional users.

Ayahuasca ingestion is associated with fringe consciousness and personality, and problem finding, creativity style, and the musical compositions of high school students are all related. The author of this article describes the background of psychedelic neuroscience, the literature review, the current state of the art, and the future directions of psychedelic neuroscience.

A neuroscience of creativity and psychopathology is needed to understand the relationship between creativity and mental illness. This is achieved by examining the relationship between latent inhibition and creative achievement in high-functioning individuals. The Creative Achievement Questionnaire has been shown to be reliable, valid, and factor structure, and has been used to investigate the relationship between attention, working memory, and the serotonin 1A and 2A receptors.

The relationship between convergent and divergent thinking, schizotypy, and autistic traits has been examined in several studies. The effects of meditating to create on convergent and divergent thinking have also been investigated in several studies.

Dopamine, serotonin and impulsivity are related in several studies, including Cropley, A. (2006), Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2013), Dalley, J. W., & Roiser, J. P. (2012), and Davis, K. L., Kahn, R. S., Ko, G., & Davidson, M. (1991). Dopamine and serotonin receptors are involved in the retrieval processes in latent inhibition, and hedonic tone and activation level in the mood-creativity link are important for the development of a dual pathway to creativity model.

LSD acutely impairs fear recognition and enhances emotional empathy and sociality in rats. Ding, Y., Ou, Y., Su, Q., Pan, P., Shan, X., Chen, J., Liu, F., Zhang, Z., Zhao, J., & Guo, W. (2019). Dos Santos, Balthazar, F. M., Bouso, J. C., Hallak, J. E., Osório, F. L., Crippa, J. A. S., & Hallak, J. E. (2016) reviewed the current state of research on ayahuasca and neuroimaging.

A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity was performed by Feist, G. J., and Fink, A., and Papousek, I., Weiss, E. M., Bagga, D., & Schöpf, V. (2018). Verbal divergent thinking training modulated resting-state network connectivity in Parkinson disease patients.

69 Fishkin, A. S., Johnson, A. S., Flaherty, A. W., and Forisha, B. L. (1998) investigated who is creative and how they control their creative drive. Transformative experience and social connectedness mediate the mood-enhancing effects of psychedelic use in naturalistic settings. Furthermore, repeated ayahuasca ceremonies enhance creative expression and entoptic phenomena as after-effects of ayahuasca use.

LSD is a partial agonist of D2 dopaminergic receptors and potentiates dopamine-mediated prolactin secretion in lactotrophs in vitro. Functional connectivity within and between intrinsic brain networks correlates with trait mind wandering. Goel, V., Vartanian, O., & Goldberger, L. (2004). Right Ventral Lateral and Dorsal Lateral Prefrontal Cortex in Generation and Maintenance of Hypotheses in Set-shift Problems.

Grabner, R. H., Fink, A., & Neubauer, A. C. (2007). Brain correlates of self-rated originality of ideas: Evidence from event-related power and phase-locking changes in the EEG. Grinspoon, L., Bakalar, J., Groborz, M., Necka, E., Guilford, J. P., Halberstadt, A. L., and others have studied the history and patterns of psychedelic drug use, the psychedelic drug therapies, and the nature of human intelligence.

Multiple receptors contribute to the behavioral effects of indoleamine hallucinogens, and psychedelics may cause residual neuropsychological toxicity. Mood states and everyday creativity are influenced by experience sampling methods and day reconstruction methods, and may be influenced by working memory capacity. Hennessey, Amabile, Mueller, & Hickey (2010), Consensual Assessment, Encyclopedia of creativity, vol. 1, San Diego: Academic Press; Hitchcock, Lister, S., Fischer, T. R., & Wettstein, J. G. (1997), Disruption of latent inhibition in the rat by the 5-HT2 agonist DOI.

LSD may enhance creativity by interacting with dopamine receptors, and may also affect mood and cognition in healthy volunteers. LSD may also affect creativity in groups, institutions, and organizations. The relationship between intelligence and creativity has been studied by several researchers. The Road to Creative Achievement is a latent variable model of ability and personality predictors, and the Consensual Assessment Technique is a reliable measure of graphic design creativity.

The research on the effects of psychedelic drugs on the comic art of Robert Crumb is reviewed, as well as the neuroanatomy of creativity in the human brain. Kaufman, Cole, J. C., Baer, J., Evans, M. L., Kegeles, L. S., Frankle, W. G., Gil, R., Cooper, T. B., Slifstein, M., Hwang, D.-R., Huang, Y., Haber, S. N., & Laruelle, (2010).

Synaptic dopamine function in associative regions of the striatum in schizophrenia is impaired, and WAY100635, an LSD agonist, has selective effects at preexposure. Psilocybin induces positive emotions in humans and animals through different serotonin subreceptors, and a specific subreceptor in the prefrontal cortex is involved in creative problem solving.

The contribution of executive functions to creativity in children is mediated by crystallized and fluid intelligence. Ayahuasca enhances creative divergent thinking while decreasing conventional convergent thinking in healthy male volunteers. This is supported by a review of case evidence and new neurobiological, contextual, and genetic hypotheses.

A meta-analysis of the mindfulness – creativity link, a latent variable analysis of the roles of intelligence and working memory in three creative thinking processes, a comparison of the role of openness to experience in trait creativity, and a dual-process theory account of the role of working memory in creative problem solving. The effects of hallucinogens on neuronal activity are described, as well as the relationship between hallucinogens and serotonin 5-HT2A receptor-mediated signaling pathways.

Lubart, T., Besançon, M., Barbot, B., & Zenasni, F. (2013). Creativity and convergent thinking: reflections, connections and practical considerations. A study found that people who used LSD or Psilocybin often had more mystical experiences, and had a higher level of empathy, creative thinking, and subjective well-being, than those who did not.

Long lasting effects of LSD on normals were observed in several studies. These effects were enhanced by two 5-HT2A receptor antagonists when given at both pre-exposure and conditioning. The creative experience questionnaire (CEQ) is a brief self-report measure of fantasy proneness. It is based on a meta-analytic review of lateralization of creativity and includes a review of single-process and multi-process recent approaches to demystify creative cognition.

Miller, G. F., Tal, I. R., Millière, R., Carhart-Harris, R. L., Roseman, L., Trautwein, F.-M., & Berkovich-Ohana, A. (2018). Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1475. Müller, F., Dolder, P. C., Schmidt, A., Liechti, M. E., & Borgwardt, S. (2018). Altered network hub connectivity after acute LSD administration.

Psychedelics, personality and political perspectives, ego-dissolution and psychedelics: Validation of the Ego-Dissolution Inventory (EDI), and a review of the literature. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10, 269. The authors discuss how fluid intelligence, executive processes, and strategy use in divergent thinking affect learning to ignore irrelevant stimuli.

The psychedelic state induced by ayahuasca modulates the activity and connectivity of the default mode network, and the creative performance is enhanced in introspective and extrospective networks. LSD acutely impairs working memory, executive functions, and cognitive flexibility, but not risk-based decision-making, in healthy individuals.

Psychedelics have been shown to enhance creativity and reduce depression in a number of different studies. The effects of psychedelics on creativity are also being studied in a number of different settings. Razoumnikova, O. M., Reis, S. M., Renzulli, J. S., Rhodes, M. (1961), An Analysis of Creativity, and Carayannis, E. G. (2013).

Positive affect increases attentional selection. Rocha, J. M., Osório, F. L., Crippa, J. A. S., Bouso, J. C., Rossi, G. N., Hallak, J. E. C., & dos Santos, R. G. (2019). Runco, M. A. (1987), The Generality of Creative Performance in Gifted and Nongifted Children, Runco, M. A. (1989), The creativity of children’s art, Runco, M. A. (2013), Divergent Thinking, Creativity, and Ideation, Runco, M. A. (2014).

Students are less creative at school than outside of school, according to Runco, Acar, and Cayirdag (2017). A systematic review of the literature on approaches to measuring creativity, psilocin’s effect on extracellular dopamine and serotonin levels in the mesoaccumbens and mesocortical pathway in awake rats, the mediating role of cognition and social cognition on creativity among patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls, and more.

Schmidt-Hansen, Killcross, A. S., Honey, R. C., & Ottoni, G. L. (2009) found that latent inhibition, learned irrelevance, and schizotypy were associated with a variety of personality traits and a high rate of substance use. Sharma, S., Babu, N., Choi, C.-H., Kim, E., Park, H.-Y., Choi, J.-S., Jung, M., & Kwon, J. (2017). Interplay between creativity, executive function and working memory in middle-aged and older adults.

Adolescence as a flexible period for improving creativity: A snapshot of creativity, a quick and simple method for assessing divergent thinking, a review and empirical evaluation of creativity assessments, and a discussion of the validity of creativity assessments. Psilocybin induces acute, subacute and long-term subjective effects in healthy humans. A brain mechanism for facilitation of insight by positive affect is proposed.

Dopamine agonists disrupt visual latent inhibition in normal males using a within-subject paradigm, and increased global functional connectivity correlates with LSD-induced ego dissolution. Takeuchi, H., Taki, Y., Sassa, Y., Hashizume, H., Sekiguchi, A., Fukushima, A., & Kawashima, R. (2010) found that the dopaminergic system is associated with creativity and that academic domain, personality, and self-reported creativity influence novice judges’ evaluations of creative productions.

A human serotonin 5-HT2A receptor gene polymorphism affects impulsivity: Dependence on 89 cholesterol levels. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking are a measure of creative thinking. A single inhalation of 5-MeO-DMT from dried toad secretion in a naturalistic setting is related to sustained enhancement of satisfaction with life, mindfulness-related capacities, and a decrement of psychopathological symptoms.

Psilocybin induces schizophrenia-like psychosis in humans via a serotonin-2 agonist action. Walker, R. H., Warwick, R., Cercy, S. P., and Vollenweider, F. X. have all studied the effects of psilocybin on prepulse inhibition of startle in healthy human volunteers. Watts, V. J., Mailman, R. B., Lawler, C. P., Neve, K. A., & Nichols, D. E. (1995). LSD and structural analogs: pharmacological evaluation at D1 dopamine receptors. Weiner, I., & Arad, M. (2009).

Individual differences in creativity are predicted by interactions between dopamine genes DAT and COMT. Wotruba, D., Michels, L., Buechler, R., Metzler, S., Theodoridou, A., Gerstenberg, M., Walitza, S., Kollias, S., Rössler, W., & Heekeren, K. (2016). Creative achievers show selective versus leaky sensory gating in the P50, whereas divergent thinkers show leaky sensory gating.

Zabelina, D. L., Saporta, A., Beeman, M., Zegans, L. S., Pollard, J. C., Brown, D., Zhang, S., Zhang, M., & Zhang, J. (2014). Association of COMT and COMT-DRD2 interaction with creative potential.