Enhancement of Creative Expression and Entoptic Phenomena as After-Effects of Repeated Ayahuasca Ceremonies

This open-label study (n=61 of which 21 control group) on those who participated in a two-week ayahuasca retreat found that they had more creative (divergent, ‘high originality’, ‘phosphenes’) responses after the retreat. The participants, however, also had a higher baseline on this creativity measure.

Abstract

“Studying the effect of psychedelic substances on expression of creativity is a challenging problem. Our primary objective was to study the psychometric measures of creativity after a series of ayahuasca ceremonies at a time when the acute effects have subsided. The secondary objective was to investigate how entoptic phenomena emerge during expression of creativity. Forty individuals who were self-motivated participants of ayahuasca rituals in Brazil completed the visual components of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking before and the second day after the end of a two-week long ceremony series. Twenty-one comparison subjects who did not participate in recent psychedelic use also took the Torrance tests twice, two weeks apart. Repeated ingestion of ayahuasca in the ritual setting significantly increased the number of highly original solutions and phosphenic responses. However, participants in the ayahuasca ceremonies exhibited more phosphenic solutions already at the baseline, probably due to the fact that they had more psychedelic experiences within six months prior to the study than the comparison subjects did. This naturalistic study supports the notion that some measures of visual creativity may increase after ritual use of ayahuasca, when the acute psychoactive effects are receded. It also demonstrates an increased entoptic activity after repeated ayahuasca ingestion.“

Authors: Ede Frecska, Csaba E. Móré, András Vargha & Luis E. Luna

Notes

Entoptic activity: visual effects whose source is within the eye itself (wiki)

Summary

Creative thinking involves generating new ideas, associations between existing ideas, and the use of specific knowledge to achieve a single, correct solution to a problem.

Psychedelic (hallucinogenic) substances have a controversial effect on creative expression, but there are many anecdotal accounts of increased creative capacity as perceived by artists, writers, designers, computer programmers, and other users who self-administered psychedelic substances.

Jeremy Narby interviewed three molecular biologists who reported that they acquired relevant information and insight about their research during their first ayahuasca experiences in the Peruvian Amazon. Benny Shanon documented intellectual-philosophical insights attained by ayahuasca drinkers without prior formal education.

Shanon (2000) reports that artists and other professionals in the creative field are likely to have special qualities and characteristics distinguishing them from the general population. It may be that psychedelic drugs help manifest the creative potential already present in such individuals rather than give birth to creativity.

Objective support for the notion that psychedelic use increases the creative potential is rare, and the few studies that have been conducted use poorly structured measurements with questionable validity and sensitivity resulting in inconclusive findings.

Stanley Krippner surveyed 91 major artists, who admitted having had at least one psychedelic experience. Eighty-one percent reported that their work had been affected by psychedelic use.

William McGlothlin and associates gave 200 g of LSD to 72 graduate students and found no increase in creative ability.

Leonard Zegans and his coworkers studied 19 graduate students who were given LSD alongside 11 subjects receiving a placebo. The results showed that LSD increased the accessibility of remote or unique ideas and associations to their conscious awareness for certain subjects with particular “creative personality traits”.

Oscar Janiger facilitated LSD sessions in his home for 1,000 people with a variety of professional backgrounds in the 1950s and 1960s. The participants’ experiences varied widely, but most described the outcome as valuable and sustaining with very rare incidence of adverse reactions.

Willis Harman’s study is among the best conducted to date, despite its lack of placebo control and double blind design. 27 creative professionals volunteered to receive doses of mescaline followed by workshops requiring creative problem solving, and individual psychological testing. The study concluded that the psychedelic drug significantly enhanced the creative process, and the after-effects of enhanced creativity lasted for at least eight weeks.

One recent study found no significant differences in fluency of responses between cannabis users and controls, but did find significant differences in “rare-creative” responses.

Psychedelics may affect creativity depending on the experimental context and participants’ expectations. Personal mindset and environmental setting are important factors.

Psychometric measures of creative expression may be related to the occurrence of phosphenic effects after hallucinogen use. Phosphenes are a type of visual illusion that can occur spontaneously as a result of visual deprivation, and may last up to six months.

Perception of phosphenes is different from visual hallucinations, “flashbacks”, and hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, although entoptic phenomena can be part of them. Phosphene visions involve flickering light, glowing dots, pulsating waves, and simple geometric figures.

The quality and design of the studies outlined in this introduction do not meet modern research standards. A new study was conducted to investigate the possible connection between psychedelic drug use and creativity.

Subjects

Data was obtained from 40 individuals who participated in ayahuasca ceremonials held in Florianópolis, Brazil between April 8, 2004 and January 29, 2008 and volunteered for the creativity tests. All participants were fully debriefed and were assured of confidentiality.

Eight candidates were not eligible for the analysis because they had a dose below the required range, a suboptimal subjective experience, or did not take part in as many sessions as required.

Experimental subjects had to be experienced in psychedelic use and plan to ingest 50 ml of ayahuasca in four sessions.

Exclusion criteria for experimental subjects were: head injury, alcohol or illicit drug use in the past two weeks, lifetime history of substance dependence, high body mass index, and lack of ayahuasca experience.

A further sample of 21 undergraduate international students and staff members provided control data for test-retest measures of the TTCT.

Ayahuasca Sessions

Participants maintained a salt-, sugar-, red meat-, and alcohol-free diet for two weeks while partaking in ayahuasca ceremonies organized in Florianópolis, Brazil. They drank ayahuasca on every second or third day within a two-week timeframe and rested supine with lights turned off for four hours following ingestion.

Creativity Tests

Volunteers completed a standardized form of TTCT (Barkóczi & Zétényi 1981) before and after the first ayahuasca session. They were not allowed to go back to previous tasks, and the time limit for each task was eight and ten minutes.

The TTCT is a standardized test with normalized scoring procedures and continuous development with reevaluations. It has high predictive validity over a very wide age range and is fair in terms of gender, race, and community status.

Measures of Creativity

The standardized creativity test was scored in accordance with the process specified by Barkóczi and Zétényi (1981), and consisted of 35 blank circle use and ten figure completion. The scores were summed up to give a total of three creativity scores: fluency, flexibility, and originality.

Albert and Kormos (2004) demonstrated that the creative fluency score significantly influences both the flexibility and originality scores, and that the relative flexibility and relative originality scores can be used to measure other facets of the subjects’ creativity.

The number of highly original solutions (with originality scores above 0.90) was calculated as an index of creativity. A person’s total originality score will be influenced by the number of highly original solutions, as well as by their relative originality score.

Phosphenic Responses

Phosphenic solutions do not belong to the TTCT, and drawing phosphenes is not considered a creative response per se. We have selected six of the most common entoptic forms from a range established by neurologists and psychologists. These forms are mercurial, but the six categories are fundamental because they were established by abstracting redundant elements from a large number of reports.

Statistical Analysis

We used repeated measures of ANOVA to test the after-effects of repeated ayahuasca use, and Bonferroni’s post hoc comparisons were applied when the ANOVA indicated significant group-test interaction.

Descriptive Measures

The comparison group had a mean age of 27.1 years, and the ayahuasca group had a mean age of 30.9 years.

Measures of Creativity

Repeated ingestion of ayahuasca had no effect on creativity measures such as fluency, relative flexibility, and relative originality, but did increase the number of highly original solutions in blank circle use and figure completion.

Phosphenic Responses

The results show that the post-ayahuasca tests showed higher phosphenic responses than the pre-ayahuasca tests, but that the ayahuasca ceremonies participants had more psychedelic experiences than the comparison subjects had during a six-month period preceding the study.

DISCUSSION

This study found that ayahuasca users had a positive after-effect on creativity, as measured by high scores on the visual components of the TTCT, and long-lasting phosphenic activity as well.

This study used a mixture-compound, which is unreliable for monitoring the dose and blood level of its active ingredients. It also used a standardized creativity test, which is a unique feature in its class.

A more optimal investigation would have involved an ethnically comparable, placebo-controlled group that went through a two-week period with environment, diet, day-schedule, and ceremony sessions similar to those of the ayahuasca participants. However, this study provides a foundation for future work.

The results suggest that repeated ayahuasca ceremonies do not enhance creativity, or that creative individuals tend to seek out novelty, including psychoactive drug sessions like ayahuasca rituals.

Neuropsychologically, it is unclear why ayahuasca users produced more original solutions. However, it is known that ayahuasca increases frontal and paralimbic blood flow, and this activation pattern may last for at least one week after administration.

Psychedelic use may cause hyperexcitability of the lower visual system, which may explain why people of many different cultures use psychedelics for inspiration. A neuropsychological model for the origin of shamanistic rock art has been proposed, but no direct experimental support exists.

After a buoyant professional interest in psychedelics in the 1950s and 1960s, there has been an almost 40-year moratorium on psychedelic research. The enhancement of creativity is one topic that may have potential benefits.

Dr. Gerald Oster’s first trip on LSD was a revelation. He saw dancing dots, spirals, radial lines and other luminous images.