This perspective article (2018) looks at the evidence for meaning-enhancing as a mediator in psychedelic therapy, spirituality and outcomes on creativity.
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.”
Author: Ido Hartogsohn
Notes
“Remarkably, one of the most striking qualities of psychedelics, which was noted on by both 1960s as well as by contemporary psychedelic researchers, is their ability to induce experiences which people regard as extremely meaningful. Between two thirds to 86% of those who have psychedelic experiences in a supportive therapeutic setting consider them to be either one of the five most meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives, or the single most meaningful experience”
This is a comment about the meaningfulness of the psychedelic experience, but it must be noted that in at least Griffiths et al (2006), the subjects were quite spiritually inclined.
On creativity:
“Here as well, meaning enhancement might play a key role. By magnifying the perceived significance of creative challenges and insights psychedelics provide users with the impetus to pursue new, less obvious lines of ideation that they might otherwise have ignored; and with enhanced motivation to explore new creative directions to their fullest ramifications. “
“By imbuing possible solutions with a magnified sense of meaning and plausibility, psychedelics might assist in reducing inhibitions, self-criticism, and kindle greater concentration and enthusiasm for creative exploration. Crucially, here as well, psychedelics might also enhance the perceived significance of such creative breakthroughs. As with spiritual experiences, this is not to say that creative-breakthroughs with psychedelics are invalid, but that one should be aware of the tendency to overstate the importance of such breakthroughs, particularly during, or shortly after psychedelic experience.”
My personal interpretation would be that the weighting of priors (top-down) is lowered, which then ‘blocks’ your ability to rightly judge which ideas are ‘good’ and thus allows you to come up with/dismiss fewer ideas before you’ve worked on them for a while.
Note: the paper doesn’t define or break creativity down into sub-components.
Summary
Psychedelics induce dramatic and variegated effects, including psychotherapeutic insights, creative breakthroughs, and mystical-type experiences. This paper argues that another often overlooked mediator of psychedelic action, namely the tendency of these agents to enhance the perception of meaning, is fundamental to understanding these effects.
Psychedelics have been shown to enhance the perception of meaning, but this has not been the focus of any deliberate and sustained line of inquiry. However, hints and traces of this idea permeate both popular and clinical psychedelic literature. Psychedelics have the ability to induce highly meaningful experiences, which are regarded as either one of the five most meaningful experiences of their lives or the single most meaningful experience.
While this in itself is no proof, it is telling that the word “psychedelic” conveys the idea that these substances enhance the perception of meaning. Psychedelics have been described as magnifiers, amplifiers, and augmenters of consciousness, because they cause mental phenomena to appear bigger, vaster, and more dramatic than otherwise. Evidence that psychedelics enhance perception of meaning can be found in the growing discourse contrasting the dissimilar modes in which psychedelics and SSRI-anti depressants treat depression. Psychedelics are regularly described as drugs that amplify consciousness and augment the intensity of perception, emotional reactions, and neurological indicators.
Examining psychedelics through the prism of their ability to enhance perception of meaning provides valuable insights into their remarkable effects.
Psychedelics’ therapeutic effects can be explained by bringing psychedelic theory into contact with the growing field of placebo research. This relation becomes evident when one considers the concept of “meaning response” as a more accurate term to replace the arguably problematic term “placebo”. Psychedelics enhance meaning-response, and the concept of set and setting has emerged within psychedelic research. This can be clinically tested by controlling for variables such as expectation, intention, and doctor-patient relationship.
Mystical-type experiences are also enhanced by the meaning-enhancing properties of psychedelics, and are defined by their noetic quality, which is the experience of gaining access to a profounder, more significant plane of existence. Conversion experiences are often triggered by a sense of encounter with a formidable, awesome, “greater-than-human” presence that radiates immense significance and meaning. Psychedelics facilitate this experience by causing mental and external phenomena to appear immensely more significant.
Although research on psychedelic enhancement of creativity is scant, largely dated, and often inconclusive, some evidence does point to the creativity enhancing properties of psychedelics. Meaning enhancement might play a key role in psychedelic enhancement of creativity.
Psychedelics might enhance the perceived significance of creative breakthroughs, and might also reduce inhibitions, self-criticism, and increase concentration and enthusiasm for creative exploration. However, the increased significance of mental objects can also manifest itself in paranoid thought patterns, intensified anxieties, amplified fantasies, and other pathological thought patterns.
DISCUSSION
Psychedelics have meaning-enhancing properties, which may be used to enhance therapy, religious life, and creative activity.
Psychedelics can be seen as enhancers of meaning in late modernity, a struggle compounded by the disappearance of religion and linear narratives of progress. Philosophers and sociologists have long warned that modern industrialized societies are impoverishing meaning, which might be brought in conjunction with rising prevalence of depression, suicidality, and other psychopathologies. Psychedelics may help fight these trends by bolstering individual and social sense of meaning and purpose.
The use of psychedelics for the enhancement of sense meaning raises some metaphysical questions, such as whether it is ethically acceptable to artificially bolster the meaning of experiences and relationships.
The argument seems compelling at first, yet it is arguably flawed. Human ability to meaningfully relate and to authentically appreciate experiences is contingent on myriad factors of everyday life, and is arguably strongly disrupted by the circumstances of life within atomized, competitive, high-stress, bureaucratized societies.
CONCLUSION
Psychedelics may enhance the meaning of life, which is a hypothesis supported by classic accounts of the psychedelic experience as well as by clinical research. Future research might develop and employ questionnaires to measure the meaning-enhancing effect of psychedelics.