Psychedelics change our conscious experience of the world – that is part of their attraction. Now a new study out of John Hopkins Medicine has analysed data on attributions of consciousness to other animals and innate objects by those using psychedelics and how this changes over time.
The study analysed data from 1,606 people who had had a belief-changing psychedelic experience. What they noticed was a large increase in attributions of consciousness to other animals, such as insects, but also to plants, inanimate natural objects, and inanimate manmade objects. Not surprisingly the largest consciousness attribution was for animals, e.g. 57% attributed consciousness to insects compare to only 15% with inanimate manmade objects.
What is surprising is that these changes persisted over time with the average experience being 8 years previously. This shows that part of the experience of these psychedelics and in line with descriptions of the impacts (of the world coming to life) is related to attributions of consciousness.
Of note is that this can change with a single psychedelic experience!
Reference:
Sandeep M. Nayak, Roland R. Griffiths.
A Single Belief-Changing Psychedelic Experience Is Associated With Increased Attribution of Consciousness to Living and Non-living Entities.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2022; 13
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.852248
More Quick Hits
Disagreements Improve Team Perception
We might assume that agreement would be high in high-performing teams – this study shows the opposite…
Brain Cells Adapt to Help You Stay Awake
Falling asleep is a funny thing – you don’t need to think about it when it happens but can cause many people who can’t incredibly frustration…
Dad Brain is Real
We know that mothers go through multiple physical and psychological changes after birth (and before) including change in brain structures but what about fresh fathers?
Mask-Wearing Makes You Better Behaved
This is a fascinating study that shows that wearing masks changes behaviour in subtle but important ways…
Coffee Can Help You Live Longer
Yes, that is good news for you (us) coffee drinkers. This supports plenty of more recent studies which have shown the health benefits of coffee…
Big Kids Die Earlier!
Before you panic – the conclusion in the title is based on research into mice not human beings – but there could potentially be some important insights for us human beings as well.
Petting (Real) Dogs Activates the Social Brain
There have been lots of studies into the positive impacts of having pets around us – but this study just published looked at brain activation patterns while being with a dog, petting a dog, and…
Metabolism Predicts Brain Health
Understanding the link between dementia, brain health, and various metabolic disorders such as obesity is important and gives us important clues in…
Super Agers Have Super Neurons
SuperAgers are those who live long, over 80, but retain their cognitive functions including a healthy functioning memory and seem to avoid neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s…
How Nature Lowers Stress in Your Brain
Nature is overwhelmingly good for wellbeing but there are many chicken-or-egg problems with the research. This study…