Magic Mushroom Users who get High without Drugs

Psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin have been of interest to psychologists due to their ability to induce altered states of intense well-being and profound personal significance. A recent study asked people, some who were psilocybin users and others who were not, about the best, most wonderful experiences of their lives. Some users said that the most wonderful experience occurred under the influence of psilocybin. Other users, who had their most wonderful experience while not under the drug’s influence, nevertheless reported a profound alteration of consciousness that was similar in some ways to the effects of psilocybin. For example, they described unusual visual hallucinations in addition to transcendental mystical states. Both groups of users said their most wonderful experience involved a more profoundly altered state of consciousness compared to the experiences of non-users. One possible implication of this study is that psilocybin could have lasting effects on a person’s ability to enter altered states of consciousness without drugs. However, further research is needed to confirm if this is actually the case.

The intense visual phenomena induced by psychedelic drugs have inspired some remarkable art
Image Credit: Psy - "Pink" - Peace(link is external) by sorrowdiess(link is external) via DeviantArt

Psychologists have long been interested in understanding the human capacity for intense well-being. Abraham Maslow, a pioneer of humanistic psychology, in particular coined the term “peak experiences” to refer to states in which a person feels intensely positive emotions such as great ecstasy, wonder and awe (Klavetter & Mogar, 1967). He considered peak experiences to be a sign of psychological health and thought that such experiences were particularly common in people who were fulfilling their deepest human potentials. Maslow conceptualised peak experiences as a perception of “Being” or “ultimate reality” in a mystical sense, although other researchers have used the term more broadly to refer to the most wonderful or best experiences in a person’s life.

Pioneering studies in the 1960’s investigated the potential of psychedelic drugs such as LSD to induce peak experiences. For example, one study on LSD-assisted psychotherapy found that under the influence of LSD some people had experiences involving feelings of intense beauty, a sense of deeper perception of reality, and of self-transcendence (Klavetter & Mogar, 1967). Furthermore, those who had such experiences believed that they had gained lasting benefits, including greater insight into themselves and their relationships, and that they had become clearer about their values in life. On the other hand, some of the participants in the study did not have a peak experience and reported that they found the experience disappointing and confusing, or felt that they had temporarily gone mad. Hence, some people seem more likely to benefit from psychedelic drugs than others. For example, people who are highly open to new experiences seem to benefit most, while people who are emotionally unstable or rigidly conventional in their views are prone to greater anxiety and negative, disturbing experiences (Studerus, Kometer, Hasler, & Vollenweider, 2011).

Research on psychedelic drugs was unfortunately suppressed in the 1970’s and has been resumed only in more recent years, and today uses somewhat more rigorous scientific methods. One well-known study, which I have discussed elsewhere, also found that psilocybin, the active component of magic mushrooms, can induce profoundly positive experiences in certain people (Griffiths, Richards, McCann, & Jesse, 2006). In this study mentally stable adults volunteered to take psilocybin under supportive conditions. About two-thirds of participants had a “complete mystical experience” involving feelings of intense joy, timelessness, a sense of oneness with the universe and ego-transcendence, and feelings of profound insight into reality. In a fourteen month follow-up, nearly all of the participants who had a mystical experience said they regarded it as one of the most personally significant moments of their lives.

The effects of psychedelic drugs are sensitive to features of the setting they are taken in. In the Griffiths et al. study psilocybin was administered in a safe comfortable setting with an assistant present to provide emotional support as needed to the volunteers. This helped to maximise the chance that they had a positive outcome. However, recreational users of psilocybin may be more casual about the kind of setting they create so the outcomes could be more variable. A recent study attempted to understand the outcomes of psilocybin use in more naturalistic recreational settings (Cummins & Lyke, 2013). In particular, the authors wanted to know how common peak experiences are among users and how they might compare to peak experiences reported by non-users. They gave a survey to 34 psilocybin users and 67 non-users, asking them to recall a peak experience, defined as the best experience or group of experiences in their lives. They then completed a questionnaire assessing the degree to which their peak experience involved alterations in their state of consciousness. Altered states of consciousness were assessed along three dimensions: oceanic boundlessness, which involves subjectively positive, mystical or transcendental experiences; visionary restructuralization, involving visual hallucinations and synaesthesia (crossover of sensory experiences, e.g. seeing music); and dread of ego dissolution, which includes negative experiences such as anxiety about one’s mental processes. Additionally, participants were asked if the peak experience had been induced by psilocybin and if they were under the influence of any other drugs at the time.

Among psilocybin users, 47% reported that their peak experience had occurred under the influence of psilocybin, while the other users said that it had not. Consistent with previous research, those who reported that their peak experience occurred under psilocybin said that it involved very high levels of oceanic boundlessness and visionary restructuralization, as well as relatively high levels of dread of ego dissolution. This is comparable to the findings of the study by Griffiths et al. in which about a third of participants experienced a high level of anxiety at some stage even though they rated their overall experience as being highly positive. Perhaps more interesting was that psilocybin users whose peak experience had not been induced by psilocybin also reported that their peak experience involved high levels of oceanic boundlessness (their questionnaire scores being nearly as high as those who had their peak experience under psilocybin), as well as moderately high levels of visionary restructuralization (although somewhat lower than the other psilocybin users) but very low levels of dread of ego dissolution. For both groups of psilocybin users, their peak experiences involved considerably higher levels of oceanic boundlessness and visionary restructuralization compared to the peak experiences of those who had never used psilocybin. This indicates that lifetime peak experiences of psilocybin users involved more profound alterations of consciousness, whether they had or had not been induced by psilocybin, compared to the lifetime peak experiences of people who had never used.

These results raise some fascinating questions that the study design was not able to answer. For example, it is unknown why some psilocybin users had the most wonderful experience of their lives under psilocybin while other users did not. Situational factors, such as the setting in which the drug was taken might have played a role, plus characteristic of the users themselves might also be a factor. For example, differences in the personality trait of absorption, one’s propensity to experience episode of “total attention”, are strongly linked to how profoundly a person responds to psilocybin (Studerus, Gamma, Kometer, & Vollenweider, 2012), so it is possible that the two groups of users might have differed on this trait. However, what I find even more intriguing is the fact that psilocybin users who had peak experiences without drugs nevertheless reported that these peak experiences involved intense alterations of consciousness that included visual hallucinations as well as mystical states. It would be interesting to know whether these peak experiences were spontaneous or deliberately sought. For example, there are specific practices designed to produce altered states without drugs, such as shamanic rituals, which can induce visionary experiences.

It is also possible that people who have non-drug peak experiences involving visual phenomena might have distinctive personality traits compared to those who are not prone to such experiences. One study found that people who reported having peak experiences tend to have particular traits such as being more imaginative, less authoritarian and dogmatic, more tender-minded and more experimenting than people who had not reported such experiences (Mathes, 1982). People high in fantasy proneness have a natural tendency to have very vivid imaginative experiences, and it is possible that such people are more inclined to use psilocybin. Hence, the unusual results found by Cummins and Lyke might reflect the pre-existing characteristics of people who use psilocybin.

However, another intriguing possibility is that psilocybin use itself might result in long-term changes in a person’s propensity to experience unusual visual phenomena. In a web-based survey, over 60% of people who had used psychedelic drugs reported that they had had unusual visual experiences while not under the influence of any drug (Baggott, Coyle, Erowid, Erowid, & Robertson, 2011). Furthermore, 23.9% said that such experiences occurred constantly or nearly constantly. Most people said that they were not bothered by them, although 4.2% said such experiences were sufficiently troublesome to warrant seeking treatment. These experiences came in a wide variety of types, including seeing halos or auras around things, things appearing to move or breathe, moving objects leaving after-images, seeing things with eyes open that are not really there, and more. The number of different visual phenomena a person experienced was proportional to the number of times they had taken psychedelic drugs, particularly LSD and psilocybin, although ketamine and salvia were also indicated. The reasons for these findings are not really known, although it could well be the case that taking psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin might increase a person’s propensity to experience hallucinatory visual phenomena in the long-term. If this is true, then it might explain why psilocybin users who had a peak experience that was not induced by drugs reported unusual visual experiences.

In a previous article I speculated about the possibility that psilocybin use could alter the sensitivity of neuroreceptors that underlie individual differences in the trait of absorption, a trait associated with having altered states of consciousness. A related possibility is that psilocybin and similar drugs might also alter the long-term sensitivity of neuroreceptors that underlie the experience of hallucinatory visual phenomena, which might explain why some users experience persistent unusual visual experiences. There is an additional and related possibility that psilocybin use increases a person’s tendency to have mystical peak experiences even when not using drugs. These are very speculative ideas and longitudinal research studies in which people are tracked for some time before and after initiating usage would be needed to determine if psilocybin does have long-term effects on a person’s consciousness. Further research on psychedelic drugs could help provide a deeper understanding of the nature of experiences associated with profound levels of well-being. 

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© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

Image Credit

Psy - "Pink" - Peace by sorrowdiess via DeviantArt

Other posts about psychedelic drugs

Psilocybin and personality

Psilocybin and brain function

Psilocybin for anxiety and depression in cancer

DMT, aliens and reality – part 1

DMT, aliens and reality – part 2

DMT: Gateway to Reality, Fantasy or What?

The Spirituality of Psychedelic Drug Users

Can Cannabis Cause Psychosis? A Hard Question to Answer (Admittedly cannabis is not a classic psychedelic, but still.)

References

Baggott, M. J., Coyle, J. R., Erowid, E., Erowid, F., & Robertson, L. C. (2011). Abnormal visual experiences in individuals with histories of hallucinogen use: A web-based questionnaire. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 114(1), 61-67. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.09.006

            Cummins C, & Lyke J (2013). Peak experiences of psilocybin users and non-users. Journal of psychoactive drugs, 45 (2), 189-94 PMID: 23909006

Griffiths, R. R., Richards, W. A., McCann, U., & Jesse, R. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology, 187(3), 268-283. doi: 10.1007/s00213-006-0457-5

Klavetter, R. E., & Mogar, R. E. (1967). Peak Experiences: Investigation of Their Relationship to Psychedelic Therapy and Self-Actualization. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 7(2), 171-177. doi: 10.1177/002216786700700206

Mathes, E. W. (1982). Peak Experience Tendencies: Scale Development and Theory Testing. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 22(3), 92-108. doi: 10.1177/0022167882223011

Studerus, E., Gamma, A., Kometer, M., & Vollenweider, F. X. (2012). Prediction of Psilocybin Response in Healthy Volunteers. PLoS ONE, 7(2), e30800. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030800

Studerus, E., Kometer, M., Hasler, F., & Vollenweider, F. X. (2011). Acute, subacute and long-term subjective effects of psilocybin in healthy humans: a pooled analysis of experimental studies. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 25(11), 1434-1452. doi: 10.1177/0269881110382466

Cannabis Use and Psychosis: The Still Difficult Question of Causality

Many studies have linked adolescent cannabis use and risk of becoming psychotic later in life. However, the question of whether cannabis use actually causes some people to become psychotic is a difficult one to answer and the evidence remains inconclusive. Although it is possible that cannabis use could be a direct cause of mental illness, it is also possible that both usage and mental illness are caused by an underlying third factor. In support of this latter theory, a recently published study comparing family history of mental illness in people with schizophrenia who either have or have not used cannabis, suggests that heavy cannabis use and risk of mental illness are both related to an underlying genetic predisposition. Furthermore, long-term studies on cannabis use have generally not considered that personality characteristics that have been linked to mental illness might also prompt a person’s decision to use drugs such as cannabis.

Cannabis, commonly known as marijuana and also by many other names, is one of the most popular recreational drugs in the world. Although many people try it without apparent ill effects, a large amount of evidence exists that individuals who engage in heavy cannabis use before the age of 18 have an increased risk of developing a psychotic mental disorder later in life (McLaren, Silins, Hutchinson, Mattick, & Hall, 2010). Testing whether or not cannabis use actually causes people to become psychotic is difficult to do, because the only truly conclusive way to do so would involve experimenting on a bunch of people and randomly assigning them to either be users or non-users for a long period of time, and assessing their mental health status before and after. Due to ethical constraints this is not possible (especially in the current climate of political correctness) so researchers have had to make do with alternative study methods. The strongest evidence for a causal role of cannabis comes from prospective cohort studies in which very large groups of people are initially assessed in regards to their mental health and drug use, preferably in adolescence, and then reassessed over a period of years. A review of 10 studies involving seven cohorts in six different countries showed that all but one of these studies found that there was an association between cannabis use and later risk of psychosis (McLaren, et al., 2010). For example, the first such study, and one the largest, assessed over 45,000 Swedish male conscripts aged 18 and then tracked how many were admitted to hospital for schizophrenia over the next 15 years. This study found that those who had used cannabis between 10 and 50 times before the age of 18 were three times more likely to be hospitalised for schizophrenia compared to non-users, while those who had used more than 50 times before age 18 had a six-fold risk compared to non-users. Several other cohort studies also found that heavier usage was associated with increased risk. To put this in perspective, schizophrenia occurs in less than 1% of the general population (van Os & Kapur, 2009), so even if with increased risk associated with heavy use, only a small minority of cannabis users would be affected.

While these prospective studies are consistent with the idea of cannabis causing later psychosis, insofar as usage preceded the development of symptoms and heavier usage was associated with higher risk, alternative explanations for the relationship between cannabis usage and psychosis cannot be ruled out. It is also possible that people who are at greater risk of becoming mentally ill are also more inclined towards cannabis usage, or that there is some third factor underlying both. For example, a limitation of the Swedish cohort study was that it did not assess whether participants who became mentally ill had also used other drugs after the age of 18, such as amphetamines, that might lead to psychotic symptoms (McLaren, Silins, Hutchinson, Mattick, & Hall, 2010). Furthermore, cohort studies mostly have not considered genetic factors or personality traits that are associated with heavy use of cannabis and with risk of psychotic disorder.[1] People who choose to engage in heavy cannabis usage might do so because they have characteristics that also predispose them to eventually become psychotic.

Artistic view of how the world feels like with schizophrenia

The authors of a recent study have argued that that the genetic/familial risk of schizophrenia is what accounts for the association between cannabis use and schizophrenia (Proal, Fleming, Galvez-Buccollini, & DeLisi, 2014). That is, cannabis use is probably not the cause of schizophrenia but itself a manifestation of the underlying genetic factors that also case schizophrenia. This study compared people diagnosed with schizophrenia, who either did or did not have a history of heavy cannabis use in adolescence prior to the onset of their illness, with two comparison groups of people who did not have schizophrenia and who either did or did not have a history of heavy cannabis use in adolescence.[2] They then determined how many people in each group had first degree relatives who had been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness. This was done in order to assess the genetic/familial risk of schizophrenia for members of each group. If cannabis has a special causative effect in the development of psychosis that goes beyond pre-existing genetic risk, then cannabis users who had become psychotic would be expected to have a lower genetic risk compared to non-users who had become psychotic. What the authors found was that, compared to the two comparison groups, people with schizophrenia had the same elevated level of familial/genetic risk regardless of whether they had or had not used cannabis. Hence, they argued that it is the genetic risk that is most likely the cause of schizophrenia, and that cannabis use is unlikely to be the cause, although they admitted that it might hasten the onset of symptoms. Additionally, relatives of the two cannabis-using groups, had high rates of drug use in general, which is in line with research indicating that some people have a genetic predisposition to use drugs.

As well as family history of mental illness, certain psychological characteristics are associated with an increased risk of developing psychotic symptoms. Specifically, some people who are not clinically disturbed have certain tendencies that resemble mild psychotic symptoms, such as experiencing unusual perceptions (e.g. feeling that strangers can read you mind) and holding peculiar beliefs about the nature of reality (e.g. that aliens are influencing events on earth). Psychologists refer to these tendencies as schizotypy, because of their resemblance to more extreme symptoms observed in people with schizophrenia. People with high levels of schizotypy have an elevated risk of becoming fully psychotic later in life, although it is important to note that this only occurs in a minority of people with these tendencies[3] (Chapman, Chapman, Kwapil, Eckblad, & Zinser, 1994). Many research studies have found that heavy users of cannabis also tend to be high in schizotypy traits compared to non-users (Fridberg, Vollmer, O'Donnell, & Skosnik, 2011). Additionally, older users tend to have more severe schizotypy traits compared to younger users, suggesting that symptoms might increase over time in users. Once again, it is difficult to say whether having schizotypy traits predisposes people to use cannabis, or whether using cannabis increases schizotypy. It is also possible there could be a two-way relationship. However, there is some evidence that schizotypy traits in heavy users tend to emerge before they first start using. One survey of users tested this by asking participants who indicated that they had schizotypy symptoms to estimate when they first noticed them occurring, and to state when they first began to use cannabis (Schiffman, Nakamura, Earleywine, & LaBrie, 2005). In the majority of cases, participants said that they had first noticed having schizotypy symptoms a few years before ever using cannabis. Of course this does not necessarily mean that schizotypy causes people to use cannabis, but it may well be a factor. More to the point, it is possible that heavy cannabis users may have an increased risk of psychosis because they naturally tend to be higher in schizotypy traits, rather than because of their drug use. However, it is also possible that the two act in combination and may be mutually reinforcing. 

Schizotypy also tends to be associated with other personality traits that may be relevant to mental health, such as high neuroticism, and low conscientiousness and agreeableness. Neuroticism has been identified as an independent risk factor for schizophrenia in prospective studies (van Os & Jones, 2001) and for mental disorders in general (Malouff, Thorsteinsson, & Schutte, 2005). Although heavy cannabis users tend to be higher in schizotypy than non-users, they do not tend to be higher on neuroticism, although they do tend to be lower than non-users in conscientiousness and agreeableness, as well as higher in openness to experience (Fridberg, et al., 2011). The majority of users, even heavy users, do not go on to develop psychotic mental disorders, so perhaps there is a particular subset of users who are most at risk. Fridberg et al. suggested that those who are not only high in schizotypy but also high in neuroticism and openness to experience as well as low in conscientiousness and agreeableness might be particularly vulnerable. People who have a family history of mental illness would also be of particular concern. 

To reiterate, determining the nature of the causal connection between cannabis use and psychosis is very difficult. It is possible that cannabis use during adolescence has a direct causal role, perhaps due to the drug’s influence on the developing brain. However, the reasons that a person chooses to take up cannabis use in the first place may reflect pre-existing risk factors for psychosis, such as such as genetic/familial risk and schizotypy traits. Future research studies should take these factors into account in order to better help identify individuals who may be at the greatest risk of harm.

Footnotes 

---

[1] One cohort study using a genetic test found that in heavy users with a specific genetic polymorphism had an increased risk of psychosis compared to heavy users without it (Caspi et al.). However, a later study failed to confirm this result (McLaren, et al., 2010a).

[2] The authors were careful to include only people who had not used any other illicit drugs.

[3] In fact, some people with schizotypal tendencies are otherwise well-adjusted. Schizotypy is often associated with creativity and professional artists and stand-up comedians tend to be high in these traits. 

Image Credits

Mystic Weed Rose by MorbidKittyCorpse at Deviant Art 

Schizophrenia/Internal Symmetry by Craig Finn courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Use of these artworks is permitted by the Creative Commons Licence and does not imply endorsement by the artists. 

Please consider following me on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

Posts I have written about psychedelic drugs (which are not linked to psychosis)

Psilocybin and personality

Psilocybin and brain function

Psilocybin for anxiety and depression in cancer

Peak Experiences in Psilocybin Users 

DMT, aliens and reality – part 1

DMT, aliens and reality – part 2
DMT: Gateway to reality, fantasy, or what? 

The Spirituality of Psychedelic Drug Users

References

Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Cannon, M., McClay, J., Murray, R., Harrington, H., . . . Craig, I. W. Moderation of the Effect of Adolescent-Onset Cannabis Use on Adult Psychosis by a Functional Polymorphism in the Catechol-O-Methyltransferase Gene: Longitudinal Evidence of a Gene X Environment Interaction. Biological Psychiatry, 57(10), 1117-1127. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.01.026 

Chapman, L. J., Chapman, J. P., Kwapil, T. R., Eckblad, M., & Zinser, M. C. (1994). Putatively Psychosis-Prone Subjects 10 Years Later. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103(2), 171-183.

Fridberg, D. J., Vollmer, J. M., O'Donnell, B. F., & Skosnik, P. D. (2011). Cannabis users differ from non-users on measures of personality and schizotypy. Psychiatry Research, 186(1), 46-52. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2010.07.035 

Malouff, J. M., Thorsteinsson, E. B., & Schutte, N. S. (2005). The Relationship Between the Five-Factor Model of Personality and Symptoms of Clinical Disorders: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 27(2), 101-114.

McLaren JA, Silins E, Hutchinson D, Mattick RP, & Hall W (2010). Assessing evidence for a causal link between cannabis and psychosis: a review of cohort studies. The International journal on drug policy, 21 (1), 10-9 PMID: 19783132

Proal, A. C., Fleming, J., Galvez-Buccollini, J. A., & DeLisi, L. E. (2014). A controlled family study of cannabis users with and without psychosis. Schizophrenia Research, 152(1), 283-288.

Schiffman, J., Nakamura, B., Earleywine, M., & LaBrie, J. (2005). Symptoms of schizotypy precede cannabis use. Psychiatry Research, 134(1), 37-42. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2005.01.004

van Os, J., & Jones, P. B. (2001). Neuroticism as a risk factor for schizophrenia. Psychol Med, 31, 1129 - 1134.

van Os, J., & Kapur, S. (2009). Schizophrenia. The Lancet, 374(9690), 635-645.