Are you planning to trip on magic mushrooms or magic truffles soon? If you’re willing to fill out a few surveys, your experience could help shape the future of psychedelic science. That’s exactly what a group of researchers at Johns Hopkins University is planning to do.
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Psychedelic trip
The researchers at this particular university—which, by the way, is at the absolute forefront of psychedelic studies—are collaborating with a Denver-based nonprofit organization to gather thousands of firsthand experiences with psilocybin, the main psychedelic component of magic mushrooms and magic truffles. By moving away from a standard research setting, they hope to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence a psychedelic trip and its outcomes.
What is being asked is clear: the researchers are asking people who plan to use psilocybin to share their experiences to gain a better understanding of the drug’s remarkable effects, particularly when taken outside a laboratory setting. Think of festivals or the great outdoors. The researchers themselves refer to this as a “real-world study.”
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Real-world study
“Because our research is ‘real-world,’ participants can enroll for any reason and use this substance in any setting, so we will learn unprecedented new details about how individuals choose to use this substance,” says Del Jolly, co-founder and director of Unlimited Sciences, the nonprofit organization funding the study. “We hope to deepen our understanding through a wide range of surveys.”
Any English-speaking adult who plans to use psilocybin in the next six months can sign up for the study. “Your input,” the website states, “could significantly advance our collective scientific understanding of the effects of psilocybin on the human mind.”
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Surveys
That doesn’t mean, by the way, that you just have to take a dose of magic mushrooms. There’s actually some work to be done besides tripping. Participants will be asked to complete up to five surveys about themselves and their psilocybin experiences: one survey two weeks before taking psilocybin, the next in the hours before use, another in the days following the experience, and then two follow-up surveys in the weeks and months that follow. Each survey is expected to take between 10 and 30 minutes to complete.
“Participants will be asked to describe details of both their ‘set’ (state of mind) and ‘setting’ (physical situation) across up to six time periods surrounding a scheduled dose of psilocybin,” according to a press release from Unlimited Sciences, “to isolate variables from experiences and how they relate to health and other outcomes.”
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The future of psychedelics
Incidentally, as you probably know, this isn’t Johns Hopkins’ first study on psychedelics. Last year, the university even launched a psychedelic research center that is unique in its kind. The Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research has primarily focused on potential future applications of psychedelics for a wide range of conditions. Compiling a database of “real-world” data can help with this, according to the organization.
In the current study, Unlimited and Johns Hopkins aim to learn more about the positive and negative outcomes of psilocybin use and the factors that may influence those outcomes. “We want to examine variables such as demographics, lifestyle, mindset, and personality traits,” says the study’s website, “as well as characteristics of the experience itself, such as dosage, method of administration, intention, and setting, which may influence the long-term effects of psilocybin.”
In short: do you want to contribute to the future of psychedelics? Then sign up for the studyhere!
