Magic mushrooms and magic truffles have long been known as ideal ways to boost creativity. However, new research shows that the reality is somewhat different from what is commonly assumed. While people under the influence of psilocybin—the active ingredient in magic mushrooms and truffles—report having deeper and more original thoughts, they typically score lower on cognitive tests of creative ability. This is according to a study published in Translational Psychiatry.
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More creative in the long term
However, the findings suggest that the psychedelic substance may still stimulate creative ability in the long term. The study also collected functional magnetic resonance imaging and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy data, which provide a number of new insights into the underlying neurobiological mechanisms associated with creative ability. That’s a mouthful, but the bottom line is that a group of brilliant minds took a very deep dive to see what psilocybin can actually do for creativity.
“Creativity is an essential cognitive ability linked to all areas of our daily lives, allowing us to adapt to an ever-changing environment and devise ways to solve problems,” said lead researcher Natasha Mason, a PhD candidate at Maastricht University.
“Importantly, the ability—or inability—to think ‘outside the box’ is not only an essential process for daily functioning but is also associated with mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety. These people can get stuck in maladaptive thought patterns, which encourage habitual (negative) behavior. Finding a way to promote creativity is therefore of great importance.”
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Anecdotal reports
As early as the 1960s, scientists found some evidence that the psychedelic drug LSD could enhance creative problem-solving. However, there were also indications that the psychedelic state induced by LSD could impair creative ability. Since that time, this entire issue has received little scientific attention.
“Over the years, a number of anecdotal reports have emerged suggesting that the use of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and psilocybin, can promote creativity,” Mason said. “Well-known examples of creative breakthroughs associated with psychedelics include the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction by Kary Mullis, the computer industry in California in the 1960s, and the literary works of writers such as Aldous Huxley and Ken Kesey. That said, although there are numerous claims that psychedelics do this, no one has investigated this in a placebo-controlled experimental trial.”
In their study, the researchers examined two types of deliberate creativity—convergent thinking and divergent thinking. The former refers to the ability to generate a single optimal solution to a problem, while the latter refers to the ability to generate many solutions to a problem with multiple possible answers. The study included 60 healthy participants who had previously experienced a psychedelic drug but not within the past 3 months.
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Less creative during the trip itself
Mason and her colleagues discovered that both forms of creativity appeared to be reduced during the psychedelic state. However, psilocybin was found to produce lasting improvements in divergent thinking when participants were not under the influence of the substance. A week after receiving psilocybin, participants tended to generate more new ideas for using everyday objects compared to those who had received a placebo.
They therefore concluded that psychedelics do not necessarily increase creativity while people are under their influence, but may be useful for enhancing creativity in the long term. “We used classic measures of creativity, such as the alternate uses test, in which people have to come up with as many uses for a brick as possible. Here, we found that under the influence of a psychedelic, individuals performed worse than those on a placebo (they came up with fewer uses for a brick, and the uses they came up with were no more original than during the placebo condition)."
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Different types of creativity
Yet it’s more complex than that. “Individuals reported feeling more creative throughout the day, in the sense that they said they had more moments of insight and were able to come up with solutions to their own personal problems,” Mason explained. “This could mean two things—either under the influence of psychedelics, the generation and evaluation of ideas (creativity) is reduced, but their perception of the quality of ideas is improved. Or we’re seeing a difference in types of creativity—perhaps psychedelics reduce people’s goal-oriented creativity (task-oriented, with an end goal), but they increase spontaneous creativity (insight)."
After 7 days, the participants were asked to return to repeat the tasks. Here, it was clearly evident that the individuals who had been administered psilocybin performed better on one part of the task. “They were able to come up with more new answers. This suggests that psychedelics may actually enhance aspects of goal-oriented creativity in the long term.”
