Useful mushrooms
Hallucinogenic mushrooms can enhance creativity and a sense of empathy for a week
Dmitry Mazalev, Naked Science
Scientists have found that psilocybin, the active ingredient of hallucinogenic mushrooms, not only increases a person's creativity and sense of empathy during ingestion, but also prolongs these effects by a week. These results will help to use hallucinogens more effectively in therapy.
For their work, the results of which were published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (Mason et al., Sub-Acute Effects of Psilocybin on Empathy, Creative Thinking, and Subjective Well-Being), the staff of the University of Maastricht attracted 55 participants of a Psychedelic Society retreat in the Netherlands. Participants of the retreat (a pastime dedicated to spiritual practice) consumed psilocybin-containing mushrooms in tea form. They asked the subjects, about half of whom had not previously taken psilocybin, to take a series of tests that would measure their creativity, empathy and overall satisfaction with life three times: on the eve of taking tea from hallucinogenic mushrooms, immediately after drinking it and, finally, seven days later.
"We found that psilocybin taken in a naturalistic setting enhances aspects of creativity and empathy in the morning and seven days after use. In addition, it turned out that psilocybin also improves subjective well–being," says Natasha Mason, one of the authors of the article.
The researchers studied two types of creativity – convergent and divergent thinking. The first type is the ability to generate a single optimal solution to a problem, while the second allows you to find many options with several possible answers. The divergent thinking abilities of the participants improved the next morning after taking psilocybin, while the convergent ones remained at the same level. However, after a week, the indicators of divergent thinking returned to normal, while convergent abilities, on the contrary, improved.
According to the expert, the study had several limitations, including the absence of a control group, but the results still provided valuable information about the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics.
"These results are important for understanding the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics in the treatment of certain pathologies. In particular, during a therapy session, increased empathy can increase the sense of openness and trust between the patient and the therapist. In addition, enhanced creative thinking can allow people to break out of their old patterns and generate new and effective cognitive, emotional, and behavioral strategies. In addition, our data indicate that these effects persist over time, which potentially makes it possible to use them in the most favorable period of time," the scientist emphasizes.
In the last decade, scientific interest in the benefits of psychedelics has revived: there is increasing evidence that such substances may have potential therapeutic value in disorders such as anxiety, depression, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru