Do Psychedelics Change Beliefs?

This article by Patrick McConnell was originally published on Microdose and appears here with permission.

The idea that psychedelics hold clues to consciousness and the nature of reality is a longstanding notion. Indigenous worldviews have spoken of spirits and other worlds throughout the history of psychedelic use.

Recent research has examined whether there is an inherent nature of psychedelics to change metaphysical beliefs about reality or even the consciousness of plants, animals, or inanimate objects. These studies do indeed suggest that psychedelics increase a sense of consciousness pervading everything and a philosophy called panpsychism.

But as society ramps up plans to deliver psychedelics en masse, concerns about whether or not psychedelic insights are true have been voiced. Assumptions about psychedelic users turning into liberal hippies are being challenged with “Right Wing Psychedelia.” Michael Pollan has even suggested psychedelics could be simply a “comforting delusion.”

While it’s easy to focus on “changing our minds,” can we really expect everyone to adopt the same “wholesale beliefs” after taking psychedelics?

What are Beliefs?

Technically, “beliefs” can mean many different things. We each hold an extremely complex system of beliefs, spanning morality, politics, religion, etc. Some of these beliefs are strong, some are weak.

Our beliefs can be found in the language we use, associations we make, and expectations we have. Ph.D. candidate Hugh Mcgovern gave Microdose the analogy that beliefs “are our software for engaging with the world around us.”

Current theories of mind suggest that this software creates our reality. Instead of passively absorbing the world around us with our senses, the brain compares past experiences to current ones and “generates” reality. This means that our beliefs affect not just our opinions but our actual perception of the world.

Beliefs Do Change

As the mind compares existing beliefs to what is happening around us, sometimes the world confirms the mind’s expectations. And other times, new experiences demand belief change.  It’s been suggested that psychedelics can “relax beliefs” and give people an opportunity to reprogram their software.

And let’s be clear — lasting belief changes can occur after psychedelic use. With the research completed, few would debate that changes big and small happen.

But we move into sensitive territory with the topic of how and why these changes are taking place, because many people now have established beliefs about how psychedelics work.

And as the study authors point out, challenging beliefs is difficult, and changing beliefs isn’t as simple as taking a pill.

Suggestibility and Collider Bias in Psychedelics

One factor for how beliefs do change with psychedelic use is “suggestibility,” which makes some people more likely to conform to and accept suggestions from outside sources. Suggestibility is the mechanism behind hypnosis and has been shown to be higher on psychedelics. It’s one of the reasons that set and setting are so carefully monitored during psychedelic sessions.

But suggestibility is also one of the reasons studying psychedelics is so tricky.

McGovern and Corlett point out that psychedelic research is likely influenced by something called collider bias. In the context of psychedelics, the collider bias could be people signing up for psychedelic studies who are already attracted to the mystical or are naturally open to new experiences.

An example of what this could look like is how “openness” has been reported after psychedelics. While nobody is questioning if the feeling of openness is real, what is being questioned is whether or not psychedelics will make everyone feel open.

The idea is that a person who values openness signs up for a psychedelic study; is then directed to answer questions about being open — and has a positive response. But this response of “openness” might not represent some inherent quality of psychedelics. Instead, the result could be that the study participant already valued openness and received the suggestion they were now more open through certain questions.

Dr. Corlett, an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University, explains:

“We are giving people an intervention that aligns with their deeply cherished beliefs about how the world works or ought to work, and then encouraging them to tell us that it’s working, in a setting where their already potentially a bit more plastic or suggestible.”

Some Beliefs Resist Change

Suggestibility was why the CIA became so interested in LSD as a mind control tool as part of the infamous MK ULTRA experiments. While suggestibility is effective in some situations, the CIA experiments were given up because suggestibility wouldn’t produce the results needed to interrogate spies and create assassins.

It seems unavoidable that we carry expectations into psychedelic experiences. Our individual program about how the world works isn’t erased completely, and Dr. Corlett notes that even in the psychedelic experience, we probably still access long-standing beliefs that have explained things to us in the past.

McGovern explains that some beliefs are weak and others stronger. For example, the CIA apparently had the ambition of using suggestibility to have people crash vehicles they were driving to assassinate passengers — but the beliefs contributing to someone’s survival instinct wouldn’t allow self-destruction.

Psychedelics Can Also Make Beliefs Stronger

Not only do some strong beliefs stay online during the psychedelic experience, but they may also direct it.

A hint at how this works can be found in another study examining a group of people viewing art on LSD. Study participants formed an opinion and were then confronted with the larger group’s opinion. Because the drive to fit in is so powerful, and LSD increases suggestibility, we might expect people to conform to whatever the group thought.

But when confronted with beliefs different from their own, study participants didn’t change to fit in, they instead gravitated to people in the group whose opinions matched their own.

These outcomes speak to why the CIA failed to mind control people — people will not change extreme beliefs just because they are on LSD. And as Dr. Corlett explained, we will continue to favour beliefs that have served us.

However, this bias we have towards our own belief systems can cause problems. Dr. Corlett told Microdose that it is well established that “people aren’t rational in the way that they update their beliefs.” For example:

“If you’re telling me that my deeply cherished idea about lizard people running the world is wrong, and you’re doing it in the setting of an overwhelming and ineffable experience where I feel jarred about the world, it could go in one of two directions. I might relinquish my belief, or I might double down on it and think that you are part of the conspiracy.“

Corlett compares the experience to confronting someone with delusions, that people will often ignore contradicting evidence and believe stronger in the data in their head. All of this happening in a suggestible and hyperplastic state could exasperate problems.

What Does All This Mean?

Considering the media hype and mystical associations with psychedelics, we can see how certain outcomes would be expected. Because of such bias, Mcgovern and Corlett are clear that blanket statements about what psychedelics do or how they work need to be made very carefully.

McGovern also urges setting appropriate expectations for psychedelic use, while Dr. Corlett implored researchers to “take it a little slower, actually do the work, show that it does work and that it works the way that we think it is.”

Their points also illustrate the importance of therapeutic relationships based on deep trust, as difficult facts are more likely to be believed from sources we trust. The other reality is that understanding an individual’s beliefs is incredibly complex, so until psychedelic research can establish what a study participant’s baseline beliefs are, it will be difficult to predict the specific effects of psychedelics.