Combining MDMA With Psilocybin Or LSD Could Reduce Difficult Trips, New Study Shows

Recent peer-reviewed research published in the journal Nature posits that a small dose of MDMA could be helpful against uncomfortable or difficult experiences and amplify positive ones when combined with either psilocybin or LSD.

The study, published in August and authored by researchers from Imperial College London (ICL) and New York University’s Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine delves into a hypothesis of “candy-flipping,” clinical research conducted by MindMed’s MNMD research collaborator Dr. Matthias Liechti and his team at University Hospital Basel.

The hypothesis, reported Microdose, is that the empathogen MDMA helps induce positive subjective and ego-dissolution effects, helping remove LSD or psilocybin’s potentially anxious ones and thus allowing for better treatment of a list of mental health conditions.

The survey was done on almost 700 people who had used either LSD or psilocybin, 27 of whom reportedly took MDMA jointly with the other psychedelics.

The researchers analyzed the reported experiences by participants together with the substances and dose taken by volunteers and compared the stated co-use effects to those of using one psychedelic alone.

Results suggest that small doses of MDMA can potentially minimize the effects of a bad trip, or “may buffer against negative of challenging experiences and enhance certain positive experiences.” 

Moreover, regarding positive experiences, “co-use of low dose MDMA (but not medium to–high dose MDMA) with psilocybin/LSD was associated with enhanced feelings of self-compassion, love, and gratitude relative to psilocybin/LSD alone,” the report found.

Study authors pose the findings could be used for future clinical trial designs and, importantly, “provide early insights into recreational co-use of MDMA with psilocybin/LSD.”

Photo: Benzinga edit with photo by Yuriy Golub and Bacsica on Shutterstock.