Can we have psychedelic experiences due to placebo effect?

Can the placebo effect produce psychedelic experiences, similar to those produced by a real drug, in an individual? To what extent can expectations and context influence our beliefs and our psychophysiological reactions?

An investigation carried out this year (2020) deals with studying this issue, through the recreation of a psychedelic party where thirty-three people are made to believe that they have consumed a actual drug. Through it, in this article we will analyze psychedelic experiences due to placebo effect.

• Related article: "What is the placebo effect and how does it work?"

The placebo effect in research

The researcher Lilienfeld (1982) maintains, in one of her articles, that The first placebo-controlled trial (or at least, of which we are aware) was carried out in 1931, with a drug called “sanocrysin”.

Specifically, its effects were compared with those of distilled water (placebo) for treating tuberculosis. From that moment on, the placebo effect has been used to treat certain ailments, such as pain, anxiety or asthma, among many others.

In this article we will analyze the psychedelic experiences due to the placebo effect that can arise as a consequence of it, through Recent research conducted by Jay A. Olson and his team at McGill University (Canada).

Psychedelic experiences due to placebo effect, without drugs

The aforementioned experiment, titled “Tripping on nothing: placebo psychedelics and contextual factors”, was developed by researcher Jay A. Olson from McGill University (Montreal, Canada), along with his team.

The study was published in March 2020 in the journal "Psychopharmacology." But what was the study about? Find out if psychedelic experiences could be elicited through placebo, without the actual use of any drugs.

To date and, in general, the studies carried out in relation to this subject have found few psychedelic effects produced by the placebo effect. However, It is not known if this was due to the design of the experiment or to other variables..

Recreation of a “psychedelic party”

The objective of the research that we describe was to analyze the individual variations of the placebo effect, in relation to possible effects produced by the “non-drug”.

For this, the experimenters designed a naturalistic setting similar to that of a “typical” psychedelic party, with elements such as: music, colored lights, cushions, visual projections, paintings, etc.

The total number of participants was thirty-three people (students). However, the investigation was carried out in two experimental sessions; in each of them there were 16 real participants and 7 allies (covert), which we will discuss later.

• You may be interested in: "Hallucinations: Definition, Causes, and Symptoms"

How was the experiment carried out?

To develop it, they managed to gather 33 student volunteers, in order to analyze psychedelic experiences by placebo effect. They were set up as an experiment to examine how a psychedelic drug could affect or influence creativity.

First these participants passed a rigorous medical examination. Subsequently, they were admitted to a hospital room designed, as we have anticipated, to resemble a "psychedelic party."

The duration of the experiment was four hours. Participants took a placebo pill but were tricked into thinking it was a drug similar to psilocybin, a compound chemical found naturally in some mushroom species (in this case participants were led to believe it was a hallucinogen) synthetic).

Specifically, the dose that each participant received of the synthetic hallucinogen was four milligrams. Also, also they were led to believe that there was no placebo control group (ie, they believed that everyone was taking the drug and therefore everyone "should" show effects).

After the experiment, however, they were told that what they had really taken was a "sugar" pill, a placebo (not a real drug).

The "allies" in the experiment

Another key element of the experiment was to have allied people who acted by influencing the perceptual experience of the participants. But what exactly did these people do? Their main goal was to influence the expectations of real participants, raising them.

To do this, the allies acted with subtlety, and if, for example, any participant expressed spontaneously that the drug had produced "X" effect, this person further exaggerated said effect in your organism.

Results: did psychedelic experiences appear?

To analyze whether psychedelic experiences had occurred in the participants due to the placebo effect, at the end of the experiment they completed a scale where possible altered states were measured through five dimensions of consciousness. This scale measured changes in conscious experience.

But did psychedelic experiences actually occur due to the placebo effect? The results are quite varied among themselves; that is, there were quite a few individual differences in this regard. Of the total number of participants (the real ones, logically), many of them did not report these experiences.

Others did show this type of experience, which consisted of: perceptual distortions, mood swings and even anxiety. These experiences, as reported by the participants, appeared within fifteen minutes of starting the experiment.

Analyzing the participants who showed the effects of the “non-drug” (placebo), we see how said effects occurred in the typical magnitudes associated with doses of the drug (psilocybin) between moderate and tall.

On the other hand, most participants (up to 61%) verbally reported experiencing some effect from the drug. Examples of these effects were: seeing the paintings on the walls move, feeling heavy or without gravity, feeling how a wave hit them, etc.

Types of effects and intensity

It should be noted that most of the effects described were of an abstract type (such as "visions" or a feeling of happiness), never coming to produce a true hallucination (of any type of sensory modality).

In addition, a group of participants who reported changes in the perceptual experience, analyzing these changes, it was seen how they were stronger than those produced in people who had consumed moderate or high doses of LSD and other psychedelic drugs, which reinforces the power of the effect placebo.

Mention that after the four hours that the experiment lasted, the participants who later claimed to have experienced certain effects from the drug, also reported that these effects disappeared at the end of the experiment.. Placebo effect, too?

Conclusions: influence of expectations and context

Beyond the psychedelic experiences due to the placebo effect, other aspects were also analyzed. For example, what degree of confidence did the participants give to what they had experienced; Thus, 35% of the participants reported that they were "sure" of having taken a placebo, at the end of the experiment. 12% said they were “sure” that they had taken a real psychedelic drug.

Thus, we can say that the experiment only demonstrated, in a reduced part of the sample, that psychedelic experiences could be created by placebo effect in individuals.

However, even if the results were only seen in a part of the sample, this experiment demonstrates how expectations, together with the context (in this case, mainly the recreation of a "psychedelic party"), influence the belief of experiencing effects of drugs that are not really real.

In other words, expectations can come to create this belief (as well as the experiences described). This is how psychedelic experiences arise due to the placebo effect, which demonstrates, in turn, the role (and power) of suggestibility in this type of situation.

Bibliographic references:

• Lilienfeld, A.M. (1982). The Fielding H. Garrison Lecture: Ceteris paribus: the evolution of the clinical trial. Bull Hist Med, 56: 1-18.
• Olson, J.A., Suissa-Rocheleau, L., Lifshitz, M. et al. (2020). Tripping on nothing: placebo psychedelics and contextual factors. Psychopharmacology.
• Tempone, S.G. (2007). Placebo in practice and in clinical research. An. Med. Internal (Madrid), 24(5): 249-252.