Enhancement of Creative Expression and Entoptic Phenomena as After-Effects of Repeated Ayahuasca Ceremonies

Abstract

Studying the effect of psychedelic substances on expression of creativity is a challenging problem. Our primary objective was to study the psychometric measures of creativity after a series of ayahuasca ceremonies at a time when the acute effects have subsided. The secondary objective was to investigate how entoptic phenomena emerge during expression of creativity. Forty individuals who were self-motivated participants of ayahuasca rituals in Brazil completed the visual components of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking before and the second day after the end of a two-week long ceremony series. Twenty-one comparison subjects who did not participate in recent psychedelic use also took the Torrance tests twice, two weeks apart. Repeated ingestion of ayahuasca in the ritual setting significantly increased the number of highly original solutions and phosphenic responses. However, participants in the ayahuasca ceremonies exhibited more phosphenic solutions already at the baseline, probably due to the fact that they had more psychedelic experiences within six months prior to the study than the comparison subjects did. This naturalistic study supports the notion that some measures of visual creativity may increase after ritual use of ayahuasca, when the acute psychoactive effects are receded. It also demonstrates an increased entoptic activity after repeated ayahuasca ingestion.

Keywords:

• creativity
• dimethyltryptamine
• hallucinogens
• phosphenes
• psychedelics

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ilona Barkóczi, Eszter Ács, Vivien Magyar and Réka Zeley for their help in test evaluations and Frederick Rawski for editing assistance and making valuable comments on the manuscript. This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

1.“For Brooklyn chemistry professor Dr. Gerald Oster, a single trip on LSD was all it took to launch him on an art career. 'It made a fabulous impression' he recalls. What struck him particularly was the ‘stunning magnificence of phosphenes’ those dancing dots, spirals, radial lines and other luminous images that one can see when the eyes are closed or the fingers are pressed against the lids.”