Researchers have unearthed new insights into the nature of psychedelic experiences by using computerized linguistic tools to analyze posts made in online forums. The study, published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, found that more intense psychedelic experiences are often accompanied by an increase in both mystical language and negative emotions.
Previous research into psychedelic experiences, often conducted in clinical settings, has predominantly used structured questionnaires to understand these profound and often transformative experiences. However, these methods have limitations, particularly in capturing the depth and nuances of these experiences.
Recognizing this gap, a group of researchers turned to a novel approach, analyzing real-world, self-reported experiences of psychedelic use to gain a deeper understanding. Their goal was to explore how people describe their experiences in their own words, specifically focusing on the presence of mystical language and the emotional sentiments expressed.
“This was an idea that started out of curiosity. There are many anonymous experience reports of recreational psychedelic use on the internet, and we wanted to see if we could explore this rich data source using modern software-based language analysis methods,” said study author Marija Franka Žuljević of the Department of Medical Humanities at the Medical School at the University of Split.
For their study, the researchers analyzed a vast number of “trip reports” from Shroomery.org, a popular online forum. They selected 7,317 reports, predominantly detailing experiences with psilocybin, though some accounts also included substances like LSD and DMT. The researchers chose reports that had a self-assessed intensity level, ranging from mild to extremely intense, provided by the users during submission.
The team employed a novel method to decipher these accounts: the creation of a “mystical language dictionary.” This dictionary comprised words that, when present in a text, indicated elements of a mystical experience. The dictionary was based on the theoretical work of W. T. Stace on the dimensions of mystical experiences and was refined through several iterations. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was then used to quantify the presence of these mystical words in the reports. Additionally, the researchers utilized the VADER sentiment analysis tool to explore the positive and negative sentiments expressed in the experiences.
“We chose ‘mystical’ experiences because they are a very interesting concept in the current discourse on the therapeutic effects of psychedelics,” Žuljević explained. “Our team took on a challenge to see if we could try and define a dictionary of single, decontextualized words that could indicate that a person is indeed describing a mystical psychedelic experience. Some examples of the words we chose are ‘oneness,’ ‘serenity,’ ‘indescribable,’ and ‘divine.'”
The researchers discovered that 36.7% of the analyzed reports contained words from the mystical language dictionary. A notable finding was the correlation between the intensity of the psychedelic experience and the use of mystical language. Interestingly, this relationship was not linear. Instead, it followed a U-shaped curve: experiences rated as least and most intense exhibited higher mystical language scores than those of mid-intensity. This suggests that at both ends of the intensity spectrum – the most profound and the least intense experiences – individuals are more likely to describe their experiences in mystical terms.
“Based on what clinical data informs about mystical experiences during psychedelic use, we expected that language indicating an experience is mystical would increase in linear association with the experience in question being more intense,” Žuljević told PsyPost. “We cannot be sure, but can only speculate, that it could be that first-time psychedelic users may interpret a less intense experience as mystical simply because it is their first encounter with such phenomena.”
The researchers also found a weak negative correlation between mystical language scores and negative sentiment, indicating that as the usage of mystical language increased, the negative sentiment in the experience reports slightly decreased. Conversely, there was a weak positive correlation between mystical language and positive sentiment, suggesting that the use of mystical language was slightly associated with increased positive emotions.
“Since the most widely accepted idea of mystical experiences defines them as being charged with very positive emotion (joy, euphoria, etc.), we were surprised not to see a stronger association of positive emotion and the presence of words related to mystical experiences,” Žuljević said.
The study also found that negative sentiments in these reports increased with the intensity of the experience, while positive sentiments decreased. This suggests a complex emotional landscape in higher intensity psychedelic experiences, where profound, possibly transformative experiences might coexist with challenging or difficult emotions.
Despite its innovative approach and significant findings, the study had limitations. The researchers acknowledged the self-reported nature of the data, which could be subject to recall bias. The convenience sampling method used also means that the findings might not be representative of all psychedelic users. Furthermore, the uncontrolled, naturalistic setting of the experiences could have influenced the results, as past research has shown that such settings are associated with more challenging experiences compared to controlled clinical settings.
“Our findings related to positive and negative sentiment scores imply a need to further study the emotional complexity of psychedelic-induced mystical states,” Žuljević said. “It is possible that more nuances exist related to these experiences than the currently most represented theoretical framework suggests, which describes them as almost universally positive.”
“The set of words related to mystical experiences that we defined in this study is freely available for anyone who wants to use them,” the researcher added. “We also suggest that this list of words can be expanded and modified. This kind of experimental approach allows us to try and quantify a complex and subjective concept such as a mystical experience, so it can be an additional tool to help us better understand psychedelics’ effects.”
The study, “Mystical and Affective Aspects of Psychedelic Use in a Naturalistic Setting: A Linguistic Analysis of Online Experience Reports“, was authored by Marija Franka Žuljević, Antonija Mijatović, Stjepan Ljudevit Marušić, Gunnar Kudrjavets, Ivan Buljan, and Darko Hren.