To Study Psychedelics in the Wild, Researchers Went to Music Festivals

Transformative experiences common, pleasant.

In 2006, 36 research subjects were given psilocybin, a psychedelic agent, under carefully controlled lab conditions.

The majority reported having a mystical experience, with 21 of 36 rating it one of the top five most personally meaningful experiences of their lives.

Lab-controlled experiments of the effects of psychedelics have repeatedly shown that the agents can induce so-called “transformative experiences” — powerful, nearly religious experiences that may even lead to a re-evaluation of central values. Lab studies also suggest they can cause a dissolution of the ego leading to certain universal “oneness”, and lasting positive effects but… let’s be honest… the vast majority of people aren’t using psychedelics in laboratories.

So where do you go to find people using psychedelics in the real world?

Yup. Burning Man.

You’ve probably heard of events like Burning Man, Coachella, Lollapalooza. And if you were part of Dr. Molly Crockett’s Yale team of psychology researchers, you could actually go — for science! Results of the in-the-wild study appear in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.