Enhanced meaning in life following psychedelic use: converging evidence from controlled and naturalistic studies

William Roseby^1,2*Hannes Kettner^2,3Leor Roseman²Meg Jo Spriggs²Taylor Lyons²Joe Peill²Bruna Giribaldi²David Erritzoe²David John Nutt²Robin Lester Carhart-Harris^2,3

• ¹University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom
• ²Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London, London, England, United Kingdom
• ³University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States

Psychedelics, such as psilocybin, are increasingly recognised for their propensity to elicit powerful subjective experiences that carry personal meaning. While research has demonstrated the capacity for these compounds to promote psychological wellbeing, it has yet to be shown to what extent they modulate 'meaning in life', a specific contributor to mental and physical health.In the present study, we analysed changes in meaning in life occurring across three different contexts of psychedelic use, including a randomised clinical trial of psilocybin for depression, controlled administration of psilocybin in a single-arm healthy volunteer study, and a naturalistic observational study following participants in psychedelic retreats. We found that across all contexts, the sub-factor 'presence of meaning' was strongly increased after a psychedelic experience, while the sub-factor 'search for meaning' was only weakly reduced. Enhancements of meaning in life were also moderately correlated with changes in measures of mental health, including mental wellbeing and depression severity. In line with previous research, we found that mystical, ego-dissolution and emotional breakthrough experiences were correlated with an increase of meaning in life, with context-dependent differences in the strength of the association.We explore potential mechanisms of psychedelic-induced meaning enhancement and highlight the possible influences of psychosocial context on outcomes.