Psilocybin makes you worse at creativity tests, then better
What they did
Sixty healthy volunteers took psilocybin or placebo and completed tasks measuring deliberate, task-based creativity alongside self-rated spontaneous insight, with brain scans at baseline, during the session and seven days later.
What they found
While acutely intoxicated, participants scored lower on idea fluency and convergent thinking, yet reported more spontaneous creative insight. Seven days later they generated ideas rated as more novel.
Worth knowing
This is the study to cite when someone claims psilocybin makes you creative in the moment. It does the opposite. The delayed novelty effect is real but modest.
Mason et al. Spontaneous and deliberate creative cognition during and after psilocybin exposure. Translational Psychiatry, 2021.
Read the sourceKeep reading
meaningTwo months on, volunteers still called it deeply meaningfulcognitionEighty-nine healthy people, and no cognitive change at allcognitionForty-two studies, and psilocybin does not sharpen thinking in the momentThe short version is that full doses make you worse at creative tasks while you are on them and slightly better a week later. Anyone selling you focus in a capsule is ahead of the evidence, including anyone selling capsules.
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