Using psychedelics as a way to enhance your creative output is not a groundbreaking concept. Some of the world’s most daring innovators have dabbled in this controversial area of drugs: The Beatles, Salvador Dali, and Cary Grant are just a few in a very long list. But beyond the creative process, what are other ways in which psychedelics might be beneficial?

To learn more about the topic, we sat down with James Fadiman, a prominent psychedelics researcher with a master’s degree and a doctorate in psychology from Stanford University. “There are a number of ways in which we can shift our perception,” he says. “Psychedelics are different from meditation and yoga – and the difference in the way it affects you is the difference between walking up a mountain or being catapulted to the top almost instantly. You have enhanced capacity for understanding a level of complexity of life that you didn’t know you had.”

A recent example of this dramatic shift in perception happened in 2023 in the case of Brendan, a former leader of a white supremacist group, who was part of a scientific trial at the University of Chicago where volunteers took MDMA. “This experience has helped me sort out a debilitating personal issue,” Brendan said after his psychedelic experience, which led him to rescind his former racist ideology. “Love is the only thing that matters.”

But what is it about this classification of drugs that can transform the way we see the world? 

“Psychedelics are a different type of tool for opening up the closed box of awareness,” Fadiman says. “There comes a point for many of us as adults where what we don’t know feels dangerous, and therefore we stop looking. Psychedelics break that pattern. They break open whatever your system of belief is. Psychedelics go to every cell of the body, so when one reports that they can smell color or hear color, what they’re saying is that the parts of the brain that are normally somewhat separated from each other can communicate with each other if we simply take down the little guardrails.”

But make no mistake, psychedelics are not a foolproof way to alter your consciousness for the better. If not used carefully, they can have some detrimental side-effects. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that the use of psychoactive substances has been linked to dangerous behavior due to impaired thought processes. Due diligence should be taken when considering taking any form of psychedelics: the type and amount, the location in which they are taken, and who they are taken with are just a few factors that require thorough research. Fadiman cites ‘Integration’ as an important way of dealing with a rapid shift in perception following a psychedelic trip. This is a process that would see a therapist, coach or other relevant practitioner guide you through your journey, helping you make sense of whatever you experience.

Despite all the research around it benefiting depression, PTSD, and helping those at the end of their lives, psychedelics may not be for everyone. While many have been decriminalized in several states, it’s important to be aware of their legal restrictions. 

But Fadiman, who wrote The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys back in 2012, offers an insightful answer when asked why we should be expanding our perceptions in the first place: “It’s a realistic question to say, ‘What’s the value of having expanded vision, expanded hearing, expanded awareness in general?’ But it’s the same question as, ‘Why should we go to school? Why should we learn to read? Why should we visit other countries?’ Because to transcend those limits shifts forever the way in which you see the world.”

We spoke to James Fadiman for The Science of Perception Box, a Big Think interview series created in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators. As a creative non-profit organization, they’re on a mission to help people challenge their perceptions and expand their thinking. This series dives into the science behind our thought patterns. Watch James Fadiman’s full interview above, and visit Perception Box to see more in this series. 

Words: Jamie Carson

JAMES FADIMAN: People who've used psychedelics are accused by their friends and neighbors of "becoming nicer." Psychedelics shift your basic awareness of what perception even is. There are a number of ways in which we shift our perception. Meditation, fasting, psychedelics is different than the others - and the difference in the way it affects you is the difference between walking up a mountain or being catapulted to the top almost instantly.

You have enhanced capacity for understanding a level of complexity of life that you didn't know you had. It's a realistic question to say, "What's the value of having expanded vision, expanded hearing, expanded awareness in general?" But it's the same question as, "Why should we go to school? Why should we learn to read? Why should we visit other countries?" Because to transcend those limits shifts forever the way in which you see the world.

I'm James Fadiman. I've been involved in psychedelic research and experience for over 60 years. One of the great spiritual traditions has people asking, "Who am I, who am I, who am I?" And the answer, whatever your answer is, is limited. 'Transpersonal psychology' is a framework which allows you to get a larger view. It's simply a larger tool kit than conventional psychology for looking at the central thing that makes humans, humans which is consciousness. It includes all of awareness, all of consciousness, all human experience. And it looks around for what are the tools? Meditation is a tool. Psychedelics are a different kind of tool for opening up the closed box of awareness.

It's the natural evolution of consciousness to expand. There comes a point for many of us as adults where what we don't know feels dangerous and therefore we stop looking. Psychedelics break that pattern. They break open whatever your system of belief is.

Now, opening up consciousness means that everything is both magnified and clarified. Think about it. Psychedelics go to every cell of the body, so when one reports that they can smell color or hear color what they're saying is the parts of the brain that normally are somewhat separated can communicate with each other if we simply take down the little guardrails. So that people report enhanced creativity because they can think of more things simultaneously and farther away from their original thought.

What they also are aware of is their own relationships with other people, particularly when they're being used therapeutically, the negative patterns, the things that prevent you being close to other people, become painfully visible because the central experience that we all strive for is to be unified and connected to a larger reality than ourselves.

Let's be clear, that like any tool, it can be misused. Psychedelics not used carefully, are dangerous. Cars not used carefully, are dangerous. Most things not used carefully, can be dangerous. The problem for psychedelics is because the expansion is so strong, if you have no support, or no background, or no understanding, it's terrifying.

After a psychedelic experience, you are not only more open but you are questioning very fundamental beliefs that you have had without any particular knowledge. 'Integration' is a method of dealing with the overflow of information that happens during and after a psychedelic experience. That time is a very fluid time where the brain is still communicating more than usual and it's a good time where someone can help you put together these very unusual experiences so that you can retain the insights.

We have a similar thing if you think about it, if you're a refugee and you're coming from one country to another, people help you integrate into the new culture. Integration in psychedelics is simply a version of that more general kind of universal way of helping people move from confusion to clarity.

There's a tendency to think of psychedelics as a personal experience, but what we've found is that people who have used psychedelics are better members of their community. They have loosened up the restrictions that keep us apart from each other because one of the fundamentals that we all have is a sense of identity; kind of who lives in this box. With psychedelics, what you realize is that in some sense you also are outside this box, so we are much more like trees than perhaps we want to imagine. Which is trees keep growing in every direction unless they're impeded but the natural is a full expanding in each direction. That's perhaps the goal of transpersonal psychology and it is the experience of psychedelics. The experience of psychedelics is that things will never be the same afterwards because my Universe has actually opened wider.