Are you “the medicine”? Intention category and explicitness as predictors of perceived outcomes associated with psychedelic experiences
Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p> <italic>Background</italic> . It is widely accepted that beyond the pharmacological predictors, individuals’ pre-drug mental disposition, including <italic>intentions</italic> , influences the psychedelic experience. However, is it not fully clear how intentions and outcomes relate. This study explores the intention category and explicitness in association with outcomes. <italic>Methods</italic> . Content validated intention categories developed during sequential expert interviews provided the basis for the quantitative online data collection. Retrospective self-report data ( <italic>N</italic> = 296) based on participants’ most recent experience involving a high dosage of long-acting classical serotonergic psychedelics included a variety of measures, of which <italic>intention category</italic> and <italic>explicitness</italic> constituted the basis for the present analyses. Assessed outcomes included realisation, significance, occurrence of mystical-type and challenging experiences, emotional breakthroughs, and connectedness. Linear and multiple regression analyses were utilised to explore the associations between these. <italic>Results</italic> . An intention categorization model which can be utilized in future research was developed. Explicitness was confirmed to be indicative of higher outcome measure scores, but not lower challenging experience scores. When combined with explicitness, specific intention categories statistically significantly predicted most outcome measures. <italic>Conclusions.</italic> Specific explicit intentions are predictive of intention realisation and significance, occurrence of mystical-type experiences, emotional breakthroughs and connectedness. The findings highlight the salience of the explicit nature and type of intentions for psychedelic experience outcomes and invite further research exploring their relation to set, setting and substance. </p>
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