Psychedelics may lessen fear of death and dying, similar to feelings reported by those who've had near death experiences
The study was published Aug. 24, 2022 in the journal PLOS ONE.
The results are consistent with several recent clinical trials showing that a single treatment with the psychedelic psilocybin produced sustained decreases in anxiety and depression among patients with a life-threatening cancer diagnosis. The largest of these trials (Griffiths et al., 2016) was conducted at Johns Hopkins Medicine by the authors of this survey. That study, a randomized trial of 51 patients with cancer who had clinically significant anxiety or depressive symptoms, demonstrated that receiving a controlled, high dose of psilocybin given with supportive psychotherapy resulted in significant increases in ratings of death acceptance, as well as decreases in anxiety about death.
For the present study, the researchers analyzed data gathered from 3,192 people who answered an online survey between December 2015 and April 2018. Participants were divided into groups: 933 individuals had non-drug-related near-death experiences, and the rest of the participants had psychedelic experiences, which were prompted by either lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) (904), psilocybin (766), ayahuasca (282) or N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) (307). Participants were predominantly white (85%) and mostly from the United States. Compared with the non-drug group, there were more men in the psychedelic group (78% versus 32%), and they tended to be younger (32 versus 55 years of age) at the time of the experience.
Similarities between the groups include:
Differences between the groups include:
The researchers say that future studies are needed to better understand the potential clinical use of psychedelics in ameliorating suffering related to fear of death.