Translated from our German original by AI. The German text was researched, written, and edited by the Psychedelia Foundation team and remains the authoritative version.
Music apparently plays an important role in shaping the acute experience in psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT). That is the conclusion of a scoping review that evaluated 19 quantitative studies with a total of 330 participants. The aim of the review was to bring together the available evidence on the interplay of psychedelics and music and to capture effects on subjective (e.g. psychological) and objective (e.g. biological) endpoints.
The studies included examined mainly psilocybin and LSD. For MDMA the authors were unable to identify any quantitative studies analyzing the influence of music. Overall, the results suggest that music can influence the psychedelic experience in several ways: it intensifies emotional processes, engages brain networks connected with meaning-making and visual imagery, and goes along with an increase in neural entropy, a measure of the diversity and flexibility of neural activity.
At the same time, the authors point to considerable gaps in the research. The studies examined differ markedly in the selection and use of music and in their methodological design. The samples are also small, so that robust statements about the mechanisms of action or about the optimal design of musical interventions are not yet possible.
The review concludes that music is an important part of the therapeutic setting in psychedelic-assisted therapy. To understand its influence on the acute experience and possible therapeutic effects better, however, methodologically more consistent studies with larger samples are needed.
