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.
Research on psychedelic substances is booming, yet scientific studies conducted outside clinical laboratories show considerable gaps in documentation. A scoping review published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, carried out by the University of Lisbon and Imperial College London, analyzed 103 studies on the use of substances such as LSD, psilocybin, and ayahuasca in everyday contexts.
The finding: this kind of field research does offer valuable insight into everyday psychedelic use, but decisive contextual conditions, the so-called setting, are often described inadequately. Almost half of the studies gave no information at all about the environment in which the substance was used. Factors such as music, ritual, or the presence of companions were often recorded only patchily, even though they are considered central to the effects and course of psychedelic experiences.
There is also a clear demographic imbalance: participants were predominantly male and academically educated. The researchers therefore see an urgent need for common reporting standards. Only then could research in real-world settings become a reliable complement to clinical trials.
Carvalho, L. C., Encantado, J., Kettner, H., Timmermann, C., Veiga, D., Teixeira, P. J. (2026), A scoping review of research in naturalistic studies with psychedelics, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 1-14.
