Member-only story
Does Ayahuasca Change Personality Like Other Psychedelics?
The story may not be so simple, as it has been demonstrated with psilocybin.
A recent study has found an inconsistent change in participants’ personalities following a session with the powerful psychedelic, ayahuasca.
This study comes off of a long string of research, attempting to underpin whether psychedelics have the ability to fundamentally change an individual’s personality.
A Brief Psychedelic History of Personality Change
As children, our brains are easily perturbed by the outside world. New experiences intersect with our genetic predispositions, ultimately shaping who we are. However, as we grow older, our personality starts to stabilize, and generally doesn’t change after the age of 30.
However, previous work with substances such as psilocybin has found that psychedelics have the potential to fundamentally change who we are.
One such study, conducted over a decade ago at Johns Hopkins University, found that psilocybin, the psychoactive component in magic mushrooms, could make participants’ more open. That is, after taking psilocybin, participants’ were likely to value aesthetics such as art and dance more highly, and become…
