Psychedelic Use and Psychological Flexibility: The Role of Decentering, Mystical Experiences, Ego-Dissolution, and Insight

The purpose of this study was to investigate potential associations between psychological flexibility (PF) and characteristics of the psychedelic experience: self-perceived meaningful intention, feelings of comfort and safety, decentering, mystical experiences, ego-dissolution, and insight. The first hypothesis was that perceived meaningful intention and feelings of comfort/safety during the psychedelic experience were expected to be associated with PF, decentering, mystical experiences, ego-dissolution, and insight. The second hypothesis was that decentering, mystical experiences, ego-dissolution, and insight were expected to be associated with greater PF. Participants who used classic psychedelic substances prior to this study were recruited from social media. The sample after data cleaning was N = 427, however, following pairwise deletions the final sample size across analyses ranged from 114 to 149. The results of this study revealed that both self-perceived meaningful intention and feelings of comfort/safety were associated with decentering. Comfort/safety during the experience was also associated with mystical experiences, whereas intention was also associated with PF and insight. Although mystical experiences, ego-dissolution, and insight were shown to be positively correlated with PF, decentering was the only hypothesized variable associated with PF, when all characteristics were included in the regression model. Taken together, these results suggest that deeper and more complex relationships among characteristics of the psychedelic experience are likely to exist with each other and with positive outcomes such as PF