🍄 One Trip. One Totally New Reality.

The Reality We Carry

Every so often, a psychedelic study comes along that feels bigger than the headline attached to it. In my opinion, this is one of the most fascinating studies the field has produced over the past five years because it looks at parts of the psychedelic experience that rarely get taken seriously in mainstream research, including the paranormal.

At its core, it asks:

What happens when one psychedelic experience changes a person’s entire understanding of reality?

Most studies measure depression, anxiety, addiction, or quality of life. This one looked at belief.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins surveyed 2,374 people who said a psychedelic experience had changed what they believed. Each participant focused on the single experience they felt changed them the most, then rated their beliefs at three points:

• Before the experience

• About one month afterward

• At the time of the survey (an average of 8.4 years later)

That detail is what makes the findings so hard to ignore. These were not ideas that appeared during an intense trip and disappeared a few days later. In most cases, the beliefs participants reported after the experience were still almost exactly the same years later.

The study grouped those beliefs into five categories:

1. Dualism

2. Paranormal & Spirituality

3. Mammal Consciousness

4. Non-Mammal Consciousness

5. Superstition

Four of the five shifted in a major way.

Dualism is the idea that the mind and body may be separate in some meaningful way.

That question remains open. We know brain activity and conscious experience are deeply connected, but science still does not have a complete explanation for what consciousness is or why subjective experience exists at all.

After the psychedelic experience, participants became much more open to the idea that the mind may not be fully reducible to the brain.

[For reference, each percentage below shows how many participants agreed, at least slightly, with the statement before the experience, about one month after it, and when they completed the survey an average of 8.4 years later.]

“The mind is not part of the brain, but it affects the brain.”

Before: 20%
After: 49%
Time of the survey: 52%

“The mind and the brain are totally different things.”

Before: 24%
After: 50%
Time of the survey: 52%

“My consciousness does not die with my physical body.”

Before: 33%
After: 62%
Time of the survey: 63%

“The mind is a special form of energy currently unknown to humanity.”

Before: 23%
After: 59%
Time of the survey: 61%

“The body belongs to the material world, while the mind is a different, spiritual kind of existence.”

Before: 33%
After: 66%
Time of the survey: 67%

These were not small changes in wording. Participants came away with a different model of what the mind is, and that model held.

The largest changes appeared in beliefs involving hidden meaning, life after death, other dimensions, telepathy, and a conscious universe.

“The universe is conscious.”

Before: 33%
After: 80%
Time of the survey: 81%

“There is a hidden or deeper purpose to life and existence.”

Before: 49%
After: 85%
Time of the survey: 84%

“There are hidden or deeper meanings within everyday events.”

Before: 50%
After: 87%
Time of the survey: 87%

“Another realm or dimension exists beyond the physical world.”

Before: 32%
After: 77%
Time of the survey: 78%

“Some aspect of consciousness continues after the body dies.”

Before: 38%
After: 74%
Time of the survey: 74%

“The mind, soul, or consciousness can leave the body and travel.”

Before: 30%
After: 70%
Time of the survey: 72%

“Non-physical conscious entities, such as souls, angels, or spirits, exist.”

Before: 39%
After: 68%
Time of the survey: 69%

“Telepathy is possible.”

Before: 30%
After: 62%
Time of the survey: 64%

“Reincarnation occurs.”

Before: 23%
After: 49%
Time of the survey: 51%

“It is possible to communicate with someone who has died.”

Before: 25%
After: 42%
Time of the survey: 45%

“Some people can predict future events.”

Before: 30%
After: 50%
Time of the survey: 53%

The researchers also asked whether the experience had changed each participant’s fundamental conception of reality.

86.5% said yes.

Belief in an ultimate reality, higher power, God, or something similar rose from 29% before the experience to 59% afterward. Identification as a non-believer fell from roughly 36% to 13%.

That does not mean everyone became religious. For one person, “believer” may mean God. For another, universal consciousness, a higher intelligence, or some deeper structure beneath ordinary reality.

The shared shift was toward the sense that reality may contain more than what can be easily seen, measured, or explained.

The study also looked at which beings participants believed were capable of conscious experience.

Belief in mammal consciousness was already fairly high before the psychedelic experience, but it still increased across every statement in the category.

“I am capable of conscious experience.”

Before: 82%
After: 97%
Time of the survey: 98%

“Other human beings are capable of conscious experience.”

Before: 79%
After: 94%
Time of the survey: 95%

“Non-human primates are capable of conscious experience.”

Before: 64%
After: 83%
Time of the survey: 85%

“Four-legged animals such as cats and dogs are capable of conscious experience.”

Before: 62%
After: 80%
Time of the survey: 83%

These changes may reflect a wider view of consciousness, a greater willingness to recognize inner experience in other beings, or the common psychedelic sense that the boundary between self and others is less rigid than it normally appears.

The study cannot tell us exactly why those beliefs increased. It shows that after the experience, participants were more likely to see conscious experience as something shared across humans and other mammals rather than confined to themselves.

The changes became even more dramatic when researchers asked about plants, fungi, insects, rocks, and human-made objects.

“Plants are capable of conscious experience.”

Before: 26%
After: 62%
Time of the survey: 65%

“Some fungi are capable of conscious experience.”

Before: 21%
After: 57%
Time of the survey: 62%

“Some insects are capable of conscious experience.”

Before: 34%
After: 59%
Time of the survey: 61%

“Natural objects such as rocks are capable of conscious experience.”

Before: 8%
After: 27%
Time of the survey: 29%

“Human-made objects such as chairs or buildings are capable of conscious experience.”

Before: 4%
After: 15%
Time of the survey: 17%

The study did not ask participants to define consciousness in detail, so these answers may not all mean the same thing. Some people may mean awareness. Others may mean spirit, sensitivity, intelligence, presence, or participation in a larger field.

But the direction is pretty clear: after the experience, consciousness looked less confined.

The border around which parts of reality might possess experience became much wider.

This may be one of the most important parts of the study.

Belief in superstition did not rise. It actually fell slightly.

“Breaking a mirror causes bad luck.”

Before: 10%
After: 5%
Time of the survey: 3%

“Black cats bring bad luck.”

Before: 7%
After: 4%
Time of the survey: 3%

“The number 13 is unlucky.”

Before: 7%
After: 3%
Time of the survey: 3%

Belief in the Loch Ness Monster stayed at 10%. Belief in the Abominable Snowman barely moved.

So the pattern was not that psychedelics simply made people more willing to believe anything unusual.

The changes were concentrated around consciousness, spirituality, meaning, mind, and matter. That gives the results a structure.

The More Mystical, the Greater the Change

Nearly half of the participants met the researchers’ criteria for a complete mystical experience.

The stronger the mystical qualities of the experience, the greater the reported belief change across dualism, spirituality, mammal consciousness, and non-mammal consciousness.

Superstition again stood apart.

This may connect to the noetic quality of psychedelic states. People often describe these experiences as carrying the feeling of direct knowledge.

Someone may not leave thinking, “Maybe the universe is conscious.”

They may leave feeling, “I experienced the consciousness of the universe.”

That difference matters. A theory can be reconsidered. An experience that feels more real than ordinary life may become part of the evidence a person uses to understand the world.

Why This Study Sticks

The field talks constantly about healing, integration, and transformation.

This study shows one of the deepest forms that transformation can take.

A person may come away from one experience with different answers to questions they had carried for their entire life:

• What is the mind?

• What happens when the body dies?

• What can nature truly experience?

• Is consciousness limited to the individual?

• Is reality entirely physical?

Those answers may influence how someone sees death, grief, animals, nature, spirituality, purpose, and their place in the world.

And years later, the answers may still be there.

The study was retrospective and specifically recruited people who already believed a psychedelic experience had changed them, so it cannot tell us what happens to the average psychedelic user. However, based on the thousands of conversations we’ve had both privately and publicly on social media with psychedelic experiencers (from beginners to psychonauts), these kinds of shifts are far from rare.

But when belief change did happen, it did not appear random.

It moved in recognizable directions.

Toward a wider view of consciousness. Toward deeper meaning. Toward a less rigid separation between mind, body, nature, and reality.

And once that door opened, it often stayed open for years.

Study Citation

Nayak, S. M., Singh, M., Yaden, D. B., & Griffiths, R. R. (2022). Belief changes associated with psychedelic use. Journal of Psychopharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811221131989

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