Hypnotic Induction of the Interference of Psilocybin with Optically Induced Spatial Distortion

The degree to which a person's perception remains stable across different conditions—with or without psilocybin and during hypnotic induction—appears to be a fixed personality trait. In four subjects classified as either "variable" or "stable" reactors based on their MMPI profiles, those with stable perceptual performance under control conditions also showed stable performance after taking 160–200 µg/kg psilocybin, even when hypnotically induced. Susceptibility to hypnosis did not relate to the ability to exactly replicate the perceptual task under hypnosis.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The influence of personality structure on the stability of perceptual performance, specifically the degree of reproducibility under hypnotic induction of the psilocybinproduced lowering of spatial distortion thresholds, was investigated in two "variable" and two "stable" psilocybin reactors, that is, subjects who displayed variable and stable MMPI profiles under both control conditions and the influence of 160–200 µg/kg psilocybin. The results indicate that degree of stability in perceptual performance is a personality invariant with or without drug and also during the hypnotically-induced psilocybin experience. Moreover, susceptibility to hypnotic induction and ability to replicate exactly the hypnotically induced perceptual task are unrelated.