The world of psychedelics is about to explode. In a good sense - that is. Psychedelic research centers are being set up all over the world to understand the special powers of items like magic mushrooms, mescaline, ayahuasca and LSD. New research now shows that the way people will respond to psychedelics can be predicted by their personality. How that works? Count on Avalon Magic Plants to tell you all about it down below!

“For example, people with a high degree of openness were most likely to experience "love, inner visions, and contact with non-ordinary beings and transcendent forces" when using psychedelics.”

Tendency for bad trips

Since the very first psychedelic studies, psychiatrists have noticed connections between personality structure and drug-related experiences. For example, people who score high on neuroticism are more likely to have bad trips, characterized by intense fear and an inability to indulge in the psychedelic experience.

In an effort to build on these findings, Petter Grahl Johnstad of the University of Bergen has just published a paper in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, in which he highlights some interesting correlations between personality traits and subjective responses to psychedelics.

Also Read: Advantages of microdosing outweigh disadvantages, researchers say

Combining personality traits with psychedelic trips

The way he did this, was quite interesting. For the study, Johnstad assessed the personalities of 319 psychedelic users using two questionnaires designed to pick up certain elements of a person's nature. The first of these, known as the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), is often used to measure the so-called Big Five personality traits of extroversion, kindness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness.

In addition to TIPI, the respondents were also presented with an RTI - or a Risk Taking Index. It is used to evaluate a person's propensity for risky behavior. You probably guessed the consequence: The results were then correlated with participants' self-reports of their psychedelic experiences to determine the impact of these personality traits on psychedelic-induced trips.

Also Read: Could one specific shroom change the future of magic mushrooms?

The Big Five

The results are certainly interesting. For example, the study shows that psychedelic users tend to score higher than average for all Big Five traits and risk-taking, suggesting that motivation to use these drugs may be determined by a person's personality. Even more interesting, however, was that the nature of each individual's psychedelic trips tended to be affected by their test scores. In this way, the researchers were able to link specific personality traits to certain trips.

For example, people with a high degree of openness were most likely to experience "love, inner visions, and contact with non-ordinary beings and transcendent forces" when using psychedelics. Johnstad and his colleagues hypothesize that the curiosity and open-mindedness of such people may lead them to “pursue unusual and intense experiences” while tripping, which might explain these results.

Also Read: Is the psychedelic revolution finally here?

In short: choose your trip partner carefully!

On the other hand, extroverts were much less likely to encounter these creatures while tripping. Rather, they tend to discover a deeper sense of belonging to other people. This, the authors say, likely reflects these people's preference for social interaction over delving into the inner recesses of their psyche. A less striking result was that people with high emotional stability have the least chance of experiencing anxiety during a psychedelic trip.

So all of this could mean that when you are going to trip with friends, it might be a good idea to do it with someone who is fairly similar in regards of personality. The last thing you want is for your friend to want to have entire conversations while you want to be shot into space and talk to extraterrestrial beings with your eyes closed, right?