Not All Transcendence Transforms: Qualitative Findings from Controlled Studies with LSD, MDMA & DMT

This is a recording of the talk "Not All Transcendence Transforms: Qualitative Findings from Controlled Studies with LSD, LSD-MDMA, and DMT" in the session "Experiences and Outcomes" of our Psykedeelit 2025 conference, held in October 2025. Kurt Stocker (Research Associate University Hospital Basel and Project Leader ETH) describes the talk: "Background. Transcendent experiences are experiences that surpass ordinary perception as well as the autobiographical realm. Psychedelic research often measures a specific type of transcendent experience—mystical experience—using philosopher Walter Terence Stace’s framework, but psychedelic substances appear to elicit transcendent experiences beyond this model. Furthermore, especially mystical experiences are often thought of as having transformative impact potential. Methodology. This study investigates whether such transcendent experiences occur regularly and how impactful—potentially transformative—they are for participants. We analyze qualitative data from placebo-controlled trials with LSD (alone, combined with MDMA, and blocker-shortened; moderate doses), DMT (various intravenous conditions; dose range: low to very high), and MDMA (typically effective dose), comprising 194 interviews from 79 healthy participants. Two qualitative coding strategies with standardized intercoder agreement are applied: (1) Thematic Qualitative Text Analysis (TQTA) for phenomenological coding, and (2) Evaluative Qualitative Text Analysis (EQTA) for assessing impact. The phenomenological coding identifies types of transcendent experiences, while the evaluative coding systematically determines whether these experiences are described as deeply positive and/or potentially transformative, as challenging without resolution, or in a neutral and detached manner. Results. Final results will be available at the time of the conference. Preliminary findings based on 55 interviews suggest seven transcendent themes underexplored in current psychedelic psychometrics: visionary experiences (entities, places, abstract forms), luminous light, opposite dissolution, destruction and renewal, time unbinding (conceptually broader than Stace’s timelessness), body unbinding, and all-encompassing connectedness. Across all themes, even phenomenologically similar experiences may be either impactful or show no sign of impact, highlighting the complexity of predicting transformative potential based on thematic content alone. Conclusions. Distinguishing impactful from non-impactful transcendent psychedelic experiences presents a major challenge for future research. Our qualitative framework offers a systematic approach to this problem and suggests directions for refining future psychometric tools in psychedelic science. About Psykedeelit 2025: https://psyty.fi/psykedeelit2025 • • • • • The Finnish Association for Psychedelic Research (Psykedeelitutkimusyhdistys ry) is a multidisciplinary association founded in December 2016 with the goals of promoting scientific research related to psychedelics and the availability of accessible information based on such research. We encourage you to become a member – more info at http://psyty.fi/mukaan. We also accept donations, more info at https://psyty.fi/lahjoita. More on Psyty: https://psyty.fi Our social media channels: Facebook:   / psyty   X: http://x.com/psytyfi Instagram:   / psyty   LinkedIn:   / psyty   Telegram: https://t.me/psytyfi Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/psytyfi.bsky...