A recent clinical study provides new evidence that the effects of psychedelic substances on creativity are more nuanced than commonly assumed. The research, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, tested the acute effects of a standardized combination of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and harmine—a formulation inspired by the traditional brew ayahuasca—on several types of creative thinking. Contrary to popular belief, the researchers found that this psychedelic combination actually tended to impair certain forms of creative thinking.
The study was motivated by a widespread but largely untested belief that psychedelic substances can expand the mind and unlock creative potential. Ayahuasca, a plant-based psychedelic used in Indigenous Amazonian rituals, has gained attention for its reported psychological effects, including vivid visions and shifts in personal insight. It contains DMT, a powerful hallucinogen, and harmine, a compound that increases the brain’s exposure to DMT by preventing it from breaking down too quickly.
DMT acts on serotonin receptors and is known for inducing intense perceptual and cognitive alterations. Harmine, meanwhile, inhibits an enzyme in the gut and brain that normally deactivates DMT. Together, these compounds enable DMT to take stronger and longer-lasting effects when consumed in a brew like ayahuasca. While many anecdotal reports and popular narratives describe psychedelic experiences as creatively enriching, scientific evidence has so far been mixed. The new study aimed to clarify these claims using carefully controlled conditions and ecologically valid methods.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the link between altered states of consciousness and creative cognition. Psychedelics are often described as creativity-enhancing, yet the scientific evidence is mixed and sometimes paradoxical. As both a neuroscientist and an amateur artist, I wanted to look beyond standard lab tasks and study creativity in a more naturalistic context of artistic creation,” said study author Dila Suay of the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca.
To explore how these substances affect different facets of creativity, researchers designed a rigorous, placebo-controlled experiment. Thirty healthy male participants took part in three separate sessions. In one session, they received both DMT and harmine. In another, they received only harmine. In the third session, they were given a placebo. The order of these sessions was randomized for each participant, and the design was double-blinded so neither participants nor researchers knew which substance was being administered at any time.
The researchers examined two levels of creativity. At the micro level, they measured how well participants could think divergently (coming up with many novel ideas) and convergently (solving problems with one correct answer). To assess these skills, they used standard tasks: the Alternative Uses Task and the Picture Concept Task.
The Alternative Uses Task measures divergent thinking by asking participants to list as many creative and unusual uses as possible for a common object, such as a shoe or a pen. The Picture Concept Task assesses convergent thinking by requiring participants to identify a shared conceptual link between images arranged in a grid, selecting one image from each row that fits the same category.
At the macro level, the researchers explored how creativity unfolded during an open-ended painting activity. Participants used a digital tablet to create artwork without specific instructions. Every few minutes, they indicated which phase of the creative process they were in—such as planning, reflecting, producing, or experiencing a flash of insight—using a self-report method called the Creative Process Report Diary.
The results indicated that the DMT/harmine combination impaired convergent thinking. Participants were less able to solve structured problems, and this effect was especially pronounced in those who performed well in the placebo condition. In other words, individuals with stronger baseline reasoning abilities were more likely to see their performance decline under the influence of the psychedelic combination.
Divergent thinking, which involves idea generation, was not significantly affected overall. However, the researchers observed a trend suggesting that the DMT/harmine condition may reduce the fluency and elaboration of ideas. These reductions were not statistically conclusive but were large enough to warrant attention in future studies.
The painting task yielded additional findings. Although the number of times participants entered each creative stage did not differ dramatically between drug conditions, more detailed analyses pointed to specific changes in the flow of the creative process. Both the DMT/harmine and harmine-only conditions were associated with fewer transitions involving the incubation stage—a reflective phase during which ideas are left to develop subconsciously. Notably, the DMT/harmine condition also reduced transitions from this reflective stage to moments of insight, suggesting a disruption in the way participants arrived at new ideas.
The researchers also assessed participants’ subjective experiences using a standardized questionnaire. Under the DMT/harmine condition, participants reported stronger feelings of insight, changes in the meaning they assigned to perceptions, and alterations in focus and mental clarity. However, these feelings did not align with objective improvements in creative performance. In fact, some subjective effects—such as distorted meaning perception—were associated with lower scores in idea generation.
These patterns suggest a surprising disconnect between how people feel under the influence of psychedelics and how they actually perform in tasks requiring creative thought. There was a “clear gap between how participants felt and what they actually produced,” Suay told PsyPost. “They reported strong feelings of creativity and insight, yet their performance on structured tasks often declined. This dissociation shows that our subjective sense of creativity under psychedelics doesn’t always match measurable outcomes; an important reminder that different tools may be needed to assess creativity in altered states.”
“Our findings show that psychedelics don’t simply ‘boost creativity.’ A DMT/harmine formulation impaired structured problem-solving while leaving the idea generation phase largely unchanged. Yet participants consistently felt more creative and insightful. This mismatch suggests that standard creativity tests may not fully capture the altered dynamics of creative thought in psychedelic states. On a process level, psychedelics also disrupted the familiar sequence leading to sudden insights, indicating that ideas may emerge through new pathways under their influence. In other words, psychedelics may shift how creativity unfolds rather than making us ‘more creative’ in a straightforward sense.”
While the study used a carefully controlled design, there are still some limitations that should be considered when interpreting the results. The sample included only male participants, which limits its relevance to broader populations. Creativity measures also showed high variability across individuals, meaning that people responded to the substances in different ways. This variability could be influenced by personality traits, cognitive styles, or past experiences with altered states of consciousness, none of which were fully examined here.
“Creativity is also highly individual, and we observed considerable variability depending on people’s baseline cognitive style. Psychedelics didn’t affect everyone in the same way, which is an important direction for future work,” Suay noted.
The researchers relied on acute assessments, meaning all measures were taken during or shortly after the drug effects. Future studies could investigate whether psychedelic experiences have longer-term effects on creativity, either enhancing or impairing it after the acute phase. In addition, it remains unclear whether the results from this pharmaceutical formulation of DMT and harmine would generalize to traditional ayahuasca ceremonies, where context, ritual, and expectations may play a significant role.
“I want to better understand how psychedelics alter the unfolding of creative thought and how this may support therapeutic processes,” Suay explained. “For example, in psychedelic-assisted therapy, creativity could help patients explore new perspectives and express emotions in novel ways. I’m also interested in combining behavioral measures with brain data, such as EEG, to link neural dynamics with shifts in creative thinking.”
“Creativity is not a single skill but a dynamic process that includes idea generation, reflection and refinement. Our results suggest that psychedelics may favor some stages while disrupting others. That nuance is key if we want to apply these substances responsibly, whether in therapy, art or the science of human cognition.”
The study, “Ayahuasca-inspired DMT/harmine formulation alters creative thinking dynamics during artistic creation,” was authored by Dila Suay, Helena D. Aicher, Berit Singer, Michael J Mueller, Alen Jelusic, Lionel Calzaferri, Paul Springfeld, Dario A. Dornbierer, and Milan Scheidegger.