LSD, Music, and the Art of Listening

With so much attention being placed on the potential for magic mushrooms to provide therapeutic benefits and even playlists being created specifically for psilocybin therapy, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we have something of a psilocybin-centric psychedelic subculture. We might have created certain assumptions from this psilocybin-centric viewpoint about how music and psychedelics should be combined, and potentially, we might be missing out on the opportunity for other psychedelic substances to provide us with a similarly profound experience to psilocybin, if not greater. 

I have never personally resonated with this combination, as I feel like music gets in the way of the two-way communication between myself and the mushrooms (which I think is crucial to gaining some insights from the experience). I can appreciate how someone less experienced would find this more directed therapeutic combination useful in facilitating positive outcomes with psilocybin in this context; however, I have often found music in my mushroom trips to be a bit confusing, off-putting, or generally just difficult to vibe with.

The last time I had a heavy mushroom experience, I tried to calm myself down by using one of these playlists, and I just found it difficult to settle into the music rather than facilitating any useful navigation through what was already a challenging experience. I didn’t really see mushrooms as being psychedelic in the same way as I do other substances, and I realised I was essentially trying to treat the experience like an LSD trip, where I was trying different kinds of music to try and shift the energy, when really I should have just turned off the music, shut up, and listened to the mushrooms.

I was able to find my way out of this challenging experience, and realised I’d simply gone in too strong with the dose (1.5g of Psilocybe cyanescens was a lot more potent than I was expecting), and perhaps the music would have facilitated a positive experience had I taken a lower dose. But I still haven’t felt the same kind of resonance with music on mushrooms as I have with LSD, and I personally believe it can offer a combined experience like no other in terms of the profound effects on artistic creativity, pattern recognition, and the impact of listening to music on LSD. 

This can shift us towards active listening, where we can begin to understand why we like music through appreciating the intricacies, rather than just having it on as background music. LSD has been historically and phenomenologically tied to the way in which we interpret music, and for myself as a musician, it has personally been the most impactful catalyst for continuing to create a certain style of music which pushes boundaries and encompasses a lot of different passions. The way in which LSD has enabled me and other musicians to engage in this kind of active listening has provided new pathways which might have been previously missed.

LSD can alter our perception of time, which can influence how we perceive rhythm, as well as having an impact on our sensitivity to sound, which can change the way in which we listen to music. This increased sensitivity might allow us to pick up more on the micro-details of what we’re listening to, such as different textures, effects, or delays in the sound, as well as the perceived 3D audio landscape.

The perception of this audio landscape becomes very apparent during my LSD experiences, where I get a sense of the music moving through different parts of my brain. I’ve often felt, when listening to certain pieces of music, that these were essentially “designed” for people on LSD, as there’s so much richness which gets picked up through the heightened awareness within this state. It could be that there is some hidden architecture within certain pieces of music which can only be found once we engage with listening in this more active way, and LSD is an incredibly powerful substance to catalyse this intense active listening. 

LSD may also enhance pattern recognition within the music, allowing the listener to feel like they’re more involved with the sounds, as well as becoming more aware of harmonic architecture through a biased response to music stimuli via 5-HT2A receptor signalling. The French classical composer Claude Debussy famously said, “Music is the space in between the notes”. We find real appreciation for this harmonic architecture in recognising the space which allows the notes to resonate and reach their full measure of expression by following the notes that precede them. Under the influence of LSD, we might experience more engagement and sustained attention over long musical forms, allowing us to really appreciate the structure of what we’re listening to. 

Within a therapeutic context, music is essential for the process of allowing meaningful thoughts, emotions and imagery to arise, with research showing how LSD can increase functional connectivity within the parahippocampal cortex, an area of the brain linked to music-evoked emotion. For myself personally, some of the most joyful experiences have involved the combination of music and LSD, and it really feels like there’s something special about this kind of experience compared to other psychedelics. The ability to appreciate the structure of the music, while being so emotionally catalysed by the different sounds, makes LSD one of the most appealing and powerful psychedelics, and its impact in this context can often be life-changing. When speaking about music, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato said that “more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way into the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it.”

If we think about the impact of music in this way, when we include LSD in the mix, there’s no doubt that it will have some kind of profound effect (even if we’re in a situation with music we don’t enjoy) when we’re engaging in the active listening of music. But is there something more happening when we’re also playing it? 

As someone who has played music from a very young age, it was quite clear to witness the distinction between my music playing prior to LSD and then after it. This isn’t to say that it made me a better musician, but it allowed me to see where I could go with my playing and feel less restricted by any previously perceived boundaries. I have often spoken about it in a way which acts as a revealer, rather than necessarily generating new musical ideas. It has allowed me to connect with the deeper parts of myself, where it often feels like there’s something encoded into my DNA which makes me want to create certain types of music or be drawn to particular sounds. 

As a saxophonist, I have developed a positive relationship with rehearsing, repetition, and improvisation via my experiences with LSD. Where practising used to feel like a chore when I was a child, it now feels like an opportunity to explore the different sounds that my instrument can make. I no longer find the repetition boring, and instead feel that it provides an opportunity to connect in something of a divine way to this sense of creation. Improvisation in particular (thinking about jazz as an example) seems to correlate with how the brain is operating under the influence of LSD, with more flexibility and novelty in brain dynamics involved in a structured, yet spontaneous manner. 

Through consistent rehearsal and repetition, I have built the foundations for improvisation, and LSD has allowed me to push the boundaries with this and explore different types of music through my playing. It’s such a joyful experience, and I feel like the substance is identifiable as useful rather than creating an illusion of having an impact on the music. In the 1950s, an experiment on LSD and artistic creativity (which asked artists to draw a Kachina doll prior to, and one hour after ingesting LSD) resulted in art being created which was found to be more aesthetically pleasing, expressive, and full of meaning.  

Experiments such as this, along with my continued fondness for LSD in combination with music, have allowed me to see it in a way where it’s useful for composition and also for playing. I have enjoyed consuming relatively small doses prior to playing a live show, and I really feel like there is more access to flow states while under the influence of LSD, which allows me to connect with body, breath, and mind while playing saxophone. The advantage of being a melodic instrument allows me the freedom to feel the spaces in between, play where the motif fits, and drop out at times to allow the rest of the band to create the soundscape. It often feels like a fortunate position to be in, where I am playing over the top of a foundation which has been created.

There’s also a sensation of feeling bonded to my bandmates, where we’re all locked into what we’re playing, and our individual egos aren’t necessarily coming into the equation. What we might perceive to be a temporary dissolution of the ego under the influence of psychedelics such as LSD can potentially allow the group dynamic to take priority, allowing the music to flow through the band as a cohesive whole. 

When thinking again about the impact on our listening, LSD could potentiate the creative processes while under the influence by both allowing us to create and listen back, so we can get a fuller sense of what is being created and tweak things where necessary. There seems to be something unique about the ability of LSD to both allow us to exert influence on the process of making music, while having our interpretation of the sounds shaped by the experience itself. This is probably why it’s my favourite psychedelic, and there’s no doubt that it clearly found its place historically within the world of creative arts, and music specifically. 

The nature of LSD being a 12-hour or so trip offers itself to lengthy creative exploration – something which is conducive to creating long-form improvisation. Creativity can often be thought of as thinking outside of the box, where our thoughts often diverge from the norm, and LSD may assist with this. Research from Imperial College in 2018 suggests that psychedelics such as LSD may promote openness and flexibility when it comes to imagination, aesthetic appreciation, creativity, and non-conformity. 

These creative and non-conformist aspects, which can be catalysed by LSD, can be seen as contributing to the way in which certain types of music came to prominence in the 1960s and 70s. Musicians around this time, such as The Beatles, The Doors, John & Alice Coltrane, Carlos Santana (who’s known for having played an LSD-fuelled set at Woodstock in ‘69), Jimi Hendrix, and the Grateful Dead seemed to be heavily influenced by LSD. They were able to push boundaries and create new sounds with electrified instruments, allowing them to experiment and follow certain threads that have been influenced by psychedelic experiences.

The power of LSD to not only enhance creativity, but social connection as well, has allowed these threads to be pursued in a collective way where musicians become aware of their creation of music, which can be thought of as following certain genres such as psychedelic rock (now shortened to ‘psych’ or ‘heavy psych’ in contemporary circles). The drug culture of the 60s and 70s fuelled the expansion of this music into more experimental areas, such as the emergence of ‘krautrock’ from West Germany. This music blended more avant-garde composition with extended improvisation, hypnotic rhythms, and electronic instruments such as early synthesisers. This genre of music would often utilise minimalist elements to create expansive sounds, with bands such as Neu!, Amon Düül II, Can, Ash Ra Tempel, and Kraftwerk (who are considered one of the main pioneers of electronic music) forming a solid foundation for anyone wanting to explore a wide range of music within the genre.

I have personally found a lot of pleasure from listening to this genre of music while under the influence of LSD, as it provides a lot of space for the listener, while also building up into intense moments of ecstatic release, which often feels like it's forever building up. The hypnotic element to this kind of music, with a lot of repetition, can provide something of a shamanic container which keeps the listener locked in and grounded to be carried by the sounds. 

There’s something about LSD and music which feels organic, but is this the entire story? While there’s something positive to be said for being locked into an ecstatic piece of music and feeling the creative flow, is there something to watch out for when it comes to potentially being lost in the sound? What if LSD shaping this era of music wasn’t entirely coincidental, and there was something more intentional happening during this time? 

Author Dave McGowan of the book Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream, believes that the music and countercultural scene that arose in the 1960s was not the organic, grassroots movement that it was perceived to be. Instead, it was a movement which was manufactured to subvert any real resistance to increases in global military expenditures, and specifically the Vietnam War, through promoting ideas of peace and love, which might have actually served as a distraction from protesting against war. As much as psychedelics such as LSD have the ability to allow for the malleability of the creative mind to explore new sonic pathways, we might lose ourselves within the endless sonic jams and never engage with the very real challenges of the world. 

What happens to our identities when we become endlessly immersed in music? Ego dissolution under the influence of psychedelics such as LSD can provide powerful therapeutic benefits, often with music being utilised in this context to promote these therapeutic effects. Relinquishing yourself from the story of the ego can provide relief from past trauma and reshape the narrative of the self, allowing for transformation and new pathways to be formed. This seems to be overwhelmingly positive, but often we might find that taking the ego out of the situation too frequently could result in the loss of engagement with the world, where we never truly resist anything. 

This is something to be mindful of when engaging in experiences which combine LSD and music, if the music stops becoming expressive and simply becomes an anaesthetic to the more problematic situations occurring in the world. These are just patterns worth noticing, and I’m not necessarily implying that we’re under a state of control, but more so that we might need to be wary of where our attention is being placed and understanding how much power we have to use it for positive impacts. 

For music and LSD to provide powerful experiences from both therapeutic and non-therapeutic contexts, we can bring it back to finding avenues which allow us to positively engage with the listening experience in an active way.

When utilised in therapeutic or self-exploratory contexts, LSD can facilitate intentional listening where music is more meaningful, and we can find our way out of potential sonic overwhelm. LSD experiences can certainly change what we hear and the way in which our listening experience impacts us. It can catalyse an expansive sense of sonic wonder, where we feel totally immersed in the sound like never before. The significance of this is not to be understated, as we might have connected to something for the first time where it bypasses the logical processing centres of our psyche, and hits straight to the core of our very being. The power of music to do this becomes accentuated through the ability of LSD to open the wide sonic landscape and encourage you to explore it. 

The joy and wonder I’ve felt when listening to amazing pieces of music while tripping on LSD is like no other experience, and often this joy is shared with close friends who share similar tastes, and you become even more enthralled at having this shared sonic experience. It might be that we listen to new sounds, or we find that familiar sounds reveal their internal logic and require you as the listener to really engage with what’s going on. It provides moments of growth and expansion, where an interrelation between yourself and the sound is being developed over a period of time, with deep moments that can be considered therapeutic or revelatory. Despite the potential to lose ourselves in these experiences, the combination of LSD and music requires a certain degree of discipline to fully engage with the sound, rather than just simply surrendering to the music and becoming lost. 

LSD can provide us with the means to sharpen our listening as a skill whilst understanding the interplay between egoic and non-egoic states. For myself personally, music within this context has allowed me to understand where the ego is required to be strong in order to be engaged and present with the music, but be held back just enough to create sounds from a communal perspective. 

This is where the true creative potential of LSD lies – in providing the creative individual with the means to explore different avenues of seemingly untapped potential. We become aware of the need to tame the exploration so we can co-create and listen to others without disappearing into our own abstractions. 

Perhaps LSD can offer us more than just the peak experience of creation within an altered state of consciousness – we can see where integration takes place to provide an afterglow and a lingering sensitivity to the different aspects of music which continue to maintain our enthusiasm for it. This sensitivity can allow us to become more engaged with the world as a whole, allowing us to be more focused and switched on when we might otherwise feel overwhelmed in a world that seems totally saturated by sound. 

Oli is one of our community bloggers here at Chemical Collective. If you’re interested in joining our blogging team and getting paid to write about subjects you’re passionate about, please reach out to Sam via email at [email protected]