Ayahuasca-inspired DMT/harmine formulation alters creative thinking dynamics during artistic creation
Universität Zürich, ZORA August 16, 2025 Dila Suay, Helena Dorothea Aicher, Berit Singer et al.
A psychedelic formulation combining DMT and harmine impaired convergent thinking, especially in people with higher baseline reasoning, while harmine alone had no such effect. Divergent thinking showed no overall change, though there were trend-level reductions in fluency and elaboration under the combined formulation. In a real-world painting task, both the combined formulation and harmine alone reduced incubation-related transitions, and the combined formulation uniquely decreased transitions from incubation to illumination, suggesting altered pathways to insight. Subjective experiences like altered meaning perception and increased insightfulness predicted divergent, but not convergent, thinking outcomes. The effects of psychedelics on creativity are not uniform and depend on the cognitive stage and individual differences.