Personality, prior drug use, and introspective experience during nitrous oxide intoxication.

Personality traits, particularly openness to internal, reverie-type experiences, strongly predict subjective responses to nitrous oxide, while general traits like introversion and neuroticism do not. In a lab setting, 60 young men inhaled 40% nitrous oxide-oxygen for 20 minutes. Prior illicit drug use only influenced mood, not other effects. The findings suggest specific personality characteristics shape drug experiences more than broad traits or past drug use.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This report compares data on some personality characteristics and prior drug experiences of 60 volunteer young men with their subjective psychological responses while inhaling 40% nitrous oxide-oxygen mixtures for 20 min in a naturalistic laboratory setting. A rather specific trait-openness to "internal," reverie-type experiences-was very significantly related to a wide variety of drug responses, while several more general traits-including introversion and neuroticism-and openness to nonreverie mental experiences were unrelated to drug response. Prior illicit drug use was related only to mood on nitrous oxide, and not to other effects. Implications of the findings in the field of drug abuse are discussed.