Intention-Setting Among Recreational Psychedelic Users: Associated Acute Effects and Changes in Well-Being

Psychedelics are known to produce profound changes in perception, cognition, and emotion, and clinical trials have shown benefits for conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, and substance dependence. The paper notes that recreational users also report benefits in naturalistic settings, but there has been limited clarity about how intention-setting shapes acute experiences and longer-term outcomes. Earlier studies suggest that mystical experiences, emotional breakthroughs, and challenging experiences can each be linked to later well-being, yet few studies have documented the range of intentions users set or how different intention types relate to those outcomes. Low and colleagues aimed to characterise the intentions recreational psychedelic users set, build a taxonomy of those intentions, and examine whether specific intention domains were associated with acute subjective effects and changes in well-being. They also sought to test whether intentions that were specific, relevant, flexible, and integrated after the experience were linked to better outcomes. The study was framed as a retrospective, mixed-methods, cross-sectional investigation designed to provide more systematic evidence on intention-setting in naturalistic psychedelic use.

The researchers used a retrospective, mixed-methods, cross-sectional design. Participants were recruited through Prolific, an online crowdsourcing platform, and had to be adults aged 18 years or older and fluent in English. People who reported only microdosing were excluded because such use was considered unlikely to involve substantial subjective effects. The final sample consisted of 562 participants. Most had prior psychedelic experience, and the event they described was usually planned, often took place in a group, and was generally in a safe and comfortable environment. Participants completed measures based on their single most meaningful psychedelic experience. They first described the intention they had set and then rated how well it matched 15 intention domains, including personal growth, spiritual experience, mental health, physical health, curiosity, surrender, recreation, and social connection. They also answered open-ended questions about how setting the intention affected the experience, and they rated the intention’s specificity, relevance, flexibility, and whether it was revisited or carried into daily life, the latter used as a measure of integration. To assess changes in well-being, participants retrospectively rated pre- and post-experience well-being using the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale and the emotional stability subscale of the Ten-Item Personality Inventory. They also retrospectively rated dysfunctional attitudes using the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale-Short Form. Acute psychedelic effects were measured with abbreviated versions of the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire and Challenging Experiences Questionnaire, plus the Emotional Breakthrough Inventory. Internal consistency for these measures was reported as acceptable. The authors analysed the data using correlations, exploratory factor analysis of the 15 intention domains, and multiple regression models that adjusted for age, sex, time since the experience, lifetime psychedelic use, and frequency of use. Open-ended responses were coded using a grounded theory approach, with multiple coders and agreement checks.

Missing data were low, remaining below 1%, and the authors excluded a small number of outliers before analysis. After coding the open responses, they identified nine reliably coded intention themes and seven impact themes. The most common intentions were self-discovery and personal growth (25.0%) and healing and mental health (23.2%). Other recurring intentions included recreation and fun, escape and avoidance, interpersonal relationships, spiritual exploration and connectedness to nature, perceptual changes and altered states, life goals and decision-making, and curiosity and surrender. Most participants said they achieved their intention (86.5%), and most rated intention-setting as positive (69.6%). The main perceived benefits were that intention-setting gave direction and cognitive focus (30.3%) and provided positive emotional anchoring (28.2%). Participants also reported that intentions facilitated emotional breakthroughs (15.0%), heightened absorption (13.4%), overcoming challenges (13.4%), post-trip benefits such as easier integration or comedown support (9.7%), and, in a similar proportion, challenging experiences (9.7%). Exploratory factor analysis grouped the 15 intention domains into four broader factors: mental health, self-expansion, physical health and habits, and recreation. These factor scores related differently to acute effects. Mystical experiences were positively correlated with all four factors, though some associations were small. Emotional breakthroughs and challenging experiences were positively associated with mental health, self-expansion, and physical health/habits intentions, while recreational intentions were unrelated to emotional breakthroughs and challenging experiences. For perceived changes in well-being, 75.3% reported improvement, 16% reported no change, and 8.7% reported a decrease. More than half (56.4%) reported reduced dysfunctional attitudes, while 31.1% reported no change and 12.5% reported increases. Improvements in well-being and reductions in dysfunctional attitudes were positively correlated with mental health, self-expansion, and physical health/habits intentions. Recreational intentions were weakly but negatively associated with change in well-being and showed no association with dysfunctional attitudes. In the regression model examining effective intention-setting, the overall model was significant and explained 16% of the variance in change in well-being. Relevant intentions and integrated intentions were both positively associated with improvement in well-being. Flexible intentions were also associated with change in well-being, but in the opposite direction from what the authors expected, meaning more flexible intentions corresponded to smaller improvements. Specificity was not significant once the other variables were included. None of the control variables were significant.

The authors interpret the findings as showing that intention-setting is a meaningful part of recreational psychedelic use, with distinct intention domains linked to different acute experiences and perceived longer-term outcomes. They emphasise that the most common intentions were self-discovery/personal growth and healing/mental health, and that most participants said intention-setting helped by focusing attention and providing emotional anchoring. They suggest that intentions may function as cognitive guideposts that shape how people navigate psychedelic experiences and later integrate them. Low and colleagues position their results as broadly consistent with earlier research showing that self-insight, healing, and growth-oriented motives are associated with beneficial psychedelic experiences. They note that mental health and self-expansion intentions showed the strongest links with mystical experiences, emotional breakthroughs, and improvements in well-being, whereas recreational intentions were weakly or negatively related to benefits. They also point out that some challenging experiences were associated with mental health and physical health intentions, which they suggest may reflect intense emotional processing that can be difficult in the moment but still meaningful afterwards. The authors highlight that approximately one in 10 participants reported worse well-being or increased dysfunctional attitudes after the experience, underscoring that benefits are not universal. They say such negative outcomes may reflect set and setting factors such as dose, environment, or support, and they argue that research and clinical practice should attend to risks as well as benefits. They also interpret the intention-quality findings as suggesting that intentions that are specific, personally relevant, and integrated after the experience are more likely to be associated with positive outcomes, while the flexibility finding was unexpected and should be replicated before drawing firm conclusions. The main limitations they acknowledge are the use of a sample containing many regular users, which may have produced ceiling effects in baseline well-being; the restriction to people who had set intentions, which prevents comparison with non-intention-setting users; and the retrospective nature of the measures, which introduces recall bias and possible social desirability effects. They also note that future studies should ideally use longitudinal designs, random assignment to intention-setting, and better control of dose, setting, use history, and psychedelic type. They suggest that more rigorous work could strengthen the evidence base for how intention-setting might inform psychedelic-assisted treatment.

The authors conclude that understanding how intentions shape acute psychedelic effects and outcomes could improve psychedelic-assisted treatment practice. They state that their study provides a qualitative taxonomy of intentions among recreational users and suggests that mental health and self-expansion intentions, especially when they are specific, personally relevant, and integrated after the experience, may be most beneficial. They present these findings as preliminary guidance for facilitators and researchers seeking to optimise psychedelic-assisted interventions.