While this Daily Mail article is a bit goofy – the sample size is tiny and the claims are pretty intense – a report from the University of California, Riverside found that combining traditional Peruvian music with ayahuasca, a psychedelic brew containing the compound N,N-Dymethyltriptamine (DMT), helped the addiction healing process in nearly 200 people.
The six-hour ayahuasca sessions included traditional Peruvian music called icaros which consists of flute-playing and singing in Spanish and indigenous languages. The report reflected responses from 180 men who participated in an extended ayahuasca therapy program at the Takiwasi Center in Tarapoto, Perú. Owain Graham, a doctoral ethnomusicology student at UCR, collected responses from the participants which showed that the combination of ayahuasca and traditional music had a positive effect on their psycho-emotional well-being.
The results were what you could expect from an ayahuasca session including a reduced need for addictive substances. It’s interesting, if slightly flawed, research.
