Promoting social connectedness at music festivals
Issue 169: How psychedelics facilitate positive emotions and prosociality at music festivals
The use of psychedelic drugs has a long tradition at music festivals, perhaps for key psychological reasons, given their effects on the mind and body. One of the most iconic music festivals in the U.S. originated during the psychedelic sixties—Woodstock, where over 450,000 people came to see artists such as The Grateful Dead, Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix. One of the bands, Santana is known to have been acid tripping during their live performance in 1969. Looking at the footage, it sure seems that there is some air of spiritual transcendence in their performance.
As festival season rolls around, multi-day music and arts festivals such as Coachella, Glastonbury, and Electric Daisy Carnival have become bucket list events for younger generations. At the moment, my Instagram feed is filled with updates from attendees of Head In the Clouds, an annual music festival hosted by 88 Rising, an Asian-American focused record/management label.
Drug consumption continues to be common among music festival attendees. In a 2020 study of over 1,200 music festival attendees at 6 different events in the U.S. and UK, about 80% of respondents reported they drank alcohol at the festival. Half reported using cannabis, hemp oil, or marijuana. About one-fourth said they used LSD or psilocybin while about one-fourth used euphorics and one-fifth used stimulants.
However, not all drugs had the same effects on the mind and spirit. The researchers found that people who recently used psychedelic substances reported feeling more positive emotions compared to those who did not, or had used them less recently.
But why did they feel better? Two important mediators emerged:
Transformative experiences: After using psychedelics, many people report having deep, meaningful experiences that changed how they think or feel about life. They reported this as “an experience that changes you so profoundly that you come out of the experience radically different than you were before the experience.”
Social connectedness: Feeling more connected to others, like they were part of something bigger or closer to friends, family, or humanity. Attendees were asked to circle which image below best describes their current relationship with other human beings in general:
Also, the positive effects were strongest for people who had used psychedelics very recently (within the last 24 hours) compared to those who had used them in the last week. This suggests that positive emotions and sense of connection might be most intense right after the experience.
Will I still have a good time sober?
Given how divided the world feels today, attending a music festival paired with psychedelics sounds like a pretty good escape from reality. However, there are other positive aspects of attending music festivals that can lead to happiness, transformative experiences, and a sense of community unrelated to drug use.
For one, shared superordinate goals tend to help people, even strangers come together for a greater good. The severe rainfall of Burning Man 2023 left thousands of people stranded in its muddy waters, unable to leave Black Rock Desert, Nevada. This disaster led to widespread mockery and schadenfreude on social media and in the press.
But the catastrophe had an entirely different impact on Burners who experienced it together. The event emphasizes self-sufficiency, so most people camp and bring in their own food, water and other supplies. But once conditions worsened, people shared resources and information to help others adapt to the new conditions, creating an even tighter-knit sense of community.
I attended my first music festival last year. It was a great experience! I attended Whale Rock, a music and arts festival comprised of funk, folk, bluegrass, and alt-country and indie singer-songwriters. None of my friends really listen to or connect with these genres, so it was meaningful for me to be with people who appreciate those types of music for a weekend. And for the many who attend Head in the Clouds, it’s an important opportunity for Asian American youth to celebrate Asian cultures and rally around their interest for music created by people who share their unique identities and experiences.
As the world feels more polarized and disconnected, music festivals and concerts definitely remain as spaces where collective joy and unity with strangers feels possible. One of my favorite moments of Whale Rock that personally made me feel more oneness with the crowd was during Theo Katzman’s set. He and his band performed his song, Corn Does Grow, a folk-rock anthem about coexistence, humility, and a need for technology to respect nature. Lots of people were singing along, shouting the lyrics in a cathartic way.
The storytelling in the song illustrates a symbolic community space: a corn ranch where people gather for joy, put their egos aside and disagree peacefully. I highly recommend listening to the song and having a ponder about the lyrics.
And, if you have a chance this summer, check out a festival near you. It’s a rare chance for a transcendent social experience.
News and Updates
Jay was a guest on the Plain English podcast with Derek Thompson this week where he debriefed his team’s consensus survey research about smartphones, social media, and it’s effects on mental health and behavior.
In a survey shared last month, Jay and his team took dozens of claims about smartphones, sent them to hundreds of experts in the field, and asked them whether these claims were probably true, probably false, or unknown—and why. The result was a massive survey, one of the largest of its kind in the history of psychology and it made many researchers angry.
Listen to the full story here.
Catch up on the last one…
Last week, Rosalind Chow shared a preview of her new book: The Doors You Can Open which reframes networking and career growth in a service-oriented mindset. Read more to learn how to level up in your career and help others while doing it.
Opening Doors and Sponsoring Success: An Interview with Rosalind Chow
Networking can kind of suck. It can feel overwhelming, inauthentic, or especially tricky if you are an early-career introvert. But in a world where connections and referrals are often the key to tangible professional opportunities, most of us can’t escape it.
Great article. Takes me back to my rave days and how every generation, including mine, thought we made up mixing music and psychedelics, just to be reminded it's a very old tradition.