Scientists rarely acknowledge the importance of the name they give to psychedelics, even though they know how powerfully expectations modify drug effects. All undergraduate psychology students learn this in their introductory psychology courses when they review landmark studies published in the 1960s. These experiments injected volunteers with adrenaline, the “fight-or-flight” hormone, under different sets of expectations. Adrenaline caused a calm and relaxed state in volunteers told they were receiving a sedative. If told that the experimental drug was stimulating, volunteers felt the more
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