Psychedelics and meditation can facilitate transformative experiences with acute changes in sensory processing and self-perception, but research about their relation to narrative and affective-attitudinal body image remains limited. We examined body image themes in psychedelic and meditative experience narratives, compared these between experience types, and examined their associations with body attitudes. We qualitatively analyzed retrospective reports of participants' most personally meaningful psychedelic and meditation experiences (psychedelics: N = 90; meditation: N = 48). Using regression models, we examined associations between identified themes, current body appreciation, and perceived changes in body dissatisfaction, body appreciation, and body connection, and whether individuals with eating disorder traits reported distinctive themes or body attitude changes. Body image-related narratives most commonly involved reduced sense of bodily self and heightened sensory sensitivity. Psychedelic reports more frequently described disembodiment, the loss of body as an anchor, while meditation reports more often involved boundary dissolution while maintaining embodied presence. 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) reports described heightened embodiment more often than classical psychedelic reports. Both heightened embodiment and disembodiment narratives were associated with perceived improvements in body dissatisfaction and body connection. Positive affective-attitudinal body image themes were associated with perceived improvements in body connection. Participants with current eating disorder traits, including histories of eating disorders, more frequently reported positive affective-attitudinal body image themes and greater perceived reductions in body dissatisfaction. These findings suggest that psychedelic and meditative body image phenomenology, particularly embodiment-related, can be perceived as meaningful for subjective body attitudes.
Psychedelic Science