Why do therapists use eyeshades in psychedelic therapy?

Eyeshades block the outside view so attention turns inward. They are part of the inner-directed approach, where the aim is to let a person focus on their own inner experience rather than the room. In this study, eyeshades stayed on for every session, and only the music was changed.

Does the type of music matter during a psychedelic session?

In this small randomized study, swapping between two music styles did not produce a clear, reliable difference in the session or in the smoking result. Scores leaned toward the overtone-based playlist and six of ten people chose it for a later session, so the style may nudge the experience, but the evidence is thin.

Is the eyeshades and headphones setup proven to work better?

Not on its own. This study tested one part of the setup, the music, inside a fixed eyeshades and headphones frame. It did not compare the setup against having none, and with only ten people it could not settle the question. The practice is standard, but the direct proof is limited.

Immersion

Do eyeshades and headphones change a psychedelic session?

Short answer

Eyeshades and headphones are standard in psychedelic therapy. Eyeshades turn your gaze inward, and headphones carry a guiding music program. Direct evidence that the setup itself changes a session is thin. In one small randomized study, even swapping the music genre inside that setup produced no clear, reliable difference.

The research

Strickland, J. C., Garcia-Romeu, A., & Johnson, M. W. (2021). Set and Setting: A Randomized Study of Different Musical Genres in Supporting Psychedelic Therapy. ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science, volume 4, issue 2, pages 472 to 478.

Sample Ten adults in a psilocybin study for smoking cessation, each doing sessions with different music. This page describes the study's design and direction, not exact effect sizes, because the source could not be opened directly to confirm those numbers this run.

Published 2021

Journal ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science

Justin Strickland, Albert Garcia-Romeu, and Matthew Johnson at Johns Hopkins ran a small randomized study inside the classic setup of psychedelic therapy. In that setup, a person lies down, puts on eyeshades to block the room, and listens to a curated playlist through headphones, so their attention turns inward. The team kept that frame the same for everyone and changed one thing: the music. Ten adults taking part in a psilocybin study for smoking took part in sessions with two different music styles, a Western classical playlist and an overtone-based playlist built from sustained tones and world instruments. The order was counterbalanced, meaning some people heard one style first and some the other, so the order itself would not skew the result. For a later session, each person picked the playlist they preferred, and six of the ten chose the overtone-based one. Scores for a mystical-type experience tended to run a little higher during the overtone-based sessions, and the smoking result leaned the same way. But the differences between the two music styles were not statistically reliable, meaning they were small enough that chance could explain them. So the study is best read as a careful first look, not a verdict. It tells us people had a preference and there was a gentle lean, inside a setup that was held constant the whole time.

Read the paper

What does this mean for you?

Start with what the setup is for. Eyeshades and headphones are not decoration. They are a technique, often called the inner-directed approach. Blocking the outside view and filling your ears with music is meant to keep your attention turned in, on what is rising up inside you, rather than on the room or the people in it. That is the whole idea behind the practice.

So does the setup change the session? The honest answer is that it is standard for a reason, but the hard proof is thin. This study did not compare eyeshades and headphones against no eyeshades and no headphones. It kept that frame fixed and tested one piece of it, the style of music coming through the headphones. Even that change did not produce a clear, reliable difference. There was a gentle lean toward the overtone-based playlist, and most people preferred it, but the numbers were too small and too close to call.

That matters for how you hold this. It is easy to assume that every detail of a session, the eyeshades, the exact playlist, the lighting, is finely tuned and proven. This one careful study suggests the picture is softer than that. The setup shapes the container, and personal preference is real, but no single ingredient here stood out as the thing that decides how the hours go.

There are plain limits worth naming. Ten people is a very small group. It was one specific study, run inside a smoking-cessation trial, in a controlled clinical setting. Preferences and gentle leans are not the same as strong effects. Read this as a reminder to stay curious about what helps you settle and turn inward, not as a rulebook for the perfect session.

The takeaway

Treat eyeshades and headphones as a tool for turning attention inward, not as a switch that sets how a session will go.
Notice your own preferences. In this study most people leaned toward one playlist, and what settles you is worth knowing.
Hold the details lightly. The evidence that any one setup choice changes the outcome is still thin, so stay curious rather than rigid.

Terms in this page

Set and setting Grounding

This is the work Asendar™ was built for: helping you shape the conditions around your inner work between sessions, down to the small choices like how you quiet the outside world and what you listen to when you turn inward. If you want a simple read on where your head is today, take your Mental Readiness Score.

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