The Hidden Architecture of Psychedelic Therapy How Music Shapes Emotion, Imagery, Memory, Surrender, and Ketamine Tolerability A White Paper Based on 41 Studies of Music in Psychedelic-

Abstract

Music is often treated as an atmospheric accessory in psychedelic and ketamine therapy: useful, pleasant, optional, or merely calming. That framing is too weak. Across a curated evidence base of 41 studies, reviews, mechanistic papers, clinical reports, playlist-design papers, ketamine-specific studies, ceremonial-music papers, and counterarguments, music repeatedly appears as an active session-shaping variable. The strongest evidence supports music's role in the acute treatment experience: intensifying and organizing emotion, shaping imagery and memory, supporting surrender, giving structure to fear and difficult material, contributing to meaning-making, and making ketamine treatment more tolerable.

In the evidence

This study is part of the evidence base for a synthesis in the library. Here is how each one recorded it.

• State of the evidence: Ketamine and psychedelic-assisted therapy ↑Supports

  Across 41 studies, music appears as an active session-shaping variable in psychedelic and ketamine therapy, intensifying and organizing emotion, shaping imagery and memory, supporting surrender, and making ketamine treatment more tolerable.

  Synthesized September 21, 2026

Comparable studies

Other narrative reviews on ketamine and psychedelic-assisted therapy, most cited first.