Songs of the Self: Autobiographically Salient Music Modulates Emotion, Altered States of Consciousness, and Well-Being
David Rosen, Frederick S. Barrett, Albert Garcia‐romeu, Scott Coleman, Riddhima Chandra
January 13, 2026 DOI: 10.17605/osf.io/hrd2p (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Within-subject experimental listening study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 31 |
| Population | Healthy, psychedelic-naïve adults (58% female) |
| Interventions | Autobiographically salient music Johns Hopkins Center psychedelic music playlist (JHC) |
| Duration | One-hour listening sessions; follow-up one day and one week later |
| Topics | Altered states of consciousness |
| Key findings | Autobiographically salient music evoked less tension and more joy, nostalgia, and flow than a standardized psychedelic-therapy playlist, and autobiographical salience predicted music-evoked emotion after controlling for familiarity and acoustic features. Greater autobiographical salience also predicted lower depression one day later, an effect that returned toward baseline by one week, while playlist condition alone predicted no change in well-being. The authors argue autobiographical salience is a mechanistic ingredient of music-evoked emotion and altered states. |
Abstract
Personally meaningful music can evoke vivid emotions and autobiographical memories, reconnecting listeners with their personal past. Whether the autobiographical salience of music, as distinct from familiarity, modulates its effects on an individual’s state of consciousness has not been systematically tested. We compared autobiographically salient (AS) music with a standardized therapeutic playlist used in psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT): the Johns Hopkins Center psychedelic music playlist (JHC), examining differential effects on emotion, altered states of consciousness, and short-term changes in well-being under non-drug listening conditions. Thirty-one healthy, psychedelic-naïve adults (58% female; data collected in 2024) completed one-hour eyes-closed listening sessions with both AS and JHC playlists, following a PAT session structure (preparation, listening, and follow-up) without drug administration. Comparing the two playlists, AS sessions evoked less tension and greater joy and nostalgia than JHC and produced significantly more flow. At the stimulus level, individual musical stimuli rated across all listening sessions, autobiographical salience predicted music-evoked emotion after controlling for familiarity. In exploratory stimulus-level models, autobiographical salience interacted with trait absorption in predicting psychological insight and with evoked peacefulness in predicting depth of mystical experience. Greater autobiographical salience also predicted lower depression one day later, an effect that returned toward baseline by one week. Playlist condition itself predicted no change in any well-being outcome. Furthermore, these effects on emotion and altered states persisted after controlling for the acoustic features of the music. By isolating personal meaning from familiarity and from acoustic structure, these findings identify autobiographical salience as a mechanistic ingredient of music-evoked emotion and altered states of consciousness encountered during music listening, with potential relevance to the therapeutic use of music within PAT and other music-based interventions.