David Rosen is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research (CPCR) at Johns Hopkins University, where he is leading a multi-study investigation of psychedelics and the role of music in set and setting (PRoMiSS).
Prior to joining the CPCR, David was the CEO and founder of Secret Chord Laboratories, a music-tech startup company born out of his research on the neuroscience of music preference. He earned his PhD in Psychology at Drexel University, where his cognitive neuroscience research examined creativity and flow states during jazz improvisation, specifically the distinction between novice and expert-level improvisers’ brain activity. He has also investigated a wide range of topics, including creative cognition, psychedelics, STEAM education, and music information retrieval. His research has utilized electrophysiological (EEG), transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), and behavioral methods.
David’s work at the CPCR empirically tests how different types of music impact behavior (acute and enduring effects), brain, and body function when combined with psilocybin. He has also contributed, presented, and published on a variety of projects related to psychedelics: well-being and naturalistic use, substance use disorder, behavioral addictions, ethics, the reopening of critical periods, flow-states, pain perception, and cognition.
David is passionate about flow-inducing altered states of consciousness, particularly those that include feelings of self-loss and ego-dissolution. (music/improv, yoga, meditation, psychedelics, etc.). He began playing the piano at age 8, electric bass at 15, and has been composing, improvising, and performing with bands for the past 20 years.  

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Psychedelics and Psychological Strengths

Classical psychedelics appear efficacious in improving psychological well-being in randomized clinical trials, but their effects in the population at large are relatively unknown.
This investigation includes three studies conducted by online survey with a collective 3,157 participants, classical psychedelic users showed greater psychological strengths and well-being, and lower levels of distress, after controlling for demographic variables, respondents’ beliefs about the potential benefits of psychedelics, and their use of other psychoactive drugs. These benefits were contrasted with patterns for cannabis and alcohol users, both of whom showed comparatively maladaptive profiles.
Reported relationships between psychedelic use and the combined index of psychological strengths was fully mediated by self-transcendence. We show an effect of motivation for psychedelic use, where those who reported a ‘growth’ motivation showed the most robustly adaptive psychological profile. Psychedelic users reported more lifetime meditation experience, and within psychedelic users, greater frequency of use correlated with greater hours of lifetime seated meditation practice. Meditation experience did not account for the differences in strengths, well-being, and distress.
In these studies, psychedelic users showed an adaptive psychological pattern on a wider array of strengths than previously studied, which were not attributable to several salient covariates. While causality cannot be inferred from this study, findings align with and advance past research which provides evidence for the potential benefits associated with psychedelics.