Researchers study how drugs affected survivors of attack
One Israeli said being high on LSD during the Hamas-led attack Oct. 7 prompted a spiritual revelation that helped him escape the carnage at a desert rave. Another is certain the drug MDMA made him more decisive and gave him the strength to carry his girlfriend as they fled the scene. A third said experiencing the assault during a psychedelic trip has helped him more fully process the trauma.
Some 4,000 revelers gathered on the night of Oct. 6 at a field in southern Israel, mere miles from the Gaza Strip border, for the Tribe of Nova music festival. At dawn, thousands of Hamasled terrorists stormed Israel’s defenses under the cover of a rocket barrage.
About 1,200 people were killed that day, the deadliest in Israeli history according to Israeli authorities, including 360 at the rave alone. Many of the ravers were under the influence of mind-altering substances like LSD, MDMA and ketamine as they witnessed the carnage or fled for their lives.
For a group of Israeli researchers at the University of Haifa, the attack has created a rare opportunity to study the intersection of trauma and psychedelics, a field that has drawn increased interest from scientists in recent years.
The survivors of the Nova festival present a case study that would be impossible to replicate in a lab: a large group of people who endured trauma while under the influence of substances that render the brain more receptive and malleable.
Illegal in most countries, including Israel, these substances are now on the cusp of entering the psychiatric mainstream. Recent research suggests careful doses of drugs like MDMA and psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” might be useful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder.
The festival participants were under the influence during their trauma, not in a controlled clinical setting, but researchers say studying them could help scientists better understand how psychedelics might be used to treat patients after a traumatic event.
The researchers surveyed more than 650 Nova survivors. Roughly 23% said they took hallucinogens like LSD, also known as acid, and about 27% used MDMA, a stimulant and psychedelic commonly called molly or ecstasy. Many attendees used more than one substance.
Participants in the survey described a variety of experiences while using drugs Oct. 7, ranging from hallucinations to extreme clarity, from panic to resolve and from paralysis to action.
“Even though people were dropping on the ground screaming next to me, I felt a growing sense of confidence that I was invincible,” said Yarin Reichenthal, 26, a judo coach who experienced the attack while on LSD. “I felt enlightened. I felt no fear at all.”
In many instances, according to preliminary results of the researchers’ survey, even festivalgoers using the same drugs experienced the attack in different ways — variances that might have meant the difference between life and death.
The scientists cautioned the study was not a comprehensive review of how every participant at the rave fared because so many were killed.
“We only hear the stories of those who made it out alive,” said Roy Salomon, a cognitive science professor at the University of Haifa and a co-author of the study. “So our understanding is influenced by survivors’ bias.”
Witnesses said for many attendees, drug use appeared to hamper their ability to flee for safety. Some ravers were too zoned out on psychedelics to realize what was happening and escape. The researchers said those experiences were also important to their findings.
“There are two main questions,” said Roee Admon, a University of Haifa psychology professor and a co-author of the study. “How is the traumatic event experienced under different psychedelics, and what might the long-term clinical impact be?”
Admon and Salomon, who are leading the survey, are studying the survivors in the hopes of gleaning information about how drug use affected their experience of trauma. They are also studying how the attendees appear to be recovering and coping.
Of those who made it out alive, some survivors appeared to be recovering well and others reported feeling numb and detached. Some said they had increased their drug use since the attack to cope.
“We were all in such a heightened emotional state, which made us all the more vulnerable when the attack began,” said Tal Avneri, 18, who said he stayed relatively lucid Oct. 7 after taking MDMA. “And when you’re hurt at your most fragile, you can later become numb.”
The University of Haifa researchers plan to follow the survivors for years, tracking their neural activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Compared with survivors who used other substances, attendees who used MDMA are recovering better and showing less severe symptoms of PTSD, according to the study’s preliminary conclusions.