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-

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.