--- title: What MDMA Taught Me About Human Connection description: A month or so into COVID lockdown, I had an idea. Why not take a little staycation? Why not take some MDMA, asks Rachel Nuwer. canonical: https://time.com/6284787/mdma-human-connection-essay/ author: Rachel Nuwer article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-06-06T11:00:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:10.479Z article:section: Ideas og:title: What MDMA Taught Me About Human Connection og:description: A month or so into COVID lockdown, I had an idea. Why not take a little staycation? Why not take some MDMA? og:url: https://time.com/6284787/mdma-human-connection-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32e272315aa86e72/698a3d8b47ca38d0a83bad3e/mdma-human-connection.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: mdma-human-connection og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What MDMA Taught Me About Human Connection twitter:description: A month or so into COVID lockdown, I had an idea. Why not take a little staycation? Why not take some MDMA? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32e272315aa86e72/698a3d8b47ca38d0a83bad3e/mdma-human-connection.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # What MDMA Taught Me About Human Connection > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: How to Get Better at Small Talk [Watch (HLS stream): How to Get Better at Small Talk](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0D7dwuRQ.m3u8) (5:29)  _Published 2023-05-31. Small talk can make us happier and healthier—but some people dread the awkward silences. Experts dispense tips on how to get better at it._ Jun 6, 2023 11:00 AM UTC  Illustration of hands of different people Illustration of hands of different people Getty Images by [Rachel Nuwer](https://time.com/author/rachel-nuwer/) ## Rachel Nuwer Jun 6, 2023 11:00 AM UTC When I force myself to think back on the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, a few key memories come to mind: Me, endlessly checking the news for the latest frightening updates. The eerily quiet streets of Brooklyn, save for the sirens of speeding ambulances. Nights spent toggling between insomnia and vivid nightmares. At the core of it, though, I felt profoundly disconnected from the community around me—and to some extent myself. Knowing that so many other people were going through the same thing as me was of little comfort because they felt completely unreachable. Sure, I could hang out with friends on Zoom, but those stilted, pixelated interactions somehow left me feeling even lonelier. We were all prisoners of our own isolation, numb from a lack of genuine human contact and cracking under the weight of worry. Then, a month or so into lockdown, I had an idea. Why not take a little vacation—a vacation of the sort that wouldn’t require actually leaving the house. Why not, I thought, take some MDMA? Also known as Molly or Ecstasy, MDMA exploded into American public consciousness in the 1990s when it became the fuel that powered all night raves. National hysteria broke out about MDMA’s impact on users’ health, including erroneous claims that the drug made [holes in people’s brains](https://fherehab.com/news/5-drug-myths-you-probably-thought-were-true/) and that it could cause[ Parkinson’s disease](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC194116/). --- ### More from TIME --- The conversation is much different today. Although MDMA is still a strictly banned Schedule I substance, it also shows promising use as [a therapeutic aid](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01336-3) in treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder. Some evidence also suggests that MDMA, when paired with therapy, can be used to address a host of other mental maladies such as [alcohol addiction](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33601929/), [eating disorders](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35272210/), and [depression](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9645093/). When you talk to people who have been through MDMA-assisted therapy as part of a clinical trial, or who have sought out the treatment underground, a common theme emerges: connection. Many people say that under the influence of MDMA they feel [intensely connected](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/29/health/mdma-therapy-ptsd.html) to themselves and to others—sometimes for the first time in their lives. **_Read More:_**[_Psychedelics Could Revolutionize Couples Therapy_](https://time.com/6262291/psychedelics-mdma-couples-therapy/) I must have somehow intuited this special characteristic of MDMA in the darkness of lockdown. 45 minutes after swallowing my capsule at sunset one Friday evening, and joined by my husband, Paul, and our pandemic pod friend, Ty, I felt a strange sensation: a smile. For what seemed like the first time since the pandemic started, I was genuinely smiling. The ever-present tightness in my chest dissipated as the weight of anxiety lifted, and I began to sway to the infectious disco beats playing through our speakers. Paul, Ty, and I spent the next several hours dancing like maniacs on the living room carpet, hugging and laughing and belting out lyrics. Near the peak of the experience I had a simple but profound realization: I was not alone at all—none of us were. I began to feel an almost painful sense of compassion and empathy for those whose lives had been lost due COVID-19, and for their loved ones left behind. “We are all in this together,” I wanted to tell them, “And together, we will get through this.” Scientists such as evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare at Duke University and cognitive neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman at UCLA point to our [ability to connect with each other](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/social-brain-hypothesis) as foundational to all we’ve accomplished as a species—an evolutionarily ordained imperative that is key to our overall survival and success. The social skills that originally allowed us to cooperate and thus to survive and proliferate came with a catch, though: the existence of loneliness, and the depression and anxiety that too much time spent with feelings of isolation can lead to. Just as physical pain evolved to alert us to bodily danger, the mental anguish of loneliness alerts us to the danger of isolation. Our individual happiness and mental health depend on feeling connected to others. As I experienced firsthand that one, fateful evening, MDMA seems to tap into a primal need. Yet even before the pandemic, [those connections were fraying](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5598785/). Political scientist Robert Putnam argued more than two decades ago that social disconnection was becoming a defining feature of [contemporary American life](http://bowlingalone.com/). Researchers now point to a number of factors that are at play. People are increasingly [living alone](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4985072/), for example, and [social media](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749379717300168) is supplanting genuine connection (especially amongst young people) with friends, family, and neighbors. [Concrete](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212962615000371) is replacing nature, alienating us from the benefits of being in touch with the natural world, and inequality—which is associated with a [higher prevalence of loneliness](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274518)—is also growing. [Materialism](https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/40/4/615/2907485) is on the rise as well, and also contributes. Companies exploit people’s desire for connection by portraying their brands as a means to an end for defining personal identification and values—promises that inevitably fall short and only lead to more self-interested [consumption and unhappiness](https://www.routledge.com/Rising-Consumer-Materialism-A-Threat-to-Sustainable-Happiness/Khalid-Qadeer/p/book/9781032096124). There is no single solution to the disconnection that we’ve inadvertently engineered into modern life, but for some people, part of the answer has been MDMA—specifically, by using the drug as an assist for learning and practicing _how_ to be social, and then applying those lessons to sober life. In a [2018 study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6208958/), for example, a team of researchers led by clinical psychologist Alicia Danforth, then at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, gave 12 autistic adults suffering from social anxiety either MDMA or a placebo and then administered talk therapy aimed at reducing their symptoms. Those participants who received MDMA made significantly greater gains in reducing their social anxiety symptoms, and those gains lasted at least six months. Some participants even credited the study with changing their life. One person joined a soccer club and completed their college degree; another moved out of their parent’s house and got married. In addition to helping people break free of the shyness, anxiety, and self-doubt, MDMA also seems to promote feelings of goodwill on a larger group scale. In a [2021 study](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.719596/full) led by cognitive anthropologist Martha Newson at the University of Kent, researchers found that of 481 people who had attended a rave in Britain, those who took MDMA were more likely to report a feeling of connection with fellow humans on the dance floor. Such feelings could contribute to healthier social lives. In a [2023 study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36774449/) led by clinical psychologist Grant Jones at Harvard University, researchers analyzed data from more than 214,500 Americans and found that those who have taken MDMA at least once, compared to those who have not, were less likely to struggle in interactions with strangers; to experience difficulty in social situations; or to be prevented from being social due to a mental health issue. While these associations do not prove direct causality, they do suggest that perhaps some people are reaping social rewards thanks to some lesson they’ve learned while on MDMA. As more data from scientific studies and real world anecdotes come in, evidence is beginning to emerge that MDMA’s greatest asset, then, may be its ability to grease the rusted wheels of connectivity that are slowing so many of us down, and that may even be hurting us as a species. Of course, the drug alone will not save us from the many woes of living in a world afflicted by social injustices, climate change, war, nationalism, and more. But if it can change some lives for the better, and if that occurs on a broad enough scale, then MDMA could make some real positive difference. This was certainly the case for me. That night during the pandemic marked a turning point for my mental health. Even after the drug cleared my system, I was left with renewed hope for the future and a sense of connection with everyone going through the shared experience of existing on this earth in this moment. Three years later, I am still able to tap into those feelings when I need them most ## Transcript How was your day? How was work? How was your weekend? What's going on? How you doing, well? What a beautiful day. Oh, oh. I believe that. Anybody can learn small-time, I did, you have to love it all the time. No, I don't love it, but I do it because it benefits my life. The biggest reason people don't like small talk and don't do small talk. Well is because we have no control. We don't have control. We don't know if we're going to hit it off with people and we don't have control. We hate that. So we just don't do it. Nerf. Barriers in people, Small Talk habits, the first is that it's just too boring. We have lots of concerns about privacy so that we were worried about asking more interesting, questions of other people or disclosing things about ourselves that would make the conversation better. But we're worried that it's going to be too intrusive or too sensitive, or it's going to be too risky. Best way to do that is to play the conversation game. From the beginning to the end. Number one, be prepared. Introduce yourself. Try to remember their name. It's very important. Small talk. I've never walk into a party, a wedding, a networking event, a job interview, without two to three things to talk about, I call it free information, hear some free information. I have anybody, I talked to you today, what are you looking forward to about summer? Like what's your number, one thing that you enjoyed the most about summer to start just acknowledge that? It's a And think of it as a treasure hunt. The next level up is just medium talk, it's more Taylor and it's more personalized. It might be about you or about the other person in terms of self-disclosure or it might just be like oh we live where you have really interesting expertise, or you seemed really excited to talk about this. Let's dive into it because we found this treasure. Best way to get to know, somebody ask them, what keeps you busy. So if I see what keeps you busy outside of volunteering for the food bank, you might say, well I've got, you know, two little kids and that keeps me running around. So, now, I found out something to talk with you about, but you've disclosed that willingly and it's what I call in my book, digging in deeper The other thing that I'm not doing which I would suggest everyone that they avoid extroverts do this as well as introverts and Amber. Verse people say, how are you? How's your project? How's your day? How's it going? What's new? And they don't mean it. So that's why we become so restricted in our convert, we're not, we're not sure people really mean it. So dig in deeper with one more question to let people know, you mean it? Ending is the final topics which you're both deciding. Oh, this is the next topic is going to be silenced and we're going to walk away from each other and coordinating. That choice is very difficult. Is back like almost no conversations end when either person wants them to and in general a good, A good rule is that like ending it sooner rather than later? Is probably a good thing to do what you been in business. It's very cute issue. An invitation, here's the invitation. It was very interesting learning about your company, I'd like to reconnect, maybe in a couple months and see how it's changed. Would that be okay with you? The person's eyes are going to say. It's not going to work or yeah. That'd be delightful. And then you ask for their texts, or sell or you ask for any mail. So, if you would like to create friendship in your life or business, you need to issue an invitation. The best way to leave people that I know of that works wonders is to use the white flag. It's what in the case, in racing car race. It indicates the drivers have one more lap and then this is over. We're going to do that in conversation. So here we go show appreciation. If you can gosh your six-year-old sounds quite accomplished and then here's the White Flag. I'm going to need to take off in a minute. I see two people. I want to catch up with puppy before I leave. Tell me. What do you think? The number one ingredient is to being a successful parent. You can get out of this with dignity. You can't give people the White Flag, let them know this is almost over because when people go like this, I got to go. And then they go talk to someone else, it does hurt feelings. So with Grace, And if they're really comforting thing about conversation is that every relationship is a repeated sequence of conversation. So it doesn't mean it's the end, right? You'll even like two minutes later, you could text them and be like, hey, I forgot to mention blah. Or thank you so much for asking me about this time. I really enjoyed you can follow up, so that is the key to being your conversations. It's not to change your personality or be the most vivacious person in the room or be so charismatic, you know, we're not all born that way and we shouldn't change your personality. What we should change is if you want to succeed at this invest time and invest energy and you will succeed. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6284787/mdma-human-connection-essay/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6284787/mdma-human-connection-essay/"},"headline":"What MDMA Taught Me About Human Connection","datePublished":"2023-06-06T11:00:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:51:10.479Z","description":"A month or so into COVID lockdown, I had an idea. Why not take a little staycation? 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