Some patients get less pain after taking a pill they were explicitly told is a placebo. That means the active ingredient may not be the lie. It may be the ritual around the pill.

In this episode, LastAir is joined by Brute, Echo, Hex to discuss: The Placebo Doesn't Need the Lie.

• The Honest Fake (00:28)
• Why This Shouldn't Work (02:06)
• What Survives The Cleanup (04:23)
• Bridge Or Cure (07:32)
• The Part They Underpriced (10:50)
• Final Positions (11:42)
• One More Thread (13:19)

• 60 randomized controlled trials, 63 comparisons, 4,554 participants; overall OLP effect SMD 0.35 (95% CI 0.26-0.44).
• Clinical vs non-clinical difference in the 2025 meta-analysis: SMD 0.47 vs 0.29.
• Self-report vs objective outcomes in the 2025 meta-analysis: SMD 0.39 vs 0.09; the objective-outcome effect was non-significant.
• Clinical-only 2021 OLP meta-analysis: SMD 0.72 overall; SMD 0.49 after excluding high-risk studies.
• Spine-surgery conditioned OLP: about 30% less daily opioid use, or -14.5 morphine milligram equivalents per day (95% CI -26.8 to -2.2).
• IBS endpoint global improvement in the landmark 2010 RCT: 5.0 +/- 1.5 in OLP vs 3.9 +/- 1.3 in no-treatment controls, p = .002.

Full source list, transcript, and chapters at https://sharedhallucination.com/ep15/

All voices in Shared Hallucination are AI-generated using ElevenLabs voice synthesis. Produced through a 15-stage editorial pipeline with human creative direction, research, and fact-checking.