I know of one guy, a brilliant man, who after a period of a month taking shrooms practically every day had a personality shift that is easiest described as "like Rick" from "Rick & Morty" - he became convinced he was the smartest man in the universe, dangerously smart and people would kill him if they knew how incredibly smart he was. That attitude stayed with him, and destroyed him; about a decade later he died due to alcohol poisoning as a result of his overwhelming rejection by others from his elevated behavior insisting his superiority over others. Clearly, he had original issues the shrooms simply magnified out of his control.

I’m not going to bash on psychedelics, but there does seem to be a lot of selection bias around the positive benefits of them. Like your example they can, for some people, trigger an extreme expression of latent psychological problems.

Of course the response is always to use them with guidance. Unfortunately here your options are often limited to pseudo-religious practitioners who will inadvertently prime you to have the same cliche experience most people in those circles have.

It’s for these two reasons I have avoided psychedelics completely. If I could have a guided experience from an agnostic and trained professional I would consider trying them. I’m definitely hoping the goals MAPS has come to fruition over the next few decades.

> If I could have a guided experience from an agnostic and trained professional I would consider trying them

That would be the dream.

I personally got curious about it and talked it over with a good friend and we read a lot about LSD. After studying it a lot from the most credible possible sources and reading arguments for both sides, we decided to try it responsibly; a medium-high dose of 150ug, each on a bright lazy Saturday with the other one sober through the whole trip.

It was very fun and mind-opening and I think it's an experience pretty much everyone should have at least once in their lives. We have done it recreationally a few more times since then (and alone with lower doses and together with both tripping on lower doses) and it has been nothing but positive things; it's exhilarating to discover the world in new ways.

I think it would be fantastic if we could have professional guiders and spaces specifically designed for responsibly tripping. Not only is it fun, but I believe it would lead to a healthier culture as it's not unusual in my experience to see a lot of things wrong with our society and personal behavior when looking at them from a different perspective.

I think it's really a shame that it's not possible due to the substance being illegal (wrongly, IMHO).

Sounds like a mental illness.

Same here - I don't know anyone who became a worse person after psychedelics - and I know a LOT of people. It seems like the other responses you're getting are the exception and not the rule.

I always expect the exceptions to come out on HN because the denizens here are always quite contentious about whatever subject comes up.

I had some friends in college who took LSD periodically and they were still not great people and many of them still had anxiety so it's definitely not a silver bullet for personal problems. They also trashed an apartment and got arrested while on it once so that might've colored my views on it.