[voisin]

> Especially when "bad" people take them they just become even more of an asshole

Is this true? I have not partaken, but everything I have read is that people see the interconnection and interrelatedness of all things, which would seem to cause a “bad person” to become less of an asshole. Am I wrong on this?

[wholinator2]

Personally, I have never seen a person become a worse person after a psychedelic trip, and I've been around this a lot. I have seen many selfish and hateful people seeing outside their perceptions for the first time and finally realizing that they are a human just like everyone else, not some perfect saint free of flaws, or whatever else they had concocted in their head through the lens societal norms.

There are people, particularly among the younger, that take the drugs to "get f'd up". And I've seen those people have great times and come back more grounded and with more respect for reality, and I've seen those people have horrific experiences, in which their ego's are stripped and they are forced to see the impact their behavior has on the whole. Those experiences usually affect for much longer and are more immediately negative. But from what I've seen of those, the people who change most for the better are the ones that have the most to change, and the one's that have the most to change usually have the more intense/difficult realizations. There are such things as bad trips and there are people that come out worse, I won't deny that. But what I've seen is that the difficult experiences end up being the most valuable. It usually hurts to realise your whole life has been meaningless chasing of someone else's dream, or that you've been an asshole to everyone and making the world a worse place. But you can't intentionally change what you don't know exists.

[travisjungroth]

It can go both ways. Some people watch their memories and realize they’re not the hero of the story, not even the villain, but just a jerk. And some people come back even more full of themselves. They’re so proud of this amazing thing they did and how amazing it makes them.