What have you learned from psychedelics?

A friend of mine once told me "It's made me a better person all around."

This, I decided, is a way of saying it changes your self perception in a positive direction, because he was exactly the same as he always was before he started experimenting with psychedelics.

Except on one point: constantly ranting about how they've made him a better person all around. He didn't used to rant all the time. Now he does. When he gets on that kick, he doesn't sound like a better person. He sounds like a stereotypical space ace.

I'm all for the medical studies on microdosing. But that's not the same as taking party-levels. Like speed for example - gives focus to people with ADHD when microdosed, but gives everyone else a screamingly awesome night at the club when taken at party doses (ie: 6 tablets instead of 1 or 2). Small doses of cocaine will indeed increase your ability to focus creatively and increase self-confidence. But the usual doses taken turn you into a self-centered rambling jerk that needs to be the center of everything.

Dose is pretty important.

Not only dosage, but set and setting shape the psychedelic experience. Context creates meaning; so an entheogen taken in a party setting will have predictably trivial, forgettable effects—while the same dose done in a sacred context can result in a deep, unforgettable experience laden with insight.

My experiences with psychedelics in my teens weren't very insightful. Most of the time I felt like I was looking through a pair of those old cyan/red 3D glasses - but with more colors - and had brain damage for half a day.