I had plenty of experiences with various hallucinogens in my late teens/early 20s (decades ago). It didn't "open my mind" or change my life in any positive way. It was fun for a while. I got high and saw weird shit. I had a lot of stupid conversations about nonsense. I had a few bad trips that probably scarred me for life. It can be pretty traumatic. I wouldn't do them again, and I'll never recommend anyone do them. In my experience, the people who are the most vocal about supposed positive effects of hallucinogens (LSD in particular) are the same people who can go to a seminar for some cult like EST or Scientology and come out thinking they have all the answers to some nebulous question about the meaning of life. Maybe I'm just not that malleable. It always seems to me that the people who "get the most" out of LSD are the people who were barely hanging on to an identity beforehand.

> plenty of experiences with various hallucinogens in my late teens/early 20s

Stop.

If you're reading this, don't necessarily do psychs when your brain isn't fully developed.

Don't do psychs more than once or twice a business quarter. Once or twice a year, if possible!

Anyone in their late teens or early 20s is going to roll their eyes right out of their head at this advice. That's when people try drugs. They're not gonna listen to your old ass. In fact, if your advice is "you're not ready, wait until you're older", they're far more likely to try them.

The people rolling their eyes are the ones who "gets it from a guy they trust" and have never heard of or seen a test kit, so....not sure I care what they think!

Actually just said maybe wait til your brain's fully developed to do them habitually, and here's a hint at why.

College girlfriend of mine was way into LSD and magic mushrooms. Twenty-plus years on I ran into her, and to describe her as paranoid does not even begin to touch it.

I mentioned something I remembered, and suddenly I was The Man, who was I working for, what was I trying to learn?

Maybe not related at all, and I'm just one person, but just night and day difference. I changed my email address and phone number. Had to.

Sounds like schizophrenia. In my experience, there are a whole lot of schizophrenics who've taken psychedelics. I can't imagine what it's like to be schizophrenic, so I also can't imagine what it's like to be schizophrenic and take drugs, but it does seems to hit them extra-hard. I don't think the drugs cause anything that wasn't going to happen anyway, but it seems like people who might be in the early stages of schizophrenia come out the other side of a trip changed forever. Since schizophrenia tends to initially manifest in the late teens and early 20s, and this is the age most people start experimenting with drugs, it could be completely coincidental, but I still think LSD in particular pushes people over the line if they were headed there already.