When Should You Challenge the Insights You Have on Psychedelics?

One of the characteristics of the psychedelic mystical experience is the noetic quality: the feeling of profound insight (this is the focus of Chapter 2 in my book Altered Perspectives). This type of insight is felt to be authoritative, that is, an incontrovertible revelation. However, insights that carry an authoritative truth can occur in non-mystical psychedelic states too. These may be insights of a more personal, and less metaphysical, nature. They could be related to habits, beliefs, and choices regarding lifestyle, work, and relationships – things in one’s life worth changing, discarding, or adding. 

I’ve been thinking lately about how – despite the feeling of authority behind many psychedelic insights – there may be instances in which this so-called ‘authority’ should be challenged. The feeling that one must or should take a psychedelic insight at face value doesn’t mean that doing so is ultimately the best course of action. Sometimes, insights may be expressions or magnifications of personal biases, wishes, or hopes that lead one astray, or they can engender new beliefs that do the same.

Knowing when (and how) to challenge psychedelic insights can be difficult. However, we can sketch out some possible scenarios where an attitude of scepticism and scrutiny can be helpful. At the very least, this attitude can make one hesitant about fully embracing a major belief change or life decision.

First, if one intends to make a major life change based on a psychedelic insight, it’s always wise to pause and consider the change seriously before making it. Some of these changes are often for the best, with common (positive) ones including changing careers, moving away, or ending a toxic relationship. But these sorts of changes, influenced by psychedelics, can also – at times – be rash or unwise.

For instance, by fully trusting the truthiness of every psychedelic insight, one might quit one’s job for the sake of a dream career (without planning for the decision logistically or financially). Moving to a different city or country might also seem like a positive change, but it’s important to be in a prepared mindset when doing so and aware of the real challenges involved. And ending a relationship – with a romantic partner or friend – may be in your best interests, but other times, difficult conversations may be what’s needed to save turn a strained relationship into a healthy one.

Psychedelics can also inspire significant (and positive) lifestyle changes. These can include giving up an addiction or an unhealthy habit and taking up more positive habits, such as regular exercise and healthy eating. These lifestyle changes can be explicit in a psychedelic insight, or they may be the outcome of a more general insight about self-compassion.

However, I’ve wondered whether psychedelic insights of the ‘giving up’ variety are always necessary. I’ve had an ‘all or nothing’ mindset when it came to certain lifestyle changes. For instance, in 2017, I decided drinking was, on the whole, no longer a positive aspect of my life, so I gave it up. This wasn’t (explicitly) a psychedelic-inspired decision, but one decision that was was giving up cannabis, based on the psychedelic insight that I can’t smoke without it turning into a negative habit that worsens my mental health. (I’d given up cannabis before, so this insight wasn’t new, but it felt more concrete and authoritative in a psychedelic state.)

Post-trip, I didn’t smoke for around two years, but then I did try it again last summer. I felt strange about doing so. I felt as if I had disrespected my psychedelic insight, acting against its better judgement. Did I give in to an addictive tendency? Did I set myself on the inevitable path towards an unhealthy relationship with cannabis again? Yet I didn’t develop any cravings. I stick only to a very low-potency mixture (mostly CBD weed, with a small amount of normal weed added: I’d say a 20:1 ratio), I don’t smoke often, and I try to avoid smoking alone. So far (unless I’m in denial), this kind of use hasn’t worsened my mental health, and if anything, it has been beneficial at times.

When I told a friend about this psychedelic insight I had – to give up weed forever, never returning to it – he wondered whether this was just confirming a belief I had already formed before the trip. I instinctively rejected the notion, based on how impactful the insight felt. But now, on reflection, I wonder whether there was some truth to what they said. Perhaps I can’t always put all my trust in a psychedelic insight, even if, at face value, it seems inarguable. Sometimes, giving certain things up is for the best, but other times, there might be ways of more healthily incorporating those things into one’s life.

If a psychedelic insight is a cause of intense or long-lasting distress, this can be another reason to challenge it. Of course, true beliefs may be a cause of distress, so feelings of anxiety, depression, or overwhelm are not – in and of themselves – reasons to determine that a belief is false. At the same time, clinging too tightly and confidently to a psychedelic insight may be driving the distress – the certainty one feels about the belief. Psychedelic insights that may or may not be a source of distress include terrestrial nihilism (human existence is meaningless and pointless); no-self (the self is an illusion); simulation theory (we live in a computer simulation); solipsism (you are the only conscious being that exists); and the existence of evil entities who, in some way, are at the root of many of our problems.

It is valid to question psychedelic insights when they cause distress, as this questioning can be involved in resolving that distress. First, some instances of emotional suffering – related to insights – are tied to false beliefs (e.g. flights of fancy, delusions, and cognitive biases). Second, the truth of the insight may remain uncertain; and so if one did not embrace the insight so tightly, one could soberly explore it and perhaps determine it’s unlikely to be true. Third, even if one still sides with the insight after sober examination, it could be interpreted in a less distressing way (e.g. human existence may be objectively meaningless and pointless, but it can still be subjectively meaningful and purposeful). 

Another type of psychedelic insight that can be distressing is the retrieval of so-called repressed traumatic memories. On the one hand, it is possible for these memories to be corroborated by others, and, even when they haven’t been or can’t be, they may still reflect actual events that occurred. On the other hand, the phenomenon of false memories, which psychedelics can be especially prone to create, should make one hesitant about immediately believing that a vision or image of a ‘memory’ is, in fact, one. This may also apply to accessing purported ‘ancestral memories’: the store of events that occurred to one’s ancestors, contained in one’s DNA. The science behind ‘inherited memories’ – such as trauma – is controversial and has been mischaractrerised by the media. So if insights about ancestral trauma is a cause of distress, it’s worth approaching them with scepticism.

As with distress related to psychedelic insights, grand insights should also be approached with post-trip critical thinking. Grand psychedelic insights – such as the existence of God, spirits, the afterlife, the soul, and love as a fundamental force in the universe – can be sources of well-being. Nevertheless, as in the case of emotional distress, what is most joy-inducing and comforting is not a reliable indicator of truth. Supernatural beings, forces, and dimensions may exist, and there may be good reasons for believing in them, but it’s worth questioning whether it’s reasonable to base belief in them solely on a singular personal experience occasioned by a psychedelic.

Even the most ardent psychonauts who are deep in the spiritual waters would doubt some supernatural claims made by other psychonauts, such as them being the second coming of Christ or possessing special magical abilities. Other extraordinary claims can also be non-supernatural in nature, which most reasonable people would still question, such as the embrace of conspiracy theories like cabal/globalist elite narratives (which are often antisemitic). We have reason to doubt these conspiracies because they lack any evidence for them and they often stem from scapegoating, paranoid thinking, personality differences, and apophenia (seeing patterns where none exist). This is not to dismiss every conspiracy outright, as some of the more plausible ones could turn out to be true, but these factors should make one open to doubting grand insights simply because they felt definitely true while tripping.

Whether a grand insight is metaphysical or worldly in nature, it’s worth challenging to see if there are independent reasons, arguments, pieces of evidence, personal experiences, and experiences that others have had that support or weaken the case for believing that insight. For example, if one has a personal encounter with (what one calls) God on a psychedelic, the arguments for the existence of God may, nonetheless, still not feel convincing. Of course, personal, direct experience does, for many people, hold greater weight than any other argument for God’s existence, but then we again run into the issue of other personal experiences that feel convincing but which most people judge to be delusory. And sober, non-pathological insights and experiences can fail to match reality, too, so we should be wary about claiming that ‘consensus reality’ is the touchstone for what’s real.

In any case, I think the types of sober insights worth challenging are the same types induced by psychedelics that should invite careful consideration. These are insights involving major life changes, distressing thoughts, and overarching theories concerning reality or global affairs.