Matt thank you for an honest, even handed, open-minded, effort at objectivity article. I have not taken as many doses as you and none in a deprivation chamber. My personal experience is almost identical.

Here are my 3 points in responding: 1) I agree it’s a good thing places like John Hopkins are investigating psychedelics and it seems they can be very useful although we don’t have much more data than you have summarized, 2) what if, something along the lines of Thomas Campbell (physicist) “My Big Toe” we are part of a larger consciousness but individuated and a chemically induced connection is a transactional somewhat superficial way (an 8 hour carnival ride) to connect instead of living the real ongoing connected objective? 3) big, IF, if we are part of a larger consciousness (reality) and a superficial substitution distracts from actual sustained consciousness evolution then we might be risking becoming a dead end mutation that failed to keep evolving.

I’m responding because I don’t know how often (how many other people) share this sequence. It stands to reason if there is a higher consciousness and we are individualized consciousness (essentially this is a simulation) that it would expect us to do the things to “grow up” and learn better intuitive awareness in everyday life through choice of compassion and consideration of others, meditation, deliberate (work) effort toward healthy, intuitive and connected choices. It’s been awhile (several years) since I tried the experiments very similar to yours and got the same feedback as you did. I have made progress in choices. In the spirit of candid/honest … while in a sense it’s “work” there is an element of fun/curiosity and a pretty strong sense of meaning/satisfaction. No one would do the everyday sober version if it wasn’t worth it. Life is short, we probably should use it wisely.