I’ve probably tripped around 20 times throughout my life. I did it mostly because I bought into the idea that psychedelics would improve my life and habits in some way. I don’t believe that anymore, and I don’t think psychs really changed my life at all except it gave me lots of cool memories. I kind of feel some level of nostalgia for that reality-bending feeling of being on psychs, even though the last time I took it was only a couple months ago. It’s just so different from everyday experience.
There’s evidence they can reopen critical periods in your brain, which in theory can help with neuroplasticity/learning in a variety of complicated ways, but it would depend on how you use it.
There is some anecdotal evidence to this effect, IE a lot of brilliant programmers of the sixties tripped balls while coding and some of their critical breakthroughs were attributed to psychedelic use. This kind of thing actually makes sense in the framework of them re-opening critical periods. But most trippers aren’t dropping acid and exploring the worlds of advanced math and computer science.
If you just hang out and watch the show, you’re likely deriving some benefits tied to reopening so-called social reward critical periods, which helps you learn to appreciate the value of social ties. When you’re younger/in your early 20’s, I imagine it might be helpful for some people to kick open that critical period again, but the sense of reward might be diminished over time as that learning cements and the value of reopening that critical period again and again diminishes.
At some point, your brain has taken in enough information on its environment to properly calibrate a certain brain function and putting it back into learning mode again and again just isn’t useful.
This is my guess, loosely based on recent research, why a lot of people find psychedelics really meaningful and helpful to their personal growth when they’re in their early 20’s and tend to burn out on them over time even when they don’t experience any complications from psychedelic use.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230614220630.htm
Personally, I’ve used them a few times and felt like they helped me appreciate life and my friendships more, but I’m not sure I got much else from those experiences. I think it might be interesting to revisit them with an eye to the neuroscience.