Psychdelic Induced Changes in Identity

Question:

23. Does your sense of who you think you are change when you are on hallucinogens. If yes, please specify how your identity changes when on hallucinogens.

Percent Yes
Percent No
Margin of Error
60.6 %
39.4 %
+/- 12% (n=61)

 

Subject ID
23. Identity
23. Ss Textual Responces about Identity Changes induced by Psychedelics
1
Yes
yes. I think that I am many different people.. from being a little boy to a scared old man, I have many alter egos when Im tripping
2
No
-
3
Yes
Yes, I feel "detached" from my "self". I feel a difference between my physical earth body and my "self" body -- which I think is my soul.
4
No
Not at all. If it did I wouldn't have a sense of myself. I believe that what is truly myself is immutable and throught the use of alter states of conciousness (not just drugs) that one can find that which is unchanged and realize ones true self.
5
No
no
6
No
-
7
Yes
yes; in a normal state of mind I know I am mentally connected with the world, and that there's more than material- on hallucinogens, I feel, experience it.
8
Yes
I view myself and then i think about my future as a lifeform.
9
No
-
10
Yes
I get a stronger sense of accomplishment and realization of where I am in life. I realize things are going much better than they often seem, (at least in the areas in which they are going well). This sense of well- being and 'allright-ness' can last for weeks or months. Sometimes there is a realization of the things that I'm not doing right.
11
Yes
yes, it gets very confused, and i care less "what" or "who" i am, and just "am"
12
Yes
yes, I knew that I was a soul in a body, not just a body.
13
Yes
Yes, during tripping I have asked myself questions like: Is it REALLY me who is tripping, this must be someone other? But it is me after all :). I remember that I have taken substances wich make me feel that way.
14
Yes
Sort of. I still feel the same person, but am more aware of my place within the larger picture.
15
No
The fundamental changes in visual perception sometimes tend to isolate my mind from the physical body, and this can occasionally be unpleasant.
16
No
-
17
Yes
My identity doesn't really change, but I can see myself in a truer light.
18
Yes
no, though I sometimes make realizations about myself.
20
Yes
yes, self is placed into a state of grace - 'time out' from reality. external ties are loosened, responsibilities relaxed. child-like state often ensues -- joy, play
21
No
no, I think I was pretty clear on who I was during the trip - but just realized a lot of things - and felt enlightened by it.
22
Yes
Well, basically, to me it seems like, its not as important to "be someone" when I'm tripping, I can just "be".
23
No
no, i am always just me just a happy me
24
No
I become this incredibly sexy godess :-) No, seriously, no real personality changes. I am still myself.
25
Yes
Not anymore. At first, my identity changed with halluciogens. After tripping more often, I found this identity more relevant, so my "straight" identity has become the hallucinogenic one. It involves more compassio, determination, more conscience.
26
No
-
27
No
(see 'bad-trips' mentioned under question 22)
28
No
NO. I think I just accept who I am better than when I am not on a hallucinogen. Although I don't feel I need a drug to accomplish this. A good walk in tyhe woods can do the same thing.
29
Yes
-
30
Yes
I am more confident and am more aware of my abilities
31
No
-
32
Yes
only very slightly, and i carry those over into post trip life.
33
Yes
I see myself more clearly, with personal biases removed, and can see silly quirks and drives which seem natural normally. I then realize what is really me, and come to an acceptance of this.
34
No
-
35
No
Not really. I realise that I have changed since I started tripping. I am more aware of my sorrounding. And I am closer to nature. I find myslef talking to trees and hugging them while tripping.
36
Yes
Yes, I gain a deeper sense of unity with things (to borrow your words), and I get a better feeling of my role and place in the grand scheme of things.
37
No
It doesn't necessarily change, it just becomes more enhanced. If I'm feeling particularly insecure, I will become 100x so when on acid. If I drop acid while feeling very confident about myself, I'll become overconfident and feel like superman.
38
Yes
Yes, I am so honest with myself when on hallucinogens that I cannot sustain the usual filter that shields me from seeing my flaws. I am self- critical when tripping, but use this process to better myself instead of simply spiralling into a bad trip.
39
No
-
40
Yes
yes. See above. Basically my sense of self as a thing with continuing existence is eroded & sometimes almost destroyed. (Of course it may be completely destroyed sometimes, but I could hardly experience that!)
41
Yes
Yes. I typically get very ego-centric, and much more confidant of myself. I also tend to jokingly refer to myself as "The Emporer of California."
42
No
No. It is just reaffirmed in my consciousness and made clearer.
43
Yes
-
44
Yes
Yes, I begin to focus on who I am in context of the world and I wonder if I am truly a good person. I seem to dwell more on what is not good about myself than what is good.
45
Yes
Yes. My normal external personality disappears and I'm just left with the underlying personality.
46
No
-
47
Yes
LSD and psilocybine take very often my illusions (sometime very harshly) of my self away - they show me what I really am.
48
Yes
I begin to realize that I'm only part of the natural world--it's very humbling.
49
No
-
50
Yes
Answer: yes. I feel a stronger connection with everything and everyone else. Sometimes, although not very often, I feel totally released of every bit associated with "me". At those times I don't have an ego at all (I think), but I'm part of "everything", or more: I am everything together with everything else.
51
No
-
52
Yes
This is somewhat difficult to explain accurately so someone else will get it, but I will try. Yes, the sense of self completely changes. Normally, I have a kind of self-image that is "pasted", as it were, over my face and to some degree my entire body and maybe even what I would call my space. I can't seem to separate this image from what I would later (while tripping) call my real self. Acid makes the false image self go away; completely if you take enough. What is left is not a thing or an emotion or an image or a mental picture or a memory or even an idea. It is a function. A process of some sort. An aspect of Life that could be described as a function of something "larger". And therefore, it appears that it is not really "separate" from that something else. Like the function of a knife - cutting something - is not, in fact, separate from the knife itself. The function may or may not be in use at the moment, but it is potentially NEVER separate. See what I mean? The function in this case appears to be simply - awareness. It doesn't have any mass, it doesn't occupy any space, and it's not located in any timeframe. And it is aware of being aware. It does seem to have an "apparent" location from which to view things, but that location seems to be arbitrary and to some degree (while tripping) under the awareness function's control. If I had to use other terms to describe it, I would say that I feel like a 360 degree, 3D sphere about the size of a basketball, like a bubble of some sort, except that I'm concave instead of convex (I'm inverted - I stick in "somewhere" instead of sticking out into the physical world), and I'm sucking in the perceptions (all levels of perceptions) all around me. And they feel like they are actually going "through" me (like I'm a portal) and then going somewhere from there. I know it sounds weird, but that's what it feels like. This was always very clear to me every time I tripped.
53
Yes
Yes. I see myself not as an isolated individual, but as the 20th-century descendent of the proud warrior culture of the Rajput and Kashmiri princes of what are now India and Pakistan on one hand, and of the mighty Ani-Tsalagi, or Cherokee Nation, on the other. Thus I am given a heightened sense of who I am. Also, I feel proud to be a human of this earth, and I feel that because of the actions of "pioneers of the mind" such as myself and all others who use acid and other hallucinogens in a responsible way that our species is destined for greatness beyond our wildest imaginings.
54
Yes
Yes, my ego crumbles and I become God.
55
No
-
56
Yes
Whether aware of it or not, your normal ego--that part of you that you think is who you are--vanishes, is turned off. What is left is a functioning mind that is no longer blocked by the normal constraints. I have shared things with people while tripping, which I suddenly realized I was never consciously, but unconsciously aware of, until that point. The last time I took acid, it was actually quite awful, because of all the strychnine. I was in such pain, and at a party where everyone was very asympathetic. For a few weeks after, I did not know who I was, and I was very sad. I felt like no one could ever understand me (growing up in a small, conservative town, I had always been different and misunderstood) until I read the Teachings of Buddha, which offered me a way out of this judgement trap. Moving to Austin, I have met caring, understanding people, many of whom have been to the same psychic places I have, and can see me for who I am. I don't think about who I am anymore. It really doesn't matter, because 'I' am going to be here anyway. I look outward now, to all of those around me.
57
Yes
I have been able to identify myself as a necessary part of a greater whole of experience, and have been able to carry thios over from non-ordinary reality into ordinary reality.
58
Yes
Feel more of a child of God, more "right" in my position in the universe, more of a sense of mission and purpose. Sometimes they are especially useful during a turning point in one's life.
59
Yes
I wear a smile on my face, not a frown. life becomes a joke that I finally get.
60
No
i don't think so.
61
Yes
YES. MY IDENTITY(PERSONALITY) IS MORE AT EASE. MY EVERYDAY INSECURITIES ARE LESS SO ON HALLUCINOGENS. CONFIDENT.
62
Yes
Sort of; sometimes feel reality is much wider than we realize, and the actions we take in consentual reality (work, play, etc.) are more part of a play or process or training (or something); the mundane results of these actions aren't as important as the attitude? something? (words for this kind of thinking haven't been created yet...)
 

 

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