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Comment by daenz | Hacker News Reader

Speaking from personal experience, psychedelics can have a very emotionally cathartic effect. At the end of it, you feel like you were a sponge full of emotion that has just been wrung out. I can definitely see how if you're "stuck" in some kind of pattern, exercising those emotions can help get you "unstuck." I would probably recommend someone do this once every other year.

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My personal experience is decades old, but different. I never had an emotional release provided by LSD. Instead, there were enjoyable visual hallucinations, ability to concentrate, and a heightened appreciation of beauty.

But then coming down after a few hours was an emotional dumpster fire. It was really hard to endure emotionally; self-doubt, paranoia, and extreme sadness. But after many trips, not overreacting to those feelings, and knowing they'd pass, became a skill.

It was never less painful to come down, but it did become expected, understood, and manageable. That skill has since served me well in other contexts.

Thanks for sharing. I should have clarified that my experience was with psilocybin

This is fascinating, my experience is quite the opposite. The coming up is a very uncomfortable experience, both physically and mentally, but the coming down is the best thing ever: everything is at piece, in its right place, the world has a beautiful glistening aspect to it. I truly bite the bullet of the up phase to bask in the comfort of the coming down phase.

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