If man is the more normal, healthy and happy, the more he can…successfully…repress, displace, deny, rationalise, dramatise himself and deceive others, then it follows that the suffering of the neurotic comes…from painful truth…Spiritually the neurotic has been long since where psychoanalysis wants to bring him without being able to, namely at the point of seeing through the deception of the world of sense, the falsity of reality. He suffers, not from all the pathological mechanisms which are psychically necessary for living and wholesome but in the refusal of these mechanisms which is just what robs him of the illusions important for living…he is much nearer to the actual truth psychologically than the others and it is just that from which he suffers. — Otto Rank
Coming into contact with the truth of what has been hidden from the conscious mind by the unconscious can be both traumatic and result in ontological shock. Ontological shock is the term used to describe the intense psychological and emotional response a person experiences when their fundamental understanding of reality is suddenly and profoundly challenged.
It is a well-known phenomenon for psychedelics to confer users with the capacity to “perceive beyond the surface” of things. For example, they can bolster the ability to detect the disparity between who someone projects themselves to be vs. who they actually are. They can allow people to see beyond the persona, the social mask that everyone wears, and feel more in tune with other people’s thoughts, emotions, and motives, etc.
This is what Stephanie Brinkerhoff experienced on mushrooms. She grew up devoutly Mormon, and after a single 1g trip, said her discernment was permanently heightened. Post-trip, she could feel when something felt off, whereas before, due to the controlling and autocratic way she had been raised, she had lost touch with that aspect of her intuition. She said that after the trip, in reference to the Mormon Church, “it was blaringly obvious that they are manipulating everyone, and I couldn’t see it before, because everything is masked as love, and then all of a sudden I could feel the disconnect”. She said the mushrooms gave her an experience of being able to discern “this is what’s true and real, and this is what’s not” – an experience viewed through a Jungian lens as connecting to the “Self”.
Whilst for Stephanie the initial trip itself was pleasant, she described the ensuing months as “incredibly traumatic” and that the experience had “exploded her life”. Within 4 months, she was no longer Mormon or married. She stated that somewhere in the back of her mind, she had doubts about her relationship that she would push away, due to the inconvenience of them. It’s not unfair to assume this may have been true of her faith, too. It’s also not unfair to assume that had she taken a much higher dose, the trip itself could have also been traumatic.
As discussed, when the thresholds of consciousness are lowered, all the psychic material that has been kept hidden by the unconscious can come roaring to the surface. This can manifest as showing users the nature of their relationships in a new/more truthful light, as it did for Stephanie.
Psychedelics have the power to show users how people in their life operate so strongly from their persona, or a place of falsehood, that it can leave them questioning how much they actually really know that person.
Furthermore, the heightened ability to see through people’s false smiles, overcompensatory confidence, and buried shame causes a lot of tumult for both parties. Seeing through a person’s persona is an incredibly uncomfortable experience for the person trying to project a certain image of themselves. It can result in them engaging in what Jung refers to as “shadow projection” – a defence mechanism where the discomfort getting aroused in a person is externalised and projected onto the other. It is an unconscious attempt not to confront the uncomfortable reality getting stirred up within them as a result of being seen through. As Jung put it: “people will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls”. An increased capacity to see through people’s projections almost turns you into a mirror, and if you choose not to feed into the image a person is trying to project, they can go as far as actually hating you for it. This is because they need that image to be upheld in the eyes of others so they can maintain the image of themselves as being acceptable and therefore feel psychologically “okay”. When their persona is challenged, it unconsciously forces them to confront disowned aspects of themselves, parts of themselves they wished did not exist, which is inherently psychologically destabilising.
It’s obvious to see how choosing not to feed into people’s projections can be uncomfortable for the person doing the seeing, due to others feeling threatened by them. Unsurprisingly, this was something Stephanie faced when revealing what she had learnt to her Mormon community. Conversely, however, people can also be drawn to such a person, which can also be destabilising if it starts happening suddenly. On an unconscious level, some people are drawn to those who see through the social facade and choose to no longer interact with it. A part of themselves also longs for liberation from the fakeness of it all, but lacks the strength to do so, and so a shadow projection occurs, but now in a positive direction. George Leonard’s concept of homeostasis, as described in his book Mastery, refers to the natural tendency of individuals and systems (like our bodies, habits, and even social environments) to resist change and maintain the status quo. As such, a significant change in any direction (both positive and negative reactions) can be destabilising if it deviates too far outside of what a person is used to.
The destabilisation is further compounded by the fact that if a person has a greater capacity to see through people’s projections, then it means they also have a greater capacity to see the pain that resides underneath that projection. They may find themselves permanently more attuned to the energy of a room or the negative emotional states of others and may feel as though they actually take on the burden of that pain. This can be a huge source of burnout and compassion fatigue.
Overall, choosing to no longer adhere to the social facade is a very difficult position to be in. Once a person has seen what they have seen, they can’t unsee it. Stephanie can’t unsee what she saw about Mormonism, the foundation upon which her life was built. Newfound ways of perceiving the integrity of society following psychedelic trips can leave people feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place – too attached to truth and authenticity to be able to go back to living in delusion, but still needing to navigate the reality of personal relationships and jobs which exist in an environment still deeply entrenched in the social facade.
share your toughts
Join the Conversation.
Brilliant article!!
Really resonated with me a lot and I wish this was something spoken about more in the psychedelics community.
I completely agree that the ability to “see through the facade” after taking psychedelics is not all sunshine and rainbows. Like you said it can lead to nihilism and, I believe, also a kind of arrogance. That you’ve “risen above” everyone else. And you go into every social interaction already assuming the other will be “fake”.
I think this new version of yourself can also get tangled up with your own ego, and you start to identify with being “different”, “not buying into the bullshit”, or “the ego of having no ego”.
And then on a societal level, you can become similarly jaded and nihilistic, to the point that you just “nope out” of society altogether. Which is what I did for much of my early life.
Again, to me, this is embedded in unjustified cynicism and a kind of arrogance. “You’re too good for that messed up, evil world”. And doesn’t allow for the fact that society is made up of countless generations of flawed human beings, like you, who have in the majority struggled (I think), to make the world a better place, which is evident by the fact that most of us wouldn’t choose any other time to live than the last 50 years.
Lastly it’s also important to remember, just because you can see through the bullshit in other people, doesn’t mean you’re immune from bullshit yourself. You may even just get better at hiding from yourself and others as a result.
Thanks again for the great article!