Compass Pathways' Phase IIb psilocybin trial shows reduced depression symptoms

Just for the sake of clarity I am referring to a level 5 trip.

Two trips in row with different outcomes? This is not a question that would be posed by someone who has experienced a level 5 trip. Why? It becomes self evident. But it is not something I can 'prove' to you. You have to see for yourself.

Regarding outcomes - One has either broken through or not. One will know when they have had an ego death and OBE. It is a very distinct experience. Some will still deny this even but much much fewer can deny an experience that powerful.

I have had many trips that were below a level 5 but only one that I would classify as a level 5 trip - complete loss of ego or ego death.

I was an atheist before that Big trip.

The Psychedelic experience has many common threads. I've read hundreds of big trip reports maybe thousands. The common threads become very obvious after a while. As obvious as the sunrise.

Yes this is my interpretation and the interpretation of some very old religions like Hinduism and its offshoot Buddhism.

They are not dogmatic in that you can believe whatever you want next to them while still considering them as truth.

From One there are many. Surely this does not even escape a mathematician. You cannot deny your own existence yet Science has very little to say about the nature of consciousness. In fact Science really has no clue when it comes to the mystery of consciousness. Its view is that we are meat puppets and the sum of our parts. Nothing more than we can see with our eyes. Why is this accepted as dogma but other belief systems are not?

Science itself is a kind of dogmatic religion. It is one that many take for granted as absolute truth. Older thought systems such as Buddhism have been around for much much longer. To assume they are somehow inferior to Science because of their age is a mistake.

All beliefs are valid. One can worship or believe as they wish to find happiness. It is only that they accept Science's answer as Absolute Truth and not their own direct experience after they have had a big trip. That is the waste. The lack of conviction in their experience as being real.

It is surprising that after such an experience one can walk away without conviction! They would have to try hard to forget and make themselves believe that everything is just as it was and it was all just a dream. That is the difficult part. Believing should be the easy part but the world pulls us back in. Our old concepts rush back in.

We put our belief back in the old way of doing things and back to the world we knew before that Big trip. The world of the 24 hour news cycle and Reddit. The world of our addictions, apps, and waking life. Because we feel comfortable there. It is challenging for us to change our outlook so drastically but that is what a Big trip challenges us to do.

It's going to be impossible to convince you that your subjective experience isn't an absolute truth because it seems like the entire foundation of your approach to the discussion and psychedelics is based on that assumption. What you're entirely wrong about however is regarding the definition of science: science is (1) a set of logically consistent statements for a set of givens, and (2) meant to have its validity tested constantly in order to be invalidated so that a better fitting approximation can be found. Science, down to basic axioms of mathematics, is not debating "Truths" but only relative truths, and is making statements that for assumption A,B,C one will observe logical results X,Y,Z, where it perpetually strives to refine the process such that more logical links can be established and any assumption that leads to incorrect/invalid/uninteresting consequences can be weaned out. When in fairly abstract fields, even those assumptions are usually also explored over time and utilized by people as they see fit (maths without ZFC, relatively quick acceptance of relativity in the world of physics, and so on).

If your insights about science as a whole are so off the mark, I'm frankly not surprised that your assertions come off the way they do. And I happen to disagree with the stance that takes refuge in absolute truths (unless its validity were to ever be proven somehow), and even the mightiest of psychedelic trips of dozens of kinds (including ridiculous doses of DMT, Changa, DOM and what have you) have not fundamentally changed a thing about it since I wasn't susceptible to that belief in the first place. That you can just come out and say "well it was simply not enough drugs you took buddy!" is much more likely to be indicative of your wish for personal bias to be a truth than any alternative. And much like with religions in general, I'll respect your right to dive into your personal belief system, but my perspective will be wildly different from yours (and perhaps not as fixated).