Everything you do or experience "alters" your perception. It's just that we slowly build up habitual perceptual patterns and "tracks in the dirt" over many mont

Everything you do or experience "alters" your perception. It's just that we slowly build up habitual perceptual patterns and "tracks in the dirt" over many months and years of time, and so the changes usually occur too slowly or subtly for us to notice easily. But not always! On rare days, something happens... a long series of cumulative affects finally precipitates or something unexpected comes at us in the just right way, shattering our view. And then after a brief period of processing, we wake up the next morning with a different perspective. Psychedelics are like that in their own way. They seem to temporarily weaken these deeply-habitual thought patterns and perspectives, allowing one to look at things in a new way. It doesn't "alter" reality. It loosens our iron-grip on our own accumulated view of what we think reality should be. After the trip finishes, our grip re-strengthens, but it may be holding something slightly different, and perhaps a bit less desperately. It's pretty fascinating stuff. I think it can be a powerful tool for our well-being if we use it carefully. Emphasis on the careful use! They can certainly cause harm if they are misused.