For generations philosophers have wrestled with the concept of Self. Time, memory and agency all seem to play a vital role in understanding who we are. Psychedelic experiences subvert and distort each of those features of our existence, and give us the chance to examine our selves in a whole new light.  

"[W]hat we experience in our dreams ... is as much a part of the overall economy of our soul as anything we 'really' experience."

 – Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Such is it with dreams; even more so with psychedelics. But psychedelic experience not only enriches the self, it can contribute to our understanding of what the self is or can be. Psychedelic intake can violently alter aspects of the prosaic, or ordinary self; moreover it can add multiple further facets. In fact, it can in extremis destroy or multiply the "self" – with a range from individuality through unity to infinity, as we shall see.

First let us look at what can be meant by this ambiguous term, "the self", in its ordinary sense. The self can be understood in its relation to matter, and in its relation to mind. In relation to matter, the self can be understood as, i. reducible to part of the body (materialism), ii. a soul distinct from the material body (dualism), iii. a mind that creates what appears as matter (idealism), and iv. the self can be understood as being at one with an extended body (processism). The common view is undoubtedly i. and ii., the biological and the predominantly religious – though both are fundamentally faith positions. As anthropologist, cyberneticist Gregory Bateson lamented: