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The experience of encountering a seemingly autonomous, independent being during a psychedelic trip — most commonly reported at high doses of DMT or 5-MeO-DMT, and with ayahuasca. Whether this reflects a genuinely separate consciousness, a construct of the brain's own predictive machinery, or something else entirely is a live, unresolved debate rather than settled science.

Example: Surveys of DMT users (published in academic psychedelic-research journals) find a majority report encountering what felt like a conscious, independent being — one of the most consistently reported effects of the drug, positive or unsettling depending on who you ask.