| In The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley talks about the mind as a set of filters. The automatic (unconscious) discarding of information that has no bearing on the immediate survival of the individual is a pro-survival trait, and an important one.
The extended period of immaturity characteristic of humans allows us the luxury of delaying the development of such filtration mechanisms.
The mushroom, or LSD, (or whatever) that jams those filters seems to transport us at once to reality and to childhood.
This may be one instance where "taking a good hard look at reality" may be both true and ill-advised. There may be others. | 
