[flnastyax]

My view is AP does alter ones psychology and brings one into direct contact with the subconscious. Any repressed emotions or experiences could be found/faced head on. Unless one is prepared for such experiences I do believe some psychological 'damage' could be caused (although I think damage is a strong word).
I also see this in a similar line to psychedelics. Most should know that they can surface latent mental illness or cause trauma, yet all they do is surface the subconscious to a level where the conscious interacts with it (similar to AP but different modes of action and length of effect).
Some might argue that psychedelics leave little to no control. I'd agree with this, but Id also say that most AP experiences (for the majority) have little to no control on our part. We can't do what we want to do, have to 'go with the flow', sometimes don't have our full faculties, sometimes not all our senses, sometimes even experience seeming attacks.
The difference between psychedelics and AP is the duration of effect.
I am very aware of even minute changes in my conscious state (i.e. even the change caused by reading instead of speaking is noticeable to me) and after I project there is always an after-effect when I wake up. A slight fuzziness at my edges which lasts for a few hours after.
I've also a lot of experience of my baseline (Awake) senses being distorted for a while after (deep) practice. Such things as disassociation, and on a few occasions I felt like I was still spinning all day (This caused unpleasant nausea).
Finally, Ap practice (coupled with meditation and energy work) have significantly changed my baseline state of consciousness over the past 10 years. It’s not something I can really quantify, but just sitting and looking at the world shows differences not just on an intellectual level but on a visual/aural level too. It’s like my brain processed these data types slightly differently. Sometimes making things seem almost unreal (like a huge projection). This isn’t a problem as it was a very gradual change over the years.

What I’m getting at is this. People might see the AP as not physical so they can do dangerous things or perhaps take more risks/go against their nature as there are no repercussions. But you are still experiencing all these things with ‘self’ and these experiences are integrated into your personality/mind. If something would cause trauma while baseline, there’s a chance such things could cause trauma when projecting (such as how nightmares can scar people for years). So we should always take things slowly and carefully and perhaps err on the side of caution when faced with threatening situations in the astral.