I don't think there is anything inferior about realizing things like this under the influence of drugs. Everyone's filter is apparently at least slightly different.
Ah, call me a romanticist but when situations like this where more normal in our countries... it just has something These were the late 1800s I assume?
we spend the rest of our lives realizing they are filters and looking for ways to remove them. a few people, nothing superior, more luck maybe, maybe to compensate for less luck in most things else, may have something to do with their previous lives, struggle to avoid these filters, even in infancy. conversely i may simply have been born 'stoned' and my metabolism keeps me that way without having to ingest alien substances to do so. if it makes anyone happier to think of it this way. but i still think imagination isn't what growing up is about leaving behind, self importance is. or trying to anyway.