A Question to the Smart People of Bluelight

[Dawaj]

Hey folks,

I have been grappling with a strange thing lately. I was hoping you clever cookies at Bluelight might be able to help me straighten it out!

So, first of all, I consider myself a rather well-travelled psychonaut and I have sampled both traditional psychedelics and dissociatives aplenty, and my journeys have from time to time been pretty profound. I never have bad trips, since I follow all the rules of set and setting, and I am good at not losing control in trips, seldom even in the holes of dissociatives.

Now, here's my problem. Whenever I smoke grass, something strange happens. I get this tingly feeling that starts pretty much anywhere in the body, and which escalates and becoming an <almost> painful sensation. With just a single toke, I can push through it, but mostly it deters me entirely from smoking weed since it is so uncomfortable. Now, weed and I are not such good buddies that I have to find a way around this problem -- I will probably not smoke any more of it after what happened during my last session -- but I can't stop thinking about what happened.

Last time I smoked a completely ordinary joint (or rather, barely a third of it). My friend smoked more than me, and he did not get tripped up at all. I, however, was subjected to the usual tingly-going-painful experience. The few tokes that I took that night catapulted me into an INCREDIBLY intense trip, with a mindfuck that rivaled MAJOR dissociative doses. I have never experienced anything of the kind. I was down in my subconscious and checking out some truly crazy places; severe time dilation; thoughts folding into other dimensions. The really trippy stuff. I probably did have a psychosis though, and it was so intense my mind was even occasionally considering suicide to escape the craziness. As I said, I have never experienced something this strong. I got caught up in some really nasty thought loops. I remember this vividly: I made a deal with myself that I have to forget the thing I found out about how thoughts and the mind work, or I will not be able to I-don't-know, return to sanity. I remember how I basically watched my mind rewind through the long train of thought that had led me to said epiphany, and then suddenly I had forgotten it. I could only remember that I had had it, and that I had "made that deal" with myself. It sounds weird, and I concede that some of it may have been whatchamacallit, actual hallucinations(?). Notwithstanding, I never did actually "lose" my mind during those hours, and I was as clear-headed as ever, only significantly tripped up.

I came out on the other side of that trip with two thoughts I haven't been able to shed since. 1) I should not use marijuana, and 2) that prickling/painful thing might be a psychological, subconscious warning system. A mental allergy, I guess. Now, I realize that I might actually be physically allergic to the substance, but it does not feel like it. I know the "pain" is in my mind, because it is in different places ever time I smoke. Is it possible that my mind has (subconsciously?) realized that marijuana is "not good/dangerous" to my mental stability (or, physically bad), and has created this "mental allergy" (if you will)?

I hope my recounting of this incident is not too unclear. I am struggling a little in it explaining coherently, but I'll leave this post like this for now. If there are further question marks, I will gladly revise and/or answer.

So, would do you guys have to say?

ps. My feelings regarding this strange happening is that of morbid fascination. It scares me, and it interests me. I often imbibe hallucinogens with the express purpose of "thinking" my way to epiphanic discoveries, and divulging "secrets" of the mind. What I found that night was beyond anything I had presently come across though.

ps2. if it got lost in the tl;dr, my primary question was whether that so-called mental allergy is possible.

Thanks for your time

 

[Solipsis]

Welcome.

Reverse tolerance is a real thing with cannabis and non-concurrent use of other drugs might play a possible role in it though not necessarily. I guess this is what you intuitively found yourself and call an "allergy". I'm not really sure what can be involved in sensitization.

Cannabis overdosing can be pretty horrific, and even if not OD... intense experiences can certainly involve incredible time dilation and other really trippy stuff. Oral cannabis especially has potential for very intense effects even for smokers. Regular weed smokers tend to forget how heavy it can be for first timers or other people with no tolerance. It would be interesting to know if reverse tolerance can (measurably) take you even beyond the regions of your initial level of tolerance.

It's not a psychosis you had IMO considering the effects did not persist when the cannabis wore off and probably not even a drug-induced psychosis, although psychedelic effects can be defined at least partially as psychotomimetic. Typical normal/strong trips on psychedelics could be considered similar to somewhat functional psychosis. The main difference with drug-induced psychosis from psychedelics seems to be the level of dysfunction and what this means for violent tendencies and generally being a danger towards yourself and others.

If you have reverse tolerance (which from the sounds of it you do, but you might wanna check out the Cannabis Discussion forum to get into that)... dosing much lower again as if you are a first timer or even lower could be a good try. Titration would be the proper approach (or at the very least reverse titration lol), the way to decide whether you should just quit it is IMO by checking if at low enough dosages to produce reasonable effect you find the effects bearable qualitatively and if you can find the proper dosage level which does produce positive effects that outweigh the negative.

Just a tip for future reference: it helps if you describe the actual topic in the thread title. If not, it has adverse effects for how many / which people are actually going to want to read it.

 

[Dawaj]

Hm, thank you for that quality reply. I will look into reverse tolerance and if ever I try to smoke again I will follow your advice. The reason why I call it a psychosis is because the feelings of disorientation and spaced-out-ness lingered for several days. There was nothing pleasant about it. Even now, weeks later, I find myself "affected" from time to time. Especially at night. If it was psychosis though, I grant it must have been of the milder variety.

 

[Solipsis]

Yes if the effects are so disruptive psychologically it can produce things like depersonalization and derealization. Usually when people start reporting this it lasts quite a bit longer and can be a real problem, worse than you are describing. So yes I guess you did have a version which was more detrimental than most other cannabis overdoses but less than full-on DP/DR or psychotic episodes. So I agree that before you start thinking of giving it another try by titrating your dosage it is best to just give it some time and make sure that you have both feet on the ground and are quite clear about the basics of being you and the functional sides of reality.

I think psychedelics can cause sensitization of many different kinds and it is wise to pay a lot of attention to it when you get these signs because it could indeed be a warning that you don't tolerate certain things so well anymore. Make sure get lots of rest and eat well, and do some extra self-inquiry using things like meditation to get a better sense of what is going on in your mind and what needs to level out somehow.

 

[Dawaj]

The basics of being me and the functional sides of reality. What interesting way to look at it.

 

[nuube]

I assume the cannabis was unadulterated? Sounds like an intense time and one way of explaining it would be from an OD of synthetic cannabinoids - just throwing that out there.

 

[pupnik]

used a lot it becomes numbing dope, but used occasionally it is an excellent and powerful psychedelic.

My cousin and I used to have a toke daily or maybe more than one - we purposefully stopped at 1 to see what effect it had.
astonishing things happened while listening to music.
It was magical like LSD with him and one or 2 tokes.
We became quite sensitive.


Then I grew to resent being sent on trips while others were grooving socially - they might give me a joint or a one hitter in a car...
Now I know one toke in public is my max
In private maybe 2 or 3, but I expect to experience deeply.

I think weed is amazing.

use well.

 

[perpetualdawn]

Pupnik your experience with weed sounds very similar to my own. I'm not how the sensitization works, but it's the same for me, one toke in public max, 1, 2 or 3 at home alone for a vivid musical evening.

 

[Solipsis]

I am reading CBD shows tendency to cause reverse tolerance while THC causes regular tolerance. So, have you been using CBD oil or strains of weed pretty high in CBD? (A caveat: it is not said explicitly that CBD also causes reverse tolerance to THC).

But yeah alternative explanations involve complex interactions between different circuits and receptors of the brain which may indirectly influence the release of different endocannabinoids and promote reverse tolerance in ways similar to CBD, possibly involving the CB2 receptor since that is where IIRC CBD acts on.

About tingly / escalating sensations: yes a pretty curious feeling used to be a standard sensation for me on cannabis... a sort of rising wave of intensity which amounts to some orgasmic climax and then crashes again, also much like a wave. I can't imagine what it would feel like if it didn't really die out, although I am pretty sure meditation or tantra could be used to sustain that vibe to some extent. Seems to be a sort of feedback loop in the signal cascade but clearly there is a sort of failsafe system when the peak is reached, normally...