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Are psychedelics a good idea on days when you're depressed?

If you are depressed, you will most likely have a bad trip. Really bad idea. If you are happy, a psychedelic will most likely enlighten you. As a psychedelic increases effects on the way you feel right now. If you have garbadge in your mind, in your trip, you'le be in it if you got beautiful whatever you love that makes you happy, you'le experience a beautiful trip.
 
Sometimes it can help to look at your life from a different perspective but dropping while depressed will usually lead to some very negative thoughts. I use to trip when i was feeling depressed it helped give me a a new outlook and a purpose to enjoy life but comes with facing the issues that are making you feel depressed during the peak is challenging, and for a inexperienced tripper i would not advise you to trip while depressed and if your are going to anyway please be with a really good friend.
 
As a general rule, no, it's not a good idea.

As always though not all psychedelics are equivalent, and it's also heavily dependent on the person and the dose. Someone of generally sound mind who is well experienced with psychedelics might choose to dose anyway, for example, despite feeling a little down.. even then it's probably not advisable, but yeah, if you have to ask this question the answer is no.
 
Maybe have a look here:

DEPRESSION | +80 articles

Can psilocybin treat severe depression? by Barbara Geller, MD | NEJM Journal | 3 Nov 2017 Neuroimaging findings predicted response with this hallucinogen at post-treatment week 5 and correlated with decreased depressive symptoms and heightened mystic feelings. In 1970, the FDA categorized...
www.bluelight.org www.bluelight.org
 
In my experience, tripping while depressed is much riskier than tripping while happy. It's almost certain that the issues that are making you depressed will be thrown in your face and you'll have to confront them, and that could cause a bad trip. However, psychedelics can be used by the experienced to help deal with these issues and see them from a more objective perspective. To do this, though, you need to really prepare, and understand that you're going into a trip which will likely not be much fun, and that will likely be difficult.

If you're just trying to trip for fun and you're depressed, then I definitely do not recommend it at all. However, at several points in my life I have taken psychedelics with the purpose of trying to understand and break through depression and/or anxiety, with good results, though the trips took work and I made sure to have the ideal setting beforehand and go into it with intention.

Psychedelics have been studied and are being studied for their utility in helping to deal with depression. However these experiments are done with a trained guide in a comfortable professional setting. These things help greatly to minimize bad reactions. if you're eating mushrooms with some friends in some random place, you're far, far more likely to have a bad trip when trying to use psychedelics to treat depression.
 
It's risky but I gain more insight into my problems when I trip while depressed. You can't treat it like opioids/benzos where you're wanting to escape your problems for the duration. They'll bring all your problems to the forefront and it'll dominate the trip. I've used various substances while depressed and while I don't consider the trips to have been "bad" they were certainly difficult. DPT comes to mind because I took it at an awful time in my life. It did give me the insight and inspiration to make the changes I needed to make in life to improve it.

As always set and setting are the most important things.
 
As chronically depressed as I am, I enjoy lsd and dmt, etc...

DMT does a good job of shutting the amygdala down ;)
 
Tripping can be beneficial for people with depression, but not if they're tripping on a day where they're acutely depressed / feeling like shit... chances are you're going to have a bad trip and make everything even worse, possibly coming out of the experience with additional negative mental health symptoms like panic attacks and derealization.

Always ensure an optimal set and setting before tripping; this goes double for people who are prone to depressive thinking.

The psychedelic experience is very much a "garbage in - garbage out" thing. It can be hugely beneficial under the right circumstances, and it can make everything so much worse under the wrong circumstances.
 
It is VERY different to trip when you are experienced with psychedelics. If you are you can play it safe while depressed using low to average dosages or choosing a soft psychedelic, some phenethylamines can be perfect.

Psychedelics helped me a lot when I had a clinical depresion, they helped me to release a lot of strong emotions. Spent most of the beginning of the trips crying which is a thing that when sober I have difficulty doing and it is very healing. You can enjoy crying as much as laughting when you are in need of it. Then the second part of the trip was more optimistic and I could analyse my life from my best side. Good to stop rumiating loops and put some distance.

If you are not experienced might be a bit of a gamble, It always is. Best option would be to trip with a sitter that knows what he is doing like somebody said, preferably a psychologist or something like that. With somebody like that it can be very safe, but I know that might be out of your reach.

I normaly trip with benzos and antipsychotics at hand. With benzos you can reduce the trips and calm yourself and a neuroleptic like haloperidol will kill the trip. I have never had to use them during the trip but it is very nice to know that they are there just in case.
 
I had great experiences tripping while depressed. Few weeks after my best friends death, I tripped for 9 days straight. Upping my dose every day by multiple hits. It helped me clear my head and relax and just think. Played Xbox and listened to music the entire time. The days for recovering and night time for my “therapy” this resulted in my depression completely diminished for months after. I recommend trying it if you’re strong minded and can rationally handle your inner self. If you can’t then don’t bother using lsd when down and out. Save it for the happier days. Best of luck.
 
Very subjective question. Majority say you'll have a bad trip, it'll be a nightmare, you might kill yourself, etc. But I had my first trip when I was suicidal depressed. I was stuck in this loop of wanting to end it all for what seemed like hours, then it was over, and I felt as though I appreciated life, I loved myself, energy was all around me. I was transformed. It took the right setting though. You have to be able to work inwards without being interrupted, and "friends" often don't let that happen and want to make your trip all about themselves, especially if they're inexperienced with psychedelics. You have to have a setting where you can't throw yourself out the window, or otherwise use a short impulse driven action to end your life. This means no stove access, no fire setting, no windows to jump out of, a safe setting. Yes, it will be a "bad trip", but if you're depressed you're already in a bad mental state, psychedelics will amplify that. You will have the power to transform your emotions far better under psychedelics though, and lots of research is being done into magic mushrooms and other psychedelics for therapy for mental illnesses.

What's important about your question is WHICH psychedelic you decide on, as well. A small dose of magic mushrooms is what I recommend starting with. By small I mean very small, make it an introspective trip, look inwards, and avoid going outside or interacting with others for the first few hours of your trip.

To me, psychedelics aren't just about "being happy". The human mind is complex, this complexity is what gives us the full experience. Read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" if you want to know what a society with no other emotion is. In order to get the full psychedelic experience, you must dose even when you're not in the brightest of days. It will be intense, you will cry, you may get suicidal, but the takeaway is that you will get an insight into your mind.
 
^^ Nice post. :)

It really is very subjective. It depends largely on your level of experience and your own personal relationship with psychedelics. People who have a hard time giving up control have a MUCH higher chance of freaking out on psychedelics. Personally, having a lot of experience over 16 years and previous experience using psychedelics to move out of depressive episodes, as well as a long track history of being able to handle difficult mental spaces on psychedelics, I would not hesitate to use them to help me out of a lingering depressive episode. However if you're young and feeling really depressed and have very little experience with psychedelics and you take some without really preparing... well it will probably go very badly
 
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