Scary experience on LSD, with 2 questions.

[TurnipKing]

So I've done lsd around 10 times now whereas most of my friends have only done half of that. We all got together at a friend's house about 2 months ago and dropped 240ug. We had a trip sitter.

So we drop the acid and I'm having a great time whereas one of my friends is not, let's call him D. D has only done acid once and he was stuck in a loop and kept on smoking cigarettes until he was sick so I knew things were gunna go bad. D kept on asking us to get him some cocaine, which we obviously did not want to do as we were all on acid. D thought he was king of the world, almost like god, telling us we were all going to go far in life.

I have never experienced or even heard of loops because of lsd before, which scared me because I didn't want to get stuck in one. Our trip sitter took D out for a bit of fresh air and D ended up kicking in a car bonnet and nearly stealing an old mans hat. At this point I was freaked out and avoided D for a while.

D eventually calmed down but D won't talk about what happened or why to anybody.

So my questions are; Does anybody have an explenation of what happened to D? Is D just bad with acid? Was the dose too strong?

Finally, I havn't tripped since then and I was wondering what you guys think about doing 300ug by myself, I am quite scared of mental loops which is making me have second thoughts about doing this dose as I've never gone about 240ug before, especially not on my own.

Peace

 

[RandyWatson]

In my experience LSD can cause intense focus which can lead to the mental loops you described. I once spent 9 hours playing black light ping pong with a Forest Gump like zeal. I was convinced that I had acquired some sort of LSD induced premonition that allowed me to know where the ball would land before it got there. My friend was stuck in the same loop so in this case in was an enjoyable experience.

It sounds like D needs to work on his pre-trip routine in order to get in the right frame of mind, which any experienced trippers will tell you is paramount in having an enjoyable trip. Trip sitters are also very important in expediting the quick subroutine needed to exit an endless loop.

I've always found a change of scenery, even if its just going outside for second can also help to shift gears on the acid. Personally I always recommend the outdoors for enjoying LSD, especially when there are a lot of people participating.

 

[bunnyhentman]

Thought loops and just plain bad trips can happen to anyone. You can't say D was necessarily "bad with acid" -- maybe just inexperienced or had a bad mental state going into the trip. The more experienced I get with psychedelics (hundreds of LSD trips down the hatch) the more clear it is that "bad trips" -- ones where from the outside someone seems psychotic and does things completely out of line with their normal personality -- are mainly triggered by stress from outside issues that are potentiated by the psychedelic. One of the worst trips of my life was on a very small amount of 2c-b, and had everything to do with my bad state of mind when I took the presumably mild dose.

My advice to you is to wait a bit before taking LSD again, until this experience isn't so fresh on your mind. When you do take it again, don't do it with the same people (even without your friend) or in the same place. Make a plan to have a few activities on hand in case you start to spin out. Spend the day before you trip doing things that will make you feel good about yourself -- for me that means cleaning my house, paying bills, calling my mom, wrapping up work, helping a neighbor etc.

Experiencing someone having a bad trip when you are also tripping can also be traumatic. I think it's something about losing your boundaries and taking on the problems of the person in distress, like a child might internalize their parent's fears. It helped me to overcome these fears by learning how to help people having psychic distress on psychedelic drugs. Like RandyWatson mentioned changing scenery/going outside (if it can be done safely -- you don't want to have to chase a lunatic down a city street). Changing the topic of conversation or music can help a lot. Water or tea, light food, paying attention to physical comfort. Most importantly, reassuring them that they are loved and a part of the group. Involving them in an activity, like drawing or looking at a book of pictures (avoid competitive games as they can increase the paranoia). If none of that works, remind them that they are on a drug and they will go back to how they were in a few hours.

 

[just say know]

D and you should follow the advice above me. personally thought loops happen to the best of us just do your best to minimize it. they also don't happen all the time but yeah they happen