• Psychedelic Drugs Welcome Guest
    View threads about
    Posting RulesBluelight Rules
    PD's Best Threads Index
    Social ThreadSupport Bluelight
    Psychedelic Beginner's FAQ

origin of the phrase "tripping balls"?

Yeah, the situation, if it was one at all, is over, so let's keep this on track. :) If anyone has anything else to say about the origins of words or this particular word.
 
I made it up, duh.

It was ME.

:)

You people need to take me off of the pedestal you built for me and stop imagining that I'm talking you down.

How could somebody possibly talk bad about about a stupid fucking druggie term like "tripping-balls"?

Hahaha, y'all are just too much for me, I can't believe y'all gave him shit for that, even if he said "tripping balls" is the most retarded term on the face of Earth.

Tripping balls...HA! I donno bout y'all but my nuts don't hang down far enough for me to trip on them. y'all must be blessed with exceedingly large testicles.
 
^You could always say "I'm tripping labias" or something like that. :D
 
have to say at one time or another ive been known to say 'dude i'm balls to the walls tripping!'
 
I love saying Im tripping balls when I'm tripping with friends, for me its just that thing that says "you're still half-sane, you know you're tripping" while alerting your friends that you're having a blast. :p
 
Tripping balls...HA! I donno bout y'all but my nuts don't hang down far enough for me to trip on them. y'all must be blessed with exceedingly large testicles.

Ha! A friend of mine in college had these freakishly large testicles*, like you can't even imagine. At parties he would unzip his pants and flop them out and fold the skin over them and pull it so it basically took up the entire fly area. He called it "the brain" and he'd surprise people by walking out from behind a door or something when you went out into the hall, just walking by and he asks if you want to see something, and he shows you "the brain". Or he'd just starting running at you with it. Pretty intense guy. =D

*Do you ever see the word testicles as an ancient Greek name, pronounced testuh - CLEEZ, pronounced sort of like Hercules? I do.

I suppose we have wandered off topic... 8)
 
Last edited:
theres no off topic in a topic like this! :p

i dunno, tripping balls has that ring to it, it sounds so funny when you're trippin bawlz :p
 
This phrase was explained to me, back in 1985, as referring to the practice of pocketing some little object after dosing which could serve a sort of grounding, talismanic function if the trip became too intense. "Superballs," the rubber bouncy balls bought from gumball machines and such, worked particularly well for this. I'm not suggesting that this is the primary origin of the phrase; "balls" is a universal intensifier, as others mentioned. Rather, I think this kid or a friend of his, being very serious about their tripping in that quasi-mystic, ZOSO-meets-suburban way, took and added meaning to the phrase.

And I'll tell you, it works! It did for me, anyway, years later on the swift ascent of a shroom trip seeming way too strong. In my pocket was, not a ball, but the cap of a 35mm film canister. A nickel had gotten wedged into the bottom side--heads up, natch-- and I held it and kind of said 'you'll get through it & come out good' and the like.

I'd had a pretty catastrophic bummer a couple years previous on an LSD & mushroom combo, and hadn't had but maybe a couple mild trips since. It set me right, little cappy did, and the trip went phenomenally well, with my friend and I having a loooong bike ride through the late-night streets of Hate City. (Note: cycling while tripping, etc., dangerous, don't do it!!!) ;^D
 
Last edited:
"Tripping face," I don't know, I always made the GD "He's Gone" association also. I know it goes back, I first heard it used at the Dead shows in Greensboro, '91 (I like language, slang & usually recall first hearing a word). Some kids from Rochester that we camped next said it over and over and over again, with a "tripping your face off" thrown in on occasion.

"Rolling," first heard in ~'93, from some tour folks who stayed with us for a bit. That one made immediate sense to me so far as describing the ebb & flow of MDMA sensation. The first time I tried it a friend of mine had gotten 1g of powder straight from Texas. Quartered it and put in glasses of water, he and I and two girls. We were sitting on the floor in the girls' dorm room, and when it came on what I felt at first was a tremendous rush of pure speed-feeling. High voltage, total anxiety, beading sweat etc., and getting stronger every second. This was a kind of blind-date scenario for me, although I had seen the girl and found her quite attractive. Certainly not someone I wanted to go to pieces around (I'd never done amphetamines or speed of any kind at the time, possibly why I felt it so strongly-- ?)

I made a quick decision to get out of there-- no sense bringing everyone else down-- and rose to leave, stammering some excuse. Soon as I was up on my feet--whooosh-- the tension broke like a giant wave, and the sensation rolled over me from head to toe. :D

Of course there's the lovey-dovey aspect also-- "to roll" has for centuries been used in a sexual way-- roll in the clover, roll in the hay, and later rock'n'roll, old jazz slang for fucking. Which, we didn't, that night, the girl and I. We did a good bit of weeping, though, and moved in together like three days later 8)

The other couple dated five or six years, got married, and are married still. :)
 
I think it comes from this classic:


Plus the fact that when you are really tripping balls walking gets so hard that you trip over your own balls, if you manage to keep your posture you can be certain that you are now 'tripping balls'.
If you could not catch yourself and flop down into a face plant, you are then 'tripping face'.

billy-trips-balls.jpg



though

Urban Dictionary said:
being srongly under the affects of LSD or psychedelic mushrooms. this is a superlative of tripping, and a contraction of the phrase "tripping one's balls off". unless someone is new to the drug, or very sensitive to it, at least 5 or 6 hits are necessary to trip balls.

unfortunately thats to authority.
We need the tripping calls authority - could someone please call the TB committee?
 
Top