How to shake the pre-trip anxiety?

[SinisterMuffin]

I think the anxiety for me, like OP, comes from previous negative trips. The whole things weren't necessarily negative, but there were bad parts to them.

For example:
First experience with acid - I took 3 hits...didn't feel anything after 1 - 1.5 hours, so I took another. When it hit, boom! Kaleidoscopic visions, and flowers and amazing! Until the hours wore on and it was 3am and I had to go to work the next day for a seven hour shift, and omg what if I'm still tripping when I have to be at work, etc, etc... So it was fine, just a bit too long that time. I never trip when I have obligations to worry about or anything anymore, but I still get super anxious that I'll get anxious and have a bad trip. Or I get anxious because I don't know exactly how much I'm taking since it's in micrograms and invisible and stuff... ><

First experience with weed - Friend brought a special brownie and a special muffin with him from his spring break trip home, and three of us shared the brownie. We were feeling good, spacey, giggly, euphoric...hungry. Went to eat some food at the dining hall on campus. Started coming down a little bit, so we decided to break into the muffin. Then it went to hell. I would think something (like, "I'm thirsty.") and then act on it, but not realize I was acting on it until after the fact (suddenly holding a glass of water in the kitchen, without remembering moving from the couch) so I spent the rest of the night hugging a pillow on the couch, refusing to move or think for fear of being out of control again.

First experience on salvia - Apparently had a huge hit and was immediately transported to who knows where; where the world was only made up of repeating images of the wall I was staring at; that the images just repeated so quickly or so densely that we weren't aware of it in our day-to-day lives. That everyone was just made up of this one, single being, and that we aren't individuals at all. It was my second experience with drugs, period, and it was earth-shattering to me.

So, yeah...I think the fear of unwillingly being out of control of myself and my actions is what has held me back from a lot of things. I try not dwell on these things, and try to remind myself of all the good experiences I've had with drugs and tripping, etc... but it's like memories, dreams and nightmares, y'know? We always remember the worst things instead of all the good. Maybe it's because I suffer from PTSD and so the simplest negative experience sticks with me harder than it does other people or something...but I don't know how to work past it. It's frustrating.

 

[maxxsskip]

^ It's strange my salvia trip gave me no anxiety, obviously didnt break through, but i saw my entire visual field come at me and then another visual field of the same thing would appear behind it and come at me again, just kept repeating. Forgot i smoked salvia, but didnt care i was just laughing my ass off.

acid on the other hand had me questioning whether i could ever be normal again the whole time. one thought that remains with me was "omg what would this be like if i never took acid tonight". doesnt seem that crazy, but when i thought it, the thought of normal reality seemed so far away that it was mindblowing at the time. the only thing that helped me through the trip was the music distraction, and the fact that i could remind myself, all my friends are on the same dose and are fine, so therefore i am fine.

 

[TheAppleCore]

O.K., here's my approach to anxiety-free tripping. It may or may not work for the rest of you, but I offer you to at least consider it:

Surrender to the trip. Meaning, don't try and guide the experience in any way. Don't try to steer clear of "bad trip" territory, or recreate fondly-remembered past trips, or try to gain a new spiritual perspective. Just take the drug, and let it do its thing. Every experienced psychedelic user has difficult trips from time to time -- there's nothing you can do about it -- so just take it in stride, when things get rough.

If you're approaching the trip with recreational intentions (which is totally legitimate), when it comes time to actually begin the journey, it might help not to look at it from the recreational perspective any more. If you do, you'll be caught in the trap of trying to steer it towards fun times, which is exactly the problem that I just mentioned. Look at it as a medicine for your soul. It may not give you what you want, but it will always give you what you need. You see, if you acknowledge that your psychedelic drug is a medicine, there's no need to have fun, or to avoid anxiety, because that's not the point of taking the medicine -- it's a pleasant side-effect.

I, personally, don't have any difficulty attaining this perspective, because I really DO find psychedelic drugs to have "medicinal", psycho-therapeutic effects, and I consider it important to my psychological health to take them on occasion.


TL;DR -- Don't be concerned with "shaking the anxiety". It is, ironically, the source of your anxiety.

 

[OpanRanger30]

two words and four words (and an equals sign)

landing gear = peace of mind

hell these days i don't take a tab or eat a stalk till i know i got a good stash of quality benzos, GHB, etc... and of course dope but that's another story

 

[SinisterMuffin]

acid on the other hand had me questioning whether i could ever be normal again the whole time. one thought that remains with me was "omg what would this be like if i never took acid tonight". doesnt seem that crazy, but when i thought it, the thought of normal reality seemed so far away that it was mindblowing at the time. the only thing that helped me through the trip was the music distraction, and the fact that i could remind myself, all my friends are on the same dose and are fine, so therefore i am fine.

Yeah, I think that's kind of what happened with me as well. I started getting worried about whether or not I'd still be tripping when I had to work, and then that anxiety increased tenfold to worrying about whether or not I'd ever stop tripping again. Funnily enough, the thing that kept me grounded was a tub of Vick's vaporub (menthol was a soothing smell) and watching my friend play Fallout 3. ^^;;

O.K., here's my approach to anxiety-free tripping. It may or may not work for the rest of you, but I offer you to at least consider it:

Surrender to the trip. Meaning, don't try and guide the experience in any way. Don't try to steer clear of "bad trip" territory, or recreate fondly-remembered past trips, or try to gain a new spiritual perspective. Just take the drug, and let it do its thing. Every experienced psychedelic user has difficult trips from time to time -- there's nothing you can do about it -- so just take it in stride, when things get rough.

If you're approaching the trip with recreational intentions (which is totally legitimate), when it comes time to actually begin the journey, it might help not to look at it from the recreational perspective any more. If you do, you'll be caught in the trap of trying to steer it towards fun times, which is exactly the problem that I just mentioned. Look at it as a medicine for your soul. It may not give you what you want, but it will always give you what you need. You see, if you acknowledge that your psychedelic drug is a medicine, there's no need to have fun, or to avoid anxiety, because that's not the point of taking the medicine -- it's a pleasant side-effect.

I, personally, don't have any difficulty attaining this perspective, because I really DO find psychedelic drugs to have "medicinal", psycho-therapeutic effects, and I consider it important to my psychological health to take them on occasion.


TL;DR -- Don't be concerned with "shaking the anxiety". It is, ironically, the source of your anxiety.

I'm definitely going to keep that in mind. Since being aware that being concerned with shaking the anxiety is actually the largest source of my anxiety just makes me more anxious, maybe looking at it in a completely different light would help. Instead of focusing on things to distract myself from being anxious so I can have fun with the trip, perhaps remember the other benefits I get from the trip (mental clarity, a new perspective, medicinal, etc) will help me more. Thanks muchly for the advice!

two words and four words (and an equals sign)

landing gear = peace of mind

hell these days i don't take a tab or eat a stalk till i know i got a good stash of quality benzos, GHB, etc... and of course dope but that's another story

Unfortunately I have no access to benzos or anything. The only thing I have is Tramadol; it's something I take quite often, however, so I have too much of a tolerance to its effects for them to really help me during a trip, I think.

 

[khRma]

O.K., here's my approach to anxiety-free tripping. It may or may not work for the rest of you, but I offer you to at least consider it:

Surrender to the trip. Meaning, don't try and guide the experience in any way. Don't try to steer clear of "bad trip" territory, or recreate fondly-remembered past trips, or try to gain a new spiritual perspective. Just take the drug, and let it do its thing. Every experienced psychedelic user has difficult trips from time to time -- there's nothing you can do about it -- so just take it in stride, when things get rough.

If you're approaching the trip with recreational intentions (which is totally legitimate), when it comes time to actually begin the journey, it might help not to look at it from the recreational perspective any more. If you do, you'll be caught in the trap of trying to steer it towards fun times, which is exactly the problem that I just mentioned. Look at it as a medicine for your soul. It may not give you what you want, but it will always give you what you need. You see, if you acknowledge that your psychedelic drug is a medicine, there's no need to have fun, or to avoid anxiety, because that's not the point of taking the medicine -- it's a pleasant side-effect.

I, personally, don't have any difficulty attaining this perspective, because I really DO find psychedelic drugs to have "medicinal", psycho-therapeutic effects, and I consider it important to my psychological health to take them on occasion.


TL;DR -- Don't be concerned with "shaking the anxiety". It is, ironically, the source of your anxiety.

This is quite possibly the best advice you could give someone who was uncomfortable and about to embark on a trip.

 

[webbykevin]

I think having pre trip anxiety is a sign of how powerful an experience taking psychedelics can be, like McKenna said, how many times do you see people standing outside the ashram with their knees knocking because they are so sure that the meditation session is going to be so powerful, that's the difference, psychedelics deliver an experience every time, on demand, no belief required, skeptics welcome.

 

[clubberdude]

I wouldn't know, because I've never experienced it. Pre-trip excitement, yes, but not anxiety. This is perhaps kind of odd as virtually everything increases my anxiety level, but all psychedelic drugs I have tried (with the exception of Cannabis) tend to be moderately to strongly anxiolytic (anxiety reducing).

 

[TangerinO]

O.K., here's my approach to anxiety-free tripping. It may or may not work for the rest of you, but I offer you to at least consider it:

Surrender to the trip. Meaning, don't try and guide the experience in any way. Don't try to steer clear of "bad trip" territory, or recreate fondly-remembered past trips, or try to gain a new spiritual perspective. Just take the drug, and let it do its thing. Every experienced psychedelic user has difficult trips from time to time -- there's nothing you can do about it -- so just take it in stride, when things get rough.

If you're approaching the trip with recreational intentions (which is totally legitimate), when it comes time to actually begin the journey, it might help not to look at it from the recreational perspective any more. If you do, you'll be caught in the trap of trying to steer it towards fun times, which is exactly the problem that I just mentioned. Look at it as a medicine for your soul. It may not give you what you want, but it will always give you what you need. You see, if you acknowledge that your psychedelic drug is a medicine, there's no need to have fun, or to avoid anxiety, because that's not the point of taking the medicine -- it's a pleasant side-effect.

I, personally, don't have any difficulty attaining this perspective, because I really DO find psychedelic drugs to have "medicinal", psycho-therapeutic effects, and I consider it important to my psychological health to take them on occasion.


TL;DR -- Don't be concerned with "shaking the anxiety". It is, ironically, the source of your anxiety.

+10. Fantastic advice, I actually had the same sort of realisation recently! I realised I was taking lots of acid too frequently to try and better my personality flaws and then when it didn't work, I would just take more too soon and fly further away.

I realised that I really need to take it back to basics and start tripping like the good old days, where it was something that was ineffable and a whole shit load of fun. I drained the fun out of my psychedelic experiences and I didn't even mean to. Shit got too serious and so next time I take acid (I can't wait since I had this realisation) I'm just going to let it flow and for the first time in a while not focus on trying to bring back some magic cure for insignificant personality flaws, that make me who I am anyway, after all no one is perfect.

Again, great post AppleCore