Paranoia/bad trips on psychedelics. Neuro-chemistry, set and setting, or hard work??

[WarChild]

Hi All,

May be an old idea, but a quick search didn't find anything on this specific take on this topic.

For those who consisently or frequently have 'bad trips' and have gotten past them somehow, or those that have tried and failed, and perhaps those that never have a bad trip, here is a question:

Is a bad trip, and the way of overcoming it:

A) Neuro chemistry for the individual, and impossible to influence.
B) Set and setting, and therefore influence-able by careful preparation, state of mind, company and setting
C) A matter of doing it again and again and again and TRYING to just have a good or meaningful time perhaps by purposefully altering thought patterns

Or even some other approach?

After about 8 bad (AWEFUL) experiences in a row with acid and weed (after 3 years of heavy weed use), I finally gave up, and was shortly afterwards prescribed antipsychotics and anti-depressents, which i am still on 10 years later. So I suppose i subscribe to the psychiatric approach. A bad acid trip is what i would approximate as 'hell'. An experience i would not wish on anyone.

Others however maintain there is more to it than that. Does personality influence? or point of view and approach to life?

Any thoughts?

 

[christianh]

Hi All,

After about 8 bad (AWEFUL) experiences in a row with acid and weed (after 3 years of heavy weed use), I finally gave up, and was shortly afterwards prescribed antipsychotics and anti-depressents, which i am still on 10 years later. So I suppose i subscribe to the psychiatric approach. A bad acid trip is what i would approximate as 'hell'. An experience i would not wish on anyone.

Any thoughts?

I wouldn't like to comment on the reasons why and how a bad trip ocurrs, i'll leave that to those who know their stuff.

But i would like to take issue with what i've quoted from your post. In that i doubt any of your 'bad trips' were acutally that bad, if they were, you wouldn't have taken the drug again. There are bad trips and there are BAD TRIPS.

I will follow this thread as this is something that interests after my one and only bad acid trip 15 years ago.

 

[Youkai]

check out the big and dandy set and setting thread.

set and setting play a HUGE roll, and when you fully udnerstand what makes up set, its realy easy to see what triggers those real difficult experiences.

 

[Newmoonrecord]

All 3

 

[WarChild]

Christianh - You are right, in that everyones experience of a 'bad trip' is different. Perhaps they can be more severe than what I have experienced. It is highly possible. However I will say that i have taken 'paper' acid 3 times, and all three times were absolutely awful in every way, and I still think about them to this day many years later. The reason I took the drug three times, despite bad experiences on the first, and then second tries, was that I changed details, and did ALL of the recommended procedures, for all three to try and have a good time, and convinced myself that I would change things 'next time' to have fun. I desperately wanted to like acid, and 'learn' what it had to teach me. I would say though that each different persons interpretation of a 'bad trip' is to them just that: a bad trip. We can't ever really compare, as we can't be in the other persons shoes (or brain) at that time. So to me, they were bad trips. That is the only experience I have to go by. I hope that makes sense.

I can't summarise what happened or how i felt, as I am sure you cannot either, or anyone that has such an experience. Maybe i will say that i was for 10 or so hours in a place where my best friends and family wanted me dead and at any moment would kill me, i could not talk, I could hardly move, i was terrified of everything and everyone, i was hallucinating horrible things and sounds, and was so anxious that I was shaking and trying to throw up. And sadly that description doesn't come close to how bad i felt. I can also say that it changed my life in a DRAMATIC way and sent me down a path of self destruction, loneliness and despair (I am not fishing for sympathy here, just stating what happened).

The other bad experiences were on weed only, and were not 'bad trips' as such, but periods of EXTREME paranoia and overt audio/visual hallucinations. Not chronic and overpowering like the acid, but very unpleasant.

The trouble was that it never really went away when I sobered up.

After this period I spent several years trapped in constant paranoia, and was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. I have been medicated since then which has helped and my 'condition' is now mostly controlled. Again - not fishing, just reporting what happened as a result of these experiences.

Anyway, back to the topic -

So as I said previously - i fit the 'medical' or psychiatric model of 'bad trips' and resulting problems, and also fitted that in that it was helped by psych medication. But I would love to know if other people have had such experiences that ended in a different way. Or have opinions. Everyone is different. For instance a lot have people have identified with having unpleasant acid experiences, but have purposefully kept going and gotten 'through it' and had positive changes in their lives as a result. Links to idea of acid as a therepeutic aid for counselling etc etc.

Anyone?

Cheers.

 

[christianh]

Warchild, very eloquently put and i see your point about everyone's definition of a bad trip being different. I would go far as to say that a very bad trip goes beyond a mere acid trip, it becomes a serious mental illness, you are no longer tripping, you become mentally ill.

I became psychotic for 3-4 weeks after that trip many years ago and even now after 15 years it makes me shudder to think what it felt like. I could try and describe it but to be honest i cant really think of how to describe it in words; i cant conceptualise it, there is no comparison to everyday sober existence (thank god).

I had flashbacks for several years but i'd say i haven't had 1 for atleast 5 years now .

Sorry to hear that you suffer from schizophenia, my brother suffers from it (paranoid/delusional), he was sectioned early this year against his will but is alot better after taking meds. He doesn't talk about it much but i think he still has symptoms but manages to deal with them in his own way. He is much much better.

Isn't it puzzling how something so potentially enlightening andf enjoyable such as lsd can have such a broad range of effect. I am wannabe psychonaut but alas my trips dont go further than reading the trip reports of others because i cant risk going through that experience again.

On topic, my setting and mood were absolutely fine. I was with a very good friend sat outside my house enjoying the trip, then about 8 hours (yes hours) after ingesting the lsd it all went pear shaped. Nothing happened, nothing spooked me, it just went all wrong. Go figure

Edited to add that even if lsd was shown to have some therapeutic value, which imho it could have, i would rather stick my head in a bucket of shit everyday for the next month than take a trip.

 

[untaMe]

check out the big and dandy set and setting thread.

set and setting play a HUGE roll, and when you fully udnerstand what makes up set, its realy easy to see what triggers those real difficult experiences.

Can you elaborate on what makes up set?
Yes, i too have had a bad acid trip WarChild and it was definitely the worst thing that ever happened to me. Hell on earth. I think it was due too a bad set and setting and a great deal of guilt on my shoulders at the time. After it for several weeks I even got the 'fear' while completely sober but I eventually got over that. I have not tripped since. However the experience was very interesting and enlightening in a way in that it showed me the many dimensions of how the brain works and the mental blocks and fears we can become trapped into, I mean like a brick wall in your subconscious wired for fear and paranoia that you cannot escape. Also, what about bad trips being the cause of bad trips. On my bad acid trip it all started with me seeing a specific visual from my bad shroom trip, then I was locked in and my subconscious just knew it was going to be hell all over again despite my conscious effort to stay calm.

 

[hcooper]

I wouldn't like to comment on the reasons why and how a bad trip ocurrs, i'll leave that to those who know their stuff.

But i would like to take issue with what i've quoted from your post. In that i doubt any of your 'bad trips' were acutally that bad, if they were, you wouldn't have taken the drug again. There are bad trips and there are BAD TRIPS.

I will follow this thread as this is something that interests after my one and only bad acid trip 15 years ago.

I totally agree with bad trips and BAD TRIPS, I smoked weed for 3 years STRAIGHT, tried Acid twice, first time I nearly became a hippy overnight(!) but the second time, (just thinking about it still gives me the 'pain in the brain' ((I don't know if anyone had this)) was total hell, I am now prescribed on Xanax and Lorazepam to keep my anxiety at bay, I can now not even take a puff of gentle hash without having the sky fall down on me. My friends all claim to have bad trips but it seems totally ridiculous even IMPOSSIBLE that they could touch Acid again, let alone other drugs.

I never wanted to become anti anything but if your mind has the power to wander, DON'T TAKE LSD, being 16, on medication, a recluse and laughing stock within my (old) friends is not somewhere I wanted to be, it was only meant to be fun at a festival but now has turned my world upside down.

 

[greenmeanies]

it's hard for me to empathize entirely with your bad trip, but I'm sure I have felt myself spiral into a very similar mindstate. "SET" is like "SCENE", it is your whole history and mindframe before you go into the experience. if you have any doubt, guilt, or fear of anything, it will become magnified.

my syrian rue + psilocybe cyanescens trip became a +4 heaven/hell out-of-body experience. I was forced to confront every negative action in my life, facing those whom I have hurt or neglected for my own personal gain. I was laid naked before God and I knew that I was utterly unworthy of His love. Every direction I looked was met with eyes of disappointment at my choices. I was given the holy gift of life, and this is how I choose to waste it? I could see my ancestors and descendants all waiting at the pearly gate for me, wondering why i was late.

i begged god for forgiveness. i could see the error of my ways but i was sent straight to hell. all around me were taunting voices and repeating time-loops of my past mistakes. i cold never escape the evil that poisoned my soul. after spending an eternity in this dungeon, i finally realized that this was my ego dying. i renounced my physical and spiritual self, and buried my body. i distinctly remember a vision of a large tattered book being closed, and once it was closed i could see that it was the book of my life, with my name written on the cover. it faded away from my sight and i was surrounded by blackness.

at this point it is difficult to recall what happened. i'm not sure how much 'real' time passed before i sobered up, but I am almost positive that I was traveling though time during that period of blackout. it took several weeks to fully integrate that trip, and I was punished for flying too close to the sun with a repeat bad trip (and repeat ending) a few months later.

to this day i still think back to that trip. it taught me things about myself that i didn't know existed, and it allows me to stop and think about what i do more carefully.

medicine man says: "in every one of us there are two creatures: the dark monster, and the light being. these two creatures are always in constant battle."
shaman in training: "but master, how will we know which creature is winning?"
medicine man: "that is easy to find out. It is the one that you feed."

I am sorry that your bad trip experiences caused you to spiral into depression and anxiety. I feel that you will be able to truly work to the root of your problems by opening up to a therapist or close friend (who knows you better than you know yourself). Once you find your fear, you must look it in the eye and kill it. destroy its evil grip over you by filling yourself with love for your past, love for your present, and love for your future, love for your family, love for your friends, and most of all their returned love for you.

meditate, it helps too. best to have a guide, because the deep caverns in our minds are definitely scary to navigate. but you have nothing to lose but your fear, so be confident and you will gradually transform into a highly functioning human, able to take on tasks and situations that would make the old you give up.