Bad Experiences

[psilly]

In my experience, most people belonging to the vague community of drug users find the concept or experience of a "bad trip" quite excruciating.

I have trouble finding those who have had "terrible" experiences who are willing to open up about them. If you are going to use psychedelic substances, you will undoubtedly encounter the bad vibes that ebb and flow with the good.

I, personally, have used mushrooms for some time now. I have taken enough opportunities to experience their power to have touched both euphoria and despair. I have never taken them solely for the purpose of recreation. I, like many other human beings, have many questions about my existence, and these substances have helped me to grow, and continue to question.

But, nonetheless, we are still left with our earthly connections and we can plunge into the bad trip. This "bad trip" is somewhat of an enigma to me and to most, and only the experience will communicate understanding of it.

Mushrooms have proved instrumental for my own experience of bad trips.
I have had multiple experiences of white outs, and the feeling of leaving my body. These experiences have coupled with intense auditory hallucinations, and usually result when I place myself in an unwise set and setting.

I am always able to control myself though. I find myself embracing this side of the trip. At first these experiences were uncomfortable, but I feel a deeper and deeper spiritual connection to... something when I enter. My last experience of this variety was at an art museum, and when I felt the familiar feeling, I instantly sat down amidst everyone (against a wall) and began meditation.
I stayed calm during this public experience, and came away from it awed.

I am curious if anyone else has the same retrospect for similar experiences?
If so, please share, as I feel the potential to learn from such trips is uncounted.

 

[SpecialK_]

Around my group of friends people are fairly comfortable with bad trips happening, happens to everyone and generally to most early on when they start taking acid. It's worth discussing with people how they think it was triggered and what they would do to avoid it in the future.
Weed is a popular contribution to bad trips, as is something going wrong such as an important idea or inability to do something and another big one is being around people that make them feel uncomfortable.

 

[DwayneHoover]

Why the morbid fascination with bad trips? Why arent there more threads where people ask about others' shining glorious uplifting life-affirming spiritually enriching trips? Perhaps those seem maudlin and they are embarrassed? These days it seems more fashionable to be all cynical, and it is a proof of strength to have survived a difficult ordeal, I guess, so maybe that's more interesting than a simple good positive fun trip.

 

[HeavilySedated]

Why the morbid fascination with bad trips? Why arent there more threads where people ask about others' shining glorious uplifting life-affirming spiritually enriching trips? Perhaps those seem maudlin and they are embarrassed? These days it seems more fashionable to be all cynical, and it is a proof of strength to have survived a difficult ordeal, I guess, so maybe that's more interesting than a simple good positive fun trip.

Because most of the people coming here and asking about that stuff are themselves terrified of the possibility of having a bad trip, and therefore seek reassurance from others.

 

[psilly]

Well everything that I've learned from good trips doesn't seem to resonate with me the way the "bad" does.

I don't feel cynical about my fascination..

I just have learned more from my experiences of the unknown, which is what usually associates with the infamous bad trip.

I find myself disliking the terms bad and good to describe a trip...
The more you think about them, the more alike they seem.

 

[skinwalker]

I find myself disliking the terms bad and good to describe a trip...
The more you think about them, the more alike they seem.

I'm with you on this one.....I would consider them difficult or uncomfortable experiences

 

[Solipsis]

Agreed, I don't think people find the concept of 'bad trips' particularly excruciating.
I think that what I have seen happen a lot is that trippers with some decent experience under their belt put it in another perspective when an inexperienced tripper makes a 'bad trip' come off like they are the victim of something the psychedelics did to them.

A great lesson can be learned realizing that psychedelics are not a one way street, they are not like watching a movie. It is the interaction of your being with the action of the psychedelic or the effect of the psychedelic on your interaction with the world or reality. If you are having a bad trip that is a sign that something is psyching you out and there is often a solution to it. Trying to escape or wish that it would end immediately is a common rookie mistake. Instead you should look to fix the real reason for what is making the trip bad which can be internal or external, set or setting related.

There are those trips that cannot be fixed though, like being unable to leave a situation that would stress any person really hard. Shit happens, it is hard to count on every possible thing that could happen although you should do your best. Sometimes you can make a mistake. If you talk about having a bad trip at that point there is no getting around it.

Overwhelming / spiritual and mystical experience are also sometimes called a bad trip, because that part of the trip was unwanted. It's hard to put that under set and setting but it is like making a mistake judging the psychedelic you are taking, wanting a part of the effects but not another part. Like looking for visuals but finding psychological effects confusing very easily. If that doesn't work, well you were fooling yourself. It just doesn't work that way. Again, the psychedelics are not to be blamed.

 

[Survived Abortion]

Agreed, I don't think people find the concept of 'bad trips' particularly excruciating.

I do. I don't ever want to go back down to that hell I once visited. Yes, it was the fault of my own lack of discipline over my thoughts during an extremely vulnerable time (not the fault of the psychedelic, ever), but that doesn't diminish the terror and pain of the experience. It ripped me to shreds.

Maybe I might be better equipped to handle it should such a situation ever arise again, but it doesn't mean I will be looking for such an experience in the future. Don't ever be so complacent; the mind is absurdly powerful.

I just have learned more from my experiences of the unknown, which is what usually associates with the infamous bad trip.

Actually, if anything I've always come away with far more from my positive/glowing/mystical experiences, than I have from terrible experiences (of which I have only had a couple, of which only one of them really takes the cake as being a complete hell). I used to be of the opinion that "bad trips" were more informative and enriching to the soul because you learned something that you needed to set straight. I realized more recently that this idea was flawed.

The last time I had a terrible experience, it was because I got snagged on an idea that wouldn't let me alone, and which chased me down in to a hole that I lost sight of all reason of everything else. I was tripping three days after coming off diazepam cold-turkey (100mg/day), and so I had a very limited sense of empathy toward anything outside of my own skin. I refer to the place that I went to as "the cage". Of course at the time, I thought that I had discovered the dispicable secret behind the workings of this universe (which I perceived to be a place of penetentiary for doing something cosmically horrendous in a previous life). Because of my lack of insight, I punished myself: I was my own eternal torturer.

Now, the basic lessons that arose from that trip were reasonable and valid (that I/we should have far more respect for our Earth Mother, that I/we should appreciate just being alive, that wallowing in self-pity is a disgusting thing, and that I am not as big and clever as my arrogance would have me beleive). However, the extent to which I punished myself for these things were completely unreasonable, and were paradoxically the result of losing sight of a vast section of my ontological spectrum (due to my temporary obsession with disgust), things that I would have not only retained vantage of during a glowing experience but also gained a greater awareness.

My most profound spiritual trips, or what some would call ++++ experiences, have been more insightful and useful and enriching to the soul in ways I would be able to describe, not in this thread anyway.

Bring on the mysitcal oceanic trips any day! :D The highest vibrations are unconditional love.

 

[seagal26]

I have a lot to say about this.

I agree with Survived_Abortion. I've had bad trips before, more often than I'd like. I won't say there hasn't been anything redeeming about my bad experiences, but there are a lot more redeeming qualities in good trips.

For me, when they occur, they are something to be endured. Sure, they have forced me to face a lot of my fears, but some of that stuff is better off left alone.

I used to think there was something to the bad trips, besides them just being bad. There may be, but for the most part, they are just bad, and you are better off getting what you can from positive experiences.

I try to be really careful about dosing, set and setting because I've gotten PTSD from bad trips before.

They have forced me to face a lot of my fears. They've given me a greater sense of purpose of meaning to my existence on this earth. In a way, they keep me on my toes. I'm here by the grace of God, and I have to live for God in order for my life to have the meaning I want it to. I've made a pact to walk a certain path, and that is the case regardless of my psychedelic experiences or not.

I think there are some underlying self-esteem / self-worth issues that come into play to produce these experiences -- these are things I'm working on in talk therapy. The other things that come into play, of course, are set and setting, and respect for the substances.

I went through a period of time where I was not respectful of our substances and used them recklessly. I had to learn some hard lesons during this tijme. Ever since, I have treated them with respect. This has reaped many rewards for me.

I still have bad experiences from time to time, but they are mostly related to dose, set or setting problems. I learn what I need to from them and move on.

 

[Charleston_Car]

i've had some bad trips, some i've learned important things from, and some were just shitlessly scary. i don't think you necessarily have to have a bad experience to learn things, but sometimes it happens. it's great to be able to feel amazing and take in information about the world, but sometimes psychedelics put facts in your face that you can be really uncomfortable with. things you wouldn't be able to think about happily, and whether you feel good while it's happening or not doesn't always matter, it's that you're facing the fact in the first place is what i think is important. how you take it is up to you, i guess.

 

[Solipsis]

I do. I don't ever want to go back down to that hell I once visited.

Oh no, me neither! But I meant the term or concept of a bad trip and how skewed its definition might be, not the experience itself.

I have had a pretty large number of trips that were hell, but my point was that while I first saw trips as bad or good, that changed into difficult and easy which is a large difference for me. But for some it may appear subtle.

If you do not have enough tripping experience to even understand how to begin to get a grip then it is for all intents and purposes no use and I get why that is considered nothing but bad. But the important thing is to see that it doesn't have to be that way always, it can change with experience. Not that you can immunize yourself completely, that would be pretentious. Thinking like that can get you to be shown your humble place in it all even more, especially by the harsher teachers like - for me - mushrooms.

 

[skinwalker]

The negative connotation of a "bad trip"is enough to cause anyone an uncomfortable experience especially with all the thought patterns associated with it.
My boy says that he never wants to take mushies again because after a high dose trip where he thought he literally died he keeps coming back to those same thought patterns...in reality i think it is his set and setting as well as his intentions and respect for the substance....or maybe it might be his girlfriend setting him on a downward spiral....he trips out because I can take 'em around my lady with hardly any problems....well that is if the in-laws don't make an unannounced stop by - shit bothers me just being sober. I do prefer to trip solo as I have enough in my head as it is, don't need another head to influence my trip.....been there done that......or maybe i just haven't found a good trip buddy. My old trip buddy is too strung out on opiates now.......do remember moments of telepathy like where one person is thinking something and the other says it....pretty trippy