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A trip to face FEAR

Flickering

Flickering

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Apr 11, 2011
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Following an acid trip in April, I've been steadily recovering from a long-enduring state of depression. Recently I've realised much of it comes from a deep, paralysing fear I've had since I was twelve years old.

I've decided to confront this terror with another trip. I'm somewhat experienced with the classic three psychedelics but it's been a few months since the last time. I want to go straight to the core of the emotion. I fully expect and am prepared for a very dark experience. I'd like to know what techniques, or anything really, experienced users would recommend.

Presently at my disposal are two feet of San Pedro cactus, nine inches of which I've promised to a friend. This may suffice, though ideally I would like to try ayahuasca again. It is hard to come by, but perhaps it would be worth the effort?
 
If you're going to do this I say:
San Pedro would be gentler on your mind and I'd take all 1' 3" of it, that's a fairly light dose with most cacti. My only advice is to be in the safest enviroment possible to possibly be screaming, crying, and perhaps even suicidal, or laughing at your own brain, things you don't want casual friends and neighbors witnessing. Also be okay if you don't really trip and/or find any new understanding this time around.
Be mostly safe and mostly brave,
Good luck.
 
Flickering said:
This may suffice, though ideally I would like to try ayahuasca again. It is hard to come by, but perhaps it would be worth the effort?
Click to expand...

Ayahuasca was the first psyche that popped into my head when I saw your thread. Ayahuasca was great for helping me overcome my fears / anxieties.
 
The tried and true technique I know of for getting over fears comes from Behavior Theory. It's called systematic desensitization, and involves working up to the full fear-inducing stimulus using successive approximations, e.g. if your fear is spiders you might work from viewing a picture of a spider to watching a video, and up and through allowing a tarantula to walk over your arm.

Psychedelics are an especially useful tool in this regard because they amplify our subjective reactions, including the experience of fearful emotions. Because of this amplification, we can use simulations of a stimulus to evoke nearly the same intensity of reaction as an actual stimulus. An example of such a simulation regarding a deep-seeded psychological fear is watching a movie that reflects whatever we fear in the content of its storyline while tripping as we focus directly and persistently on the hard questions it presents us.

Psychedelics can also take us beyond such simulations and increase the strength of our character more than is possible using natural methods. For example, I chose to trip on psychedelics the first time I bungee jumped, tandem hang-glided, tandem sky-dived, and tandem para-glided. We can only face a fear the first time once, and that first time is the most difficult. I wanted to make overcoming the fear of heights as difficult as possible so I amplified it with psychoactive drugs. This made the triumph over the fear even more thorough and far reaching than it would've been if I had faced it sober. Not only that, but facing a fear in one domain often can provide confidence in facing challenges in others through generalization. Bungee jumping and other extreme experiences that pose little statistical risk represent profound opportunities for emotional development when combined with psychedelics because the experiences result in extreme benefits but pose no true danger. I highly recommend taking these opportunities to those who feel up to doing so. The only thing to fear in experiences like these really is fear itself. I consider it a betrayal of one's self not to act on such convictions.
 
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TheAppleCore said:
Ayahuasca was the first psyche that popped into my head when I saw your thread. Ayahuasca was great for helping me overcome my fears / anxieties.
Click to expand...

What I was going to say... I think ayahuasca would definitely be better for this purpose than San Pedro... although it can certainly shift your perspective IME it tends to do so in a more gentle way
 
Maybe it would help to work out some expectations to question yourself how you would react to possible outcomes? I don't know if your fear is rational or irrational but I assume the latter because rational fears may not respond as well to psychedelic therapy and they are by definition more or less deserved. If your fear responds to deeper insight that might turn it from irrational to rational and the level of your fear response should become appropriate for the actual danger of the subject's fear.
But what do you plan to do when you just experience the fear intensely without any transformation? Are you ready to accept that you might have to live with it or at least for a little while longer?

I think you should be prepared for an outcome that can contain an answer or solution that is in part out of your reach, involving an unknown that cannot become known by therapy just like that. For example the fear of not being able to control everything that will happen.
What I am saying is that a more appropriate form of therapy for that is letting go. Get in contact with certain fixations, feelings and interests and try to see if you can learn to give them up so that the fear loses grip.

I definitely don't think you should plot this entirely before your trip but at least give it some thought to use this as a backup "guiding question", so that for a lack of a therapeutic guide you can avoid getting stuck in some irrational thought patterns. They are potentially very helpful and important in the dynamics of the experience but IME there are sometimes moments of crisis where it can be quintessential to formulate the track you're on and the direction you feel you need to go.
 
So I've slept on it and my thoughts are:

* This is something I should do with someone. That makes it safer and allows us both to articulate our experiences to each other, which I find can give a trip focus and clarity. It ought to be someone I trust, who is also interested in exploring these corners of the mind.

* As Golem points out, it ought to be somewhere secluded, so I'm free to do whatever I want.

* The substance used is less important than the intent.

Ayahuasca would perhaps be preferable. From my one experience with it, it was gentler and friendlier than I was expecting, but that was at a low dose. I understand that it tends to take the user on its own course and you're better off being a passenger rather than trying to direct it. However I'm confident that this is where I need to go next, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's where it took me.

Mescaline has the advantage of being safer. It is certainly a gentle psychedelic, and 15" is a light dose for me.

I'd also consider doing a high dose (8+ tabs) of LSD, but my experience of higher-dose acid is that it becomes very uncomfortable and overly stimulating. On the other hand, this may be perfect for my intentions. On high-dose LSD I will, for example, be gripped with the horror and fragility of existing as an organic body, becoming very aware of the mineral nature of my skull and skeleton, vividly imagining being stabbed in the heart of cut to pieces with a sword, etc. This certainly relates to the fear I'm trying to focus on. Come-up anxiety also tends to be awful at those doses, which again could be an opportunity.

Psychedelic psychotherapy (Mitchi's suggestion) prescribes two methods: psycholitic, which involves taking low doses every one or two weeks over a period, which I'm in a position to do... or, basically, my own idea above of taking a large amount of acid.

As to the nature of the fear, it is irrational. In fact over the last few months, I've systematically destroyed every reason it has to be there at all. But it still remains. I can only assume that, having lived half my life in this state, it's just what my brain is used to, and I've forgotten how to feel any other way. Still, I'm aware it isn't right, as it's constricting every element of my life and personality. Lately I've become aware of it as a physical sensation of writhing panic and dread in my stomach, that seems to arise apropos of nothing.

I'm prepared for it to still be there after the trip. Trips rarely go the way you expect. I've put up with it for eleven years so I can survive another few months.

Before undertaking this, I plan to speak to my therapist.

My main question at this stage is how to trigger the fear. Once I've begun the journey, it could work to repeat a mantra, play music, focus on something that stimulates it or just talk about it. Whatever I end up doing, I really don't want it to hold back. I want to be there with no barriers or defenses whatsoever. I feel I've spent most of my life hiding from this emotion and if I keep doing that, things will never change.
 
mushrooms healped me with a wasp phobia. its unpleasant now but i dont have the same level of panic or disgust.

i dont like wasps but i'm not terrified of them like before, i just find them very unpleasant.

you have to rework your cognitions. eg. i can kills wasps but they cant kill me.
 
Have you ever eaten san pedro before? If not, before you spend hours boiling up 9 feet of it, just try and drink a mouthful. There's a very strong chance you'll simply spit it out gagging and retching.
 
Flickering said:
I'd like to know what techniques, or anything really, experienced users would recommend.
Click to expand...

Get the set and setting right, if the purpose is to look inside and find some healing then do it alone in silent darkness, once it starts hold the space and see it through, you don't need music, video games or tv thrown in, sort out your diet in the few days before you do it, fast for 6 hours before you take it, have some benzo's handy just in case (that's optional but sensible for harm reduction in a high dose dark trip journey).

I would be thinking of mushrooms maybe for the kind of insights you are after but that's purely a personal preference but is based on a lot of experience over 30 years of psychedelic use.

Good luck.
 
Yep, mescaline is my favourite psychedelic when it works. In fact I love it as much as I hate the flavour of san pedro.

Mushrooms would be an option but it's too far out of season. They're also the craziest substance I've ever taken.

I most likely won't have xanax on-hand. When I go into a trip, I make a commitment to see it through under any circumstances. (I once thought I was going to die of a heart attack on acid, but I stuck it out.) I like the idea of making it a silent and dark trip.
 
I recommend you to read the link which unfortunately is down right now. High amounts of LSD and a jump right back in trauma could be re-traumatizing.
 
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