Bad mushroom trips

[StanleyJobson]

After going a decade without tripping, I've been getting into mushrooms quite a bit this summer. My first trip (2 grams) was wonderful. Great visuals, was in a great mood, and no anxiety. Usually when I trip, I'll go hiking in a nearby forest, and on a sunny day it can be amazing. Lately, though, my trips seem to be getting worse and worse. (It could be that I've started to drink quite a bit, which kills my mood and makes me a bit more anxious in general).

There have been a couple trips that have been pure Hell (although in fairness the reason I tripped those two times were to try to stop this drinking habit).

It feels like I just can't wait for the trip to be over, and the worst part is that I don't even get an afterglow, which is often times the main reason I trip in the first place. There are times when I feel rejuvenated after a trip, but those times have become few and far between.

Has anyone else gone through times where tripping on mushrooms was just no fun? Now that summer's about over and I'll be living in a perpetual gray cloudiness, it seems that I won't be able to enjoy tripping for awhile

 

[theacidtest]

It sounds like your drinking is the issue, it also sounds like you've already realized that though.

 

[Seattle_Stranger]

You might be tripping too often. I always have nothing but wonderful trips and great afterglows, however my body definitely starts letting me know if we're tripping too much. Also, as you said, yes alcohol is going to skew things for you. Lastly, if you're going into the trip with this goal in mind, something you expect to get out of it, I can almost guarantee you're not going to have a good time. You gotta let the trip take you wherever it's going to take you, even if it's a dark place. Remember, you can learn a lot from these dark places, so instead of dwelling on how shitty the trip is going for you, maybe listen to what the mushrooms AND your body/mind are trying to tell you. It may be way more complex than simply "stop drinking". I always drink whiskey on my mushroom trips, but I do notice that the alcohol directly detracts from the trip, so I try to only use it to ease the come-up.

Give yourself a break for a bit, and then have a trip with a more open mindset, not just looking to have fun and get high on 'shrooms. Make a journey out of it and try not to have expectations.

 

[StanleyJobson]

I honestly wish I could look at mushrooms as a way to have fun, but they don't seem to work for me that way. I consider them, along with cactus and ayahuasca as "plant medicines," and I usually take them for insight and healing. It's frustrating for me because I know they CAN be fun and all, but it doesn't always work out that way. Maybe drinking on them a little bit would help, once I get that in control. Summer's almost over here in Seattle, so it might be a good time for a little break, anyways.

Have you noticed a certain dose that gives you the afterglow?

 

[rpm]

How often have you been tripping recently? As Seattlestranger says it may be because you are over doing it. I find that these things wear down your defence mechanisms, so that if you do it regularly the trips tend to get deeper. (if I trip two days in a row, the first is often giggly and fun while the second can get more dark and introspective). Repeating what he said again, the deep trips can be just as beneficial if not more so, but not as recreational.

 

[transitionsynth]

I honestly wish I could look at mushrooms as a way to have fun, but they don't seem to work for me that way. I consider them, along with cactus and ayahuasca as "plant medicines," and I usually take them for insight and healing. It's frustrating for me because I know they CAN be fun and all, but it doesn't always work out that way. Maybe drinking on them a little bit would help, once I get that in control. Summer's almost over here in Seattle, so it might be a good time for a little break, anyways.

Have you noticed a certain dose that gives you the afterglow?

I'm curious what you expect out of the mushroom in terms of its healing potential. In what way do you integrate mushrooms into your treatment for this building drinking habit? Because what you're saying doesn't quite line up. Do you want the mushroom to help in your healing processes, or do you want to "enjoy tripping"? These are not mutually exclusive, but they are not the same either. Anxious trips are quite useful for healing, provided that they don't pass the threshold into panic attack and psychosis territory. Even these latter have been known to have healing effects after the nightmare is over. Simply riding on a nice afterglow that makes it easier to enjoy life for a few weeks is not really doing anything permanent to fix or truly progress your life, thus not healing but rather escaping temporarily.

If you approach mushrooms and other plant entheogens in this way, as medicines, why are you not listening to what they say? Insofar as the mushroom is used with the intention to heal the user, if the mushroom kicks the user around on the trip, there's a reason for it. Mushrooms don't do things like "inception" where they bring alien anxiety to you that you otherwise would not have had. They operate on native cognitive and proprioceptive patterns. If you're having anxiety-ridden trips as a matter of course, it's because there's something in your non-tripping life that's producing that pattern. It may even be the very choice to trip at inopportune times that produces the anxiety; I know I've had mushrooms admonish me on trips for taking them when I should not have, for giving voice to latent hedonic and addictive patterns that I knew were not good for me. The more time you spend tripping relative to a given continuous time interval in your life, the more the outputs of those psychedelic operations become reinforced as native cognitive, et al. patterns. At best, tripping will lose its magic; at worst, delusions, psychosis, anxiety disorders of all sorts.

 

[StanleyJobson]

I think I understand what you're trying to say, transition, and I think what it boils down to is maybe waiting a little while longer in between trips (I've been tripping about once a week for the past couple months), and then waiting until I'm done with a certain something until I trip again. I disagree with the alien anxiety thing, though. I feel that that's one of the strongest tools used by the mushroom. If there's something in your life that could get you in trouble, but you're not really giving it much consideration, psilocybin can basically spotlight that issue with huge amounts of paranoia. I feel that that's part of the healing process...or possibly psychosis