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Esoteric [Bad Trip Subthread] How Do You Define "Bad Trip"?

pf echoes said:
Everytime I eat mushrooms I think the cops are outside and are surrounding where i'm at, I see perfect images of them shooting me and everything. So I flip out and grab knifes and hide behind the couch. When I look at stars they get bigger and seem like they are planets coming to smash into the earth. And I literally feel them smashing into the earth as time halts. Most people would think that would be the definition of a bad trip but not for me I think it's fucking adventurous lol.
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Haha yes I know exactly what your talking about, and it is adventurous. Back when I used to like to get fried a lot, we would even eat a bunch of shrooms and start tripping and be like "lets go out in public like around a bunch of people". Always made the trip more fun and intense.
 
Xtc <3 said:
My first panic attack after a bowl on mushrooms.
Most terrifying experience I have had to date.

Also is it possible for psychedelics to to create pain as a result of tripping?
During this panic attack the pain I felt in my chest was unbelievable (what made me worry)
Im wondering now whether it was actual pain or just a result of my anxiety building while tripping face.

I dont neccesarily fear many of the negative aspects of tripping.
However I do fear pain, have been weary of mushrooms since (Still love them though) :D
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i have had a panic attack before and i wasnt on shrooms and had the pain in my chest. It felt like someone was squeezing and twisting my heart around. I think its more from the panic than from a pain.
 
I call a bad trip when you lose more than an expected connection from reality, where your so far dissattached your staring at your best friend and you think he's someone else from your past, or your own dad, or something theyre not, when you cant trust your own perception to be able to realate to reliable themes in your life.

then its scary!
 
Tunnelfission said:
I call a bad trip when you lose more than an expected connection from reality, where your so far dissattached your staring at your best friend and you think he's someone else from your past, or your own dad, or something theyre not, when you cant trust your own perception to be able to realate to reliable themes in your life.

then its scary!
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That's what I like to call a 'psychedelic experience'. You're underdosing if you don't reach that state.
 
Out of the many psychedelic drugs I've taken and the many psychedelic trips/experiences I've had, I've never once had a bad trip.

It's honestly getting to the point where I kind of want to have one so I can get it out of the way, you know?

I suppose it stems from me always making sure of set and setting when I trip. I always measure out my doses accurately. I always know what I'm ingesting. I always have good people to be around if I'm tripping with others. Even when tripping by myself I make sure everything in the house is set up right (music, water, etc.). If I'm tripping in public I always make sure I've taken a manageable dose and have someone sober there to handle things like driving, etc.

And I always make sure I'm in the right state of mind. I suppose I can understand being in a bad place over a certain issue in your life and wanting to trip as a way to deal with it, just I've never done that. I always try working my shit out on the level and then tripping when I'm in a good head space. That way I can look back on the experience or whatever was bothering me after having already dealt with it. Reflection on psychedelics is a wonderful thing and better, I think, than using psychedelics to confront something you haven't come to terms with yet.

Also, I always try and just go with the flow of the chemical/trip. I relax and let it take me where it will. I've had moments tripping where things have bothered me, freaked me out, whatever, and it might have sent me into a bad trip if I'd fought it. Instead, I just keep the positive waves flowing and just accept what's happening. That probably sounds weird, but it's worked for me.
 
The only time I had what I would call a bad trip was when I'd been dosing too often. I freaked out because I was way too high and I though I would have to go home and see my parents eventually. I just sat on a couch for a few hours thinking over and over "I'm screwed, I'm never taking LSD again, I take way too much LSD, there is no way I'm getting away with this, my pupils will still be huge by 11pm."


I pretty much just fell into a pit of intense fear and sever self loathing for about 3 or 4 hours. Then my friend game me half of a xanax bar and I stopped tripping completely and the vibe instantly returned to normal. My parents ended up leaving town without telling me while I was tripping so I came home to an empty house. All that worrying was for nothing, I pretty much wasted a trip. I did learn a valuable lesson from that though. I went two years using psychedelics and never having a bad trip, I thought I was immune to them. The whole trip was painful. I'd had difficult moments in trips before but I just could not for the life of me turn this trip around.
 
A bad trip in my book is when you allow the fear to take hold of your mind and run you out of control. You think and act irrationally, panicking and loosing it for hours. I usually catch glimpses of the fear each time I trip, but it always seems that I am able to direct my thoughts to something else instead of dwelling on the fear and my trip turns beautiful. Once I see the logic behind why I survived I think how silly it was that I even had those thoughts in the first place. I've allowed the fear to get the best of me before though and it is one of the most unpleasant things that one can ever experience. Out of precaution I keep my doses on the lighter side, at least with acid and drugs that are fairly new to me.
 
like losing connection to... just the ability to preform every day tasks, I've spent a trip directing my friend down backlanes due to his level of dissociation. speaking jibberish while i'm doing my best to take care of his random needs.

I've always kept a cool head and the most panicking i do is being certain that I would like to be alone.
 
Tunnelfission said:
like losing connection to... just the ability to preform every day tasks, I've spent a trip directing my friend down backlanes due to his level of dissociation. speaking jibberish while i'm doing my best to take care of his random needs.

I've always kept a cool head and the most panicking i do is being certain that I would like to be alone.
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You've not truly tripped until you've been completely unable to function normally or perform "everyday tasks". I am not advocating taking silly doses and trying to do these tasks, but if they don't seem at least challenging, then you've not tripped very hard.

Bad trips are to trips what nightmares are to dreams. They are typically frightening at the time and can leave you completely shattered afterwards if you aren't able to pick yourself up - for weeks or even months if you're not the type to move on from bad experiences easily. That said, they can do this and still be among the most enjoyable (or at the very least, memorable) experiences of your life.

Take enough psychs, and you will eventually have one. You'll know about it afterwards, but at the time you'll be completely wrapped up in the experience.
 
When a trip has been more outright work than enjoyment then I consider it a difficult trip. Calling a trip "bad" just goes against my general outlook on things.
 
What I'd call bad - or more closely, an useless trip - is one which is dominated by anxiety, panic, nausea that you can not determine nor control. It has no use if you never find the reasons; If you do, the trip becomes useful and therefore can't be bad enough.

Truth to be told, I've never had a trip that was fully "bad", but there has been periods that have been dominated by extremely bad feelings, fear of death, body paralyzation (I think I actually fell asleep, immediatelly woke up and had a sleep paralysis while on psychedelics - freaky!!) that never lasted for the whole trip and I usually actually learned from them. If the same feelings somehow dominated whole trip and taught nothing, I'd call it bad.
 
I definitely make a distinction between overwhelming/difficult trips and bad trips.

Many of the trips on here i see described as bad i would say are overwhelming trips. Overwhelming trips are just periods of being frightened, confused, lost, looped thoughts, etc that usually don't persist throughout the whole trip just for a certain period of time.

I've had one bad trip and that was on shrooms. It went alright for about an hour but after that I realized it was a bad decision to trip with the people and the enviornment I chose. I basically winged this trip and it wasn't scary or overwhelming or anything it was just I wanted to be off of the shrooms, I was stuck in a place I couldn't leave, with people i didn't enoy tripping with and it just felt like a waste of this amazing entheogen.
 
NOTHING.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD TRIP.

Every psychedelic trip is a learning experience. Some are pleasurable, some are harsh. All are for learning. None of it is bad.
 
rm-rf said:
N
Every psychedelic trip is a learning experience. Some are pleasurable, some are harsh. All are for learning. None of it is bad.
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I disagree; Why would every trip be meaningful or teach something? With mind-altering drugs I'd find the exact opposite effect similarily possible, albeit rarer, since the opposite effect (unlearning) is devolution (when humans are supposed to evolve on all levels).

I'm not the kind of person who treats psychedelics as just a way to get fucked up (like I do alcohol and weed) but I'm certainly sure I've had trips that taught me exactly nothing and ended up just to be for the giggles and laughs.

2C-E - being my favorite and most used psychedelic - has given me trips that have been plain boring. They didn't even teach me to be more mindful of set & setting - since other times, in the same set & setting, I've had many good insights or merely fun.

I barely remember them at all so I can't really consider having learned a thing off them. However, they weren't bad per se, since.. nothing overly bad happened. But if it was a trip similar and it did get dominated by unexplainable and unproductable fear and paranoia, I'd call it bad.

But I've never had a bad trip, since for most of the time I've been able to explain any bad feelings. And the explanation has been good and teachful.
 
I don't believe that bad trips are possible.
What ever happens during a trip is between you and your brain and the psychedellic experience builds a good relationship between the two.
If something like that happened to me,
I wouldn't call it bad.
 
^So you would not consider ending up strapped to a hospital bed or in jail a bad trip?

Most trips are between you and your brain, but there are extenuating circumstances sometimes...
 
a few weeks ago i snuck out of my house to do lsd with my girlfriend...

long story short, my dad called me up about 3 hours in as i was peaking and just cuddling with my girl, he found out i snuck out, so he yelled at me and i had to go home...

this was absolutely heartbreaking for both of us,

spent the whole rest of the morning half sobbing in my bed with this weird electric pain inside my head and chest area, really unpleasant, she also didnt have a great experience after i left...

definately taught me a good deal about planning ahead though...
 
I often hear scary trips being referred to as bad.

IME the bad trips are the ones where nothing was acomplished (no realizations, no fun, boredom usually caused by underdosing)
Often times the scary ones are the ones i learn most from and end up being some of mty best trips.
 
^Those are definitely the kind that tend to catalyze significant long term change. They may not be the most enjoyable, but they are worthwhile if for nothing more than the sense of peace achieved by just surviving...
 
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