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[Bad Trip Subthread] How to handle or prevent a bad trip

Xenoc said:
^ ^
That sounds like you were on the borderline between bad trip/paranoid psychosis. There is a distinction to be made between the two, although it's somewhat abstract.
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yeah i was paranoid as hell... can you explain the difference for me? or try
 
Basicly my friend had a bad trip and damn near lost his mind last night:D. It was quite an experience but i had to stay by his side even though i was tripping hrd myself. Generally i find that if you try and fight the trip this is when a bad trip occurs because you are trying to control something uncontrolable. I always just ride acid like a rollercoaster no matter how disturbing the scenery.
 
There are no "bad" trips. Each one is a learning experience, no matter how difficult it is.
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I fully agree... I think if one is generally a psychologically strong and confident individual with a decent amount of tripping experience the "bad trip" I find can more or less be overcome. I've had well over 50 trips on LSD and a few dozen on mushrooms and other tryptamines, and I find that I feel I've developed an immunity to bad trips even when dosing LSD in the 400ug range... and at times when the trip starts to become hairy I think the trick is to just ride the fucking serpent and not fight it. The key is not to fear, as Morrison said, "if it senses fear, it will strike". If you embrace the madness, it cant bring you to your knees. Also, another thing I've noticed is that I cant even begin to approach a rough trip if I dose alone. The only times I've ever seen or heard of someone have a bad trip its always stemmed from a social anxiety/paranoia. I think bad trips mostly begin as communication errors. If you trip enough, you learns the turns and corners of the drug and learn how to discriminate on what to overlooking, effectively equiping yourself with a better sense for communication/comfort when you're under its influence.

Respecting the drug is essential, but if you're comfortable enough with yourself and with the drug you can usually manage to handle it... even in a somewhat uncomfortable setting. (though I'd definately say its a learned ability)
 
i agree that social anxiety can generate the paranoia which leads to the bad trip. I find that you have to keep letting go in order to avoid that stage in tripping conversation when someone come out with somethin and it all goes ...quiet....
 
i dont feel thier is a such thing as a "bad trip". some can show you things you dont want to see, but they are all a learning experince.
 
sure for ppl who are experienced but there are many who can't see it that way. They just get confused/paranoid and for them they can certainly bad trip. I would include myself in that number because i just don't think you can ever say that you are above or beyond the possibility of it taking you too far out. .
 
Bad trip guide - Input Needed

I have looked around and i can safely say that BL does not have a real "bad trip guide" or FAQ.

In 2001 puristlove wrote a "good trip guide" (i remember he asked me all sorts of stuff for it), but it only has a very small section on coping with bad experiences.

Perhaps it should include things that you can safely reccomend that someone DO, things like what you should definitely not do, and strategies for coping with the experience once its occuring, not neccesarily BAD experiences but intense ones that end up with people flipping out anyway, theres far more to it but you get my drift.

lots of us learned this kind of thing on our own im sure, but im also sure lots of people go into these experiences blindly even though they know all about the effects of whatever drug is in question. Probably because there wasnt much info like this available, i checked the Bl FAQs and the PD essential reading, nothing specifically about this. People who would otherwise not go looking for one or wouldnt know there was one, might read it if it were visible somewhere like the stickys.

a few people from this forum i know would be very very good contributors to such a document.

It has to be organized and easy to read, the dextermeth thread isnt going to work , even cutting parts of that thread wont work it should have a layout that doesnt jump around or repeat itself, which is what that thread technically does its not easy to read over 8 pages and only remember the usefull stuff. Not to mention the people who would benefit, wont read all that.

Now for the real work, i can probably get this type of thing going and contact the people who i think would be able to give GREAT input toward the project, but anyone who feels they have something important to contribute could contact me.

I dont have to be the one to do this, if someone else would like to undertake all this they are welcome to, my primary goal is that eventually we HAVE a document such as this, regardless of who wrote it.

All thats needed now is for people to post their opinion on weather this project should be worked on or weather you all think there is some level of this type of help already available somewhere. Dont post things to go in the document on this thread, just post if you think we need one or not.
 
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I have nothing to contribute myself, but have any FAQ for when things go bad would be a good addition to harm reduction.
I've read horrible stories of people freaking out because someone is having a bad trip.
 
this is a good idea. Possibly include strategies others are using for coping or talking themselves out of bad trips. Like i've found that you can somewhat pull someone out of a bad trip but getting there mind focused on what your talking about. Like telling a story where they have to remember certain parts and tell it back to you... they start concentrating on the story and the next thing you know there good.. back onto smooth waters
 
Erowid is a good start.

THIS may be a good starting point for discussions on psychological abreactions to psychedelic drugs. The writings of Stanislav Grof M.D. may be of some not insignificant utility as well.

As is often the case Erowid + Search = usable results.

I B
 
Well, this one helped me out of a bad trip once.

I started getting a serious anxiety attack because I took way too much shrooms, and just kept going higher and higher.

Somehow, this line from a Beatles song popped into my head, and I started repeating it over and over very slowly, kind of humming it, like a mantra.

The line was "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, it is not dying, it is not dying", it's from the song Tomorrow Never Knows, off the Revolver album.

I later came to find that these lyrics were inspired by a book called The Psychadelic Experience written by none other than Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner, and they based their book on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

That was my one and only bad trip, and ever since that mantra came to me, I've never had anxiety about a trip, I know I have it to help me stabilize.

Hopefully this can help others as it's helped me.

Here's a link for more info on the song if any one is interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Knows
And the lyrics:
http://www.lyricsdemon.com/lyrics.php?songid=87140
 
"He's a fool who plays it cool."

Might sound antithetical to the situation, but it reminded me to open up and not be afraid. I've never had a bad trip, but stressful times can really help you conquer your Self.

My sparse advice is: smile, keep good posture, don't expect anything, and remember to breathe.

Peace,
PL
 
Erowid isnt always the best place for things like this, but the updated version the "psychedelic crisis faq" is quite good. I think its in the wrong place however, I highly doubt most of BL has seen it because it isnt linked to in any of the drug vaults. I have a feeling someone wanting this information would not find it if they were looking, thats the issue.

It might be a good idea to mirror it in bl under the "PD essential reading" at the least put a link to it

Thank you IB for pointing that out its exactly what we need, just need to be able to put it in a place its visible.
 
One problem is that there isn't really any magic bullet to cure bad trips, and bad trips can happen for a lot of different reasons in a lot of different ways.
 
I've found having a small amount of antipsychotics and fast-acting benzodiazepines does wonders for keeping one calm when things take a wrong turn.

I've never touched the antipsychotics, and only on the truly rough trips have I gotten into the emergency benzos, but just having them there is very comforting. Its not a magical escape plan or anything, but just knowing that you can turn the intensity down a few notches in the worst case is comforting.

...not just for me, but for others around me that might lose it as well.
 
You should not have some fail safe chemical to bring you down. If that is the case you shouldn't be up in the first place.
 
I've never taken any fail safes, even in the depths of horror trips I've had in the past, but it is comforting to have a few seroquels stashed away.
 
PsyGhost said:
You should not have some fail safe chemical to bring you down. If that is the case you shouldn't be up in the first place.
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Unexpected traumatic things can happen, that I might not be able to anticipate that would warrant such a thing. As I said, I've never taken them. I take benzos here and there for anxiety in the first place, thats not a failsafe. I also keep this onhand for the benefit of others who may not have the best of judgement (not neccesarily people I know either - I've been called before when friends of friends have flipped out and someone needed some reassurance).

Would you say the same thing about nalaxone, or airbags in cars (if we need a mechanical failsafe, should we be travel in them at all)?

Your opinion is kind of beside the point. I do agree to some extent - often bad times are brought on by not thinking things out or dosing when the circumstances (mental or otherwise) are not conducive to a good trip... but telling someone that while they are in a crisis won't help them any.
 
PsyGhost said:
You should not have some fail safe chemical to bring you down. If that is the case you shouldn't be up in the first place.
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I think just HAVING a get-out option around can help people, without even needing to use it. If you're embarking on a trip & the mindset is 'here we go, 8 hours or so, whether it's fantastic or utter hell', that's going to make you a lot more anxious than if you start out thinking 'here we go, nothing to worry about, if it's hellish i've got some (whatever) on hand!'

I do agree people should try to see trips through, work through the problems & conquer them, rather than leaving problems unresolved that are then likely to come back in future, but i think just having the things there in case of a truly unbearable experience can be helpful just through the comfort of having a safety net.
If you have a bad trip & have no way out, you're likely to panic. If things go wrong & you've got something, if it was me i wouldn't really want to cancel the whole trip for the day, so i'd probably leave it for X amount of time, see how things were going, and everything might be fine.

ETA - i think a bad trip guide would be a fantastic idea. Even if you know most of the stuff already, if you're in that place where you're entirely cut off from everyone/everything & it's all gone to shit, reading someone else's experiences of the same thing & how they got through it can really help..
 
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I think this is a pretty good idea. We don't have one and it would really help. There is one on erowid, but we shouldn't just rephrase that one, we should create a more comprehensive and suggestive document.

I think benzos are sort of crud. While they may be there as a backup so you don't get to anxious, they could do the opposite, and instead predispose someone to believe they will need to use them or that what they are getting into is so terrible it warrants something entirely else to get them out.
 
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