Can shrooms or psychedelics hurt you?

[cyberius]

As I push the dosage higher with shrooms, the drug starts to put up a very convincing arguement that I'm about to be torn up physically and mentally. I feel like I'm going to have a seizure, like my hearts going to explode, that I'm going to be insane for the rest of my life and that I'm unleashing some tidal wave of incredible energy that will format my brain. I've never experienced a more convincing argument in my life. My conscious perception will try to completely freeze and fighting back causes this intense feeling like my minds having trouble rendering the current state of reality.

My quesiton is, can shrooms (or traditional psychedelics for any matter) really cause these issues in a healthy individual with decent enough mental health (no serious predispositions)?

 

[EntheoDjinn]

There doesn't seem to be any issues with toxicity - shrooms are very safe. You might choke on them if were trying to take enough to OD, but wouldn't really get anywhere near that point (you'd be pretty sick first). If you could neck enough to take you into scary mental headspaces, then you might spark off some underlying mental disorder (and of course there's no way of telling as it's underlying!). PTSD might also be a problem if you really scare yourself. The symptoms you mention may be your own psyche's way of making you aware you are reaching a limit. Trust your intuition I would say. Seizures are rare but not unknown. We all have unique responses to experiences, especially extreme ones.

 

[Jonneh]

˄ Sound advice here.

I think the basic answer is that they can, but in the vast, enormous majority of people who are as convinced as your that they're about to be destroyed and yet push on and let go, nothing happens. The uncertainty will always be there, which is part of what makes them such great tools.

 

[Muzda Jonxx]

It depends how you look at it. As far as the chemicals in the mushroom being physically toxic, then no - they're not. Bit, on the other hand, if that strong psychedelics spin you out and you lose the plot, there's every chance you could end up hurting yourself and or others. If that was to happen, it could be argued the mushrooms were the root cause.

From your description it sounds like these experiences put you on a mental knife edge, on the verge of a freak out. I've seen someone on a proper hallucinogenic freak out, they ripped off doors, punched through windows and were eventually picked up by police tearing up and down the street buck naked. Maybe these drugs just aren't for you? Not everyone enjoys or can deal with the weirdness that hallucinogens induce.

 

[Solipsis]

As is said, it's not toxic physically: to tissue, receptors or cells... but mentally some experiences can definitely hurt you a lot. Some of my experiences I would classify as "soul rape", and the traumatic nature definitely has acute and chronic consequences.

Freaking out and acting out as mentioned ^ is not the worst you can get, trust me. Those instances can certainly escalate as some behavior might directly be an issue for yourself or people around you: if you completely lose it and take of your clothes etc people might call the cops etc, you might tear the place down. But if you don't remember anything afterwards you have mostly material things to clean / fix up or reimburse which is a clear and doable task.

But some experiences can backfire "spiritually" and be such torture that you might want to die desperately which is traumatic and can lead to various outcomes.

While psychedelics won't simply create a mental disorder out of the blue, what they can do is push you to the edge of your ability to cope, and induce latent issues and sensitivities. For example I have gotten a temporary phobia for at least a year, from an extremely unnerving experience (of mosquitos). It turned out fine, like a number of other issues... but these weren't even the extreme 'soul rape' trips that were pure torture. Yes I'm a bit sensitive a as a person in general, but have usually proven to be a resilient person mentally when it comes down to having your reality fucked with. So, It's more that I pushed myself for years and just tripped so often that it was inevitable that I occasionally hurt myself (it didn't exactly start out so pretty!). Relatively speaking I can actually count my lucky stars that I don't have a feeble sense of reality and always quickly bounced back, never once 'heard voices' or anything of the sort etc.
Still, a number of the trips were just tooooo intense. And that kind of shit messes with your limbic system, I'm sure.

For some people an experience can enhance anxieties to extremes, others may get lost because their sense of reality is so obliterated.

Just like flashbacks are just re-experiences of previous events that were intense / traumatic and ingrained, but can still have PTSS-like qualities... some trips can really capitolize on what would otherwise had been just small chances of mental issues. The mental issues are not created out of the blue, but just like the psychedelic can bring out the best in a person it can also bring out the worst in a person.

Therefore it is essential that you don't abuse psychedelics and push them to test your limits too much, but responsibly - preferably with a straightforward purpose and with some realistic expectations about how for you will be taken. If you just just into the deep end without thinking, problems may arise that otherwise can be kept to a limit.

 

[cyberius]

It depends how you look at it. As far as the chemicals in the mushroom being physically toxic, then no - they're not. Bit, on the other hand, if that strong psychedelics spin you out and you lose the plot, there's every chance you could end up hurting yourself and or others. If that was to happen, it could be argued the mushrooms were the root cause.

From your description it sounds like these experiences put you on a mental knife edge, on the verge of a freak out. I've seen someone on a proper hallucinogenic freak out, they ripped off doors, punched through windows and were eventually picked up by police tearing up and down the street buck naked. Maybe these drugs just aren't for you? Not everyone enjoys or can deal with the weirdness that hallucinogens induce.

I've taken up to 800ug of acid and had a fantastic time! Acid has only once induced fear and it's only lasted for 15 minutes on the come-up of a 600ug trip and I was completely fine after. I love the weirdness and chaos, but I don't know what this feeling I keep dredging up is that's unique to shrooms.

Out of four bad shroom trips however, two have amounted to fucking nightmares, one landed me in the hospital (I did add 50mg of MXP and wellbutrin to the mix though to the nastiest one..) . I almost feel like I have a unique reaction to them and that's what scares me the most. My mind starts accelerating through these patterns of deep intuition and reason and the more I let go the faster and more intense it gets. I want to experience the deep end of consciousness but it feels like actual death and spiritual evolution.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

Mushrooms are the psychedelic drug (tryptamines in general really) which have caused me the greatest psychological distress. Honestly, I'm not a big fan... give me some good ol' acid and some 2C-x phens any day.

 

[Solipsis]

Mushrooms are the psychedelic drug (tryptamines in general really) which have caused me the greatest psychological distress. Honestly, I'm not a big fan... give me some good ol' acid and some 2C-x phens any day.

Exact same here..

 

[Muzda Jonxx]

Me too actually, I find even high dose acid or mesc easier to navigate than psilo. I still love it, but it's the only hallucinogen I nibble away at rather than chucking myself in headlong.

 

[noone1]

If you take enough and have the wrong personality psychosis is always a real possibility. Shows the importance of a trip sitter if you are inexperienced.

 

[Spirit Molecule]

It depends how you look at it. As far as the chemicals in the mushroom being physically toxic, then no - they're not. Bit, on the other hand, if that strong psychedelics spin you out and you lose the plot, there's every chance you could end up hurting yourself and or others. If that was to happen, it could be argued the mushrooms were the root cause.

From my experience if people have bad trips from psilocybin it's because of the set & setting or it could be argued the root cause is under lying mental health issues. However shrooms have been used to treat depression so my analysis is flawed.

 

[Pirre]

Mental health is indeed my main concern also. A few trips I dragged myself down, lost the will to live, was terrified that those feelings would be with me permanently and that this is how addictions to other, mind-numbing drugs started. Very real suicide thoughts.
But, I've come out stronger each time, thanks to the help of my awesome friends. I believe these thoughts come from deep within myself, suppressed back when I was a lot younger and had a pretty bad life (bullied, no social life, no real friends...). I am now in the process of learning to love myself, and convincing myself that it is ok to enjoy myself both with and without drugs, that I really am a good person, deserving the good things that are happening to me without worrying I am living in a "happiness bubble" that could burst any time.

 

[EntheoDjinn]

I've seen it suggested (and it certainly seems true for me) that LSD tends to be quite intellectual in the overall sense of the experience and mushroooms retain more bodily and emotional awareness. I.e. they are "heavier" in some way. The less disconnect between body and mind (i.e. more integration of the whole self), the more the "whole" person is in a sense experiencing the trip. If it's true that memory is also stored in the body outwith the brain (tissue memory) then with mushrooms there's perhaps more memories - some of which may well be uncomfortable - available to be enjoyed or endured.

But as can be seen above and in other threads, there seems to be a spectrum of favour that moves between acid to mushrooms in both directions. One man's poison etc.

 

[burn out]

I like mushrooms the best but I can see why some might find them scary. I have wondered about the same thing as you OP, on my last high dose mescaline trip I also felt as though I was reaching some kind of limit and I would be destroyed if I pushed it too far.

I read somewhere about ayahuasca that it could kill a person, not through chemical poisoning but the trip itself if the person was not ready to handle the energies of the spiritual realm but broke through too far.

I dont know if its true or not, but like you said the feeling is certainly convincing enough that I dont think it would be wise to push yourself beyond your limit on the premise that "its physically safe and all in my head". When reality melts down, that belief goes along with it. You can go so far that you lose the concept of what "physically safe" even means anymore.

I 'm reminded of Dennis Mckenna when he went crazy in South America from too much tripping and didn't come back to his right mind for two weeks and was still quite out there for four months afterward. He came out of fine, and perhaps better in some ways he said, but the question is are you prepared to go so far that you are out of your mind, unable to act normal for two entire weeks? It seems like a real possibility.

 

[RhythmSpring]

Terrence went crazy from combining B. Caapi and mushrooms. Different ballpark.

Coming face to face with your own mortality has it's spiritual rewards. But yeah, like others have said, mushrooms are non-toxic.

 

[donvliet]

Mushrooms are the psychedelic drug (tryptamines in general really) which have caused me the greatest psychological distress. Honestly, I'm not a big fan... give me some good ol' acid and some 2C-x phens any day.

Same here. Some people just don't handle shrooms well. For others it's the other way around. Finding out which psys work best for you personally is one of the tricks of the trade.