First trip after a difficult one?

[SecondPull]

Hi all,

A few months ago I had what I would consider my first truly difficult psychedelic experience, involving some pretty bizarre delusions and a good deal of panic in response to them. I've had some wonderful things happen since as I've deconstructed the experience and drawn meaning from it, and I'm starting to feel the itch to jump back in again, but I'm obviously still a bit nervous.

For those of you who've had seriously difficult or 'bad' trips, when did you decide you were ready to give it another shot? How did your trip go, and how did you react to any unpleasant or frightening issues that arose?

 

[Jesusgreen]

Have you resolved the issues that were brought up in the trip? E.g. any personal issues that bothered you at the time. If it was just a scary trip for some non-personal reason then your next trip should be fine provided the setting is right, if it's a personal thing, then if you haven't resolved any problems brought up - do that now, and if you have, there's no reason to think your next trip will be bad.

 

[moe.ron]

I have had some seriously nasty trips, but ive never thought to myself "oh well ill never trip again" but mostly "if i survive this I'm gonna kiss the ground when I sober up", so I cant really help you figure out what would bring you back to tripping. But I will say for the first several trips after a bad trip, especially if your on the same compound or a similiar dose, the come up can evoke a serious fight or flight response. This is perfectly normal, but, it can easily lead to another bad trip or at the very least a difficult experience during the initial effects, which is usually already accompanied by a far amount of anxiety with any psychedelic drug.

IME as you become more familiar with extremely altered states the chances of having a bad trip will go down exponentially, obviously. Other then that there are not many tricks to avoid a bad trip, but there a few that works for me.

First and your best bet: dont take the drug or at least cut the dose in half if you have any worries at all. You can always take more, but you can never take it out once its in.

Second: if you begin to find yourself in a bad trip try your best to completely submit to the experience. Of course easier said then done, but just admit there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop whats happening from happening can lift an enormous weight off your sholders.

Third: continually remind yourself that it is only a drug, that you are in no physical danger, that psychedelics are (generally) among the safest intoxicants on earth, and that within a few hours no matter what the effects will be gone.

Fourth: DO NOT TRY to intentionally ignore the effects. This will not work and you can get stuck in a loop of increasing intensity and anxiety. Your best bet is to turn on a nice comedy show on tv, or whatever relaxes you that will not put a strain on your senses.

Fifth: Take benzos if avaible, as last resort. I feel like people learn the most and grow the most not from bad trips, but at least difficult experiences. Psychedelics are not always meant to be fun. Dont get me wrong, saying you should only take psychedelics for spirtual or whatever reasons is like saying you shouldnt have sex unless your married. However psychedelics are extremely powerful tools, and I find bad trips are usually (but not always) reflections of something seriously bothering your subconscious. If this is the case, I would seriously suggest riding it out at all costs. However if you just took to much, deffinitely take the benzos.

Anyways just my two cents but i think that the final line on taking trips after a bad one is that you will deffinitely find the come up to produce more anxiety then normal. Just take it easy, no reason to rush it. Tread back into the water and dont start back up with a 7 gram mushie trip. Take it slow and youll be fine.

 

[ugly]

You are true psychonaut explorers. After my first bad acid trip, I was done. I had no idea how bad it could get. Never want to experience anything like it again. I'm kind of envious that it stopped me. It is STILL stopping me. I won't take a chance of going that far away from reality again. I feel sure I would never find my way back this time.

 

[Raw Evil]

I dove back in recklessly, and got pwned. After a relatively lengthy hiatus, I took 1.5 fairly solid tabs in an unfamiliar setting with two of the people who were there when I freaked out.

I had a hellish time, thought I had been disowned by my closest friends, questioned my sanity, made innumerable faux pas (what is the plural of that, anyway?), and blamed myself for not being the person I had imagined myself and always wanted to be.

I thought I'd integrated the previous trip, but it turned out that I had only assumed so - I never really asked myself if I was comfortable with myself after that experience.

So, my advice is: ask yourself, do you feel ready?

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Ever since I first started smoking weed (16 years old, on the dot), I was always curious about LSD and other psychedelics.

I guess you could say, from the start, I knew from the start that I was so curious about LSD, that I had to try it.

I did, and it was magical, and never have I had a "bad trip." Except once, I experienced some negative thought loops, but the entirety was positive.

For me, you need to either
1. Trip alone, be comfortable, have a house or space to yourself for 3-5 hours, and a bunch of weed
2. Trip with other friends, with whom you are very close with (i.e. you have a good laugh a lot, your comfortable being around them for a while, whether you're engaged in conversation, or simply doing your own thing in the same room, like working on papers etc.)

Evaluate who your friends are, what they do for you, how they feel about you, how they value you, etc.

If they are out to get you, (or you think they are out to get you while tripping), then you need to find a group of friends who will support you regardless of what you're going through. Even if it means being unrealistically positive, because for me, someone being super-positive always brings me up...

 

[Ismene]

I think it's all a question of knowing yourself. What's really "bad" about a bad trip - in a few hours it'll all be over and you'll be back to being sober. Is being sober really so fantastic that a few hours off makes any difference?

If you enjoy tripping then tell yourself nothing can be bad about it other than what you make of it. Enjoy yourself.

 

[SecondPull]

I dove back in recklessly, and got pwned. After a relatively lengthy hiatus, I took 1.5 fairly solid tabs in an unfamiliar setting with two of the people who were there when I freaked out.

I had a hellish time, thought I had been disowned by my closest friends, questioned my sanity, made innumerable faux pas (what is the plural of that, anyway?), and blamed myself for not being the person I had imagined myself and always wanted to be.

I thought I'd integrated the previous trip, but it turned out that I had only assumed so - I never really asked myself if I was comfortable with myself after that experience.

So, my advice is: ask yourself, do you feel ready?

I have spent A LOT of time working on the issues that manifested during this experience, and it's caused me to radically realign some of my values and perceptions of myself and the universe. I'd be doing this in what to me feels like the absolute safest place in the world, and with most of my closest friends, but I can't say that there's not still some fear that hasn't been resolved, though I think it may be misplaced.

Honestly, if I do this, my intention will be to face my fears directly...I have no intentions or expectations for the trip other than to address what frightened me so badly before--I am not expecting this to be an easy or necessarily happy experience. I am happy to just meditate for the duration if that is what seems the right thing to do. We shall see, I've got another month or two to feel it out.