How bad is a bad trip?

[Sahand]

I've never done lsd or shrooms or anything though i want too, but how bad is a bad trip. I am depressed and have anxiety problems, idk if that will effect the trip. Any advice?

 

[Bomboclat]

There's a rather good chance it'll effect the trip. Trips tend to take your inner feelings/emotions and then manifest them in front of you.

Id wait until you were in the right mindset/setting to trip, as then there will be a higher chance of a good trip rather than a bad. Unless of course a bad trip is what you want. I know plenty who every so often enjoy ego death as its a means of self realization. Dont know how much I agree, but to each their own.

 

[crazynate:]]

When I went through my psych phaze last year I was taking psychedelics for a good 4 months straight and at the end I finally started feeling overwhelmed and felt I'd over done it, which was when I had my first bad trip on anything (being a 1/4 of magical fungi didn't help either!) but I'd defitely say that my inner anxiety and depression about my situation was what gave me that "ego death" of a trip!.... but even if you do have a bad trip, if your lucky enough to have the right person there, they will bring you out of it and make you feel better and at home

 

[Sustanon]

Its all in ur mind, Ive tripped on a bunch of things hundreds of times and never had a bad trip before. Its all about set and setting. Difficult trips yes but no bad ones, they all turned out good at the end. Psychs are not for everybody so start off with a small dose and work ur way up later on if needed.

 

[Solipsis]

Some psychedelics more than others can destabilize your emotions, making it very easy to slip into intensely positive or intensely negative feelings. If you are often anxious and depressed there is a bigger chance a negative feeling is sustained like a downward spiral. (There are upward spirals as well of course!)
Most often that can lead to a horrible feeling trip, but sometimes you can learn insights out of sheer desperation that show you the way out. Like hitting rock bottom and gaining a new perspective.
Nevertheless this is okay for relatively stable people with their ups and downs but if your depression is chronic and moderately severe the chance gets bigger that you will not be able to get out of the intensification of it.

I would be extremely careful and wait until you feel better and resolved some issues if they are the cause. Otherwise take a minute dose your first time and pay attention to that, try to work with it. Go up tediously and slowly, there is always a next time but no way back.

 

[nibbloid]

Some psychedelics more than others can destabilize your emotions, making it very easy to slip into intensely positive or intensely negative feelings. If you are often anxious and depressed there is a bigger chance a negative feeling is sustained like a downward spiral. (There are upward spirals as well of course!)
Most often that can lead to a horrible feeling trip, but sometimes you can learn insights out of sheer desperation that show you the way out. Like hitting rock bottom and gaining a new perspective.
Nevertheless this is okay for relatively stable people with their ups and downs but if your depression is chronic and moderately severe the chance gets bigger that you will not be able to get out of the intensification of it.

I would be extremely careful and wait until you feel better and resolved some issues if they are the cause. Otherwise take a minute dose your first time and pay attention to that, try to work with it. Go up tediously and slowly, there is always a next time but no way back.

I agree entirely with your post. I had been experiencing mild depression since the age of ten (I am now 20 as of January). I didn't know that's what it was until I ate some mushrooms earlier this month. I had tripped many times before, but I decided to solve some issues and just get it over with. So I went to the gym every day for a week, met new people, and went out more, and the next trip had me feeling so good that its afterglow has lasted me this whole month.

On the other hand, trips I've had before on my own when in a bad mood have left me feeling the utmost despair that feels like it just won't end. Most of the time, watching TV or listening to happier music can change the trip direction.. but there have been times (2C-I @ 20mg, d'oh) where it just didn't come to me that I should or could turn on music or watch a movie. I was just wandering from room to room while time seemed to stand still. People later told me I was walking in and out of a bedroom fifteen times a minute because they were commenting on me coming in and out of the room; when I walked in, they said HE'S BACK! and then I'd freak out and walk out of the room, but decide maybe they're kidding, so I'd turn around to go back in and they'd do it again..

But if you can find any strand of hope during a bad trip and work through it, usually it's very refreshing. Integrating the experience is a must.

 

[jamesmartin]

In my trips I never had one that was all bad


On shrroms and acid sometimes I get EXTREME paranoia which is what I think is a bad trip on acid or shrooms

You won't just get paranoia if there's nothing that makes you paranoid . For example when my parents texted me while I was tripping I was so paranoid in the forest with my friend crying and shhaaking and shouting.


I've never had a bad trip because of the scary visuals .
I gues that's because I've always tripped in nice settings which for me is very I'mportant

and of course u have to have a good mindset

 

[dtta]

You've got to have a pleasant setting, and be with people you trust and will take care of you if you get upset. But L (imho) is not a predictable drug, and if you have weaknesses in your mind they may come out and confront you pretty intensely. Like I think everyone in this thread said, this can be a very positive and rewarding experience. Personally, I found it all a bit overwhelming back in the day (I didn't know I was bipolar at that time as well, which certainly didn't help). If you decide to go ahead, I wish you the best of luck and hope you find some peace and insight as a result

 

[RavinRaphael]

pretty fuckin terrible. thought loops. paranoia. confusion. just thinking of it makes me ill.

 

[phew]

"Bad trip" is an overused term. We had a discussion about this earlier and the consensus was that a bad trip was "a hellish experience that you gain nothing from," as one user described it.

Most of what people call bad trips are just difficult experiences. They still end up saying that they were glad to have experienced because it taught them something or because it helped them grow emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically.

A trip that wasn't smooth sailing all the way through isn't a bad trip, you just had a difficult time at some points. Nausea at the beginning, feeling a bit sad when remembering past events, a little bit of fear, and other negative emotions. Not every trip is going to be a blockbuster experience.

So, if a trip is so bad that you did not enjoy a single second of it and no parts of it helped you in any way, that is a bad trip. To answer your question, a bad trip is really bad. Luckily, these are more than quite rare.

 

[MarkRenton]

My first trip fits the category overall of being a "bad trip" because I defnitely freaked out a little and was in major shock of what was happening to me, but it turned out to be one of the most influential days of my entire life. It was tough but once I got through it and really thought about what had happened to me it made me a stronger, more intelligent person.

 

[Solipsis]

In my trips I never had one that was all bad


On shrroms and acid sometimes I get EXTREME paranoia which is what I think is a bad trip on acid or shrooms

You won't just get paranoia if there's nothing that makes you paranoid . For example when my parents texted me while I was tripping I was so paranoid in the forest with my friend crying and shhaaking and shouting.


I've never had a bad trip because of the scary visuals .
I gues that's because I've always tripped in nice settings which for me is very I'mportant

and of course u have to have a good mindset

Hmm I don't think so, paranoia is not equal to a bad trip. For some people paranoia can become so bad that it basically turns the whole trip sour, but what I believe lies at the core of most bad trips is resistance to being freed from your safe and familiar conditioning. There is a sort of massive structure many of us consider to be the world and our place in it, our static identity including habits and other behavioural patterns. We repeat ourselves and program ourselves while our environments program us as well. It's all part of what is often called the ego, the sum of who-I-think-I-am.

If you trip and expand your mind far beyond this seemingly perfectly clear and healthy system of repetition and reaction it can be very disorienting to find yourself totally in control of your life and even your identity. This can be so unfamiliar to us that we start to think the world is ending or that we are going mad. That is actually not you but the old ego-structure screaming that something is wrong and not functioning right.
As you probably understand freedom is a great thing, though it can be quite a load to bear. Uncertainty and an overwhelming number of options can make you very lost.

You might go and walk around the room not knowing what to do, because there is so much you could do it's unclear what you deeply want to do!

We may not be aware of this process on a short timescale, but sometimes we are and eventually you can learn to handle this.

All of this must be the reason that what appears to the novice as a bad trip is to more experienced people actually a sign that something wonderful is happening only that it can be terribly rough to experience.

 

[Link_S]

For me, like the worst panic attack you've ever had

 

[adf1234]

Honestly, I don't think tripping during depression is bad at all, with LSD anyway. I think if you're ready to face the reasons why you're depressed it can actually be a good thing. I did LSD when I was extremely depressed with someone close to me and it was one of the greatest feelings in the world to finally get over it. As for anxiety I don't know. To me a bad trip is when you are just so paranoid and the universe just feels like a horrible, evil place, and you know that you're tripping, but you can't help but to feel that you might be insane, even forever.

 

[the_ketaman]

I believe theres a few definitions for the word "Bad trip"

Theres the kind where your seeing/feeling things that scare you.
Theres the kind where the person may have a (possibly latent)mental illness and they just flip out completely in various ways such as getting violent, delusions, self harm, fear etc and most times when the ordeal is over they dont remember anything and quite often end up in jail or hospital, death is very rare and has never(Well it happened once and the guy shot 300mg by accident, he thought it was coke but 300mg is hundreds, maybe thousands of doses) happened purely due to LSD... so if you experience any of those things regularly with or without drugs then dont do it.

Ive had 2 bad trips but they didnt really fuck me up mentally. Once I got drunk and had 2 1/2 pharoah paper tabs and had a party full of drunk people in my house, this is a bad idea and just something bad waiting to happen being around drunk people on psychedelics. This was back when I thought LSD might be a good party drug, which for me personally its not a party drug unless your at a massive rave or the bush doofs suited to acid trippers. Anyway I got all paranoid and got in a fight with someone really big, he's a good mate though so it was resolved easily. But never the less I still had some amazing moments on that acid after I got everyone out of my house and went with my fellow acid takers on a walk around our diverse suburb, beaches, shops, parks and all kinds of stuff. It wasnt really a bad trip, just bad stuff happened, who knows the same stuff might have happened if we never took the acid and just drank beer.

Then I had a full on mental breakdown not too long ago on a trip that would be close to my 30th on acid not to mention the vast array of other psychedelics I ofted did regularly so it just goes to show you that even experienced trippers can still have a bad trip. I started thinkining id never have a bad trip ever again due to experience of getting out of hairy situations in the past but this just took my mind by storm. I had two friends with me on the same dose(fairly low dose by my standards, 1 1/2 high quality pink panther tabs) they were tripping for their first time on acid thuugh they had tried an array of "tripstacy pills" which are fairly common in Australia so im guessing they had tried at least 2C-B, 2C-I or something of the like but then again it could just be pips, never the less they had some kind of idea of what they were in for and after I left them then saw them the next y they said it was their favourite drugs.

But to the bad part. The trip started like any regular trip does, laughing uncontrollably, mild visuals but we were somewhere else at that point, then we went back to my house and my sister is a very high strung person and very loud which is the opposite of me and can make me quite uncomfortable at times. Anyway we had to get somewhere, my mum was being quite rude and my sister was her regular self and it just made me loose it. It was all in my head and no one could really see the amount of uncomfort I was in, after awhile I could sense my friends becoming uncomfortable coz theres not much to do except wait for our ride to get out of there which seemed to be taking forever but them getting uncomfortable made me feel like it were my fault which made me feel worse obviously. By now the visualls were running wild and my ability to get good visuals is pretty high, I dont understand how people can say they are tripping if theres no visuals??? the visuals were the least of my worries though. To put it quite simply I just felt like I was going truely insane, I couldnt communicate with people, I couldnt think straight and just felt psychologically and emotionally worse than ive ever felt before and thats saying something also. This seemed to all come out of nowhere and like the earlier trip once I got away from everyone and by mysel I felt awesome and it wasnt hard to turn the trip around so I was getting the desired efect from this awesome stuff.

Dont let a bad trip scare you away from acid if your healthy, if you have any mental or psychological problems then id stay away from it. Im riddled with depression and anxiety(though not so much anxiety now coz im on methadone) and im always fine with acid, you just need a very strong mind.

Take it easy brother and if you decide to drop dont go more than one at first and quality is different everywhere so even 1 might be a lot but it shouldnt be too much.

 

[nibbloid]

I read an experience report in which a first-timer took 3-4 hits of acid and then went into a state of pure confusion. He didn't know where he was or what they were doing there. They were in a theatre watching a movie, and you can imagine the result. Loud shouting, security.. Really felt bad for the kid.

 

[jamaica0535]

I think i have gotten past the point where any recreational sized dose wont put me into a place where i couldn't push it back somewhere far more positive.

The only time i have ever felt on the edge of a bad trip or a freakout would have to be my accidental 10mg DOB trip though.... Combine what can only feel like a whole lot of speed with a whole lot of hallucinogenics and make it last 24 hours....

We found it hard to maintain. There is a lot of confusion.... Sober, your brain runs at what is kind of like the normal speed limit, you can keep up with that is happening.... Eating enough acid or any psych your mind is running like your flooring a Ferrari. When you can't embrace the chaos and just know that it is all going to go back to normal eventually, it can be overwhelming.

 

[freescale]

My worst trip I was camping with coworkers & we all shroomed. I found myself traveling backwards in time & broadcasting my thoughts to the universe. When I woke up I thought I had gotten into an argument with my boss & been fired, none of which was true. I'm pretty sure a bad emotional vibe earlier in the evening combined with shrooms that turned out to be much more potent than expected to create my nightmare. Set, setting & dosage are important factors in creating a positive environment for your trip. It's also a very good idea to have a babysitter who stays straight to guide you through rough waters especially if you're inexperienced with tripping.

 

[TheAppleCore]

There isn't really an answer to your question - you can have trips that range literally the entire spectrum of human emotion, depending on the set & setting in which you trip.

Having always tripped in fairly comfortable settings, I've never had anything I could describe as a ~bad~ trip with any sincerity. Yes, I've had amplifications of my anxiety disorder, but certainly nothing that spiraled out of control, and nothing worse than a lot of anxious experiences I've had in sobriety.


I'll describe to you one of the most agitating experiences I've had on a psychedelic - being extremely exhausted whilst peaking, and slipping into a strange and highly uncomfortable overlap between the dream world and the psychedelic mindscape, wherein I was subjected to relentless frustration as a result of feeling as though I were trying desperately to achieve or accomplish something, but would always fail, after almost succeeding... time and time again.

It's as if my brain was at war with itself. I felt like a helpless and hungry dog being smacked in the nose with a succulent piece of meat by its cruel master, never quick enough to snatch it from his hand.

 

[bighooter]

I know someone who had a bad trip and it was such a terrifying ordeal he ended up in a mental home.

It's been a few years since he had the bad trip but he is completely shot away, different person altogether.
No personality and basically just brain dead, maybe it's due to all the meds he's on but it's definatly put me off doing LSD.