First some background. In highschool I was relatively easygoing and anxiety free. Since coming to college, however, I experience a lot of paranoia about my drug use, specifically its effect on my body. For example, anytime I experience bouts of fatigue or mental fog during the day, I begin to anxiously take stock of how many times I've drank or taken adderall over the past week. Then, my thoughts turn to planning for an early bedtime and consuming healthy foods in an effort to "restore" myself. As another example, I rolled at a show for my second time, and after 10 minutes of euphoria and bliss, my thoughts turned to anxiety over the possible fatigue and depression I would experience the next morning, and the rest of my experience consisted of these thought loops. I imagined myself waking up and being physically incapable of getting up due to my body being "spent."
I think that my concern over my health exceeds normal, healthy amounts because I over-analyze any negative physical or mental sensation I experience throughout the day, trying to find a cause. Lately, I've turned to meta-analysis of the fact that I worry so much about my health. Basically, I'm worrying about my worry, and this led me to recall a bad trip I had over the summer before college.
I smoked a small amount of DMT and inhaled nitrous oxide straight out of a whipped cream can, and suddenly experienced a panic attack. My thoughts began to race about the negative consequences of inhaling the nitrous, and for a few seconds I thought I would die or lose some cognitive functions. Within five minutes, I decided to give myself a Vitamin B12 injection. Luckily, after fumbling with a needle and a bottle of Vitamin B12 solution, I realized it was a bad idea to attempt to inject myself, and I consumed a few B12 tablets instead. Overall, this experience was my worst experience with psychedelics and scared me away from powerful substances like DMT and even LSD ever since (though I still ended up taking LSD after the summer and having unpleasant, but not terrifying experiences). It's been about 10 months since that experience.
I've been thinking, what if my experience with DMT and Nitrous precipitate a change in my cognitive patterns, where I place heightened significance on negative physical and mental sensations which results in a greater amount of anxiety than necessary. The emotions people experience to specific events are a response to emotional events they've experienced throughout their lives. Because psychedelics create strong emotional experiences, I'm thinking that psychedelic experiences can in fact have noticeable effects on one's psychology. Of course I cannot differentiate between correlation and causation between my DMT Nitrous experiences and the annoying symptoms I experience, which is why I've been contemplating a connection between psychedelics and cognition.
My "symptoms" are more of an annoyance than anything. I'm not trying to draw a connection between psychedelics and mental disorders, because what I experience is by no means a mental disorder. I'm just looking for your thoughts on this matter because I think it's an interesting discussion and it may give me closure so I can work towards eliminating the extra significance my mind has been putting on mental and physical sensations lately.
I think that my concern over my health exceeds normal, healthy amounts because I over-analyze any negative physical or mental sensation I experience throughout the day, trying to find a cause. Lately, I've turned to meta-analysis of the fact that I worry so much about my health. Basically, I'm worrying about my worry, and this led me to recall a bad trip I had over the summer before college.
I smoked a small amount of DMT and inhaled nitrous oxide straight out of a whipped cream can, and suddenly experienced a panic attack. My thoughts began to race about the negative consequences of inhaling the nitrous, and for a few seconds I thought I would die or lose some cognitive functions. Within five minutes, I decided to give myself a Vitamin B12 injection. Luckily, after fumbling with a needle and a bottle of Vitamin B12 solution, I realized it was a bad idea to attempt to inject myself, and I consumed a few B12 tablets instead. Overall, this experience was my worst experience with psychedelics and scared me away from powerful substances like DMT and even LSD ever since (though I still ended up taking LSD after the summer and having unpleasant, but not terrifying experiences). It's been about 10 months since that experience.
I've been thinking, what if my experience with DMT and Nitrous precipitate a change in my cognitive patterns, where I place heightened significance on negative physical and mental sensations which results in a greater amount of anxiety than necessary. The emotions people experience to specific events are a response to emotional events they've experienced throughout their lives. Because psychedelics create strong emotional experiences, I'm thinking that psychedelic experiences can in fact have noticeable effects on one's psychology. Of course I cannot differentiate between correlation and causation between my DMT Nitrous experiences and the annoying symptoms I experience, which is why I've been contemplating a connection between psychedelics and cognition.
My "symptoms" are more of an annoyance than anything. I'm not trying to draw a connection between psychedelics and mental disorders, because what I experience is by no means a mental disorder. I'm just looking for your thoughts on this matter because I think it's an interesting discussion and it may give me closure so I can work towards eliminating the extra significance my mind has been putting on mental and physical sensations lately.
