🌟🌟 Social 🌟🌟 PD Social Thread 2022-2025 v. Year of the Phenethylamine

[Freeotrope]

Thanks man. Feasible maybe, but I think I'm just lowering the "border" more the more I trip. I don't think there's much point in tripping with all of that in the back of my mind, easy psychedelic, hard psychedelic, low/high dose, with some bad luck it will happen again.

The second I lose my cool just a little I'm immediately right there. Then I start getting hot, hyper stimulated and start thinking very irrationally. From what I recall about my DPT psychosis is that it takes a while to fully "get there" but it was signaled from the very start. That is where I was on 2C-E, it was about 4-5 hours in too.

I've said these exact things before, but then I get hypomanic and I've forgotten all about it... it's time, there's no point, it's unpleasant and possibly dangerous.

that sucks and sounds scary. i would hate to face that decision

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

Don't really speak about it alot cuz it's painful but my sister developed Schizophrenia after a psychotic break after years of drug use. She was using psychedelics sparingly and MDMA more often. It started out slowly like she would take something like an Ecstasy pill and then get caught in these loops for days where she would get obsessed with patterns like seeing the number three connected to everything in life. The permanent development was an extreme obsession with Black Magic and Witchcraft.

She had strange reactions to Mushrooms/DXM/MDMA/LSD/2C-E/2C-D also and after the trips would be off for days to weeks, I should have stopped giving her drugs long before I did. At first she would go back to a normal mindstate eventually but then something just snapped in her and she became full on schizophrenic and hallucinating people that weren't there, having extreme paranoia it was really painful to watch. I didn't know that this would happen, I thought that I was helping her. Psychedelics had such a positive reaction for me and I wanted to spread the love.

This happened when she was around 22 years old. For the next ten years it was really rough as the tried different medications, some worked better than others. She had to quit all drug use permanently, over the last five years she has shown quite a bit of improvement and has a better quality of life now. She has to live in a group home tho where a nurse visits each day to keep an eye on her and the other people who live there. When she lived at home she would take off on foot sometimes and walk around in random directions for miles and me and my mother would drive around looking for her, sometimes we had to report her missing to the police so they could help us get her back to the house.

I don't really talk about this much cuz I don't wanna kinda scare people about the consequences of these drugs especially when I am still a strong proponent of there positive effects, they have given my own life unspeakable amounts of love and I'm grateful for my experiences with these compounds. I feel like they can help heal most people and enrich their lives. But to say that there won't be some people that don't run into trouble would be irresponsible. They have real risks.

If you are scared about the psychotic breaks you have been having Buzz maybe a break for some years wouldn't be a bad idea. I'd hate to see something happen to you that couldn't be resolved. My sister losing the the bright eyed fun loving attitude she once had was devestating to me, and the fact I was the one who gave her these drugs most often causes me to live with a large amount of guilt.

Please be safe brother

Thanks man, rough story.... in the end it wasn't all your fault.

My two bouts of psychosis were very temporary (when the drug wears off I'm fine again) and quite unlike how people describe them, there's not much to read about psychedelic induced psychosis anyway. I'm probably predisposed to psychosis or something, I'm bipolar too, so who knows how that'll evolve as I get older.

that sucks and sounds scary. i would hate to face that decision

I tripped a lot in the years before, careless and tried a lot of amazing drugs. Enjoy while it lasts

 

[Mjäll]

My cat buddy is such a good friend

 

[Xorkoth]

Don't really speak about it alot cuz it's painful but my sister developed Schizophrenia after a psychotic break after years of drug use. She was using psychedelics sparingly and MDMA more often. It started out slowly like she would take something like an Ecstasy pill and then get caught in these loops for days where she would get obsessed with patterns like seeing the number three connected to everything in life. The permanent development was an extreme obsession with Black Magic and Witchcraft.

She had strange reactions to Mushrooms/DXM/MDMA/LSD/2C-E/2C-D also and after the trips would be off for days to weeks, I should have stopped giving her drugs long before I did. At first she would go back to a normal mindstate eventually but then something just snapped in her and she became full on schizophrenic and hallucinating people that weren't there, having extreme paranoia it was really painful to watch. I didn't know that this would happen, I thought that I was helping her. Psychedelics had such a positive reaction for me and I wanted to spread the love.

This happened when she was around 22 years old. For the next ten years it was really rough as the tried different medications, some worked better than others. She had to quit all drug use permanently, over the last five years she has shown quite a bit of improvement and has a better quality of life now. She has to live in a group home tho where a nurse visits each day to keep an eye on her and the other people who live there. When she lived at home she would take off on foot sometimes and walk around in random directions for miles and me and my mother would drive around looking for her, sometimes we had to report her missing to the police so they could help us get her back to the house.

I don't really talk about this much cuz I don't wanna kinda scare people about the consequences of these drugs especially when I am still a strong proponent of there positive effects, they have given my own life unspeakable amounts of love and I'm grateful for my experiences with these compounds. I feel like they can help heal most people and enrich their lives. But to say that there won't be some people that run into trouble would be irresponsible. They have real risks.

If you are scared about the psychotic breaks you have been having Buzz maybe a break for some years wouldn't be a bad idea. I'd hate to see something happen to you that couldn't be resolved. My sister losing the the bright eyed fun loving attitude she once had was devestating to me, and the fact I was the one who gave her these drugs most often causes me to live with a large amount of guilt.

Please be safe brother

Wow man, that's heavy. I can see why you might have blamed yourself, but it definitely wasn't your fault. You were trying to do what you thought would help, and even before that, you were just trying to share something special with your sister. I'm very thankful I have never had to experience that, I love both of my siblings very much and we're really close. I practically helped raise my brother because he's 7 and a half years younger than me, I taught him how to walk, how to throw a ball, etc. I feel slightly parental towards him although these days we're both just adults. I can't even really start to think about how it would feel to see that happen to him.

In all likelihood, your sister was going to develop it anyway, since it seems to only affect those genetically predisposed. But still, your warning is very appropriate.

I think in Buzz's case, he would have developed it already, given it almost always develops in your early twenties. But even if not schizophrenia, psychosis from psychedelics can develop into longer-lasting psychosis if you keep pushing it.

Also sorry you're dealing with this, Buzz. Hopefully once your bipolar is more under control, in the future, you can partake again.

Did you feel psychosis coming on during the trip, or were you just anxious? Do you think the anxiety might have been just from the fear of a psychotic break happening? Or was it something more than that?

 

[unodelacosa]

I tripped on 2C-E yesterday […] These two psychoses have ruined it for me man, I don't think there's any coming back from these things. I never had the slightest issue two years ago. I need to just give up

Sorry you had a bad experience. You know, when you say/write these things, you hear yourself say it / read these words, and to an extent this can program your nervous system to believe it and produce this outcome. If you were able to avoid it two years ago, then we know it's possible. Try not to be dispirited by this; 2C-E is a heavy mofo.

I agree with @Xorkoth that you should try something lighter than 2C-E and not be so hard on yourself for hitting the eject button. There's nothing wrong with bailing on a trip. Seroquel is of course an antipsychotic and shuts things down like a psychedelic killswitch, but it always knocks me TF out. Have you tried bailing with a benzo? It doesn't completely negate all psychedelia 100%, but it curbs the shit out of a trip that's getting out of control.

I like how mellow 2C-B is compared to 2C-E. I'm also a fan of 4-HO-MET and 4-AcO-MET, which have a lighter headspace compared to say, psilocybin mushrooms. And I find ETH-LAD and ALD-52 to be easy-going lysergamides generally compared to LSD. You may already have experience with all of these, and I may not be telling you anything new at all here; forgive me if this is the case, but thought I'd try spitballing some ideas hoping they might help.

 

[Xorkoth]

Well Buzz's issue is he experienced 2 psychotic breaks from psychedelics, and is afraid it will happen again.

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

I like how mellow 2C-B is compared to 2C-E. I'm also a fan of 4-HO-MET and 4-AcO-MET, which have a lighter headspace compared to say, psilocybin mushrooms. And I find ETH-LAD and ALD-52 to be easy-going lysergamides generally compared to LSD. You may already have experience with all of these, and I may not be telling you anything new at all here; forgive me if this is the case, but thought I'd try spitballing some ideas hoping they might help.

I'm probably never taking a lysergamide again, I had a complete psychotic break on AL-LAD, that was extremely traumatizing to friends and ended up with me in the hospital (RIP). It's not traumatizing to me when sober, but it definitely cut deep when tripping. In some previous trips on lysergamides I've shown very similar tendencies and I'm almost 100% sure that it would happen again on it (out of any other drugs).

The same happened on DPT, but I was more aware that time and didn't go into full ego death, still it was hell. My brain just broke, visuals changed back to that AL-LAD trip and I was insanely hot and stimulated (probably lots of noradrenaline and dopamine being released), and then I just understand again. Benzos aren't an option I think as they would disinhibit me even more, who knows what would happen then... + once in it you can be easily be too far gone to recognize what is happening. At least for me..

Now, what happened on 2C-E here is that I started recognizing clear signs of me slipping back into it and I panicked. Those signs might've been just an illusion or a coincidence, but you can't know for sure as you slip into it without noticing. So whether or not I was that close, these things have cut too deep for me to actually make something of such states again. I think I'm always close when tripping.

Lighter psychedelics, lower doses... it will happen again. And I think that every time I go into that psychotic state it will be even easier to slip into it. I might get away with it, but with all that hanging over my shoulder, it becomes hard to freely navigate all these headspaces like before.

Maybe time heals though

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

Did you feel psychosis coming on during the trip, or were you just anxious? Do you think the anxiety might have been just from the fear of a psychotic break happening? Or was it something more than that?

I was very hot and overstimulated and had been in my garden just walking around in loops thinking about things, so I wanted to take a shower to cool down and calm down a little because I just couldn't sit. When in the shower everything went bright and calm, like I was completely sober (except physically, 2C-E is strong in the body). That's when I thought fuck, I'm slipping into it again and took Seroquel. The hyper stimulation is the big one honestly, on both AL-LAD and DPT I couldn't sit for one second, I couldn't here either.

The next 10 minutes were me doubting having taken it and maybe I was fine all along, then there were two panick attacks, I wasn't really panicked initially but my heart was beating so fast that I got worried, then one minute later again. Maybe Seroquel imposing itself had something to do with that.

It was like 4 and a half hours in I think, and I did my classic 2C-E routine (eating a lot beforehand and taking it on a full stomach as to make the come up a very long and muddy experience) so I was in for a lot more too lol.

So maybe I was fine but once I actually thought of psychosis and saw all these "signs"... it would've been hard for me to get back from that. It would've been trivial for the pre AL-LAD me to overcome these setbacks I think, especially with 2C-E as I've taken it quite a few times, but now...

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

I think in Buzz's case, he would have developed it already, given it almost always develops in your early twenties. But even if not schizophrenia, psychosis from psychedelics can develop into longer-lasting psychosis if you keep pushing it.

Also sorry you're dealing with this, Buzz. Hopefully once your bipolar is more under control, in the future, you can partake again.

I think so too, and the psychosis has never lingered longer than the drug itself.

My bipolar seems pretty under control, I've been pretty much fine for many months. Like short hypomania and minor depression is to be expected and I'm generally never full baseline but close. I'm down to 100mg Seroquel even and it's much better than 2,3,400. Like I've been listening to new music, watching some great new shows, had a date etc... all things I'd kinda shut myself down from as I was zombie-ing through life.

I do feel like I do things aimlessly and with like little control over my external behavior but hey, I'm actually doing things which is a very big change from the pre-medication era I think it's good to care less for now.

 

[unodelacosa]

I'm probably never taking a lysergamide again, I had a complete psychotic break on AL-LAD, that was extremely traumatizing to friends and ended up with me in the hospital (RIP). It's not traumatizing to me when sober, but it definitely cut deep when tripping. In some previous trips on lysergamides I've shown very similar tendencies and I'm almost 100% sure that it would happen again on it (out of any other drugs).

The same happened on DPT, but I was more aware that time and didn't go into full ego death, still it was hell. My brain just broke, visuals changed back to that AL-LAD trip and I was insanely hot and stimulated (probably lots of noradrenaline and dopamine being released), and then I just understand again. Benzos aren't an option I think as they would disinhibit me even more, who knows what would happen then... + once in it you can be easily be too far gone to recognize what is happening. At least for me..

Now, what happened on 2C-E here is that I started recognizing clear signs of me slipping back into it and I panicked. Those signs might've been just an illusion or a coincidence, but you can't know for sure as you slip into it without noticing. So whether or not I was that close, these things have cut too deep for me to actually make something of such states again. I think I'm always close when tripping.

Lighter psychedelics, lower doses... it will happen again. And I think that every time I go into that psychotic state it will be even easier to slip into it. I might get away with it, but with all that hanging over my shoulder, it becomes hard to freely navigate all these headspaces like before.

Maybe time heals though

Oh I see. In light of this new evidence, I support what you're saying more now. You know, David Nichols has a theory that a certain percent subset of those who take LSD metabolize it differently during the second half of the trip and it triggers in them a dopaminergic psychotic episode. I don't remember the exact pharmacokinetics / dynamics involved, and it was just conjecture, but a highly educated guess from a leading psychedelic research pioneer anyway.

 

[Freeotrope]

So maybe I was fine but once I actually thought of psychosis and saw all these "signs"...

I've been wanting to understand psychosis and especially psychedelic induced psychosis recently, so I went back and was looking at some of your earlier posts. It sounds like you experienced some difficulties that aren't that uncommon, like thought loops and temperature dysregulation, but then there is some kind of grandiose meaning making that gets out of control and which you fully believe. And the switch from normal tripping is when the meaning making gets out of control. Does that sound right? Is there anything more you could add?

 

[Xorkoth]

I wonder what the line between psychosis and simply tripping absolute balls is? Now that I think about it, some of your description of your psychosis - namely the thought loops and believing something different all of a sudden - are some of the hallmarks of some of my early peak experiences. Thought loops, in particular, are quite common. I guess the difference is, even during my peak 2C-E experience where I believed for a time that if my ego destruction reached its peak of nonexistence, I would unmake the universe, and that I needed to kill myself to stop it and save the universe, I had enough oversight remaining to doubt the truth of the experience and realize that I shouldn't do something like that. So I guess the difference is, perhaps, the ability to retain the ability to doubt what you're experiencing? And to be able to control your external behavior enough to not act out disruptively? I'm not sure if that's the best way to put it, but I'm sort of referring to the difference between someone maybe sitting there perhaps looking visibly disturbined or panicked, vs shouting in the midst of people while the people look on with alarm, or stripping naked and running down the street (it seems to often result in people stripping naked at inappropriate times for whatever reason).

 

[unodelacosa]

I wonder what the line between psychosis and simply tripping absolute balls is?

The threshold is probably different from person-to-person with a good breadth of interpersonal variance. Seems to be that most schizotypal states feature an overabundance of dopamine, and this had something to do with Dr. Nichols' LSD psychosis theory

Now that I think about it, some of your description of your psychosis - namely the thought loops and believing something different all of a sudden - are some of the hallmarks of some of my early peak experiences. Thought loops, in particular, are quite common. I guess the difference is, even during my peak 2C-E experience where I believed for a time that if my ego destruction reached its peak of nonexistence, I would unmake the universe, and that I needed to kill myself to stop it and save the universe, I had enough oversight remaining to doubt the truth of the experience and realize that I shouldn't do something like that. So I guess the difference is, perhaps, the ability to retain the ability to doubt what you're experiencing? And to be able to control your external behavior enough to not act out disruptively? I'm not sure if that's the best way to put it, but I'm sort of referring to the difference between someone maybe sitting there perhaps looking visibly disturbined or panicked, vs shouting in the midst of people while the people look on with alarm,

I've seen LSD psychosis three distinct times in my life. Twice it was with the woman I was dating at the time, and once it was a guy I marginally knew who was at a house party losing his shit big time. I've also seen the psychosis state come from people on MDMA twice, and I've seen it at least a dozen or more times with people on methamphetamine. I've also dealt with a family member who legit suffers from schizophrenia. And personally, I've felt compelled toward delusions of persecution, for example, but I'm fortunate that I'm able to question the validity of my statements before jumping to conclusions. For example, I'll use α-PVP or another cathinone enough from time to time until I'm hearing audio hallucinations, typically starting off as if I'm picking up, in my head, the radio frequency of a baseball game being broadcast, and I can almost make out what the announcers are saying. Later, I can compose music in my head and hear it… But I never question the fact that it is not “real”; it's just in my head.

Some people are unfortunate enough that they start seeing the ITF – the Invisible Task Force – as soon as they whiff a tiny bit of cocaine.

or stripping naked and running down the street (it seems to often result in people stripping naked at inappropriate times for whatever reason).

Lol, so true.

 

[Freeotrope]

I wonder what the line between psychosis and simply tripping absolute balls is? Now that I think about it, some of your description of your psychosis - namely the thought loops and believing something different all of a sudden - are some of the hallmarks of some of my early peak experiences. Thought loops, in particular, are quite common. I guess the difference is, even during my peak 2C-E experience where I believed for a time that if my ego destruction reached its peak of nonexistence, I would unmake the universe, and that I needed to kill myself to stop it and save the universe, I had enough oversight remaining to doubt the truth of the experience and realize that I shouldn't do something like that. So I guess the difference is, perhaps, the ability to retain the ability to doubt what you're experiencing? And to be able to control your external behavior enough to not act out disruptively? I'm not sure if that's the best way to put it, but I'm sort of referring to the difference between someone maybe sitting there perhaps looking visibly disturbined or panicked, vs shouting in the midst of people while the people look on with alarm, or stripping naked and running down the street (it seems to often result in people stripping naked at inappropriate times for whatever reason).

I'm starting a deep dive into this and i think the technical term for what you are talking about is 'The bias against disconfirmatory evidence' (BADE)

Holding on to false beliefs: The bias against disconfirmatory evidence over the course of psychosis - PubMed

Treatments of metacognitive deficits in general and as early as in the ARMS might interfere with the cognitive pathogenesis of psychosis, and thereby ameliorate, postpone or even prevent the transition to psychosis.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

"The BADE could be found in different phases of psychosis development and can be regarded as a cognitive marker of the beginning psychotic state."

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

The threshold is probably different from person-to-person with a good breadth of interpersonal variance. Seems to be that most schizotypal states feature an overabundance of dopamine, and this had something to do with Dr. Nichols' LSD psychosis theory

I believe it was @ecstacylover that linked a paper previously that it's mostly noradrenaline that plays a crucial role in it.
Now that I think of it, the Strattera that I took earlier in the day will have played a role as well, totally forgot at the time, like I said, hypomanic..

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

I wonder what the line between psychosis and simply tripping absolute balls is? Now that I think about it, some of your description of your psychosis - namely the thought loops and believing something different all of a sudden - are some of the hallmarks of some of my early peak experiences. Thought loops, in particular, are quite common. I guess the difference is, even during my peak 2C-E experience where I believed for a time that if my ego destruction reached its peak of nonexistence, I would unmake the universe, and that I needed to kill myself to stop it and save the universe, I had enough oversight remaining to doubt the truth of the experience and realize that I shouldn't do something like that. So I guess the difference is, perhaps, the ability to retain the ability to doubt what you're experiencing? And to be able to control your external behavior enough to not act out disruptively? I'm not sure if that's the best way to put it, but I'm sort of referring to the difference between someone maybe sitting there perhaps looking visibly disturbined or panicked, vs shouting in the midst of people while the people look on with alarm, or stripping naked and running down the street (it seems to often result in people stripping naked at inappropriate times for whatever reason).

They strip because the body is overheating, my AL-LAD psychosis was insane, I couldn't see shit, and was just running around shouting stuff that seemed very significant (like Sony, way of life). Often I repeated words as I thought they would fix it all. I was shouting "MY IQ IS x" probably 50 times before the whole street that came to watch. Big difference with a "regular" bad trip.
DPT was similar but I wasn't in full ego death and thus more aware, everything else was the same though.
I don't hear voices or anything, I just get stuck. I think something and it comes out wrong, I try to fix by saying it correctly, then I'm wrong again, and that'll go on the entire time, it's hellish. All the while I'm just stumbling around because I'm so stimulated by what I guess is just a large amount of dopamine and noradrenaline being released.

Now sometimes when tripping I get minor flashbacks to me in those "fixing" and I understand again why I was doing it, then I snap out again and I've forgotten all the understanding.

@Kaleida 's experience with psychedelic induced psychosis is entirely different though, if she were in the mood to type away for an hour...

 

[Freeotrope]

this sounds like ordinary inconsequential things are somehow given extremely intense meaning, like the word Sony, or a number

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

this sounds like ordinary inconsequential things are somehow given extremely intense meaning, like the word Sony, or a number

That's the AL-LAD psychosis, I was just making sense of everything. Slowly I recognized more and more of the world. I saw my friend's PlayStation and shouted Sony because I realized that I wasn't alone in the world and that there a whole society and stuff so what I was experiencing was inconsequential to others.
I shouted some other good stuff, like COCAINE AND HOOKERS many times when I saw cops because I thought I could convince them to let me go with that lmao.

It was a clusterfuck, it's a shame the ambulance was called because I mostly wanted to be alone, and I'm still dealing with the court because apparently it's allowed for an ambulance to call the cops if they suspect drugs are in play...

 

[Freeotrope]

i live in an apartment and don't even want to have my neighbors hear me moaning or singing in the weird way i like to sing in psychedelics or saying oh my god over and over again, so I go to a remote part of the woods for high dose trips

I'll try to remember not to yell COCAINE AND HOOKERS then next time im tripping and see the cops thats tragic and funny at the same time

 

[Xorkoth]

For example, I'll use α-PVP or another cathinone enough from time to time until I'm hearing audio hallucinations, typically starting off as if I'm picking up, in my head, the radio frequency of a baseball game being broadcast, and I can almost make out what the announcers are saying. Later, I can compose music in my head and hear it… But I never question the fact that it is not “real”; it's just in my head.

I have experienced this too, also on a cathinone (n-ethyl-hexedrone), in a very dramatic and honestly very enjoyable way. I was hearing 3 radio stations at once, coming from 3 separate inanimate objects (the sources remained consistent no matter how I moved around them, or stopped paying attention and then started noticing again). Two of them were radio stations, one of which was Mexican music and the other of which was talk radio where they were sometimes talking about what I was doing, and the other was a non-stop stream of the music that was otherworldly levels of incredible. I was always fully aware it was a hallucination though. But I put the drugs down just the same because I didn't want to push myself over the line into actual psychosis.

apparently it's allowed for an ambulance to call the cops if they suspect drugs are in play...

Damn that's fucked. Not sure how it is in other states in the US, but in my state they passed a harm reduction bill a handful of years ago that made it illegal for you to be charged for drugs if help is called for a medical emergency. Which is absolutely how it should be. Before, there were many unneeded deaths due to people being afraid to call for medical help. Now, I'm sure there still are (due to people not knowing or trusting that they won'[t get in trouble), but the numbers have gone down and will continue to go down as it becomes more widespread/trusted.