Previous Trip... Not So Great

[acalybor]

I'm posting here to ask others for their opinions and advice. There are surely more experienced individuals out there than me, so here I stand.

Anyway, awhile ago the decision was made to trip with someone that I worked with. Some quality acid had been acquired so the decision was made one day to head over to his place to hangout. This was my first time being at his home, my first time meeting his roommate, and my first time being in a new and unfamiliar environment. I decided to dose what was purported to be at or above 600 mics of pure acid; I can back it's potency, looking back.

I'm curious to know other's opinions on what could have gone wrong. The night ended with me being tazed by police officers and taken to an emergency room; apparently I was punching mail boxes without clothing. From what I can recall, and it isn't too much, I began transcending realities by means of bumping into things or what have you. I was told that I became violent, which doesn't seem typical of psychedelic trips, or is it? I've taken acid a few times in the past, but never a dose as high as previously mentioned. This experience certainly scared/embarrassed the hell out of me. Knowing that I became violent with a co-worker and their roommate was more than enough to disturb me.

To summarize, if possible I'd like to know what others think about this situation. What could have triggered this violent or psychotic episode? Was the dose too high for me? Why did I become violent; I'm not known to be a violent person at all. Lastly, if I were to want to trip again, what would be some pointers?

I have to say that this past experience has frightened me a bit, not to say that I haven't learned from it.

I'm eager to hear what anyone has to offer, thank you.

 

[ComfortablyNumb95]

I've read quite a lot of trip reports about people taking a way too high dose and going nuts and becoming aggressive so I guess it's a common reaction to freakouts.
maybe you begun having great epiphanies/realizations that you couldn't handle at the moment and that made you go berserker because it was TOO much and you had to punch stuff... who knows

 

[atara]

If you don't remember how it happened, there isn't a whole lot that anyone can tell you. If, for example, you became violent immediately after some specific event, we could ask if that was a trigger of some sort and if it may have been related to a problem in your past.

A strange thing about psychedelic-induced psychosis is that it doesn't show up statistically, i.e., we've never had a study show that people who use psychedelics are more likely to become psychotic than people who don't. The conclusion is that people who become psychotic have "an underlying problem". But what is an underlying problem? We don't know.

I have suspected that people's self-image, previous experiences, and worldview could affect this, but I don't have any good reason to believe so either. So it isn't necessarily productive to blame yourself, but of course the question remains why this happens to some people and not to others.

My advice would be to read some Kurt Vonnegut and meditate. I think Kurt Vonnegut is the opposite of violence.

 

[Solipsis]

Losing contact will reality can do that to a person, and IME / IMO that happens more easily when a high dose is taken all at once... maybe a bit like stretching (your tendons, like pre-exercise) very hard without working up to it: it is dramatic and sudden, which makes it hard to cope with the abrupt transition. Your mind's grip on reality can tear just like muscles or tendons can when there is not enough dynamic flexibility to keep up.

1)
It is generally always a good idea to use properly adjusted set and setting to make you ready and receptive to the intensity you are going to unleash on yourself. To use another metaphor: it's like if you are in a racecar that is about to suddenly accellerate and jump into high gear... you need to clear the area around the car first and get an idea of which directions you will be going in and prepare for it, otherwise you will find yourself crashing into things around you. In this metaphor the things around you represent for example the thoughts and feelings that are natural reactions to your recent circumstances and experiences.
Psychedelics are mind manifesting drugs and the contents or your mind can get amplified, distorted, mixed together, associated with each other, etc. by them... as a part of the manifestation of your consciousness. The fuller your mind is with content to begin with, the more you can expect this content to become so messed up that your psyche becomes unable to process itself, causing you to 'lose it'.
You don't necessarily need control (people actually often argue that it is best to 'let go' in a trip), but there is a minimum amount of coherence your mind needs to cope when there is a lot of psychological material hanging around.

2)
Technically a part of setting is the way you dose the drug and the timing. When you intend to trip very very hard then unless you have enough experience to be confident about dropping a big dose at once, I would recommend starting with a dose that you can be comfortable with, by that I mean a dose that is for you low enough not to be very forceful. When you want to work up to a 600 ug dose it would not be practical to start with 75 ug because that would be taking too small steps to get where you want to go within the allotted time window. (This is due to developing tolerance (causing redoses to become weaker and weaker) and the fact that human mental and physical energy in a single day / session / sitting are limited)
But maybe 200 ug is reasonable.
Then it is good to first wait until just after the peak and align your thoughts and feelings, for example by doing light meditation or yoga or other spiritual/physical techniques (don't do heavy meditation or you will be asking for mystical experiences and OOBE's and stuff like that) for a little bit. Then redose with another 200 ug, and later on - maybe even 5 hours later add more. You can even wait until late in the plateau before ever starting to redose.

It will cost more of the drug because of tolerance, but in my experience if you compensate a bit you can go very deep and have amazing and intense effects without being overwhelmed by it like you can be when you take it all at once.

To put it short: giving yourself a chance to get used to the building psychedelic effects can allow you to go much further without it all becoming a chaotic mess and potentially losing your shit like what happened to you.
I'd say it can also be very interesting or even fun to seek out that jumbled chaos, but there are risks that go with the territory - it is not particularly responsible and you might be in much more dire need of a trip sitter.
In general don't aim too high if you are not experienced enough yet, always first learn to roughly navigate and/or handle a level of intensity. Otherwise it is not really a surprise if your mind cannot take it anymore and you end up in a bit of a crisis.

 

[acalybor]

Thank you all for the in-depth replies. Thinking it over, I know that social anxiety certainly affected my experience. I was in an unfamiliar environment, with people that I did not know well enough; there wasn't even a friendship really present. Also, too high of a dose was taken for me at that point in time. I was unprepared for the drug's effects, and ended up losing all sense of self and reality. Proper preparation wasn't taken and the dose was far too high to even be considered for "social-tripping."

At that point in time, days prior to the experience, I had an underlying gut instinct that something wasn't right. I'm usually a very intuitive person, but this time I went against what my "gut" told me to do, which was to wait. Psychologically, I wasn't prepared for the experience, and I knew this but decided to go ahead anyway. I feel like a dose like this should have been done either alone or with someone that I could trust completely, someone that would help to guide me through it.

I can't emphasize enough how quickly underlying feelings of discomfort became apparent in my situation. As with any psychedelic experience, the emotions that we work so hard to deny, avoid, and repress in everyday life become so incredibly present in that moment, and I feel like that is exactly what happened.

In short, I was not prepared, in the wrong set/setting, did not have close ties to the people's home that I was in, and acted against what I FELT to be right.
Thank you all for the assistance; the next time that I trip, it will be at a lower dose and in a more controlled and comfortable environment.

 

[porkstock]

I'm curious to know other's opinions on what could have gone wrong.

the the post above mine, it seems like you know where you went wrong, but you even said it in your first post:

This was my first time being at his home, my first time meeting his roommate, and my first time being in a new and unfamiliar environment. I decided to dose what was purported to be at or above 600 mics of pure acid

solipsis, about working your way up...
with acid, i feel like the tolerance would be a huge issue. so rather than taking 200 ug and redosing twice throughout the experience, i'd rather trip on 200 ug. then try 400 ug next time. and if i so desired, 600 ug another time. if you take 200 + 200 + 200 ug...you are not experiencing 600 ug. i think a lot of it gets wasted to tolerance.
but i DO agree on titrating your doses, for sure!

 

[pmoseman]

Based on my experience I would say too high and maybe tired.
I spent the afternoon at my friends pool, we had been watching fireworks from the pool and drinking a bit. I was pretty tired and dozing off while they watched a movie and got stoned. I smoked a bit and saddled up to bar and was drinking some water when I blacked out. Immediately I snapped my head back up, but I was not there, and backed up to the wall and started punching myself in the balls, then I went upstairs and groped some girl (who fortunately understood later and forgave me), then, after getting kicked out out of the house, I got my hands on a knife and did a Tarzan impression out on the freeway. Luckily I found a nice dark patch to pass out in and puke on.
It was like sleep-walking. I had flashes of waking up and seeing what was going on, but I did not realize at the time any of it was real. So all those subconscious thoughts you have when you are sleeping were hitting the real world, without worrying about consequences. That was with alcohol and maybe some weed, but there are definitely going to be similarities with any kind of drug.