Psychedelics and Phobias

[Flickering]

Originally I was going to title this 'Ayahuasca and Arachnids'. And then it occurred to me to broaden the topic. But has anyone with fear of spiders, or snakes or whatever, encountered the nasty things on an ayahuasca trip, or on any other substance? I was watching this, and I started wondering how I'd go if that sort of thing happened. I used to be pretty scared of spiders as a kid, and I still don't like them, especially when there's a great big one creeping across my arm or whatever.

So, do your worst fears appear bigger and badder than ever? Or are you able to just ride it out, knowing it's a hallucination? I'm thinking of trying ayahuasca several months from now, and I expect to encounter a few creepy crawlies of the spirit world. Not overly concerned about it, just curious.

 

[Rolling Sly]

I really havent had many things happen that have frightened me in psychedelic trips. All of my friends who have taken it either with me or without have freaked out in their trips. The only time I have had bad vibes was due to a friend as previously mentioned freak out and vomit everywhere on LSD. Also when I was out in the city and a really odd dude started talking to us. But I sometimes envy my friends who have insanely vivid and creep hallucinations. I always ask why I cant trip that hard! I guess were all different.

 

[I NUK3D U]

Terrified of spiders and moths. Both seem fairly invisible whenever I'm tripping. I'm not saying if one started crawling on me I'd be fine. But certainly their presence is not as disturbing. Guess this depends on the drug though. LSD, 2c-b, a variety of tryptamines all are fine. As are disassociatives. Can't atest to deliriants.

 

[Flickering]

For my part, when I took mushrooms, I was getting closed-eye visuals of spiders crawling across my eyes in the first hour. It was actually pretty cool, and I laughed and said "Don't start with the spiders". I'm curious though what happens when people encounter larger-than-life specimens on DMT / ayahuasca / whatever, and they have a pre-existing phobia. I imagine it wouldn't be a huge problem on less absorbing psychedelics.

My own mum (!) recounts the one time she ever took mushrooms, allegedly by accident, she was seeing spiders crawl out of the shower tap on mass. She's deadly afraid of them, which in turn led to the unpleasant experience in my childhood that made me wary of them. But apparently she was able to tell herself it was just a trip, and they went away.

Can't atest to deliriants.

*shudder*

I've heard several accounts of this. Not fun. And freaky insects are a curiously prevalent theme of datura. But then, so are hallucinations of people smoking pot, for some reason.

 

[Enter Galactic]

rofl how do you take mushrooms on accident? ^^

Well this will sound stupid but... they definitely helped me over come an irrational fear of the dark.

I also noticed that after I started taking psychedelics, roller coasters were no longer scary at all. Which is unfortunate because that's part of the reason they can be so exciting. Kingda Ka at six flags still gets me though. Kingda Ka is like the DMT of roller coasters. Shoots you straight up, higher and faster than any other roller coaster, and happens so fast that all you can say is "what the fuck just happened to me?"

 

[huolesoh]

yes i had a fear of the dark as an infant, i guess it's because it's just the unknown...

psychedelics can dimish and exasperate fears. creepy bugs can seem much much more creepy or it can go the other way and they seem totally harmless

fear of death is something ive been having trouble with recently, but thats a fear i carry everywhere, even before my first trips. psychedelics can exacerbate this fear but can also allow me to explore why and how to conquer this fear. so there can be therapeutic advantages to tripping with your phobias

 

[Axed]

I have a pretty legitimate phobia of spiders (earlier in my life I chipped my tooth as the result of gasping with one of those plastic-rimmed velcro pads that you play catch with because I thought I saw a spider-- although it was only a web), and during my last trip we saw a spider in my room. At one point while I was peaking, I thought back to the spider, which had since disappeared from view. I fell into a thought loop of thinking about it, where it could be, what it could do to me, etc.

Psychedelics definitely seem to magnify your fears, even if you don't realize it immediately.

 

[Cat-N-Da-Hat]

Spiders...

One of the many reasons to never use datura again(my room was crawling with huge life like spiders when i was tripping on it, i'll never use it again).

 

[Flickering]

^^ Yeah good idea.

At one point while I was peaking, I thought back to the spider, which had since disappeared from view. I fell into a thought loop of thinking about it, where it could be, what it could do to me, etc.

Urkh... I've been in nasty thought loops before but shit, none of them involved absent spiders, thank God (who was me or was I just on mushrooms? No I was God no I was on mushrooms. No I was God...)

rofl how do you take mushrooms on accident? ^^

She claims that when she was much younger, she was at a party with some friends, and they just told her, "Here, eat these mushrooms!" So she, not thinking twice about what her pot-smoking friends were offering her, gobbled them down eagerly. And then they told her the mushrooms were magic. Personally, I find this tale suspect because shrooms tend to taste bad, but I didn't know that several years ago when she told me. I found the whole story clasically hilarious.

I just remembered another small, funny thing, kind of related - last weekend on acid, one of my friends had a camera, and he attached three big black elastic legs to it, and stuck it on a branch so he could photograph the things we were seeing, to check in the morning whether we could still see them. Anyway, it must have happened ten times - I kept walking along in my own thoughts, and then I'd see this bizarre fucking thing on the tree stump and get a jolt of "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!? Oh, it's the camera. Again." And my hyperactive brain just kept falling for it.

It's funny in retrospect and funnier again at the time.

 

[Warp Renegade]

From personal experience, (I'm arachnophobic) the fear is a lot less intense when on psychedelics. I have on occasion picked spiders up and just watched how they move and been absolutley amazed at how alien they look. The fear doesn't totally go but I feel a lot more at ease around spiders.

And hallucinated ones, I've never had a problem with because I've never been that out of it that I didn't realise that they weren't there.