Respiratory Problems?

[LazyTheGreat]

Greetings fellow Bluelighters!

On my first and last high dose LSD trip I found myself in a very frightening situation. I can recall moments during the trip where I felt if I didn't keep an eye on my breathing I would suffocate. It went from being terrifying to just being a bother. Now that I think about it maybe I should of put on my big boy pants and see what would have happened if I went with it. Huh, who knows right? Anyhow has anyone found themselves in a similar predicament as myself? If so, what did you do to combat the problem? Any advice nevertheless would be extremely helpful as I do plan on embarking on another journey into my mind very soon.

 

[Ballz_Trippington]

This exact same thing happened to me on LSA and also on LSD one time I was certain that I was going to have a heart attack because I was sure my heart was beating super fast.
My tripping partner is a nurse and she kept reassuring me that I had a normal heart rate. But I'll tell you, subjectively it felt like it was on overdrive.
That's the problem with trusting your senses whilst on a drug like LSD that alters them.
Your breathing was probably normal but subjectively felt extremely slowed down.

 

[Solipsis]

Yes I've been in that situation quite a number of times and strongly believe that it is rather related to anxiety and anxiety attacks even. DMT or 5-MeO-DMT take my breath away more than half of the time, but I've been in other trips like on 4-AcO-DMT with some other non-psychedelic drugs in my system and believed that I was having trouble breathing autonomically. After walking to and fro at least 3 times I eventually pushed through even visited the hospital for it. Turned out I was hyperventilating instead, apparently trying to compensate for my imagined lack of breaths.... in reality you don't really need to breathe that much to be perfectly fine, but it definitely didn't feel that way to me and I made myself believe that the downers (a bit of codeine) I used could be a problem.
I recognized the feeling from many DMT trips though, which just made me completely forget how to breathe normally. Anxiety is certainly a compounding factor, but also importantly I believe time dilation (also suggested by Ballz_Trippington above me) can completely screw up your perception of "breathing enough". Heart rate can equally be involved in the symptoms instead of breathing.
Well on DMT trips I didn't only get time dilation but also often felt "petrified" from sheer intensity which was the other major factor in screwing up my idea of breathing enough.

While extremely intense trips can push the mind into pretty weird 'mind over matter' states that can be negative and stop you breathing for a while, in actuality the body is so good at knowing when it is really essential to take a breath that you eventually will.

So while it can be very frightening and panic attacks can spiral out of control (in my case, when I visited the hospital my hyperventilating screwed up my blood gases so much that it actually caused metabolic acidosis which is not dangerous either but can cause - and did - symptoms that are even more frightening like 'evil butterflies' in your chest and various types of physical sense of impending doom.)... in my opinion you should consider it a type of panic attack.

To be sure I will note that panic attacks, in people who experience them for the first time particularly, are often felt as physically life-threatening like a heart attack.

It is astonishing how intense it can be, just like placebo effect can be so intense that it can match actual heavy duty experiences of various kinds.

 

[A-Dead-Head]

I agree with Ballz_Trippington (lol at your name sir) in that I couldn't really tell what was going on with my heart rate and breathing because my whole sense of perception was altered. Once you get in the frame of mind that you bodies not doing well, everything hits the fan...you get anxious which leads to heart palpitations and a tight chest, personally It turned on Bill Cosby and almost died from not breathing due to laughing so fucking hard but it helped xD Just remember for next time!