Silk Road forums

Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: The Scientist on February 15, 2013, 06:53 am

Title: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: The Scientist on February 15, 2013, 06:53 am
I am interested in other people's experiences and how they learned to overcome them.

Most of my trips are overwhelmingly good. But every now and then I have a bad trip. It's always the same:

- I don't have free will. Voluntary and involuntary actions feel the same. My thoughts are happening automatically. I can't control them. Things going on outside of me feel the same as things going on internally.

- Everything is a projected illusion originating in my mind. Solipsism.

- My consciousness is the only consciousness in existence. Everyone I know is just part of the dream / simulation / holographic projection / illusion.

-   I don't really exist. I am a holographically projected illusion. Or a program in a virtual computer. Or a thought in the mind of God.

- I am God.

- Everything is distant and alien to me. Things that normally bring me joy seem indescribably evil

- There's a sense of being controlled by an impersonal or malevolent higher power (which is, at the same time, my higher Self). A fear that this higher power will force me to do evil, or force me to commit suicide against my 'will'. I am afraid of going outside because I fear that this higher power will force me to run in front of traffic or something.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: blackend646 on February 15, 2013, 07:19 am
One time I had a really strange experience with mushrooms and have never had anything close since. I'm not sure if it was because I smoked cannabis beforehand or because it was 2 weeks after my first LSD experience, but even though I didn't eat any more than I normally do, I had an absolutely crazy breakthrough experience. I remember staring at a poster on my wall watching it morph, and eventually my entire vision became fixated on the poster as if it were at the end of a really huge hallway. My memory goes blank for a while after that, but eventually I was in a twisted Alice in Wonderland version of my house that I could barely recognize. I made contact with some sort of female entity who was extremely hostile towards me. Whenever I would try to get up and change my setting or do anything in hopes of making the bad vibes go away, she would literally send painful shocks through my body. I tried curling up under my blankets but they felt like sandpaper on my skin. I went to drink some water and I guess she convinced me that I hated it, because it tasted god awful, as if there was rust in it. I gagged and spat it out. I had a few very brief moments of clarity but they always faded after a few seconds and I was back in this fucked up headspace. I went to lay down again and my vision became completely engulfed in a spiraling fractal pattern, my eyes wide open and yet I literally could not see the actual world around me, I was basically falling down the rabbit hole. My memory goes blank again at this point but when I came to I was in some sort of blue temple, which I recognized from a previous DMT trip. I was at the bottom of a flight of steps looking up at another entity who I remember having an appearance similar to the Buddha. I asked him what I did to deserve this and why this was happening to me, and he telepathically responded that I needed to stop blowing off my responsibilities. I then was shot back into my body and the world re-appeared. I got this very intense urge to go and get some work done, and almost involuntarily got dressed and headed out the door to get it done.

Once I got completely back to baseline this newfound desire to be productive faded away and I went home and jacked off or something. Not sure what that was about.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: camomug on February 15, 2013, 07:35 am
My first uncontrollable trip was from Cyclones extremely potent mutants.  The come up was insanely intense and I started to worry for some reason.  Then I have no idea what happened, I just lost it. I had no clue who or what I was, I couldn't even comprehend words or any language! I seriously lost my shit...to the point where I ended up wandering around without my pants or any undergarments (but I still had a shirt on, what a sight!). I wouldn't call it a bad trip because I still had a good time. It was just extremely overwhelming and unexpected
Next time I tripped on his albinos and it was such a mindfuck of a trip.  I got the same feelings you described, my thoughts were uncontrollable, I felt as if I were being controlled and eventually I just lost all sense of self.  It was beautiful but definitely need to take a break from these shrooms...I think it's messing with my normal day to day mental wellbeing
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: Ballzinator on February 16, 2013, 07:59 pm
Sounds like depersonalization, common in "bad trips".
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: slysamuel0109 on February 16, 2013, 09:51 pm
My first uncontrollable trip was from Cyclones extremely potent mutants.  The come up was insanely intense and I started to worry for some reason.  Then I have no idea what happened, I just lost it. I had no clue who or what I was, I couldn't even comprehend words or any language! I seriously lost my shit...to the point where I ended up wandering around without my pants or any undergarments (but I still had a shirt on, what a sight!). I wouldn't call it a bad trip because I still had a good time. It was just extremely overwhelming and unexpected
Next time I tripped on his albinos and it was such a mindfuck of a trip.  I got the same feelings you described, my thoughts were uncontrollable, I felt as if I were being controlled and eventually I just lost all sense of self.  It was beautiful but definitely need to take a break from these shrooms...I think it's messing with my normal day to day mental wellbeing

Thank God I'm not the only one.
I pretty much had the same experience

I had 3 grams of Cyclones Albino PE's.
Too intense at first. Hit me like a train, but after I calmed the fuck down I had a kick ass trip.

Probably gonna stick with 2 grams next time.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: oldtoby on February 18, 2013, 05:45 am
Yes to each of those at one time or another, The Scientist.

Thing is, I wouldn't necessarily characterize those individual elements as a "bad trip". Ego loss, in particular, is horrible if you're trying to hang on for dear (known) life, and ok and even transcendental if you're able to just let go.

Solipsism vs. pantheism vs. dualism impulses vary drastically for me depending on the drug, which is one of the things that makes me doubtful of direct knowledge of anything but yourself on psychs. How do I handle the less pleasant versions? I prepare. I write post-it notes and put them up saying things like "IT'S OK. THIS IS TEMPORARY. SOBER ME HAS CONSIDERED CAREFULLY AND: 1) YOU ARE SAFE, 2) YOUR LIFE IS OK, 3) YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS BEFORE AND WILL BE BACK TO NORMAL SOON ENOUGH. HAVE FUN!" That kind of thing. I always take a moment to make the most honest status check of my life, immediate and far-reaching both, before a trip so that later I can think "I trust sober oldtoby's judgment and he was 100% confident that things really are ok."

That said, I have had some extreme what I have to call spiritual/religious experiences (trending Buddhist) while on psychs, and it is very tempting to reevaluate things in terms of these alternate models of life. And I do. I like Erowid's desription of potential cons for many of these substances: "May cause unwanted spiritual awakenings" (or the like). Aside from really coercive thought loops on shrooms - which are very hard to combat - the rest I attribute to ego-release issues. Make sure you have a good environment. Trust the sober you.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: busta999 on February 18, 2013, 11:47 am
Never happened to me in 50+ trips but I have seen friends have bad trips a couple of times.

If once in a while things start turning negative I have so far been able to overcome by changing the setting - go somewhere else or change the music or take a shower or some such. That has always been enough to break out of any loop or negative spiral.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: anothergirl on February 18, 2013, 12:54 pm
Never had a bad trip per se, but I've had lots of annoyingly weak trips and a "sad" trip.

I was babysitting a dog which I had taken care of for many years but then lost custody of as it were, and I thought "fuck yeah, tripping alone with with a dog, a being I can stare at and talk to without risk of getting caught tripping" but then I started going down memory lane and started sobbing puddles all over the floor, plus the dog didn't want to sit with me for very long which is kinda how the dog just is but I felt somehow rejected and that made it worse.  It was... weird, but not a bad trip like I hear of.

I've never even really seen any serious visuals in dozens of acid trips but tomorrow I'm taking shrooms for the first time and I'm just gonna say fuck it and do like 5 or grams lemon tek'd so maybe I'll be posting a horror story here soon :)
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: Ahoyhoy on February 18, 2013, 10:30 pm
l've never really had a bad trip per se, but have spiralled for about 10 minutes during one trip. Managed to pull myself out but it was a scary 10 mins for sure. Got very paranoid and had a thought in my head l couldn't shake. Twas scary.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: The Scientist on February 19, 2013, 12:28 am
oldtoby,

Thanks for your input.  Actually, the main thing that terrifies me during these trips is solipsism.  All the other things I listed only come to me after I get the idea of solipsism in my head.   There is something about the mystical experience that absolutely convinces me that I am God and everything in existence is happening inside my head.  That 'we are all one' is literally true because  consciousness is singular. Then I start to think that everyone I have ever known is just an illusion inside my mind. Which makes me feel very alone.


anothergirl,

You probably need stronger acid.  I experience the most intense visuals on LSD, including past-incarnation memories of hallucinating clarity (previous to these experiences, I considered the idea of reincarnation to be an absurdity. LSD has forced me to re-evaluate my previous atheistic and materialist worldview). Then there are the closed-eyed visuals, which seem to reveal the secret workings of the brain, subatomic processes,  etc.

You may have better luck with mushrooms. The most interesting thing I've experienced on mushrooms are visions that have the quality of extremely vivid memories. But whereas with LSD, the memories were of another time and place in human history, with mushrooms I have been able to access memories of an utterly alien and animal origin. In one of these memories, I saw the world from the perspective of a small creature with a different visual spectrum and in a very unfamiliar environment....

Anyway, you should probably try taking a break from a psychedelics for at least a month, and then take a large dosage if you want to see visuals.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: wretched on February 19, 2013, 03:08 am
The late night talk show hosts are making fun of me and trying to plant subliminal thoughts in my head to buy a certain shampoo!
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: oldtoby on February 19, 2013, 04:31 am
oldtoby,

Thanks for your input.  Actually, the main thing that terrifies me during these trips is solipsism.  All the other things I listed only come to me after I get the idea of solipsism in my head.   There is something about the mystical experience that absolutely convinces me that I am God and everything in existence is happening inside my head.  That 'we are all one' is literally true because  consciousness is singular. Then I start to think that everyone I have ever known is just an illusion inside my mind. Which makes me feel very alone.

What are you on when the solipsism hits, The Scientist? I'm surprised to find a very regular pattern with substance and perception as I mentioned, and the only time I ever go the way of solipsism is on heavy amounts of shrooms (and I do like to push things a bit). LSD never, ever, seems to provoke this line of thought. For me, acid seems to reinforce perceptions of dualism (though on heavier doses, that can be scary, too, cause the "oldtoby" that I know isn't the "soul" or whatever you want to call it in charge, and I've also felt like I was spiralling toward brain/mind crash, which was... unpleasant).

I don't know what to tell you about combatting it. You can stay away from higher doses (but what fun is that). You can attack it philosophically while sober. Read up on Boltzman brain theory for a bit of a mindfuck. I spent about a thousand years one night in a void empty of everything except thoughts. I was sure I had imagined my life. But if I ever end up there again, I'll have some little confidence that I've experienced this before and come back from it, and can do so again. So that's another aspect, I think. Whatever doesn't send you screaming mad into the hills, or an asylum, may make you stronger.

Safe travels, friend.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: The Scientist on February 19, 2013, 06:04 am
What are you on when the solipsism hits, The Scientist? I'm surprised to find a very regular pattern with substance and perception as I mentioned, and the only time I ever go the way of solipsism is on heavy amounts of shrooms (and I do like to push things a bit). LSD never, ever, seems to provoke this line of thought. For me, acid seems to reinforce perceptions of dualism (though on heavier doses, that can be scary, too, cause the "oldtoby" that I know isn't the "soul" or whatever you want to call it in charge, and I've also felt like I was spiralling toward brain/mind crash, which was... unpleasant).
Yes, it was with LSD. I've only been able to experience nondual awareness with the aid of LSD. There are in fact higher levels of consciousness that are accessible through LSD,  in which you become one with not only everything in your immediate perception, but with processes at work at atomic, subatomic and cosmic scales. (And it's only at this level that you start randomly experiencing precognitive visions, past-incarnation memories, etc.)

Quote
I don't know what to tell you about combatting it. You can stay away from higher doses (but what fun is that). You can attack it philosophically while sober. Read up on Boltzman brain theory for a bit of a mindfuck.
Very interesting. Thank you.

Quote
I spent about a thousand years one night in a void empty of everything except thoughts. I was sure I had imagined my life. But if I ever end up there again, I'll have some little confidence that I've experienced this before and come back from it, and can do so again. So that's another aspect, I think.
Yes there is always a sense of deja vu in my more intense LSD experiences. And as I look upon my life, everything has this sense of plotedness, as though I bad been living inside of a narrative. Like I'm on some kind of recorded medium or virtual image. Everything is symbolic and archetypal. And this is all tied to the sense of solipsism.

Quote
Whatever doesn't send you screaming mad into the hills, or an asylum, may make you stronger.
That's a good way to look at it.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: anothergirl on February 19, 2013, 04:23 pm

anothergirl,

You probably need stronger acid. 

Yeah, it's from 3Jane so the dose is accurate, but unfortunately I haven't been patient enough between doses.

I'm now planning to wait at least 3 weeks and then try maybe 800 mics or so.
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: moonflower on February 20, 2013, 12:29 am
the best thing to do when you're stuck in a bad trip is simply accept where you are and what you're feeling. our immediate reaction is usually to resist, which creates tension, making the trip worse. learning to accept these feelings and go with the flow tends to effectively neutralize the trip. personally, smoking cannabis helps me a lot of i'm feeling any anxiety. also, meditation can be your best friend during a bad trip. :)
Title: Re: Anyone else get bad trips like this?
Post by: hee57 on February 20, 2013, 02:19 am
I had a bad one where I thought I had imagined myself into existence and was going to be immortal forever which scared the hell out of me because I thought I would run out of things to do and just go crazy.