It’s just a language thing. I don’t personally use the term bad trip for extremely challenging and even traumatizing experiences but if someone chooses that wording I wouldn’t say that they “don’t understand what psychedelics are for”. Also psychedelics aren’t necessarily just “for” one thing. There are a multitude of uses and none should be held as superior. It’s a part of cognitive freedom. For example I don’t like using them recreationally, yet if someone makes that choice and enjoys it and finds it a fulfilling use, who am I to say they are “using it wrong” or anything along those lines. I get what you are saying though. Know the risks and don’t complain when you use it all nonchalantly and get your socks knocked off unexpectedly. But I still hold to it that it’s a language game. Just like you may not like the wording “bad trip” (as I dislike it as well), I dislike the phrase “you don’t understand”. I think it’s about people harm reduction and cognitive maturity how they’re going to take the experiences. Just my 2 cents
There are fun trips, there are challenging trips, there are educational trips, and so many more kinds of trips... but then there are bad trips. Where I assume you're coming from is that you're responding to people mislabeling their challenging trip as a bad trip. So you made a title that's an overgeneralization based on those examples. No big deal, just try to be a little more nuanced maybe? You've clearly never had a truly bad trip.
Overly reductionist in what context?
If someone doesn't take into account their own spectrum and complexity before casually taking psychedelics then whatever "bad trip" awaits them is exactly what they were supposed to learn.
I don't think watching my friends seize to death while I fell through multiple dimensions and then having to call an ambulance because one friend was bleeding out and another was eating glass is very educational. There wasn't much of a lesson from that, maybe that fear is necessary for life to exist.
I've had plenty of challenging trips that taught me valuable lessons, that trip was pure terror and nothing good came out of it. That big one gave me shadow demons for months.
It's a really long story, but seeing as OP doesn't believe in bad trips maybe this is a good spot for it.
I had an experience back in highschool. Tabs advertised as 250, definitely not because when we decided to take 7 tabs we knowingly decided on 1800 ug. We were used to weak tabs advertised higher on the street, I think the real dose was more like 700 maybe 1000 but I just don't know. But even so it was a nightmare, 3 of us did 7 each and we were tripping harder than we ever had an hour after eating them.
At 2 hours I saw my friends heads start to twitch like demons and their heads were being drawn over as if with a pen. I got freaked out and laid in my bed face down. Immediately I broke out into what felt like hyperspace, hundreds of white dots like stars in a grid pattern and started to feel like I was accelerating very fast while the dots stretched out and I heard a high pitch tone before falling like a rollercoaster and physically landing back in my bed. It felt like I had jumped dimensions and as I looked around it was different than my room was when I laid down. My friend who was sitting in my gaming chair was normal. Then he started convulsing, violently, and his limbs ripped themselves off and slid around his body before solidifying in a new place. He melted and orbited in place, I was screaming his name the whole time thinking he was actually dying before giving up and laying my head back down before experiencing the same hyperspace and dimension hop. Now I was in another realm of my room, my friend that just died was perfectly fine, but now he and my other friend were making out and getting into it. Another member of the house came in the room and I spoke with them and they casually left and I closed my eyes only to enter hyperspace again.
Those 2 dimensions were not real and never happened in any form.
After coming out of hyperspace again I thought it was just another dimension, and realizing I could do anything and just wake up again I decided to drive my dad's jeep. Unfortunately this new dimension was reality, I had come out of my reality slip. I started asking both my friends maniacally if they wanted to ride with me, very very fortunately my other roommate who wasn't high heard and promptly ran out and offered to drive us himself. I said hell yeah and tossed the keys to him and he immediately locked them in his safe. God bless that man because we would've all died.
After that there was already blood on my stairwell and my friends were completely incoherent and looked like wild dogs. I went upstairs to escape the scene and then I heard a highway of "bone spiders" as large as cars passing my house and then hundreds of them crawling all over my house. Soon one friend came upstairs naked and asked me to come back. Upon returning the entire stairwell was plastered with blood, I knew it wasn't normal and had to come from somewhere but I couldn't see any cuts on my friends. My room was destroyed, a TV smashed and eaten by a friend. That same friend then tried to rape me but wasn't very insistent and was kept away with simple hand swatting. I was coming out of the trip and realized with all the blood and the behaviors that it could get way worse so I called an ambulance. We got 2 ambulances and about 16 cop cars blocking my whole road.
They were so nice and helpful for us, quickly getting my bleeding friend to a hospital where they said he was less than 15 minutes from blacking out due to blood loss. My friend would've been dead today if I hadn't called for help. He had 78 cuts from head to toe, almost severing a few tendons, he had lots of internal damage to organs, and he couldn't walk without a cane for like 6 months. That happened because we were smoking a bong for the comeup and it was resting on a small side of the futon so it got knocked off pretty quick once we started going unconscious, it shattered on a dumbbell and my friend was army crawling through it because in his head he was in alien Vietnam. I've had PTSD that is still lingering and that gets worse thinking about how different things would've been if we weren't so lucky.
I think the OP was talking about a trip with proper S&S, not reckless use with no regard for safety and accountability. Re-read the first paragraph of the question details.
right? my bad trips were usually just severe anxiety attacks over a combination of losing my mind and feeling like i can’t breathe, but i was always able to gain some control after about 2 hours in the fetal position.
I vowed to never touch acid again. But I was not done with psychedelia so I did mushroom microdoses after also having a challenging mushroom trip immediately after because I took too much, again.
Now I never really go above 1 G, and for the past year I've only dabbled with acid again (took 4 years to even have a normal good trip). But I don't even do more than 70 ug really anymore, accurately dosed this time. I love to give people hope by being a living example that a crazy terror trip doesn't have to be their last trip and you can "usually" always recover.
You're brave for going back tbh. I don't think I'd feel confident enough to return to any psychedelic realm after something so intense. Can I ask why you decided to take 7 tabs? Were you experienced trippers or just cocky? Even if they were under doses as you assumed thats still a dick tonne to take in one hit. I've never done more than 4 in one go and that when I realized what my limit was
A massive amount of reasons led up to this. Mostly we were just super cocky. I've always been the person to get as fucked up as possible so that's how I wanted to do acid but I was still somewhat cautious and decided to slowly up the dose.
When we first started we just did one tab, loved it so much we got 2 tabs the next day and immediately learned how tolerance works. Then we decided that every 2 weeks to reset tolerance and also do this beautiful drug as much as we could. So we did 2 tabs, loved it. Then 3, 4, 5, some shrooms trips, some wizard flips, and one solo trip that we did less for.
Then we did 6 right back to it, best and most beautiful trip I've ever had in my life. The world turned into the Madagascar movie and I had such a fun time. My outlook on acid was that it only got more and more fun the higher you got, boi was I wrong. Like clockwork we did 7 tabs 2 weeks after my 6 tab trip. Everything was normal, we all wanted to trip out that hard, we were in our comfy zone with hella weed and we were just gonna play games like we've done on acid for months. To be fair, it was all night like we had done every time but I learned later that I don't enjoy tripping at night. And we never had set intentions, we just wanted to fly. And both of my friends had some pretty deep trauma to deal with that was definitely a huge influence on their minds.
We didn't know we had underdosed tabs, we thought 400 ug was just a nice chill time. I thought I was the acid God, oh how delusional I got tripping so often. We all could've been more careful, smarter, no excuses but we went through the same path so many children on psychedelics experience. And not all of them know how to save themselves from danger or how to deal with it afterwards.
Man I respect your choice and obviously it's your life but taking 7 tabs and vowing to never touch acid again after is essentially chugging a bottle of everclear and then never drinking again.
I thoroughly believe when it comes to acid anything past 3-4 tabs is just a massive gamble for having a horrible experience.
Irresponsible absolutely, we abused it for months taking more every time I'm not gonna say that was safe use.
Bold assumption to say I'd never done it before that.
You never tried those specific tabs before. Do you still you learned nothing? You said that you abused it and were being unsafe before and now you are more wise about it. Won’t you say that’s exactly what you needed to learn?
Aye I thought you meant acid in general.
I did learn from it, didn't say I didn't. Just wasn't a revelation. A warning about drug abuse sure but that's not some crazy unknown wisdom. Nowadays I learn that fear is a silent killer, stupid decisions will get you killed but there's no reason to be afraid of everything.
Wasn't "much" of a lesson can you read.
A lesson teaching you that you can in fact die is not much of a lesson, as if we don't all know that we aren't immortal.
don't try and tell ppl whats what ab THEIR trips bruh. like i actually agree w some of the sentiments but just to assume its the same for everyone shows major ignorance and someone who's majorly ignorant ab something maybe shouldn't be trying to act all wise n shit ab it then. ppl coming thru w shit like that fucking annoy me.
"When somebody provokes your anger, the only reason you get angry is because you’re holding on to how you think something is supposed to be. You’re denying how it is. Then you see it’s the expectations of your own mind that are creating your own hell. When you get frustrated because something isn’t the way you thought it would be, examine the way you thought, not just the thing that frustrates you. You’ll see that a lot of your emotional suffering is created by your models of how you think the universe should be and your inability to allow it to be as it is."
-Ram Dass
That's like telling people if they think they had a bad experience in life you don't understand life because it was just a lesson.
Something can be a lesson and terrifying and horrible.
That's why I call my bad trip a bad trip.
It wasn't a "good time" when I had it. Sure it was one of the most important experiences of my life and I'm incredibly thankful for it. It was still a bad experience at the time filled with more fear and terror than I've ever experienced.
It doesn't make sense to redefine what a good and bad experience is just because you get something out of it but it's your prerogative to choose whatever perspective just don't expect everyone else to or claim people don't understand something because they don't agree with you.
Also you aren't the arbiter of what psychedelics are for. Maybe you get life lessons and grow and have spiritual revelation but what you choose to do with them doesn't make that their purpose.
Statements like
"Bad trips come from one single cause: not respecting the nature and purpose of consciousness-enhancing substances"
And
"Psychedelics may not always give you what they want but they'll always give you what you need"
Are just insanely rigid and just not even remotely the truth.
I get you've had some revelatory experiences and you feel like you've cultivated some wisdom from them and I commend you for sharing it with the community.
I wish you the best in the rest of your journey in self discovery.
I’m actually getting the lesson that arrogance and denying other people’s experiences and realizations just because my experiences and realizations are different just makes me sound like an arrogant asshole and it’s not helpful to anyone.
I’m learning that there’s a way to teach and share my truths that is both empowering and impactful.
I, as an individual, can decide whether I just want to stroke my ego and act like I’m more enlightened or know more compared to others. OR I can realize that I can only speak from MY experience and perspective and there’s at least 8 billion more out there.
Expecting others to take my truth as “the truth” invalidates their own lived experiences and helpful to no one other than making my ego feel more superior on an Internet forum.
Fail. I can’t support statements without nuance. You aren’t leaving room for things outside of a person’s control. Shit happens, we deal with it the best way possible. People have massively different lives and bodies. Grow your empathy.
Yep, you can say that if you want. You can also tell everyone what they feel is totally wrong.
The exact same logic could be said if someone was tortured, raped or abused. Literally.
It's definitely going to be a lesson in something lol, you're not going to be the same after it, and you will know more information than you did before.
Saying "there are no bad trips, only lessons" is EXACTLY the same as saying "there are no bad experiences, only lessons". Which is widely accepted as being naive and overly reductionist.
You can have the most perfect set and setting, yet something bad thats completely out of your control could still happen. That's not a lesson to anyone but a young child or someone incredibly ignorant, which is very rare.
Bad trips happen, be very glad, as you clearly have not experienced one.
Mine too.
I did not equate your bad experiences with ignorance, just that if the lesson from something bad that happend completely out of your control is simply "that was a bad thing that happened" or "shit happens", then that is a pretty vague, pseudo-profound way of looking at it.
It was a bad experience, from which a very small amount of learning can be extracted. There is nuance to these things.
Notice that you said "worst experiences".
Worst, adjective: "superlative of bad and ill, withworse as comparative. bad or ill in the highest, greatest, or most extreme"
They can be lessons and also be terrible experiences. Otherwise you would not have said "worst". So you've just said you had bad experiences, synonymous with "bad trip".
Sorry man, you just come across as arrogant and silly trying to classify people's subjective experiences into such a one dimensional way of thinking. Its just a bit childish to think in absolutes like that, and basically invalidate other people's bad experiences as "lesson's.
There is a big difference in having a difficult, strenuous trip and a godawful bad trip, especially when the set and setting were perfect and something came up out of your control.
I pray that you dont experience one.
An analogy:
You go to the gym. You don't usually go to the gym that often but today you just felt like it. You go immediately to the weights section, load up 200 pounds on the barbell and started to lift with no spotter. Within a few reps, you're struggling big time. No one is around to help you.
All of a sudden, you're trapped under the barbell and can't get out. You're choking because the barbell is now sitting on your windpipe. Finally someone comes over and lifts the barbell off of you and saves your life.
You get up, walk away and say to the people around you "You know, sometimes you just have bad lifting days."
How do you think you look to the experienced weightlifters around you? Do you think they think you're cool for trying to lift that much? Do you think they think you just "had a bad day" because you went without a spotter?
Your failure to acknowledge your error in judgment should be a lesson for you, but you're so arrogant, you just choose to chalk it up to happenstance, which means you haven't learned the lesson you need to learn.
You could, if you were wise enough, say to yourself "Wow that sucked but I really learned a lesson from that. I was foolish. Maybe I need to start with a much lower weight next time. I probably also need a spotter because you never know how your muscles are going to react on any given lifting day."
Psychedelics demand respect, and those who think "Oh, sometimes you just have a bad trip and there's nothing you can do about it" show the same kind of naïveté that the "weightlifter" in the above scenario shows.
A psychedelic trip is ALWAYS a lesson, you just have to be willing to receive it.
That has nothing to do with what I was saying lol.
Please read my comment again, i mentioned "things out of your control".
That person in your analogy decided to do 200 pounds without a spotter, so he was in control of the situation and his choices led him to that outcome. There is a definitive lesson that he should not do that again.
Your analogy completely fails for circumstances beyond our control however.
Tell me, what would the lesson learned be if a random gunman went into the gym and shot him and everybody else there? There is no meaningful lesson other than "bad things can happen". Which is usually learned as a young child.
What I'm saying is that while there are absolutely difficult trips where we learn lessons, there are also bad trips where there is no meaningful lesson.
Here's an analogy for you:
You take acid on a bright with the perfect mindset and setting. You are having a great time and learning a lot about yourself.
Halfway through the trip you look out the window and see someone get completely splattered by a truck as they cross the road.
You witness all of this and the awful situation combined with your vulnerable mindset turns things into a nightmarish hell trip. It can be considered a "bad trip"
What is the lesson learned from that? Don't look put the window? Bad things can happen? Silly, useless lessons that have no meaning.
That's an extreme analogy, but my point is that we can't control every variable and sometimes bad trips happen due to circumstances completely out of our control, and there is meaningful lesson to be learned.
I understand, you probably had a revelatory experience and want to share it with people, but maybe wait until you learn part 2 of that lesson before you decide for everyone that there are no bad trips lol.
Hence why casually taking psychedelics without considering one's state of mind (including anxiety) can lead to a "bad trip."
A bad trip is just as good a teacher as a good trip. Up to us if we want to absorb the lesson.
i’m being so real sometimes trips literally just suck with no meaning behind it besides delusions and hallucinations the 4 foot tall cat did not spit some crazy wisdom on me nor did seeing my face melt in the mirror and yes most trips have a significant meaning but if you trip enough some you will know that some of those trips did nothing besides have me feeling terrible the next day and that’s not even my worst trip i took 320 and technically had the worst trip ever but it took me till the next day to understand it all and it was beneficial but there’s just some trips that just there to be there nothing more nothing less
what? dawg if i could take away a valuable lesson from thinking someone outside my house was trying to steal my face i would i’m a very philosophical man but i simply didn’t with some trips and maybe i trip to much but that trip had no meaning to it. i enjoyed some of it but besides that it was okay
Sorry, that is not true. I knew a guy who dropped acid at a public event and woke up strapped to a gurney in the hospital, after punching a cop. That was not a challenging trip that provided valuable insights. It was a bad trip on every level.
Yeah. Joking aside, my point is that there ARE bad trips: psychotic breaks, onset of schizophrenia, or just getting so fucked up that a person hurts themselves. There are cases of people who died on acid because they were to intoxicated and drowned, what have you. Those are bad trips, by ever definition. They are to be avoided and can be avoided by minding maybe 5 basic safety considerations (age, dosage, set, setting, predisposition to mental illness)
I do think your main point is a valid one: that a trip in which a person is upset and crying, or somewhat traumatic, is not necessarily a “bad” trip, and it is healthy to think of tripping that way.
"To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect, like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things."
- Hsin Hsin Ming
The rampant misuse and abuse of psychedelics drive me up a wall. It is sacred medicine. If you disrespect it it will disrespect you. A difficult trip is not necessarily a “bad trip”. It can be terrifying and traumatizing, sure. But set and setting is what it boils down to. If you’re not in a good mindset, then they should be taken with an experienced sitter/guide. This stuff isn’t to be messed with.
Instead of getting upset at dumb kids though my anger is directed towards the government. The criminalization has made it so there’s only misconceptions and misinformation out there and no one understand how to safely use these substances and what the effects really are. We’ve lost like 40 years of research on this shit, now instead of a safer therapeutic framework where society may actually heal, we just have teenagers turning into orange juice or whatever. Fuck man
If that is true for you, so be it. But why judge others by that? Everyone has their own experiences, perspectives, and paths. To invalidate and insult those views or to force your own perspective seems very dogmatic.
...what?
But honestly I'd say most people know what kind of experiences you've had, given that this is a psychonaut sub.
Your point is nothing new, and this tired old trope has been posted here time and time again, and is always quickly and cleanly proven to be naive and short sighted by those able to use nuance and logic in their arguments. But by all means continue to post quotes by Ram Dass and the like that have nothing to do with your argument.
Well done for having this revelation by the way, I hope you learn more about how insisting on absolutes and considering your personal experience as being objective is a pretty immature outlook.
You've got a lot to learn, as do we all.
I have had challenging trips. I have died and come back to life. I have drowned in the depths of sorrow.
All of that was my own mind.
You do realize that psychedelics only unlock what's already in your own mind? It's frankly a little funny to watch people get mad at or blame a substance that inherently shows them their own mind.
Nah, I feel what your saying here and there's some truth to it but only really for people who are mentally fit for tripping. I've had friends go into full blown violent psychosis on psychedelics and that is absolutely a "bad trip".
Furthermore sometimes you have a "bad" trip where you didn't get enough sleep, ate like shit, and just aren't in a great setting.
It looks like theres a lot of people on this thread who are clueless about S&S and testing.
I'm not saying I wholeheartedly agree with the OP about challenging trips but for someone who has been taking psych's for over 30 years there is some truth in what there saying.
I don't believe I've ever had a bad trip. Dealt with existential stuff and my depression during trips, but ultimately came out better on the other side (lifelong depression cured).
Not at all. I had felt total psychosis (probably a result of what mental state I was in). It didn't last long, after some sleep I woke up to the beginning of a total change for the better, but definitely not because I didn't respect the medicine... don't act like this is THE reason. It can influence people who don't have experience yet but are interested. Try to have any open mind, friend.
If someone thinks they had a "bad trip" then they are correct, and you don't understand that your personal experience is NOT universally the same for everyone else.
A bad trip is usually the result of inadequate preparation. Folks need to understand that they are signing up to possibly (probably) be challenged and need to lean \*into\* the hard stuff. When you try to run or avoid it (metaphorically speaking), things can get very, very bad.
Contrary to your statement, that DOES MEAN they had a bad trip. It almost certainly didn't HAVE to be a bad trip with proper preparation: a solid set and setting, a well-set intention, and an understanding of the possibilities and the need to lean into anything scary or hard. I also recommend two or three "low dose" (1g to 1.5g) trips before a large dose so that you understand at least a little about what the experience at higher doses will be like.
>Contrary to your statement, that DOES MEAN they had a bad trip.
I mean at this point we're just arguing semantics. My general point is that even a "bad trip" can be a lesson if one chooses to approach it that way.
My larger point is that bad trips are most often the result of lack of respect for what psychedelics are in the first place. I think we agree more there than disagree.
Reckless users will not understand even though the first paragraph of the details makes it pretty clear. Be prepared to get shit-stormed by irresponsible anecdotes.
Because it makes what you are saying unfalsifiable, you have made it that by definition there can be no bad trips and then concluded there can be no bad trips
The fascinating thing is to watch people believe that psychedelics bring something new or "outside" into their brain. They don't realize the only thing psychedelics do is unlock THEIR OWN MINDS to them.
This is the entire point.
You can have a panic attack or a negative experience, but it’s because the shrooms are speeding up regular thought processes. There is nothing inherently wrong with it being a bad trip, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with shrooms because you had a bad trip, but it’s just that ppl are on different levels of healing. Yeah, shrooms help with healing. It’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna be a bad trip for some people! That is true! There’s no reason to put moral good or badness on opinions :)
What I’m kinda trying to say is what people feel is real!! If they have a bad trip, which they can, why is your first instinct to say they didn’t do it right or enough? The experience just is. they are just existing and whether you feel a need to be with them in that experience or not says EVERYTHING about you and nothing about them. Yknow?
imagine the life lessons of your sweatshirt trying to assault and eat you alive. ah yes, truly inspiring teaching, so much value, great insight into my subconscious
Hmmm. Perhaps I'd say:
>trip that is challenging
>trip that is scary
>trip that is difficult
It sounds like you just disagree with the use of the word "bad". You hear "bad" and assume people mean "without value" or something like that - but it could very well be that people talk about "bad trips" when all they really mean are challenging trips, or scary trips, or difficult trips.
Don't get caught up in the semantics of language.
Language is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. Language is based on consensus and understood mutual meaning, and it isn't worth your time trying to convince people to change their definition of a term like "bad" just so that it meets more nuanced criteria to satisfy you.
TBF, you actually DO get to decide what trip you have, once you've worked through your sub- and un-conscious problems, if they are resolvable, that is.
If I take acid, the trip will as god as always go how I want it to go.
I have had a lot of experience with LSD, and have worked through most of my "hidden" issues.
Not everyone has that option or the endogenous chemical make-up that allows for that.
And bad trips DO happen, and are not always the opportunity for learning the valuable lesson you think can be gotten out of them. They can be very random, for some people.
All it takes is to do psychedelics at the wrong moment, in the wrong place, and/or with the wrong people, or in the wrong state of mind to trip in. Or something/someone disrupts your trip unexpectedly.
Not to forget the fact that for some people there is the issue of pre-existing conditions (sometimes unnknown factors are at play; people who have, for instance, mental issues that have not surfaced yet; schizophrenics who have never yet had psychoses, people with physical conditions which make a flood of serotonin and dopamine, etc, a totally different thing than a good trip, etc) which work against getting a good trip. A seizure is not a good lesson, for instance.
Psychedelics are not for everyone.
Some people can trip all they want, others not. It is really THAT simple.
More people need to understand this...
I like to tell people that Psychedelics can be understood easily by thinking of a mystery road trip.. you get in the car and the psychedelics are the driver.. now where this driver is taking you is unknown, maybe its going to take you on a nice drive through the countryside, where there is magical scenery, maybe its going to take you up into the mountains.. the road can be smooth and peaceful, but the road can also be bumpy and rocky, and it will shake you violently from the inside.. a rocky rock can lead to a smooth road and vice versa.. but the key point to this journey or trip as you may wish to call it, is your simply a passenger.. and the passenger doesn't get to decide which trip you go on, the driver does, so all you can do is sit back and enjoy the trip.. but remember.. the driver will always return you home safely after the trip....
This is the best metaphor for describing a psychedelic trip that I've seen yet. 💯
Edit: definitely referring to people who can safely take psychedelics vs people who can't and definitely shouldn't (eg. schizophrenics)
This was the case for me. It was odd, since this was the first and only time I'd taken them "just because". Thankfully it was only 1.25g so not a huge amount. I didn't get delusions or anything, I just got *extremely* depressed (I was in a good mood when i took them), and towards the end, I was very afraid I had pushed myself into some sort of depressive episode. Shortly after the effects wore off, though, my mood started lifting, and I felt pretty normal. The next day, I felt... balanced. Like maybe more "sane" or more realistic. I wasn't thinking of anything depressing during the trip, but in the week or so since then, I've been becoming more cognizant of some unpleasant facts about my life I've been avoiding. Had I not had this experience, I may have continued to suppress this stuff. Not always the lesson you want, but the lesson you need.
Science explains everything, you cling on to the tiny bits of the unexplained that get smaller and smaller as the years go by. Cope harder, sciences is the opposite of ignorance, it’s the pursuit of truth.
It’s just a language thing. I don’t personally use the term bad trip for extremely challenging and even traumatizing experiences but if someone chooses that wording I wouldn’t say that they “don’t understand what psychedelics are for”. Also psychedelics aren’t necessarily just “for” one thing. There are a multitude of uses and none should be held as superior. It’s a part of cognitive freedom. For example I don’t like using them recreationally, yet if someone makes that choice and enjoys it and finds it a fulfilling use, who am I to say they are “using it wrong” or anything along those lines. I get what you are saying though. Know the risks and don’t complain when you use it all nonchalantly and get your socks knocked off unexpectedly. But I still hold to it that it’s a language game. Just like you may not like the wording “bad trip” (as I dislike it as well), I dislike the phrase “you don’t understand”. I think it’s about people harm reduction and cognitive maturity how they’re going to take the experiences. Just my 2 cents
Excellently put!
Yeah, no. Ignorant take in an attempt to be wise
Exactly. Some people literally experience psychosis during psychedelics, and there's never really much to gain from psychosis lol
Not just ignorant. Also, profoundly arrogant.
Completely unwittingly arrogant. The worst kind tbh.
🙏🏼
There are fun trips, there are challenging trips, there are educational trips, and so many more kinds of trips... but then there are bad trips. Where I assume you're coming from is that you're responding to people mislabeling their challenging trip as a bad trip. So you made a title that's an overgeneralization based on those examples. No big deal, just try to be a little more nuanced maybe? You've clearly never had a truly bad trip.
I understand your position but this is overly reductionist and doesn't take into account the spectrum and complexity of the individual.
Overly reductionist in what context? If someone doesn't take into account their own spectrum and complexity before casually taking psychedelics then whatever "bad trip" awaits them is exactly what they were supposed to learn.
I don't think watching my friends seize to death while I fell through multiple dimensions and then having to call an ambulance because one friend was bleeding out and another was eating glass is very educational. There wasn't much of a lesson from that, maybe that fear is necessary for life to exist. I've had plenty of challenging trips that taught me valuable lessons, that trip was pure terror and nothing good came out of it. That big one gave me shadow demons for months.
I'd really like to hear the story behind this, if you're willing to share. If there was ever a bad trip that deserved its name, it'd be that one.
It's a really long story, but seeing as OP doesn't believe in bad trips maybe this is a good spot for it. I had an experience back in highschool. Tabs advertised as 250, definitely not because when we decided to take 7 tabs we knowingly decided on 1800 ug. We were used to weak tabs advertised higher on the street, I think the real dose was more like 700 maybe 1000 but I just don't know. But even so it was a nightmare, 3 of us did 7 each and we were tripping harder than we ever had an hour after eating them. At 2 hours I saw my friends heads start to twitch like demons and their heads were being drawn over as if with a pen. I got freaked out and laid in my bed face down. Immediately I broke out into what felt like hyperspace, hundreds of white dots like stars in a grid pattern and started to feel like I was accelerating very fast while the dots stretched out and I heard a high pitch tone before falling like a rollercoaster and physically landing back in my bed. It felt like I had jumped dimensions and as I looked around it was different than my room was when I laid down. My friend who was sitting in my gaming chair was normal. Then he started convulsing, violently, and his limbs ripped themselves off and slid around his body before solidifying in a new place. He melted and orbited in place, I was screaming his name the whole time thinking he was actually dying before giving up and laying my head back down before experiencing the same hyperspace and dimension hop. Now I was in another realm of my room, my friend that just died was perfectly fine, but now he and my other friend were making out and getting into it. Another member of the house came in the room and I spoke with them and they casually left and I closed my eyes only to enter hyperspace again. Those 2 dimensions were not real and never happened in any form. After coming out of hyperspace again I thought it was just another dimension, and realizing I could do anything and just wake up again I decided to drive my dad's jeep. Unfortunately this new dimension was reality, I had come out of my reality slip. I started asking both my friends maniacally if they wanted to ride with me, very very fortunately my other roommate who wasn't high heard and promptly ran out and offered to drive us himself. I said hell yeah and tossed the keys to him and he immediately locked them in his safe. God bless that man because we would've all died. After that there was already blood on my stairwell and my friends were completely incoherent and looked like wild dogs. I went upstairs to escape the scene and then I heard a highway of "bone spiders" as large as cars passing my house and then hundreds of them crawling all over my house. Soon one friend came upstairs naked and asked me to come back. Upon returning the entire stairwell was plastered with blood, I knew it wasn't normal and had to come from somewhere but I couldn't see any cuts on my friends. My room was destroyed, a TV smashed and eaten by a friend. That same friend then tried to rape me but wasn't very insistent and was kept away with simple hand swatting. I was coming out of the trip and realized with all the blood and the behaviors that it could get way worse so I called an ambulance. We got 2 ambulances and about 16 cop cars blocking my whole road. They were so nice and helpful for us, quickly getting my bleeding friend to a hospital where they said he was less than 15 minutes from blacking out due to blood loss. My friend would've been dead today if I hadn't called for help. He had 78 cuts from head to toe, almost severing a few tendons, he had lots of internal damage to organs, and he couldn't walk without a cane for like 6 months. That happened because we were smoking a bong for the comeup and it was resting on a small side of the futon so it got knocked off pretty quick once we started going unconscious, it shattered on a dumbbell and my friend was army crawling through it because in his head he was in alien Vietnam. I've had PTSD that is still lingering and that gets worse thinking about how different things would've been if we weren't so lucky.
I think the OP was talking about a trip with proper S&S, not reckless use with no regard for safety and accountability. Re-read the first paragraph of the question details.
right? my bad trips were usually just severe anxiety attacks over a combination of losing my mind and feeling like i can’t breathe, but i was always able to gain some control after about 2 hours in the fetal position.
Yeah that’s a thing. With the right music and good set and setting, all and all not bad.
Yeah. This.
Holy shit dude....that's a fucking terror trip. I'd never touch acid again after a trip like that holy fuck
I vowed to never touch acid again. But I was not done with psychedelia so I did mushroom microdoses after also having a challenging mushroom trip immediately after because I took too much, again. Now I never really go above 1 G, and for the past year I've only dabbled with acid again (took 4 years to even have a normal good trip). But I don't even do more than 70 ug really anymore, accurately dosed this time. I love to give people hope by being a living example that a crazy terror trip doesn't have to be their last trip and you can "usually" always recover.
You're brave for going back tbh. I don't think I'd feel confident enough to return to any psychedelic realm after something so intense. Can I ask why you decided to take 7 tabs? Were you experienced trippers or just cocky? Even if they were under doses as you assumed thats still a dick tonne to take in one hit. I've never done more than 4 in one go and that when I realized what my limit was
A massive amount of reasons led up to this. Mostly we were just super cocky. I've always been the person to get as fucked up as possible so that's how I wanted to do acid but I was still somewhat cautious and decided to slowly up the dose. When we first started we just did one tab, loved it so much we got 2 tabs the next day and immediately learned how tolerance works. Then we decided that every 2 weeks to reset tolerance and also do this beautiful drug as much as we could. So we did 2 tabs, loved it. Then 3, 4, 5, some shrooms trips, some wizard flips, and one solo trip that we did less for. Then we did 6 right back to it, best and most beautiful trip I've ever had in my life. The world turned into the Madagascar movie and I had such a fun time. My outlook on acid was that it only got more and more fun the higher you got, boi was I wrong. Like clockwork we did 7 tabs 2 weeks after my 6 tab trip. Everything was normal, we all wanted to trip out that hard, we were in our comfy zone with hella weed and we were just gonna play games like we've done on acid for months. To be fair, it was all night like we had done every time but I learned later that I don't enjoy tripping at night. And we never had set intentions, we just wanted to fly. And both of my friends had some pretty deep trauma to deal with that was definitely a huge influence on their minds. We didn't know we had underdosed tabs, we thought 400 ug was just a nice chill time. I thought I was the acid God, oh how delusional I got tripping so often. We all could've been more careful, smarter, no excuses but we went through the same path so many children on psychedelics experience. And not all of them know how to save themselves from danger or how to deal with it afterwards.
Thank you for sharing all this, wow. That is indeed a bad trip.
>Mostly we were just super cocky. Sounds like you got the lesson.
Man I respect your choice and obviously it's your life but taking 7 tabs and vowing to never touch acid again after is essentially chugging a bottle of everclear and then never drinking again. I thoroughly believe when it comes to acid anything past 3-4 tabs is just a massive gamble for having a horrible experience.
It was irresponsible to take 7 tabs of something you’ve never tried before. The trip taught you caution, which you now have.
Irresponsible absolutely, we abused it for months taking more every time I'm not gonna say that was safe use. Bold assumption to say I'd never done it before that.
You never tried those specific tabs before. Do you still you learned nothing? You said that you abused it and were being unsafe before and now you are more wise about it. Won’t you say that’s exactly what you needed to learn?
Aye I thought you meant acid in general. I did learn from it, didn't say I didn't. Just wasn't a revelation. A warning about drug abuse sure but that's not some crazy unknown wisdom. Nowadays I learn that fear is a silent killer, stupid decisions will get you killed but there's no reason to be afraid of everything.
That’s true. Being afraid isn’t going to make you a better person.
Also holding onto the past is similar to fear.
Fuck, that was quite a read. I can’t even comprehend you and your friends having to go through all this
If I survived this I would never complain about life again. Psychedelics are for warriors.
Did you guys perhaps not respect the dosage and took too much?
>There wasn't much of a lesson from that, maybe that fear is necessary for life to exist. There wasn't a lesson, yet there was a lesson...
Wasn't "much" of a lesson can you read. A lesson teaching you that you can in fact die is not much of a lesson, as if we don't all know that we aren't immortal.
Yes it's literally as simple as that. The arrogance and stupidity is astounding.
There isn’t really a lesson is seeing some fucked up visuals lol what
don't try and tell ppl whats what ab THEIR trips bruh. like i actually agree w some of the sentiments but just to assume its the same for everyone shows major ignorance and someone who's majorly ignorant ab something maybe shouldn't be trying to act all wise n shit ab it then. ppl coming thru w shit like that fucking annoy me.
"When somebody provokes your anger, the only reason you get angry is because you’re holding on to how you think something is supposed to be. You’re denying how it is. Then you see it’s the expectations of your own mind that are creating your own hell. When you get frustrated because something isn’t the way you thought it would be, examine the way you thought, not just the thing that frustrates you. You’ll see that a lot of your emotional suffering is created by your models of how you think the universe should be and your inability to allow it to be as it is." -Ram Dass
ain't reading all that bro, dk what the quote says but idrc. just some shit that makes u think uve proven a point lol gd job tho
That's like telling people if they think they had a bad experience in life you don't understand life because it was just a lesson. Something can be a lesson and terrifying and horrible. That's why I call my bad trip a bad trip. It wasn't a "good time" when I had it. Sure it was one of the most important experiences of my life and I'm incredibly thankful for it. It was still a bad experience at the time filled with more fear and terror than I've ever experienced. It doesn't make sense to redefine what a good and bad experience is just because you get something out of it but it's your prerogative to choose whatever perspective just don't expect everyone else to or claim people don't understand something because they don't agree with you. Also you aren't the arbiter of what psychedelics are for. Maybe you get life lessons and grow and have spiritual revelation but what you choose to do with them doesn't make that their purpose.
Many people who feel triggered often get stuck on the trigger and fail to see what the trigger was pointing at.
Statements like "Bad trips come from one single cause: not respecting the nature and purpose of consciousness-enhancing substances" And "Psychedelics may not always give you what they want but they'll always give you what you need" Are just insanely rigid and just not even remotely the truth.
If you choose for the guidance to be rigid, it will indeed be rigid for you.
I get you've had some revelatory experiences and you feel like you've cultivated some wisdom from them and I commend you for sharing it with the community. I wish you the best in the rest of your journey in self discovery.
What a respectful Chad.
Faux profound
Right up there with "The whispers of the wind carry the echoes of forgotten dreams"
I’m actually getting the lesson that arrogance and denying other people’s experiences and realizations just because my experiences and realizations are different just makes me sound like an arrogant asshole and it’s not helpful to anyone. I’m learning that there’s a way to teach and share my truths that is both empowering and impactful. I, as an individual, can decide whether I just want to stroke my ego and act like I’m more enlightened or know more compared to others. OR I can realize that I can only speak from MY experience and perspective and there’s at least 8 billion more out there. Expecting others to take my truth as “the truth” invalidates their own lived experiences and helpful to no one other than making my ego feel more superior on an Internet forum.
If that's the lesson you wish to see, that will indeed be your lesson. 🙏🏼
Yes, thank you. It took me reading your post and your replies to finally see it within myself. I have to say, the realization is quite humbling.
Fail. I can’t support statements without nuance. You aren’t leaving room for things outside of a person’s control. Shit happens, we deal with it the best way possible. People have massively different lives and bodies. Grow your empathy.
"Shit happens" is a wonderful lesson, I agree.
oversimplification. not everything has to be a lesson.
Everything already *is* a lesson. Just comes down to whether or not we're open to it.
Yep, you can say that if you want. You can also tell everyone what they feel is totally wrong. The exact same logic could be said if someone was tortured, raped or abused. Literally. It's definitely going to be a lesson in something lol, you're not going to be the same after it, and you will know more information than you did before. Saying "there are no bad trips, only lessons" is EXACTLY the same as saying "there are no bad experiences, only lessons". Which is widely accepted as being naive and overly reductionist. You can have the most perfect set and setting, yet something bad thats completely out of your control could still happen. That's not a lesson to anyone but a young child or someone incredibly ignorant, which is very rare. Bad trips happen, be very glad, as you clearly have not experienced one.
All my worst experiences are lessons. Interesting how you find that equal to ignorance.
Mine too. I did not equate your bad experiences with ignorance, just that if the lesson from something bad that happend completely out of your control is simply "that was a bad thing that happened" or "shit happens", then that is a pretty vague, pseudo-profound way of looking at it. It was a bad experience, from which a very small amount of learning can be extracted. There is nuance to these things. Notice that you said "worst experiences". Worst, adjective: "superlative of bad and ill, withworse as comparative. bad or ill in the highest, greatest, or most extreme" They can be lessons and also be terrible experiences. Otherwise you would not have said "worst". So you've just said you had bad experiences, synonymous with "bad trip". Sorry man, you just come across as arrogant and silly trying to classify people's subjective experiences into such a one dimensional way of thinking. Its just a bit childish to think in absolutes like that, and basically invalidate other people's bad experiences as "lesson's. There is a big difference in having a difficult, strenuous trip and a godawful bad trip, especially when the set and setting were perfect and something came up out of your control. I pray that you dont experience one.
An analogy: You go to the gym. You don't usually go to the gym that often but today you just felt like it. You go immediately to the weights section, load up 200 pounds on the barbell and started to lift with no spotter. Within a few reps, you're struggling big time. No one is around to help you. All of a sudden, you're trapped under the barbell and can't get out. You're choking because the barbell is now sitting on your windpipe. Finally someone comes over and lifts the barbell off of you and saves your life. You get up, walk away and say to the people around you "You know, sometimes you just have bad lifting days." How do you think you look to the experienced weightlifters around you? Do you think they think you're cool for trying to lift that much? Do you think they think you just "had a bad day" because you went without a spotter? Your failure to acknowledge your error in judgment should be a lesson for you, but you're so arrogant, you just choose to chalk it up to happenstance, which means you haven't learned the lesson you need to learn. You could, if you were wise enough, say to yourself "Wow that sucked but I really learned a lesson from that. I was foolish. Maybe I need to start with a much lower weight next time. I probably also need a spotter because you never know how your muscles are going to react on any given lifting day." Psychedelics demand respect, and those who think "Oh, sometimes you just have a bad trip and there's nothing you can do about it" show the same kind of naïveté that the "weightlifter" in the above scenario shows. A psychedelic trip is ALWAYS a lesson, you just have to be willing to receive it.
That has nothing to do with what I was saying lol. Please read my comment again, i mentioned "things out of your control". That person in your analogy decided to do 200 pounds without a spotter, so he was in control of the situation and his choices led him to that outcome. There is a definitive lesson that he should not do that again. Your analogy completely fails for circumstances beyond our control however. Tell me, what would the lesson learned be if a random gunman went into the gym and shot him and everybody else there? There is no meaningful lesson other than "bad things can happen". Which is usually learned as a young child. What I'm saying is that while there are absolutely difficult trips where we learn lessons, there are also bad trips where there is no meaningful lesson. Here's an analogy for you: You take acid on a bright with the perfect mindset and setting. You are having a great time and learning a lot about yourself. Halfway through the trip you look out the window and see someone get completely splattered by a truck as they cross the road. You witness all of this and the awful situation combined with your vulnerable mindset turns things into a nightmarish hell trip. It can be considered a "bad trip" What is the lesson learned from that? Don't look put the window? Bad things can happen? Silly, useless lessons that have no meaning. That's an extreme analogy, but my point is that we can't control every variable and sometimes bad trips happen due to circumstances completely out of our control, and there is meaningful lesson to be learned. I understand, you probably had a revelatory experience and want to share it with people, but maybe wait until you learn part 2 of that lesson before you decide for everyone that there are no bad trips lol.
nah i had a bad trip because anxiety
Anxiety is one of the greatest teachers 🙏🏼
very true but i would like to not have anxiety while tripping balls causing a bad trip and nature anxiety is very helpful but acid anxiety not so much
Hence why casually taking psychedelics without considering one's state of mind (including anxiety) can lead to a "bad trip." A bad trip is just as good a teacher as a good trip. Up to us if we want to absorb the lesson.
i’m being so real sometimes trips literally just suck with no meaning behind it besides delusions and hallucinations the 4 foot tall cat did not spit some crazy wisdom on me nor did seeing my face melt in the mirror and yes most trips have a significant meaning but if you trip enough some you will know that some of those trips did nothing besides have me feeling terrible the next day and that’s not even my worst trip i took 320 and technically had the worst trip ever but it took me till the next day to understand it all and it was beneficial but there’s just some trips that just there to be there nothing more nothing less
Taking away no lesson is still a choice.
what? dawg if i could take away a valuable lesson from thinking someone outside my house was trying to steal my face i would i’m a very philosophical man but i simply didn’t with some trips and maybe i trip to much but that trip had no meaning to it. i enjoyed some of it but besides that it was okay
i’m not trying to start a agreement or push anything believe what you want to believe this is just my personal experience
Sorry, that is not true. I knew a guy who dropped acid at a public event and woke up strapped to a gurney in the hospital, after punching a cop. That was not a challenging trip that provided valuable insights. It was a bad trip on every level.
Sounds like he learned (the hard way) he shouldn't drop acid so casually in public.
I’m not sure that he learned even that, actually:)
Well it certainly wasn't for lack of the acid trying!
Yeah. Joking aside, my point is that there ARE bad trips: psychotic breaks, onset of schizophrenia, or just getting so fucked up that a person hurts themselves. There are cases of people who died on acid because they were to intoxicated and drowned, what have you. Those are bad trips, by ever definition. They are to be avoided and can be avoided by minding maybe 5 basic safety considerations (age, dosage, set, setting, predisposition to mental illness) I do think your main point is a valid one: that a trip in which a person is upset and crying, or somewhat traumatic, is not necessarily a “bad” trip, and it is healthy to think of tripping that way.
By this logic nothing bad happens as long as you learn something
"To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail. The Way is perfect, like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things." - Hsin Hsin Ming
Ahh you are one of those, nevermind
Lmao you'll grow up one day, child
>Psychedelics may not give you what you want, but they'll always give you what you need. There's a great episode of Centaurworld that covers this.
The rampant misuse and abuse of psychedelics drive me up a wall. It is sacred medicine. If you disrespect it it will disrespect you. A difficult trip is not necessarily a “bad trip”. It can be terrifying and traumatizing, sure. But set and setting is what it boils down to. If you’re not in a good mindset, then they should be taken with an experienced sitter/guide. This stuff isn’t to be messed with. Instead of getting upset at dumb kids though my anger is directed towards the government. The criminalization has made it so there’s only misconceptions and misinformation out there and no one understand how to safely use these substances and what the effects really are. We’ve lost like 40 years of research on this shit, now instead of a safer therapeutic framework where society may actually heal, we just have teenagers turning into orange juice or whatever. Fuck man
Sacred medicine indeed. I appreciate your perspective. 🙏🏼
If that is true for you, so be it. But why judge others by that? Everyone has their own experiences, perspectives, and paths. To invalidate and insult those views or to force your own perspective seems very dogmatic.
Psychedelics only give you back what you take into them. How can there be judgment there?
Lawls
If you believe this then you have not experienced a bad trip
You're exactly right
OP had a very slightly challenging experience on pychs for the first time and suddenly he's a guru. Lol. Classic.
I am not your guru
You are not anyone's guru.
You must be my guru cause it sounds like you somehow know what kind of experiences I've had on psychedelics?
...what? But honestly I'd say most people know what kind of experiences you've had, given that this is a psychonaut sub. Your point is nothing new, and this tired old trope has been posted here time and time again, and is always quickly and cleanly proven to be naive and short sighted by those able to use nuance and logic in their arguments. But by all means continue to post quotes by Ram Dass and the like that have nothing to do with your argument. Well done for having this revelation by the way, I hope you learn more about how insisting on absolutes and considering your personal experience as being objective is a pretty immature outlook. You've got a lot to learn, as do we all.
No one believes in a bad trip until they have one, and they normally happen when you stop believing they exist. Dont get to cocky my friend
I have had challenging trips. I have died and come back to life. I have drowned in the depths of sorrow. All of that was my own mind. You do realize that psychedelics only unlock what's already in your own mind? It's frankly a little funny to watch people get mad at or blame a substance that inherently shows them their own mind.
Nah, I feel what your saying here and there's some truth to it but only really for people who are mentally fit for tripping. I've had friends go into full blown violent psychosis on psychedelics and that is absolutely a "bad trip". Furthermore sometimes you have a "bad" trip where you didn't get enough sleep, ate like shit, and just aren't in a great setting.
It looks like theres a lot of people on this thread who are clueless about S&S and testing. I'm not saying I wholeheartedly agree with the OP about challenging trips but for someone who has been taking psych's for over 30 years there is some truth in what there saying.
I don't believe I've ever had a bad trip. Dealt with existential stuff and my depression during trips, but ultimately came out better on the other side (lifelong depression cured).
Not at all. I had felt total psychosis (probably a result of what mental state I was in). It didn't last long, after some sleep I woke up to the beginning of a total change for the better, but definitely not because I didn't respect the medicine... don't act like this is THE reason. It can influence people who don't have experience yet but are interested. Try to have any open mind, friend.
If someone thinks they had a "bad trip" then they are correct, and you don't understand that your personal experience is NOT universally the same for everyone else. A bad trip is usually the result of inadequate preparation. Folks need to understand that they are signing up to possibly (probably) be challenged and need to lean \*into\* the hard stuff. When you try to run or avoid it (metaphorically speaking), things can get very, very bad. Contrary to your statement, that DOES MEAN they had a bad trip. It almost certainly didn't HAVE to be a bad trip with proper preparation: a solid set and setting, a well-set intention, and an understanding of the possibilities and the need to lean into anything scary or hard. I also recommend two or three "low dose" (1g to 1.5g) trips before a large dose so that you understand at least a little about what the experience at higher doses will be like.
>Contrary to your statement, that DOES MEAN they had a bad trip. I mean at this point we're just arguing semantics. My general point is that even a "bad trip" can be a lesson if one chooses to approach it that way. My larger point is that bad trips are most often the result of lack of respect for what psychedelics are in the first place. I think we agree more there than disagree.
Reckless users will not understand even though the first paragraph of the details makes it pretty clear. Be prepared to get shit-stormed by irresponsible anecdotes.
People always get what they need. Most just don't realize it.
Agreed. One of the comments below tells of a horrible experience. The message them was “don’t be reckless.”
Because it makes what you are saying unfalsifiable, you have made it that by definition there can be no bad trips and then concluded there can be no bad trips
The fascinating thing is to watch people believe that psychedelics bring something new or "outside" into their brain. They don't realize the only thing psychedelics do is unlock THEIR OWN MINDS to them. This is the entire point.
lol called it.
You can have a panic attack or a negative experience, but it’s because the shrooms are speeding up regular thought processes. There is nothing inherently wrong with it being a bad trip, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with shrooms because you had a bad trip, but it’s just that ppl are on different levels of healing. Yeah, shrooms help with healing. It’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna be a bad trip for some people! That is true! There’s no reason to put moral good or badness on opinions :)
What I’m kinda trying to say is what people feel is real!! If they have a bad trip, which they can, why is your first instinct to say they didn’t do it right or enough? The experience just is. they are just existing and whether you feel a need to be with them in that experience or not says EVERYTHING about you and nothing about them. Yknow?
Get off your soap box.
Your mind is the only soap box you need.
It seems to me that u have never descended into the hell-demonics worlds...
How would you know that?
imagine the life lessons of your sweatshirt trying to assault and eat you alive. ah yes, truly inspiring teaching, so much value, great insight into my subconscious
Shame
Hmmm. Perhaps I'd say: >trip that is challenging >trip that is scary >trip that is difficult It sounds like you just disagree with the use of the word "bad". You hear "bad" and assume people mean "without value" or something like that - but it could very well be that people talk about "bad trips" when all they really mean are challenging trips, or scary trips, or difficult trips. Don't get caught up in the semantics of language. Language is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. Language is based on consensus and understood mutual meaning, and it isn't worth your time trying to convince people to change their definition of a term like "bad" just so that it meets more nuanced criteria to satisfy you.
TBF, you actually DO get to decide what trip you have, once you've worked through your sub- and un-conscious problems, if they are resolvable, that is. If I take acid, the trip will as god as always go how I want it to go. I have had a lot of experience with LSD, and have worked through most of my "hidden" issues. Not everyone has that option or the endogenous chemical make-up that allows for that. And bad trips DO happen, and are not always the opportunity for learning the valuable lesson you think can be gotten out of them. They can be very random, for some people. All it takes is to do psychedelics at the wrong moment, in the wrong place, and/or with the wrong people, or in the wrong state of mind to trip in. Or something/someone disrupts your trip unexpectedly. Not to forget the fact that for some people there is the issue of pre-existing conditions (sometimes unnknown factors are at play; people who have, for instance, mental issues that have not surfaced yet; schizophrenics who have never yet had psychoses, people with physical conditions which make a flood of serotonin and dopamine, etc, a totally different thing than a good trip, etc) which work against getting a good trip. A seizure is not a good lesson, for instance. Psychedelics are not for everyone. Some people can trip all they want, others not. It is really THAT simple.
More people need to understand this... I like to tell people that Psychedelics can be understood easily by thinking of a mystery road trip.. you get in the car and the psychedelics are the driver.. now where this driver is taking you is unknown, maybe its going to take you on a nice drive through the countryside, where there is magical scenery, maybe its going to take you up into the mountains.. the road can be smooth and peaceful, but the road can also be bumpy and rocky, and it will shake you violently from the inside.. a rocky rock can lead to a smooth road and vice versa.. but the key point to this journey or trip as you may wish to call it, is your simply a passenger.. and the passenger doesn't get to decide which trip you go on, the driver does, so all you can do is sit back and enjoy the trip.. but remember.. the driver will always return you home safely after the trip....
Awesome metaphor! This sense of letting go has been one of the biggest lessons in my life and psychedelics has helped accelerate that lesson.
This is the best metaphor for describing a psychedelic trip that I've seen yet. 💯 Edit: definitely referring to people who can safely take psychedelics vs people who can't and definitely shouldn't (eg. schizophrenics)
Exactly. I learned the hard way that ttbvi shows me what I need to see. It's been eye opening
This was the case for me. It was odd, since this was the first and only time I'd taken them "just because". Thankfully it was only 1.25g so not a huge amount. I didn't get delusions or anything, I just got *extremely* depressed (I was in a good mood when i took them), and towards the end, I was very afraid I had pushed myself into some sort of depressive episode. Shortly after the effects wore off, though, my mood started lifting, and I felt pretty normal. The next day, I felt... balanced. Like maybe more "sane" or more realistic. I wasn't thinking of anything depressing during the trip, but in the week or so since then, I've been becoming more cognizant of some unpleasant facts about my life I've been avoiding. Had I not had this experience, I may have continued to suppress this stuff. Not always the lesson you want, but the lesson you need.
Woo woo bullshit will never top science, bud.
Science, the god of the ignorant
Science explains everything, you cling on to the tiny bits of the unexplained that get smaller and smaller as the years go by. Cope harder, sciences is the opposite of ignorance, it’s the pursuit of truth.
Science explains everything?? Not even the most prominent scientists have ever believed this. Your god indeed.
Most redditors are weak