I'm interested in hearing "bad" trips. I know most people here would rather use the term "difficult" in replacement of bad, which is a more correct of putting it IMO. However, I always hear of bad trips and never hear any specific stories about them such as why they happen and what the probabal root causes are. If anyone would be willing to write a detailed, specific report involving someone who has had one (either you or someone you saw have one) I'd appreciate it.
I took mushrooms with 2 friends and 4 others smoking weed. We ate the mushrooms climbed up a hill for 20 minutes to get to this scenic spot one of the stoners knew. I puked shortly after we reached our destination and was coming up. I enjoyed it for about an hour than the stoners wanted to go home. We hiked back down, one of the other guys on shrooms slipped down the hill like 20 feet. We eventually got down with everyone in one piece, went back to our city, the stoners went home the one shroomer who fell down the hill ditched us and then the other guy and I walked around about a 8 block radius for 2 hours til we came down, talking very little. Nothing insightful was gained, no profound realizations. BAD TRIP
Good or bad is in the third eye of the experiencer. Many, many trip reports already exists here in the forums, some good, some bad. May I suggest you try doing a search and browse the psychedelics forums. This will help; http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=170
I have never had a bad trip, but, usually the root cause of bad trips are set and setting. Meaning the person was in a bad head space or they weren't prepared for what they were getting into. IMO it all comes down to respecting the power of psychedelics and educating yourself about their proper use.
Sometimes you are just in need of a slap upside the head regardless of set and setting. Whether that is a "bad" trip or not is dependant upon what you do with it during and after it. "Bad" trips are more often than not the best in terms of personal growth and realizations. At least in my experience.
Agreed. IMO there is more than just set and setting, but its the generic response to these questions. I have had many trips that others would call bad, they were when i was hooked on opiates, the psychs made me get real honest with myself about how bad things had become. Very heavy internal depressing trips, but they helped me in ways i cannot put into words.
this one time was tripping, and I went to smoke a joint. so I went in the drawer to get it. I pulled out a pair of tube socks and began to smoke them. I was in my room "ohm ohm" when I set off the smoke alarm, but since I had on "Welcome to the Machine" really loud I did not hear it.. Then someone was yelling from outside the door, but you know Wttm song has people laughing outside and I didnt answer it.. it was then I realized I was tripping Bad....
I've never had a "BAD" trip, not that I'm trying to keep the term distanced from tripping, because I can imagine very bad situations happening. I got my hands on a "hit" of DOB (or so I was told, at least a DOx I should think, from the duration) for 15 dollars (wanted less but they wouldn't do it, and I wanted that shit) and due to general stupidity (as well as a dare, which was very stupid) took it on a day I had thought about it, but not PLANNED on it. My mom was coming to town later, (4-ish, was 10:30-ish at the time) and I had 3 hours of class, though I had incorrectly estimated it as two, because every other day my schedule alternates from hour to hour and a half classes. The come up for DOB takes 2 hours, max, generally... see a problem? I went to my botany test, passed it with an A, though I was getting sweaty and distracted. Went back to my room, threw up (because I'd taken DOB and vitamins on an empty stomach) took a quick shower, during which time I started getting intense strobing geometric closed eye visuals (my first time getting PROPER CEV's) and stupidly still went to my hour and a half history of world religions class. We where doing a lecture on "the road to auschwitz" that day, and how it was paved with the cross, yada yada... Awesome professor, but somewhat sinister in his genial awesomeness. Generally a very chill class. But As soon as I sat down things started hitting me HARD (I'd felt the come up on the way in, but had forced myself in, like an idiot). People talking and laughing (probably reasonably quietly) behind me in the lecture room got very sinister, and I was quite worried about being called into a discussion. Thankfully I stayed pretty much turned away, and no one said anything. Class started, and I was seeing scrolling, moving patterns of color on everyone and everything, specifically my professor and his face, particularly the edges, and his eyes where sort of ever expanding wells of color, to match. I tried to copy the notes, but could hardly write, and my hands where sweating hard and shaking, and I was seeing double, tripple, quadrupple, and more, of the lines I was drawing. The walls have a sort of carpet on them for acoustics, and the patterns on it where scrolling runic shapes, while the fake wood pattern on the desk where all moving and interacting in semi-3d. Peoples faces where very grim looking, and I know my eyes where going a mile a minute, but I had them mostly closed to try to hide my condition. I was later told that I looked very out of it, just generally doped up, more like I was nodding than tripping. I repeatedly considered walking out, most of the class from the moment I got into the room was a battle to keep myself acting as normal as possible and from bolting from the room, I'm on good terms with the professor and students and they would have known something was very wrong if I ignored them all and walked strait out. Finially, but also seemingly very quickly, class ended. I wasen't quite sure it was over, the lecture had long since ceased to make sense, and when I saw enough people standing, I did the same and quickly walked out. During all this time things would stop looking plastic and moving occasionally, in flashes, but as soon as I got out I had much longer flashes of "not" tripping. Things instantly got better, as I was going down the stairs trying to avoid the class walking behind me and keep out of conversations, a friend called me out, and asked if something was wrong, I shook my head no and turned and kept walking. (I forgot my reaction, I'd been contemplating so many different ones, she told me later. she also texted me, to which I didn't reply, for most of the trip, which was fucking stupid and messed things up lots worse. When I did respond, she spent the whole time acting like I had done something wrong, which made me very frustraited, eventually just turned off my phone) When I got outside, things got pleasent, but I headed for my dorm, to try to avoid being ovbious and ending up in a straitjack. I immediatly lay down, and my room mate walked in. We started talking, and he said I was fine looking. I tried to explain how the plaid pattern on his shirt was projecting onto his face as though it where glowing, and he told me I was way more fucked up than I looked. The trip became quite plesant, other than my worry about having to sober for my mom coming to town to bring me computer equipment. I spent probably 2 hours rolling in bed, dreading dealing with my mom in this very fucked state of mind, but loving all the three dimensional patterns my blankets where projecting everywhere, and then got up and listend to music (bloody AMAZING, I listend jimi hendrix and some grateful dead, and some harder stuff that I don't remember, it was all wonderful) and enjoyed the moving patterns in the walls for a while. Eventually my mom came, maybe an hour later than I had expected, and I was amazingly not seeing anything, having been suppressing all I could in anticipation of this happening. She seemed to notice something was unusual but didn't say anything, I collected my things from her, hugged her goodbye, and went back to my room. I tried to recall some of the effects, but had little success, other than a persistant speedy feeling and difficulty finding words and expressing myself. The rest of the night was pretty normal, other than those lingering effects. I slept ok but not very long, and was still having a speedy feeling, with NO visual distortions, and problems with normal speech the next day. By that evening I was mostly baseline, with no lingering effects the second day after the trip. I'm PRACTICALLY flashing back now, after talking about it and thinking about it so much, but not in a unplesant way. Thinking about being in class is always very stressful and raises my blood pressure. I both dread and relish talking about it. I also feel like I left lots unsaid, but this post already rambles horribly, so I guess it's enough. Not a "bad" experiance, though I very much wish that I had taken it under less stressful conditions, it was something of a waste of what could have been SO much better. Both my set and setting where quite poor. It would have been a stressful day without the trip, so.... yeah. Also, I'd LOVE to be able to do it again. It was basically DOB telling me it was no bitch, and asking why I tried to fuck it like a bitch, shit's no robo or something like that. You respect her, or she'll kick your ass *umpteenth edit* The whole thing would have been much gentler if I'd had just a hit of bud left, I think. Not enough to get super stoned and bring out more trip (at least until after seeing my mom) but enough to relax me a little bit.
Bad trips are caused when a user takes a drug that does a certain thing which is different from the user's preconceived notions of what the drug will do.
Its strange to me long time users who claim to never get bad trips. I just picture them being like super cheery, über optimistic people because really all LSD, mushrooms, 2cx and most psychedelics do is amplify my feelings and thoughts. So its like If I look on the day to day timeline of sober life I inevibatly have a certain percentage of bad days. I can certainly learn from a bad day and the whole day doesnt necessarily have to be bad but a bad day is a bad day. Its the same with tripping for me, inevibatly I just run into a trip where its just not going well regardless if I prepared or i have alot of prior experience with the psychedelic.
At the MOST basic scientific level, that's the truth, I suppose, but plenty of people have hard trips after dozens, or even hundreds, of uses of that drug, such as freshdacre and his thread o' psychedelic stupid.
I think in his case the drug had a different affect then the notion he already concieved. It did/un-earthed something he wasn't expecting or used to. But maybe that doesn't apply cause he seemed to have just went crazy for awhile. So it could have been much more..? I see your point. I am by no means a super happy go lucky person, but i am extremely laid back go with the flow kinda personality. If you have a bad day like you have a bad trip don't you think you could gain some insight as to why it was bad(maybe not), and maybe even make a few changes in your life if necessary? I think any experience that promotes personal growth is a good thing. I for one have never just had a flat out horrible experience that left me with nothing but fear, paranoia, etc, but that doesn't mean i don't think it could happen. I think we had this conversation once, its all good though. :2thumbsup: its all a personal thing in the end and everyone has different perceptions of what bad is and can be.
Yah I even acknowledged that fact in my post 'you can learn from a bad day.' I just dont personally like to use euphemistic language or sugarcoat it, it comes off as a form of denial or something in my head. Like you said though people have different perceptions about it. I had a rather rough year last year with alcohol and ketamine and I feel that alot of it was me sort of downplaying or denying aspects of my abuse. As a former opiate addict I'm sure you can relate. I dont want to make the same mistakes with psychedelics. I'm not going to try to downplay some of the negatives of psychedelics I've experienced, they are certainly present and I dont really desire to get into a habit of justifying my use, which I may have even done that a bit at the second half of this year. All in all I maintain my use pretty well and bad trips are few and far between.
I can definitely relate to what your saying. And you seem to have a good grasp on how to go about using psychedelics. :2thumbsup:
Our notions can change and be subject to decay. My only "bad trip" on LSD was like my 10th time with the substance, and on only one hit; I had grown too accustomed to a certain aspect of the trip while neglecting to remember that other aspects are liable to manifest; 9 great trips and I thought "this is always going to be a fun, amazing time", while in reality, all it does it magnify everything, and I took it on a night where my internal content was not conducive to being magnified, and enjoyed.
