self-inflicted bad trips

Has anyone ever put themselves through a bad trip on purpose? Why?

 

I agree that there is no such thing as a "bad trip", but I think I know what you really mean... purposely putting yourself in a negative, empty, evil, void kind of place.

I've never purposely done it, but I have gone into a few experiences knowing that it would most likely end up that way.

Watching a Christmas themed Disney Sing-A-Long videotape that I used to watch when I was a baby turned out to be one of the most terrifying and depressing experiences of my life. But I do believe that every experience is ultimately beneficial, even if you never understand how.

There's only so far that you can go with negativity and emptiness, though. There is something to be learned from it, but once you learn it, to continue on that path is to keep on running into a brick wall. There is no limit going up. But there is a definite limit going down.

 

Not intentionally, but out of ignorance yes. The first time I tripped it was a bad trip, I was by myself and I took two hits of what I was told was very weak stuff. Turns out it was not very weak at all. Just remembering that experience makes me tremble a little, it was terrifying and amazing at the same time.

Severe time dilation... I had to turn all the lights on in my house because dark places were where I could see "them". I remember seeing a dark stain on the carpet around my roommate's door and got wondering if I blacked out and murdered my roommate... I didn't want to wake her up if I was wrong and I didn't want to see a dead body if I was right. The time dilation was what was worse because I knew how long the effect was supposed to last but it seemed like it lasted sooo much longer.

I finally got to watching TV, Xena: Warrior Princess until she started freaking me out when she kept kicking everyone. Other channels were equally distressing... I could see how fake and hypocritical everyone was and it was just horrible to watch. The most calming thing I settled on on TV was the NASA channel and all it was was a video of the international space station... sometimes the camera would pan around a little bit but to me it was extremely interesting.


In any event I am very grateful for that experience. I haven't had any bad experiences since then.... I see the precursors coming, I can sense the demons and due to my experience I can take control of the experience before the experience takes control of me like it did that time. Oh, BTW my roommate was fine.

 

haha glad to heat that your roomate was fine.

i've never sought to put myself through a difficult experience but one day i might.

obviously not for the sake of having a "bad time". i think that psychedelics can be fun but also revealing. if a person wanted to reconnect with difficult experiences in their past to "come to terms" with themselves, then they should definitely anticipate at least some difficulty in their trip. sort of in the way MDMA has been used in the treatment of people with PTSD (though of course not everyone would have a bad trip, just using that as an example).

why do that? because, in the end, those hours are difficulty are worth what you can take out of the experience.

 

Yeah, that's kinda the reason I put myself into bad trips - not so much to come to terms with myself but to come to terms with the bad trip itself (but in the end, it turned out to be an aspect of myself anyway).

When I first started having them, they really fucked me up and I started getting paranoid of people even when I was sober. For a while, I decided I had to lay off the shit, but I soon realized I couldn't shake the effects it had on me. For some reason, it haunted me. I guess I just really wanted to know what it was in the trip that scared the shit out of me. I wanted to know how real it really was. I wanted to know if I could overpower it.

So the only way I could get over the bad trip was to go right into it and face it. I did that, and for the most part, I conquered it, but I also learnt that it can still conquer me (I had to go in and out of it over several years until I finally felt like I had overcome it). I learnt that it all depends on dosage - how much you take. Too much is always possible.

I finally felt like I had overcome it when I felt like I could explain to myself what it was I was experiencing (in and out of the trip). It could still overpower me if I took too much, but at least I felt like I didn't need to face it anymore - that is, I could quit the shit without feeling haunted.

I also learnt a mild bad trip can be fun. There's that fine line between boring and terrifying where the best trips lay.