The "bad trip"...

[st.bot.32]

I recently on one of my oral experiences (with hash) had it go somewhat wrong. It started off great, the comeup was so smooth. Probably amongst the strongest open eyed and closed eye visuals I've ever had from THC. Anytime this would have been awesome but..

Then about 3 or so hours in it started to go wrong. I was still coming up.. I suddenly began to feel that I couldn't feel pleasure or joy in anything anymore. And I became afraid of the feelings themselves, and it just intensified for the next hour until it reached near panic levels. I was afraid that these feelings would last forever, even when I reminded myself I was tripping it wasn't really helping. I could practically see the fear moving through my body, digging deeper and deeper, and no matter what I did the feelings stayed. I've had strong cannabis trips before but usually uncomfortable feelings go away, this time they lasted throughout the trip.

I tried closing my eyes and listening to music but everything just sounded terrible. Music sounded and felt ugly, and plasticky. Time was distorting so strongly that I could no longer make sense of music in general.

Not sure what I would take out of the experience. The set and setting felt right, although the week prior had been quite stressful, I assumed those feelings were gone.

I will definitely try the oral experience again which is usually great for me, but it will have to wait a while...

 

[????????]

Sounds like it was too much for your organism; I had some of the feelings you described once and I am sure it was because I smoked too much, although not that intense...

 

[buffachino]

This just shows the butterfly effect in action.
It permeates everything.

 

[poisoninthestain]

i like to consider myself fairly experienced in "bad trips" so maybe i can share some insight.

1.) set and setting- Essential. anyone will tell you that. ideal set(mindset) would be something that allows you to hold the attitude "what happens happens and good or bad all is a learning experience, because that's life".

an ideal setting to me is one that "allows you to escape should things get rough. for instance if you're inside you should at any time easily be able to go outside and get some fresh air. i once had an intense time on acid and went outside for a breath of fresh air. helped ALOT.

also, even though set and setting are very crucial they are no means full-proof of preventing EVERY bad trip. however most "bad" trips are due from negative set and setting.

2.) when things get bad remember to breath and focus on your breath going in nice and slow, in and out. breath in with the good energy and out with the bad. i find that focusing on my breath keeps my thoughts at bay since in my experience the mind can only focus on one given thing at once.

3.) if the situation allows it, move around or do something constructive. i once had a rough experience on shrooms and decided to go for a walk with my brother and talk about my feelings. alternatively you can exercise, brush your teeth, play a video game. now i'm sure that if you're too fucked up then the latter examples won't apply. in that case try dancing, or singing.

4.) another route i find useful is actually sitting silently with eyes shut and intensely focusing on the stream of thoughts floating through the mind. at first it's scary, and more often than not INTENSE. facing anything which you don't desire tends to undo iteself.

in my opinion it sounds like you dosed too much and that you weren't ready to deal with some psychic baggage. sometimes cleaning out the subconscious basement involves lugging some giant, unpleasant emotions/thoughts up the stairs into the conscious mind.

as druglessdouglass once said here on the forums. "their only thoughts." and if you understand the depth of that you'll most likely never have a bad trip ever again.

 

[buffachino]

The world is only thaughts.

 

[Dantediv86]

i never have bad trips,
only intense lessons

 

[silv]

I find it hard to generalize from my own feelings to good drug related advice so this attempt at an advice might have to be taken wilth a little care. More often than not when I feel bad surrendering to the bad karma and experiencing it to the fullest extent is the fastest and most informative route to clean karma and a happy mindset. The problem with this is that I haven't experienced harder times on voyages in the world of psychedelics so I can only confirm that it works in a "sober" state. The few bumps in the roads of my few psychedelic voyages seem to affirm this feeling so draw your own conclusions.

 

[st.bot.32]

Interesting responses..

for instance if you're inside you should at any time easily be able to go outside and get some fresh air.

The intensity of the feelings was pretty much beyond anything I've ever experienced surprisingly even on acid (in my experience acid is a bit more forgiving somehow, a bad trip can be turned into a good trip as long as you have a good setting). Changing my setting did help a little bit, but the trip itself seemed to be focused on the nature/origin and process of fear, growing and self-perpetuating as a cyclical entity until it reached the core of my being. I could still feel the tension in my chest somehow even for a couple days after the trip.

i never have bad trips,
only intense lessons

Yes, there were mental processes I went through that released some kind of energy or emotion that I simply had to deal with. Despite the fear I felt a profound release the next day somehow. I can say that I've gotten some valuable insights from the experience over the past few weeks. I will definitely be thinking about this for a long time. I did repeat the experience again (not quite as intense a dose), and had an amazing experience in which as I analyzed fear (or more precisely, learned HOW to analyze specific fears) they instantly evaporated as if they were mere phantasms.

This just shows the butterfly effect in action.

That is it precisely...

 

[Ultima]

i never have bad trips,
only intense lessons

ditto. iv learned to never fight anything, especially after ayhausica, and mushausica. you just have to tell yourself to "go with it" and itll go upstream from there. if you try and fight it, your gunna lose the battle. you bought the ticket, so take the ride!

 

[HeartCore]

removed the troll food

 

[Dantediv86]

^^yesh

 

[st.bot.32]

"The best way to do cannabis is to do it rarely, in silent darkness and then smoke massive amounts to the point where you realize: O my God, I did TOO much!:

Terence Mckenna

second that!

 

[tryptonaut]

The intensity of the feelings was pretty much beyond anything I've ever experienced surprisingly even on acid (in my experience acid is a bit more forgiving somehow, a bad trip can be turned into a good trip as long as you have a good setting). Changing my setting did help a little bit, but the trip itself seemed to be focused on the nature/origin and process of fear, growing and self-perpetuating as a cyclical entity until it reached the core of my being. I could still feel the tension in my chest somehow even for a couple days after the trip.

Well, I have experienced that on cannabis - as opposed to a trip on lsd or even psilocybin, where you can get up and fight it, and turn it around. With cannabis it just feels hopeless and lost. Are you having serotonine problems, like with (clinical) depression? Because I think my problems with cannabis are linked to that.
One of the hints would be that when I took some mdma (even only small amounts) then cannabis would always be extremely positive for me. Then another hint was that at a time when I went into clinical depression a few years ago, cannabis became totally unacceptable for me. On the one side I was totallly addicted to it (had been smoking like 3g of good weed a day) but on the other it was driving me crazy because my depression infused that kind of bad trip feeling all day long...

 

[st.bot.32]

Well, I have experienced that on cannabis - as opposed to a trip on lsd or even psilocybin, where you can get up and fight it, and turn it around. With cannabis it just feels hopeless and lost. Are you having serotonine problems, like with (clinical) depression? Because I think my problems with cannabis are linked to that.

Yeah the same is very true for me--when a cannabis experience gets out of control, it is very, very overwhelming to all my senses. Unlike acid or shrooms (tho shrooms are definitely harder to control) where changing the setting, changing the music, sneaking off by yourself to stare at paintings or nature can just totally clear up the trip.

As for depression I don't think so. I've experienced periods of real depression (of the "life is fucked, time stops--fingernails on a chalkboard 24/7, unable to sleep for weeks at a time while wandering aimlessly" variety), but not for a very long time now. During that time weed was no fun, it just left me confused and sad and I just avoided it usually. Actually I haven't had a bout with depression since I started psychedelics in general, I think in some ways they kind of cleared up some of the messiness left behind by some of the earlier and muddier periods in my life. (To be fair my life situation changed a lot for the better around the same time I started with psychedelics also, and I was already on the mend.)

 

[Ultima]

"The best way to do cannabis is to do it rarely, in silent darkness and then smoke massive amounts to the point where you realize: O my God, I did TOO much!:

Terence Mckenna

put that in my sig.. so true...

 

[druglessdouglas]

Well, I have experienced that on cannabis - as opposed to a trip on lsd or even psilocybin, where you can get up and fight it, and turn it around. With cannabis it just feels hopeless and lost. Are you having serotonine problems, like with (clinical) depression? Because I think my problems with cannabis are linked to that.

Yeah the same is very true for me--when a cannabis experience gets out of control, it is very, very overwhelming to all my senses. Unlike acid or shrooms (tho shrooms are definitely harder to control) where changing the setting, changing the music, sneaking off by yourself to stare at paintings or nature can just totally clear up the trip.

As for depression I don't think so. I've experienced periods of real depression (of the "life is fucked, time stops--fingernails on a chalkboard 24/7, unable to sleep for weeks at a time while wandering aimlessly" variety), but not for a very long time now. During that time weed was no fun, it just left me confused and sad and I just avoided it usually. Actually I haven't had a bout with depression since I started psychedelics in general, I think in some ways they kind of cleared up some of the messiness left behind by some of the earlier and muddier periods in my life. (To be fair my life situation changed a lot for the better around the same time I started with psychedelics also, and I was already on the mend.)

cortisol the stress hormone can thin the blood/brain barrier alowing more drug or alcohol to pass through. i get drunk much quicker if ive been stressed.

eating hash is unpredictable. the amounts of the active compounds vary from piece to piece. it is an halucinogen, people tend to forget when they smoke it unless they are used to strong grass

the last bit of hash i ate was a gram of manali charas in a yogourt and the effects were like mdma

the last grass i ate was budah skunk and pure power plant, 7-9 grams in a cake my friend baked. it was that put me on my back for hours and felt like lsd and mogodons

 

[st.bot.32]

cortisol the stress hormone can thin the blood/brain barrier alowing more drug or alcohol to pass through. i get drunk much quicker if ive been stressed.

eating hash is unpredictable. the amounts of the active compounds vary from piece to piece. it is an halucinogen, people tend to forget when they smoke it unless they are used to strong grass

that may very well help to partially explain the sort of feedback process I experienced on that trip from a chemical standpoint.. with hash, whatever you are focusing on is amplified greatly as well.

the visual hallucinations alone (aside from everything else) that i experienced on that trip were like nothing else i've experienced before from smoking weed or herb. staring at the computer monitor, the centre of my vision seemed to fall out and be replaced by morphing dancing stringed figures made from glowing balls and dots..

 

[tryptonaut]

I've experienced periods of real depression (of the "life is fucked, time stops--fingernails on a chalkboard 24/7, unable to sleep for weeks at a time while wandering aimlessly" variety), but not for a very long time now. During that time weed was no fun, it just left me confused and sad and I just avoided it usually. [/quote]

Well, this somehow coincides with my theory that cannabis doesn't go well with a depressed mind. Whereas mushrooms can rip you out of depression (at least that's true for me, leave aside the recent scientific research) cannabis is only good if I'm in a very stable mental state. When I think about it, the people I know who smoke daily and never have or had a problem with it for years are the ones with steady sunshine on their minds. This is probably not because they are smoking, this is probably the reason why they can smoke heavily and daily for years...

 

[Forkbender]

cortisol

May cortisol have anything to do with tolerance? Do drugs influence the cortisol-level?

 

[druglessdouglas]

cortisol

May cortisol have anything to do with tolerance? Do drugs influence the cortisol-level?

im not realy sure, i guess if less drug crosses the blood/brain barrier then tolerance will develope faster. do drugs influensce the cortisol level? i assume they may, as many will produce "stress" like symptoms. speed certainly does, ive read a report on that in the past and my own experiences as a speed freak back it up. cannabis can cause stress if your smoking too much, in my opinion.
it doesnt take much stress to raise cortisol levels- running for a bus produces a huge secretion of it. people with one of the genetic variations that reduce cortisol productions have to carry IV cortisol or they wouldnt recover from the stress of running for a bus