Bad Trip: The Worst Experience of my Life - Page 2

Yah you had full blown hell. What's interesting to me now is that this hell is clearly amorphous.

The hell you describe here, and correct me if I'm wrong, was a combination of profound insights (whether delusion or not) of the nature of reality, coupled with a fear of loss of control, as well as being trapped in this state forever.

I think the severity was amplified greatly because you also had the trapped fear that is especially sharp in one's first trip. It then goes out of the realm of common paranoia to the domain of the eternal, "I am stuck here forever" and so it pushed you into a more broad cosmic consciousness, tapping into your library of thoughts on the afterlife (reincarnation, death, etc.) and consequently the experience of the box (which may have been a true insight or a paranoid delusion - or maybe indeed belief is the foundation of reality).

None of these words have any meaning unless they resonate with you of course. It's just a possible theory I'm offering.

Let's contrast this with the suicidal bad trip I had, about 6 years ago actually.

My hell was created first by thinking I had discovered the "trick to life". I was having a philosophical discussion with a friend who was also tripping and it led me to see a river of fire in my head and it formed an infinity sign. It had to do with reincarnation and it was completely deterministic. Suddenly all the wonder and mystery of life vanished and I was left with this essentially predictable universe that would cycle forever.

This realization was completely real to me and as true as the sky is blue. I considered killing myself to escape the dread of nothing at all mattering and I would have except that, as illogical is it might be, I hadn't left a note for my family to explain why I killed myself. I couldn't just leave my friend's house because he would suspect something was up and I could get thought insane and locked up, where I wouldn't be able to kill myself. So I decided to wait until morning (thankfully). Eventually I realized even if I killed myself I would just be reincarnated and that I could keep killing myself forever and it wouldn't matter. I ended up settling on accepting reality as essentially meaningless and that I should get as much enjoyment out of this life I had no choice in having as I could.

The problem with investigations of this kind is that the science of thought and the human mind is so utterly incomplete. There are no definite answers to if your realization was any more right than mine, and they both led us to hell. What do we have to guide us but our intuition? But how can our intuition be enough if it leads us to these terrible places? Perhaps our intuition was not off at all but was telling us, by our awful despair, that we're in the wrong place.

Fuck, the possibilities are endless. Crowley's Do What Thou Wilt is starting to sound pretty good.

(This is something I wrote shortly after my trip, unfinished)

My Shroom Trip, and the Nightmare I Carry With me

People popularize LSD/Acid as the hallucinogenic drug of choice, and though I have never tried it my endless research suggests that although it is definitely more potent per unit than psilocybin mushrooms, there is a very large difference between the two.

Since I have not tried Acid the anecdotal evidence I have is mostly derived from stories and a collective group of information I have acquired through research, however I am fairly certain that in most cases my conclusions would be true.

That is that although taking less acid may provide you a stronger trip than taking similarly less shrooms would, the amplification of the trip is does not follow a linear path. That means that as you consume more acid your, trip may last longer but does not intensify in direct proportion to how much you consume.

Mushrooms, on the other hand, may actually increase greatly more than acid does by taking only a little bit more. I have read stories of people who took a little and felt nothing, then took just a bit more and completely lost their minds.

This segues into the main difference I am trying to outline: Acid has a ceiling over the displacement it can create between you and reality, whereas if you take enough mushrooms, it can become so intense that you longer remain connected to the reality that you sought to stimulate yourself from to begin with. This is how I would initially explain my experience, for one of the many observations I made that I am still aware of is that prior to tripping I perceived that no matter how much I took I would still be able to experience it as myself. That no matter how fucked up stuff got, no matter how many ghouls or demons I believed were there, that I would be reacting to them as myself, experiencing this strange stimulus. Even if it horrified me, I would experience it as myself.

This is not what happened, and this is why I believe psilocybin mushrooms have the potential to create a far more intense, severe, and mind boggling trip than acid ever could.

Let me begin by outlining the process under which I consumed the quantity that I did. Initially, I took what I perceived to be about a gram of shrooms - a couple of caps and a couple of stems, all dehydrated.

After consuming them I waited approximately an hour as that is when the effect is supposed to take place. However, nothing really happened and I actually got sleepy and went to sleep. When I got up, although I know it felt like I felt something prior to sleeping, I could not commit to that knowledge. Accordingly I was pissed off and worried that the experienced of shrooms would escape me, and/or the dealer I bought them from had burned me.

So I decided to take a heavier dose to ensure I would feel something based on the strength of the previous dose. Accordingly I consumed what I have now measured to be approximately 4-5 grams of caps and stems. It was approximately 6 times as much as I had consumed initially, although I did not think it was that much when I did. I thought it was about 3-4 times the amount. Since I had felt almost nothing, i concluded that to guarantee something, the amount I was taking would suffice.

I sat down and started using the computer. (its important to note that I underestimated the effect it would have on me so naively that I did it while my tripseer had gone to the gym. I had concluded that by the time she got back, it would still be before the drugs had taken effect, and although I was right, it was still a highly irresponsible thing to do).

I believe approximately 30-40 minutes went by, at which time I believe I started feeling a little something, and so I went into the bathtub. I turned off the lights and just sat under the shower as I often do to experience whatever high I was going to experience. (I often meditate in that environment).

By this time my tripseer had returned and I had informed her that I would knock if I needed her.

The first sensations that came to me did not seem like a high at all, but I began to think about my life and people around me, and people in general, and the feelings I normally have of them, such as disgust or love began to become amplified and I started feeling extremely caring towards my tripseer and at the same time extremely angry at people who lie, cheat, or generally try to abuse other people.

It was at this time that I knocked because I felt the urge to tell my seer that she was my best friend, as I felt that fully.

She came almost immediately, asking if I knocked. I told her I did, after a few moments, and began to talk about life and people, similar to the way I normally talk, except in my mind I felt more angry and more loving... just more amplified. I wouldn't say it was a positive feeling, but rather just a different feeling.

After some time of this, I told her that I was hungry and so she brought some food for me to eat along with some cake. At this point I felt in control still, as if the trip was reaching its ceiling and that it would soon normalize and begin to lessen. (this is what I expected it to do as comparitively the amount of the mushrooms I had eaten first and second led to the conclusion that the trip would be just a bit more intense and longer lasting)

Being careful she fed me as we had already concluded that it would be unsafe for me to feed myself or use utensils. I completely agreed, simply as a precaution, and also because I could tell my motor skills were impaired by the effects of the drug.

Soon after I had mostly finished eating, the effect of the drug changed again, and now I was becoming slightly more reactive and unstable. When I saw the light that the door let in when she opened it I found it funny and began to laugh. Seeing the light made me laugh. I told her this, and she also laughed as I laughed. I then told her that I was not happy, at all, yet I was laughing, genuinely, like a child. I have experienced this before so it did not worry me too much, although it is a somewhat unpleasant experience.

I then asked her if she could feed me some of the cream from the cake, as I felt I really wanted some of the sugar and frosting. She dipped her finger in it and then put it in my mouth and I tasted it. I began to laugh again, for the cream I tasted seemed to fill my mouth, and even my brain, as if my taste buds were on overdrive. It was truly tasty, and I was highly reactive to that sensation.

I don't fully recall what happened after that as I believe time became slightly distorted, but I remember touching my skin and not being able to feel where my skin ended. I scratched the back of my head and could not completely feel the back of my head. I told this to my seer but told her that there isn't any threat yet as I am aware of the problem, and just making her aware of it.

It was, i believe, shortly after this point that a shift ocurred. It was when I believe I squeezed my hand, but I genuinely perceived that my hand had thickened and twisted in a very strange manner, as if it was a bundle of oddly shaped flesh that was able to bend in a very strange manner. Because I knew what my mind was telling me was happening with my hand was impossible from a realistic standpoint, I suddenly became worried. I was aware that at any point if I am physically able to engage in something that I perceive does not hurt, but in actuality could be me chewing my own hand, that it was a dangerous position to be in. Accordingly I told my seer that she should turn on the light so she can see me to ensure that I do not hurt myself.

When she opened the door letting light in, she leaned down to look at me. When I looked at her, her eyes were wide in the darkness and she looked like a ghoul of sorts. The strange face that was presented towards me was hers, but the suggestions of those dark circles around her wide eyes were a little scary, and I did not like being scared. Then I looked at her when she sat down, after the light had been turned on, and I could see many eyes lining up besides her real eyes, like a butterfly it seemed. It was very strange. Also I could hear the buzzing of the drops of the shower as if it was electricity, very loudly in my ears. I actually asked her if she could hear the electricity.

At some point, very shortly after this all happened, everything changed. This is where the trip became something else altogether. After I felt the strange thing with my hand, where I believed it could contort in a strange way that I knew would damage it, the need to free myself of the sensation of the drug came to me. And as it came to me, and I wished it, I immediately understood that I could not get rid of it, nor could I lessen it.

I sat there for what seemed like a very long time to me, contemplating what needed to be done - if I could consume something, or if I could go to the hospital, or what option I had to get rid of it. I asked my seer, and she suggested that it is unlikely there is anything they can do to get rid of it. I knew that if I went to the hospital the first thing they would do is physically restrain me, and I definitely did not want that. Nor did I want anti-psychotic drugs as I strongly perceived that that would just change my state of mind, not return it to who I am. And returning to who I was was the most important thing to me at that point.

(I will try to continue here)

I recall getting out of the bathtub at this point, being very careful to step carefully. I sat on the toilet cover and continued to contemplate how to get rid of the sensation.

It was around this time, and the time I was thinking about going to the hospital, that the first sensations of paranoia kicked in. This is the most traumatizing and painful aspect of the entire trip, in fact, even though it was more psychologically painful afterwards.

Whenever I think about this point it hurts me because I feel like I was so terrified of the way the drug was affecting me that I was hoping, praying, seeking a solution to get rid of it. And at this point I had no clue how much longer it was going to last and how bad it was going to be. Like a child hoping the pain will end in the next five minutes only in retrospect to learn it was going to last much longer than he was prepared for.

My paranoia started to become very bad at this point. I did not want to stay in the bathroom so I arose and tried to walk with my sitter's support to my bed. At this point I began to see fractals slicing through my vision of reality.

(Image included below)

The fractals were triangular, and all bound together, sliding across one another. They were cutting reality on and off, "slicing" through it, as if I could see nothing at those moments except fractals. They were more real than the reality before me, taking precedence.

(I believe I am starting to understand that for someone who has never lost their mind in this sort of manner, plainly speaking, this can just be a very frightening experience, above all other analysis)

When I sat down upon my bed I was completely naked. I could not even tell that I was naked, or register it. Like I was slightly aware that I was naked when I saw myself, but as soon as I was not staring and thinking directly about it, I was completely unaware of it. This is the nature of how fickle my mind was because I was unable to focus, at all, at the logical thoughts I was desperately trying to hold onto. Namely that this was a trip, this was a drug, it will end, and there is no danger to me. All these beautiful, safe concepts were not emotionally registering, not remaining solidified in my head, and I had to keep verbally repeating things, asserting things, asking my sitter to agree with them in order to gain sufficient strength to stop the paranoia from taking over my whole system.

I was so, so, so paranoid that I wanted to get out of it. I contemplated how lovingly wonderful it would be to shoot myself in the head to end it or to claw at my face. It felt soothing to contemplate clawing at my face, but some small percentage of me, a small 5% felt that was something I may regret and so I repeatedly, every 2-3 seconds, tried to reassert this to myself.

I recall it getting even worse now.

The fractals came and went and I kept repeating things and asking my sitter. I was asking her things like:

"this is going to end right?"
"how long has it been since I took it? Will it end at some point soon?"
"Oh okay.. so it's been an hour so that means it should end soon right?"
"I made a huge mistake. This was a huge mistake."
"Do you think my mind will be normal after this?"
"So I should just wait it out. I should just try to wait it out."

But let me tell you, I did not want to wait it out. I did not want to wait it out at all. I wanted to stomp it out, right there, with as much veracity as I could muster. I wanted it out of me.

I don't remember what happened after that, though I think it was just time that went by. I kept apologizing to my sitter for putting her through this, because I had not predicted how bad it would be. Every time I looked at her I felt bad that I had done this to her, and behind all of that was this strong desire to end it, and the paranoia, and all the terror.

I believe I was in that intense state of mind where I was trying to keep my paranoia and terror at bay for about an hour. I can't describe it more right now, but I believe that was the meat and potatoes of the traumatic nature of this event. I believe this has scarred me and will take time to heal.

At some point, we decided to try to optimize the environment for me to try to calm me in whatever way we could. I sat on my computer to try to give myself a familiar environment and as I stared at my desktop the icons were forming shapes and I did not want to see that. However seeing the familiarity of the desktop and the position I was in my chair gave me a short and small sense of relief, though it did not last.

I leaned my chair back and tried to close my eyes. As I did, it was as if the trip had gone more internal as I was able to try to wrestle it from the perspective that it was now time to kill time. I recall wanting to kill time and concluding that every moment I spent not killing myself was a moment I was getting closer to the effect wearing off.

So when I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes my head kept shifting back and forth from side to side as I argued with my mind. Literally, as if my mind was trying to make me paranoid and react to that paranoia and I was wrestling it, and every time that argument resurfaced my head shifted. Accordingly I think I was moving my head back and forth with my eyes closed about once every 4-8 seconds (notice that this is in contrast to the 2-3 seconds from earlier, meaning that the drug had already begun to wear off slightly, lessening the strength and frequency with which the paranoia was kicking in).

My sitter fed me something, and I recall at some point I told her to get a fork away from me because the hardness of the steel really scared me, because if I am arguing this part of me that wants to snuff it out, then having a steel object near me gives "him" more potency and weakens my position.

After I was here for some time I felt that the drug was weakening even more, even though the paranoia still came back it was simply less frequent and a little less potent. The potency remains very similar because every time it resurfaced it was like a blow to my confidence that I was getting better. My paranoia then feeds off that conclusion, making it seem like I will never get better. So even though it is less frequent, in another manner it actually got more potent.

I haven't read your last two posts yet (and I will) but I want to get this down before I forget it.

I do think this phenomenon we have here is solvable. I don't think it's a coincidence that there are 3 people who were attracted to this site (including yourself, envisioning it) who experienced it. We all have something in common in our psyche that is either very tortured or makes us susceptible to this delusion.

I think it's unique to a certain type of mindset, perhaps, but I don't think it's overly unique. I've read other bad trip logs and although some of them don't seem as intense a lot of them are similar in their effect.

We're just dissecting it more, perhaps, than most people do.

Okay I finished reading these last two accounts of yours. I'm left with the feeling that your sitter might not have been the most experienced tripper herself. This does not lessen her contribution but it does mean she had limitations on how she could have helped you to remain stable. Ideally, a sitter, or tripseer as you say, should have no ulterior motives (a fully selfless person), of the wise and knowing shamanic type, who knows first-hand all of the experiences that a tripper can go through. A person who is any less of this can only anchor so much before they themselves are overtaken by the tripper's panic.

We are dealing with raw forces of nature here. If you believe at all in "vestiges of the human psyche" ie. that our psyche is something that has evolved and has archaic remnants (the very basic and irreducible foundations of the mind which all grows from) that normally lie dormant, then you must realize that it is no light undertaking to be a tripseer.

Without this anchor, one can experience a confusion and consequent hopelessness of a magnitude no one can comprehend without actually experiencing. It's like being in the middle of an ocean, no land in sight and there's fucking sharks circling you. Life or death shit. The kind of thing that inspires religion.

Again your account has triggered another memory within me, this part in particular:

quote:

---

I leaned my chair back and tried to close my eyes. As I did, it was as if the trip had gone more internal as I was able to try to wrestle it from the perspective that it was now time to kill time.

---

I was tripping with some people who were more or less friends* at my one friend's house. It wasn't too intense and it had some laughing and philosophical discussions mixed in but at one point I projectile vomited on this guy's wall and it spurred the trip to take a turn. I immediately wanted to leave and so I told everyone I didn't feel well and that I was going home (I lived close).**

I drove home and my mind was in constant turmoil the whole way. I got home and went right to my bed to try and go to sleep in an attempt to shut my mind off. I found no relief with my eyes closed in my bed. My visualizations were much more vivid and there was a clear battle for supremacy in my mind. I had a very distinct visual representation of a child version of me (maybe 7 or 8) that was angry and it was lashing out at my normal conscious self. I wrestled with it for literally hours and I don't remember if it was a submission on my part or something else but about right at daybreak I had somehow reconciled the disagreement and thought I was the reincarnation of Jesus. I wasn't then and am not now a Christian, though I was loosely raised as a methodist. I felt light and powerful upon this realization, as well as completely relaxed.

Now I could have been deluded or I may have attributed, unconsciously, Jesus to some archetypal vestige of my personality, which I was tapping into. Either way I went back to sleep some time later and became more or less who I normally consider myself when I awoke.

Both of my experiences with this Jesus personality change were on shrooms. I have done acid before and interestingly I don't remember having any battles with my psyche on it. I was more or less myself throughout the experience without contest, only my vision and the interpretation of the world and my thoughts changed.

* To be honest, the word "friend" feels inadequate to me anymore. It just doesn't relate at all the complexity of the relationships I have with people under this category. I'm going to use the word anyways to make this more condensed.

** I actually went back to this friend's house sometime after, maybe a month or 2 and my projectile vomit was there, dried onto the wall. He wasn't the cleanest person.

My sitter was great, in my opinion.

I don't think your trips, from what you have described, were anywhere near to as close to as debilitating as mine was.

If you were able to drive, you were at about the place I was when I was in the bathroom, still sane.

Earlier when you mentioned on another trip you decided not to kill yourself due to wanting to leave a note for your family, that too sounds similar to the types of mentality I would have had in the bathtub.

Accordingly, I think it's hard to liken our experiences. You can hear about mine and discuss it, but I don't think ours were similar enough to warrant anything other than passive analysis on what you think it "could" have been.

I am 100% certain my sitter could have done nothing else given my situation. In fact, anyone else in her position would have been far less suited for it because I would not trust anything they said.

See, my sitter knew me more than I knew myself. It was only that knowledge that helped me get through it, because I believed her when she said convincingly that I was not permanently damaged.

If you've read my accounts thus far and understood them, then you see that I could not even see properly, let alone think properly. That appears to be very different and much more intense than what you have described thus far.

I am saying this only to clarify it so that I don't try to liken our experiences. I think I will try to use this thread to focus more on venting what I learn from it and welcome side analysis, but not critique.

I had a similar experience 15 years ago when I did mushrooms for the first, and last time.

I went into it thinking it was going t be mild, but different, like weed was. Your description of experiencing it as yourself is perfect.

What I got was unexpected. It completely changed the person I was. I was no longer the guy I was when sober, but someone completely different. It was like all of the negative aspects of my consciousness were amplified tenfold.

Regardless, I still fear that state, even though it is not possible to go back there without the aid of the drug. Call it post traumatic stress I guess.

Don't worry man, hopefully eventually you will integrate the experience and see it as a positive thing.

I do now. I'm glad I did it. It probably changed the course of my life, for if it were not for mushrooms I would likely be in the desert hunting Arabs for the military right now.

It also opened up points of view that I never had before. It made me more analytical. Equally to my detriment, but potentially a good thing, it made me much less confident, and way more honest.

Although I was way happier in my ignorance and I somewhat long to be as confident as I was before I did them, at the same time without that self-questioning I don't think you can get even marginally close to the truth about yourself.

Don't fret too much, as a former therapist told me, "you're way to sane to be crazy."

Love the detail you managed to implement and remember in your trip report.

Firstly i think you made a few fatal errors which no doubt contributed to the reaction of your trip.

The first is you taking mushrooms then going on a computer. Mushrooms hate tech.
The second mistake is probably being indoors. All my best trips have been surrounded by nature.
And the final notable floor is it being night as i personally find the fractals and crazy geometry to be overwhelming in a dark room.

I don't think you had a very good tripster to guide you through it.

Anybody experiencing a bad trip should immediately be given a small task to occupy the mind.

Mushrooms react with my mind in a similar way you describe in your own experience but you have to learn to laugh at the crazy not fear it.

During the correct atmosphere scenery and people mushrooms are the greatest but abuse them and they wont like it.

I take them to revert myself to a infant and loose all worries. Relax and go on an adventure do not Dwell inside your own mind.

Yup, had a very similar experience about 5 years ago that lasted about 3 or 4 months that you could call a nervous breakdown. It was much worse than any drug I've ever taken.

I think present in all hallucinogenic experiences is what's known as ego loss. A lot of people say that ego is a bad thing and I think it can be, but it also protects us too.

I know for me that state of being where I have an identity crisis or I don't really know who I am or what I feel can be extremely agitating, and that's why I don't do drugs.

I've gone through this too, and am 6 months down this road. A lot of people, including myself, want to hear from someone who has a lot of post-event time under their belt...where are you guys at, with a lot of time behind you?