I think there are really two separate and interlinking dangers with psychedelic use, with the actual physical intensity or degree of the hallucinogenic effect, being a peril of lesser magnitude when compared to how the user or victim reacts to the experience. This I feel is not as much a problem with DMT, as it is with other psychedelics as the all encompassing nature of the experience tends IME to act like an enveloping safety blanket- an inability to move, meaning an inability to do stupid or dangerous things!
The most awful and literally terrorizing experience I ever had on psychedelics was not, one that was in any way a mental overdose nor was it attained through the industrial and ridiculous power of a DMT experience, but instead through a combination of LSD and cannabis. The result in short, was psychotic breakdown, a bullying persecutory psychosis that leaked violently from within vomiting out into external reality (all over my family as I seem to recall). It was the very definition of hellish schizophrenia, and is still all there today, though thanks to Aya and years of integration, I have started to come to terms with it.
The dose was relatively high, but no higher than many preceding it, with the mental and physiological effects of panic, eventually I think dwarfing the effects of the chemicals themselves. I guess what I am trying to talk about here is the chemical effect of fear in itself -let alone panic and terror- in combination with psychedelic substances.
On the other hand, many years later I returned to psychedelics using Ayahuasca (analogues mainly) and occasionally HBWR. I had come to better terms with this terrorizing experience, though the greatest qualification really I suppose was that I had grown up and come to terms with myself, realizing at this point as well, never to approach such experiences, in terms of good or bad, and to embrace both as necessary aspects of life. Saying to your self before hand ‘I hope I don’t have a bad trip’ is as many know the most effective method of producing one.
About 3 years ago I experienced what I perceive as a genuine psychedelic overdose, and not -as above- merely a colossal f*ck up brought on by paranoia and an inability to deal with myself and my sub-conscious manifestations. The techniques I was using (embracing and facing) to cope, had I suppose become too successful creating a smug overconfidence which in turn led to what I am reasonably certain will be my last overdose with such psychedelics (lysergic). It taught me that there was indeed a level -at least for me- that shouldn’t be exceeded and that after a certain point the brain will become strained, overworked and very possibly damaged. With all of these things I realize now there is no need to go beyond a certain point. It patently isn’t a case of the further you go, the more you will learn, but after a point, actually the opposite (f*cked up!).
It is understandable, and although often people merely want tee-shirts, stating that they’ve been further than all others, there is also the flawed mentality that says ‘well if 5 taught me this much, what then will 6 teach me?’
I was using the Madagascan strain of HBWR, and over a period of about 3 hours ate about 20- 25. I remember coming too thrashing around inside a mosquito net, oblivious to my location. It was rather like a dissociative reaction, carried off again to the outer limits of my own personal hell and psychosis, with overwhelming psychotic compulsions to castrate myself or bite my own fingers off, in I suppose, some bizarre attempt at relieving the metal tension. The sheer intensity was simply too much, far too much of a sensory overload and head fuck, the sheer force alone physically pushing me around my bedroom.
Where as the psychotic break when I was seventeen was really a result of an inability to deal with what my subconscious was telling me -about myself- this was simply tooo much madness from the very beginning. This time however despite the almost irresistible urge to run from death, horror, and endless humiliation, I grasped the futility in doing so, and realized that above all, moving/fighting could like the last time be utterly disastrous. Terror not diminished I lay down surrendered and died.
Interesting thing for me here is despite the intensity of the experiences above it in no way compares to the psychedelic intensity of hyperspace, and yet hyperspace on many levels is a much safer and cleaner experience. When I enter the DMT realm, I am more an observer, and there is always a portion of my brain that is unaffected by the insanity, where as with LSD or HBWR type substances (with cannabis especially), I am very much the protagonist and utterly insane.
My psychotic LSD experience happened 11 years ago now, and due to its god awful repetitiveness and demonic sadism still exists deep within my psych today, with ayahuasca (analogues) still often going to work on it. It’s rather ironic you might say that a psychedelic is now these days helping me to come to terms, with the immense damage that a psychedelic once did!
I think though as many will often point out here, the ultimate lesson is responsibility. At seventeen I was simply a foolish child messing about with things far more powerful and potential dangerous than I ever could have imagined, and didn’t then (echoing Hoffman here) have a stable sense of identity, much too concerned and persecuted by my illusive reputation/identity.
I think this is maybe why many who have had these psychotic experiences with psychedelics may come on here boldly saying things such as ‘well you’ve never been as far as me’ as to their eyes anyone having experienced such genuine terror, would certainly not every week be happily jumping back into it. Such terrors are often casually dismissed as ‘bad trips’ when for the victim, they were more like gang rapes in the midst of a deathly war zone, merciless brutality at the hands of a sadistic subconscious/community.
I think what separates these experiences from the average bad trip is the fact that these are often genuinely psychotic experiences, and perhaps more rare. Everything that happens to the victim, everything he sees, and is told, is -as for the schizophrenic- experienced as fact and reality. This can for example be literally terrorizing if -as in my case- he is told he is about to be tortured to death in the most painful way imaginable!
I was reading an article or E book recently that was basically saying that the horror stories about psychedelics were all media and government inventions, largely it seemed because the author had after thousands of trips never had one. This I felt was as ridiculous as the statement that all psychedelics are evil, as I know only too well myself, that the consequences of irresponsible use of psychedelics could potentialy be utterly catastrophic. After all, I got off easy…
Wolf
