New fear of entheogens and anxiety

[alladinsgrandpa]

so to adress all at once:

-i was seeing a therapist regularly to deal with past but rarely meet anymore as we have worked out the things i wished to accomplished and we just meet occasionally to get a second opinion on how things are going from a nonpeer.

-the only things holding me back in life are where i live and am in the middle of moving across the country. i absolutely hate everything about where i live.

-i have a little xanax powder in a cap a friend knowing my situation gave me a while ago.

-i have been trying to cut back my cannabis consumption but its hard to break my habit ive been smoking daily for about two years no breaks:roll: :roll:

thanks for all the help i feel slightly better after getting rid of "mind" stash:lol:

 

[EquaL Observer]

It seems to me that all life's downers are best resolved internally through time - there is never a quick fix (not to say that is what you are looking for). Breaking routine a bit, taking some time off from my norm helps me at times. Try waking up at sunrise and going in a walk through nature.

Introspection is key I believe. Have you ever considered consulting the I-Ching? If you've never done it before I could link you up quite quickly, takes very little time and it can give good guidance and if not, good pieces of long-standing knowledge.

LSD, LSA, LSH etc all seem to me to be chemicals of personal insight, overuse can lead to mental blocks for sure, especially when there has been little life changes since the last trip. Maybe some time off psychedelics and trying something new - giving it the utmost attention, thinking of intentions etc - will help. What psychedelic plants have you not tried?

I wish you the best of luck - every hurdle in life is a potential mental growth spurt

 

[I am.]

Whenever I take acid or shrooms (can't do it for oral DMT based experiences), I always keep a half a bar of xanax in my pocket. I never take xanax for any other reason other than to prevent a bad trip from spiraling out of control (or bringing myself back if it has already done so). On the majority of occasions, I never have to take the xanax and after the experience, I simply put it away for next time. Shit, I've held onto the same bar of xanax for close to a year now and have had more trips this year than any other of my life. Point is, when I have that bar with me, things just tend to not go so bad. Just knowing that I can get out of any sticky situation with it makes it much less likely that one should arise. And should it arise, as it has, I simply take the half a bar, wait five minutes and I'm completely chilled. Any anxiety or negative emotions I had are chilled out and I can resume the trip. Usually takes a small percentage of trippiness out of the experience, but these are the prices for not dealing with it naturally. Most often, if I see myself going down the dark path and anxiety comes about and what not, I will try my hardest to try and steer it back the other way with mental will and trying to think positively. Should this fail, I know what I can count on...

wow. EXACTLY! i keep either a bar or clonzapine near. if i have to hit the panic button and take the pill, my trip is calm before i have a chance to let the pill dissolve in my stomache. it's all mental. like putting on a seat belt makes you feel safe. taking that 1mg of clonzapine INSTANLY brings comfort. typically, i never need it and just take it at the end to go to sleep. but like you said, it sure is nice to know you've got that seat belt to put on if the ride gets bumpy!

the fear is like this giant snake: it bit me that one good damn time so now i wanna study the snake. milk it's giant venom filled fangs to make anti-venom so that the next bite doesn't kill me. thing is, i know that if i keep milking this snake, it's gonna bite me from time to time. it's inevitable. it's a numbers game. trick is: all i have to do is let the snake go and stop milking it! it will run away and never bite me again. but i...i just wanna milk those fangs! i know that the venom can save lives! maybe just mine but still it can save a life. there's sooo much wisdom in that venom but damnit...those fangs sure do hurt that every now and again they get me. so i just play it safe. treat the snake good. feed it well. take it for walks. put bows in it's hair. it's my best friend. but when i fall asleep at night...i sleep with one eye open. watching that snake stare at me from the corner of the room. it never sleeps. it's alwasy waiting for me to get comfortable so it can bite me. it's cool. i've got some antivenom from the last time i milked it. hell...the bites are just scars now. reminders. war wounds. like stripes on a soldier! shows i've been to war. shitty thing is...i'm the only one who can see those stripes. so...they only matter to me. damned ego. i'm keeping this ridiculous monster around so i can milk it to save myself in case it bites. why not just throw the snake out? then you wouldn't have to worry about it biting. cuz i like the war wounds. i just hate acquiring them. duh...

 

[Swarupa]

I don't mean to intrude but i feel this 'popping a pill to escape a bad trip' just totally goes against the purpose of a psychedelic experience, this is just my opinion but having a safety net or a way to escape a bad trip is precisely the opposite of what the psychedelic experience is about, again, just my opinion.

Fear is an integral part of the psychedelic experience & if you dont integrate it, it will resurface, its simple psychology, if you resist, it persists

 

[Global]

I've had a handful of bad trips with no safety net. Nothing to pull me out of the bottomless well I was stuck in. These trips never turned around until they mercifully ended. I have reflected on them in retrospect endlessly and they seem fruitless in nature other than the fact that they were purely unenjoyable. I've had other bad trips where there was something relatively minor to take away from, but not something I wasn't already aware of (didn't need the trip to point it out). I'm not suicidal in any way, shape or form, but there have been trips so bad where I wanted nothing more than to kill myself to end the larger-than-life irrational sadness and anxiety that I was swept up into. I point out that it was irrational in that I wasn't sad for any particular reason. I would have an insignificant negative thought that would be blown out of proportion, and on certain substances, it can be particularly difficult to fight negativity, especially when it has no face. I have had only one bad trip in which I actually knew where the panic, anxiety and sadness were coming from and though I highly debated taking the xanax, as I literally wrestled it between my fingers, I decided against it and was able to pull myself back around the other way. The xanax is the last resort when literally nothing else works. When hugs, good music, positivity talks and everything else fails, and there is nothing left but despair, I see and have no problem taking something for a little bit of help. From the newly found positive state, I can then assess what had just happened in the tripping state as opposed to fighting a hopeless battle only to return to sobriety with only the mild happiness that it's finally over. As 'I am' said, once it's in my mouth, before I've had a chance to swallow, I can already feel the negativity fading.

 

[I am.]

you are right chronic. but taking a pill doesn't kill the trip. it just makes it a bit easier to deal with. if you stifle a bad trip, it will resurface, probably the next trip. you are correct. but i've learned quite a few lessons without having to flip my shit. just take the pill and sit back. assumign that taking the pill would keep you from learning the lesson is assuming that truth only comes out during a trip. i take thoughts away from a trip. i get glimpses of things i need to think about. if i have a fear come up and stifle, i will go back afterwards an assess the situation. what happened. where the fear comes from and what not. so yeah...saying i can't take pills to get the full experience shows that someone can only reach "enlightenment" through drugs which just is a whole nother bag of snakes chronic.

 

[Swarupa]

Cool, im not sure how what i said could be taken that way but i definitely wouldn't want to imply that psychedelic drugs are the only means to enlightenment, i feel that true enlightenment, or true learning about life can't be about about escapism in any way.

So any attempt to escape something, like a bad trip, should be dealt with as well as possible without trying to block it out, for example when i vaporize DMT i sometimes get the feeling 'uh oh, im stuck like this forever' but as soon as i accept the possibility of being stuck like that forever, then all is well

Saying this, when i took 120g of mushrooms a few years back, i did at one point take a huge dose of valerian root to try & counter the intensity, nowadays though id strap in for the ride & try to ride it out

 

[justine]

Cool, im not sure how what i said could be taken that way but i definitely wouldn't want to imply that psychedelic drugs are the only means to enlightenment, i feel that true enlightenment, or true learning about life can't be about about escapism in any way.

So any attempt to escape something, like a bad trip, should be dealt with as well as possible without trying to block it out, for example when i vaporize DMT i sometimes get the feeling 'uh oh, im stuck like this forever' but as soon as i accept the possibility of being stuck like that forever, then all is well

Saying this, when i took 120g of mushrooms a few years back, i did at one point take a huge dose of valerian root to try & counter the intensity, nowadays though id strap in for the ride & try to ride it out

Do you mean 120g of dried mushrooms ??!

 

[I am.]

well...you were implying that taking xanax would diminish the effects of the psychedelic experience. saying that, " having a safety net or a way to escape a bad trip is precisely the opposite of what the psychedelic experience is about" is like saying you're not getting from the trip what you should cuz you took a pill. ok. so the pill stops the fear. so is fear the goal of the trip or is it a by-product? if it's the goal, well then...i guess i've been going at this all wrong. if it's just a by-product, why can't you circumvent some of it and still get same result? that's incinuating you need to be overcome with fear while tripping in order to really learn (cuz let's face it...i do psychedelics to learn).

so either you think you have to freak out in order to grow or you think that fear is what the trip's about or you think that you can't learn in sobriety what you can while tripping. none of those agree with anything i've learned.

 

[Global]

I agree in the sense that if you're taking the psychedelic for healing or self-improvement, the pill is not the way to go. Having said that, when I take LSD, it is most often not for either of these reasons. I can't say the same for DMT. The relationship is different. I don't think I need to be ashamed of the fact that I may not take acid or shrooms for strictly healing purposes. I feel like there are other aspects to be enjoyed from the experience as well. Perhaps a bit hedonistic

 

[Swarupa]

No justine 120g fresh
It's was still amazing though, just indescribable...

'I am' i do consider fear, and moving beyond fear, an integral part of the experience.

In the past i would have seen this much differently though, i took psychdelics to try to get to Bliss... and probably would have taken pills if i had a bad trips & had them available... i did take those valerian root pills trying to escape an epic trip turned bad

 

[Swarupa]

I feel like there are other aspects to be enjoyed from the experience as well. Perhaps a bit hedonistic

I used to be like this on mushrooms til i learned that when tripping less is more.

In my opinion no mushroom trip can compare to tripping in pitch black darkness with total sensory deprivation. I have spent 90% of my trips thus far in light, with friends, listening to music, in nature... i only learned about the sensory deprivation recently, it's truly incomparable.

If your a hedonist & you want a much bliss as possible, then have nothing, it's more than everything!

 

[I am.]

120g of shrooms? wow. that's fucking ridiulous! i know i can eat 3-4 grams and feel it. either you have SHITTY shrooms or you are superhuman man!

 

[I am.]

i feel you on the fear thing. i mean hell...i'm not using it to cast out fear. if that were my goal, i suppose that taking pills would kill that effect. i know that fear is natural and that i shouldn't be afraid to feel fear. why are you so afraid of fear you need to get rid of it? (just playing around with you man...i know everyone's on their own path). but yeah...if my goal was to get rid of fear, i wouldn't take pills. i'd face it. fear isn't a big deal to me. as you said, it's a part of the trip man. without fear, it's not a trip. then it's just monday...

i'm in it for other reasons, so the fear is just a distraction that keeps me from what i'm looking for. i wanna get past that so i can go about my merry way, in search of my truth.

 

[alladinsgrandpa]

never tried ketamine (not implying thats what I'm seeking; definetly not), aya or pharma, iboga, mescaline and thats really it that i can think of. its kind of hard to say all the things ive never tried because of the vast amount of substances that exist. i dont know if this is the route i feel most comfortable taking though. i think i just need a break from weed and a lifestyle change. both of which are nearing, almost out of weed :lol: , and im about to move away from where i live and i cant wait. spring and summer are on there way cant wait.


another thing to add im going to the string cheese incident winter thing in CO in march as of today so i have something to look forward to. i love the cheese

 

[alladinsgrandpa]

i really love the snake metaphor i am. im thinking about getting some mushrooms in the coming weeks and eat a low dose of a gram or two and hang out with a friend all night. undecided though i feel like waiting until this string cheese show in march:?: :?: :? thanks for all the replies i think i would only take a xanax or something of the sort if i felt like i was going to suffer farther on down the road rather than learn from the bad experience; as i agree with the fear being something that needs to be conquered.

thanks,
alladins

ps it feels good to talk about this with people that actually know about substances. my thereapist is great for issues of this world but has little experience with the "other" world. i know he has some experience with entheogens but he had no idea what DMT was. hes a real good guy though.

 

[Global]

I have tripped for 99% of my trips in light

You know I only seem to have bad trips in the dark? Kinda weird like that. Once I noticed that I would try with all my effort to "drop" whatever by noon so I could have sufficient time in the light. For me for some reason light is like a life force while tripping. Specifically sunlight, but any light really. Even with DMT I seem to enjoy more light than most people claim to like to illuminate the patterns behind closed eyelids with DMT, but I think that's something of a different issue

 

[alladinsgrandpa]

hmmm... i find it hard to ingest almost anything before sunset is atleast close. i find the night very comforting as everyone is in the unwind after the long day mood and ready to go out imo. plus you look less sketchy if you were to be acting wild. just my opinion. day trips can be awesomein the right setting though. my family invited me to an island this spring that has no cars, ive been there once and it was awesome. hopefully by next time i go i will be ready to ingest something of the LSD sorts.

 

[Global]

The only time I found the daylight to be an issue in terms of looking sketchy was when me and a bunch of my friends took acid at a phish concert. The concert hadn't even come close to starting yet (we dosed like 3 hours prior), and we were in a field right next to the parking lot just dying laughing. I mean like uncontrollable sobs of laughter that would just not end. To the average person, we would have probably seemed deranged with such laughter...but I reiterate we were at a phish concert, and I think the only ones to notice were these old hippies... :roll:

No matter how much acid I've taken so far, if I want to pull myself together to be in a regular sort of social environment, I have always been able to do so. Often times, I won't tell my friends I took it and we'll be hanging out for a few hours, at which point I'm dying to talk to someone about what's going on, so I'll mention it. They always believe me, but never would have suspected. :d

 

[justine]

120g of shrooms? wow. that's fucking ridiulous! i know i can eat 3-4 grams and feel it. either you have SHITTY shrooms or you are superhuman man!

Some people have high tolerance to shrooms, with 3g I barely have treshold effects and my usual dose is 10g (I'm not proud of it btw, I would be glad not to have such a high tolerance).