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Indeed. As someone that likely has more experience as a psychonaut than anyone that reads this thread, I would never ever recommend someone dip their toe into

Indeed. As someone that likely has more experience as a psychonaut than anyone that reads this thread, I would never ever recommend someone dip their toe into the waters of psychotropics and to be honest I wish I'd never have dabbled with them for the several years that I did. Being introduced to them in high school and continue that on into my early 20's is something I absolutely wish I could undo. People like to go "I microdosed and had a great day of work!" or "man I did some acid/shrooms/dmt and felt connected to everything, my depression is gone!" Not so much the bad experiences though. In 'another life' I did lots of things... LSD, DMT, MDMA, some synthetic tryptamines that not a lot of people have used, mushrooms, salvinorian a extracts... Was I Santa once on a heroic dose of LSD? Sure and it was awesome, I was also a dragon on some alien planet in that trip, I was gouging bedrock with my talons and it felt so real and satisfying. Cool, right? Did I have some alien head with octopus tentacles for a beard fondle my face and make me laugh and feel loved while on DMT? Sure. Did I feel music on a subatomic level and taste electric happiness while on mushrooms, you bet. Did I have tons of good times just hanging out with friends while we were on this or that while camping/floating down a creek or river, listening to music, hiking, hanging out at the mall, sure. I also had some really, really, really terrible experiences back then. Did I see my putrid, bloated, corpse that had massive bruising around it's neck staring back at me in the mirror on a DMT trip and manage to get up and stumble to the toilet and force myself to vomit because "I had to get death out of me" to the point of managing to throw up a baseball sized lump of bile trying to get death out of me because I wanted to still be alive. You bed. Did I get stuck in a glitching 8-bit video game loop for what felt like the better part of a year while on a salvia trip one time, pleading to God that if he made it stop I'd never do anything harder than caffeine again as long as I lived only to come out of the trip and be told by my friend it had been less than 10 minutes. Oh yeah. Did I have multiple experiences on DMT where I was a corpse in a morgue drawer, in a crematorium oven, with the feeling that I'd totally screwed up and it was my fault I was dead. Yes. Did I have multiple experiences coming up on DMT hit hard out of proper glass where I 100% believed that I'd screwed up, that by inhaling I'd done something so incredibly wrong and I now had to suffer the consequences. That something knew I'd broken some rule and that I now had to live in 'reality' and that my prior existence had been a complete lie and I ruined it and it would never come back and everything and everyone i knew was gone and I was now fully awake in some horrible existence where malevolent entities reigned supreme and were quite unhappy with me. Oh hell yeah. Did I watch a Star Wars film on 'penis envy' mushrooms once, watching an entire planet being destroyed, and know 100% that I was on that planet and was witnessing my own death and feel such pain and sadness like nothing I've ever felt in my entire life before or since. Yup. Did I do DMT and salvinorin a on various occasions and have 'machine elves' tell me to kill myself so I could stay. Demand that I kill myself so they might share with me while my brain screamed "they're lying, they're lying, get out of here, snap out of it, they're lying to you, get out of the trip". Yyyyup. Did I forget how to talk, lose the ability to even form words in my head/have an internal dialogue, for 10~ minutes on a very mild DMT dose once while showing someone how to hit the glass for their first experience, becoming quite scared at one point that it wasn't going to ware off and I'd seriously screwed up and caused brain damage? Yes, not something I'd ever want to happen again. There's a reason I long since stopped doing these sorts of things. They can do far more harm than they can good. Will they someday have valid medical applications that are effective and pleasant more oft than not? Maybe. Should we absolutely research them in very controlled clinical settings, sure! Should people be randomly conducting self-experimentation in non-clinical settings without the ability to be sedated if stuff goes sideways and without trained individuals that can calm and control the situation and even restrain them if need be? No. Not at all. Not even microdosing because we have no idea what mid to long term consequences are.

Trasmatta 7y ago
Wow, what a fascinating (and terrifying) list of experiences. People like to say that bad trips are uncommon, but I see so, so many reports of them online. Maybe that's because the only real numbers we have are in controlled clinical settings, where the bad trips are going to be obviously be less frequent, due to the precautions and guard rails in place. And even if they are uncommon, somebody else in this thread made the good point that the mind's capacity for suffering appears to be so much greater than its capacity for happiness or pleasure. I don't know if this is actually scientifically true, but it sure feels that way. Out of curiosity, would you say your most positive, beautiful experience was anywhere near as powerful as your most negative, terrifying experience? Out of curiosity, you said you stopped a long time ago -- do you happen to suffer any long term negative side effects? Anxiety, PTSD, DP/DR, etc? I'm about a month past the trip that blew my mind to pieces and I'm still suffering with some residual fear and anxiety, and hoping it'll continue to pass with time. (Before anybody says it, yes, I'm considering therapy. And also yes, I realize everybody's experiences are going to be completely different, some people would get over a terrible trip in a week, and some people may never be able to completely recover.)
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  >Out of curiosity, you said you stopped a long time ago -- do you happen to suffer any long term negative side effects? No not really, aside from the memories of some of the bad experiences. Sometimes I'll be looking in the mirror shaving my neck, washing my hands, whatever and I'll remember seeing this bloated, mottled skin version of myself with deep bruising around my neck and remember being at the toilet on my knees forcing myself to 'throw death up' but it's not traumatic or anything. Sometimes when I lie down in bed my brain will go to one of those DMT trips where I was in a morgue drawer type deal. A lot of DMT experiences were while in bed so even when I wasn't in a crematorium oven/morgue drawer I'd often experience myself going into some sort of compartment not unlike those or even like an MRI head first and then I'd go to what people usually describe as the 'waiting room' where there would be weird alienish faces/entities so that'll probably always be a thing occasionally when i get in bed. It doesn't scare me or disturb me or anything though, just reminds me of it. Mostly I'll just remember effects or events from random trips while going about my life, nothing like a 'flashback' just kinda like how you'll smell something and it'll trigger a childhood memory or you'll see something and start thinking about an ex or something. I'll see a spider and maybe one out of twenty times I'll 'remeber' the 'time I was a giant spider in the corner of the room' because as I was coming up on a trip I was getting some water from the sink and there was an orb weaver outside of the kitchen window making its web so then when I was peaking I thought I was a huge spider hanging out in the corner of the ceiling for a while. Sometimes I'll miss the visuals and I'll go watch some HD mandelbrot zoom. >? I'm about a month past the trip that blew my mind to pieces and I'm still suffering with some residual fear and anxiety, So when I mentioned the 8-bit video game loop salvia trip, that did stay with me for the better part of a year. I didn't want to do any other drugs, I didn't want to drink, I didn't want to watch anything animated or computer generated including playing video games, but it eventually just worked itself out. Time will likely help considerably but talking about it will help. I did suffer PTSD when I experienced hypokalemia so severe I woke up effectively paralyzed [1] and required hospitalization. Once I was released I couldn't sleep, I couldn't even sit for more than a few minutes before I'd start getting panicky and have to get up and move. I was drinking close to a fifth most nights to try and relax enough to get to sleep because as soon as I'd start to relax my brain would panic and think "it's happening again!" and flood my system with adrenaline, cortisol, etc. Eventually I dealt with that by modulating the cortisol with 'large' doses of inositol and phosphatidylserine and by talking about it to myself. I'd have to tell myself it's fine, you can move, just relax while sitting. Then in bed I'd have to joke about it to myself leading up into bed, try and find humor in the few hours I was awake and couldn't move like the dog coming in and sniffing me as I shouted for help and then walking away like "I don't care about him!" until I could just make being still not immediately make me panic. That took the better part of 2 years to get my panic episodes down to less than once every few months. I had sleep paralysis last year and it only panicked me for a few seconds after I could move again so I'd say I was successful at fixing that. Seeing a professional probably would have been a lot faster though but I'm not one to ask for, or willingly receive, help. If it's really bothering you, I'd talk to someone because I think it would probably help. Either a friend or a professional. Fear is something that's easier to deal with if you talk about it in my experience. [1] https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2013/2/19/flashback-to-the-hypokalemic-episode.html https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2013/2/19/flashback...

Trasmatta 7y ago

Wow, what a fascinating (and terrifying) list of experiences. People like to say that bad trips are uncommon, but I see so, so many reports of them online. Maybe that's because the only real numbers we have are in controlled clinical settings, where the bad trips are going to be obviously be less frequent, due to the precautions and guard rails in place. And even if they are uncommon, somebody else in this thread made the good point that the mind's capacity for suffering appears to be so much greater than its capacity for happiness or pleasure. I don't know if this is actually scientifically true, but it sure feels that way. Out of curiosity, would you say your most positive, beautiful experience was anywhere near as powerful as your most negative, terrifying experience? Out of curiosity, you said you stopped a long time ago -- do you happen to suffer any long term negative side effects? Anxiety, PTSD, DP/DR, etc? I'm about a month past the trip that blew my mind to pieces and I'm still suffering with some residual fear and anxiety, and hoping it'll continue to pass with time. (Before anybody says it, yes, I'm considering therapy. And also yes, I realize everybody's experiences are going to be completely different, some people would get over a terrible trip in a week, and some people may never be able to completely recover.)

ryanmercer 7y ago
>Out of curiosity, you said you stopped a long time ago -- do you happen to suffer any long term negative side effects? No not really, aside from the memories of some of the bad experiences. Sometimes I'll be looking in the mirror shaving my neck, washing my hands, whatever and I'll remember seeing this bloated, mottled skin version of myself with deep bruising around my neck and remember being at the toilet on my knees forcing myself to 'throw death up' but it's not traumatic or anything. Sometimes when I lie down in bed my brain will go to one of those DMT trips where I was in a morgue drawer type deal. A lot of DMT experiences were while in bed so even when I wasn't in a crematorium oven/morgue drawer I'd often experience myself going into some sort of compartment not unlike those or even like an MRI head first and then I'd go to what people usually describe as the 'waiting room' where there would be weird alienish faces/entities so that'll probably always be a thing occasionally when i get in bed. It doesn't scare me or disturb me or anything though, just reminds me of it. Mostly I'll just remember effects or events from random trips while going about my life, nothing like a 'flashback' just kinda like how you'll smell something and it'll trigger a childhood memory or you'll see something and start thinking about an ex or something. I'll see a spider and maybe one out of twenty times I'll 'remeber' the 'time I was a giant spider in the corner of the room' because as I was coming up on a trip I was getting some water from the sink and there was an orb weaver outside of the kitchen window making its web so then when I was peaking I thought I was a huge spider hanging out in the corner of the ceiling for a while. Sometimes I'll miss the visuals and I'll go watch some HD mandelbrot zoom. >? I'm about a month past the trip that blew my mind to pieces and I'm still suffering with some residual fear and anxiety, So when I mentioned the 8-bit video game loop salvia trip, that did stay with me for the better part of a year. I didn't want to do any other drugs, I didn't want to drink, I didn't want to watch anything animated or computer generated including playing video games, but it eventually just worked itself out. Time will likely help considerably but talking about it will help. I did suffer PTSD when I experienced hypokalemia so severe I woke up effectively paralyzed [1] and required hospitalization. Once I was released I couldn't sleep, I couldn't even sit for more than a few minutes before I'd start getting panicky and have to get up and move. I was drinking close to a fifth most nights to try and relax enough to get to sleep because as soon as I'd start to relax my brain would panic and think "it's happening again!" and flood my system with adrenaline, cortisol, etc. Eventually I dealt with that by modulating the cortisol with 'large' doses of inositol and phosphatidylserine and by talking about it to myself. I'd have to tell myself it's fine, you can move, just relax while sitting. Then in bed I'd have to joke about it to myself leading up into bed, try and find humor in the few hours I was awake and couldn't move like the dog coming in and sniffing me as I shouted for help and then walking away like "I don't care about him!" until I could just make being still not immediately make me panic. That took the better part of 2 years to get my panic episodes down to less than once every few months. I had sleep paralysis last year and it only panicked me for a few seconds after I could move again so I'd say I was successful at fixing that. Seeing a professional probably would have been a lot faster though but I'm not one to ask for, or willingly receive, help. If it's really bothering you, I'd talk to someone because I think it would probably help. Either a friend or a professional. Fear is something that's easier to deal with if you talk about it in my experience. [1] https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2013/2/19/flashback-to-the-hypokalemic-episode.html https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2013/2/19/flashback...