4 ms·

Both those trip reports are very unusual for psylocibin and LSD. It looks to me that the author might have other health complications that caused the bad trips.

by siva7 4y ago

Both those trip reports are very unusual for psylocibin and LSD. It looks to me that the author might have other health complications that caused the bad trips. As a general advice one should be very careful when taking psychedelics with other prescribed medications or having a history of mental illness.

travbrack 4y ago
Or they took something that was presented as LSD but was actually something else. This sounds like the kind of nerve damage people get from taking dangerous doses of MDMA. Not saying it's MDMA specifically but it could have been something neurotoxic.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  Their experience sounded nothing like MDMA. And some small group of "lucky" people do have similar after-effects from LSD or even mushrooms (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percep... ). I have no reason to think it wasn't LSD, but there's also a decent possibility it was something else passed off as LSD, which is a fun consequence of the war on drugs.
bsuvc 4y ago
[flagged]
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Arguing like this is no good. You're demanding that we accept a random blog post over a random comment, and demanding expertise from the random comment that you're not demanding from the random blog post. The comment you're replying to is speculative. It's all right for people with some personal knowledge to speculate.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
I don’t think they’re that unusual. I think there’s a major bias on the internet toward only allowing/supporting positive stories. Negative stories attract a lot of people trying to explain it away as due to underlying mental illness or some other generic explanation (which is inevitably so generic that it could apply to any user) It seems every negative psychedelic anecdote on HN is met with commenters that are resistant to the idea that the drug could possibly be negative for someone.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > It seems every negative psychedelic anecdote on HN is met with commenters that are resistant to the idea that the drug could possibly be negative for someone. Similar trend for reports on the negative health effects of cannabis
- lagadu 4y ago
  Obviously this is purely anecdotal but I thought I'd share my experience anyway: I hear a lot more often about bad experiences on the internet than I do in real life, and in my social circles using drugs for recreation is common.
tptacek 4y ago
What is anybody supposed to do with this response? Is there a test you can take to rule out long-term negative side effects from psychedelics? If not, aren't you just rolling the dice one way or the other? Mightn't we not just act as if there's a particular mental health complication called "susceptibility to long-term negative side effects of LSD"?
- siva7 4y ago
  Based on my experience many people aren’t well informed about possible complications when taking LSD. There are certainly negative side effects possible but there is also decades of research on LSD. There is no test to rule out long-term negative side effects from psychedelics but there are safety precautions when starting with psychedelics which weren’t adhered to based on the trip reports from the original author.
- disposition2 4y ago
  I’m going to start my comment off with…if you have any reservations about taking a mind altering substance, don’t do it. Just be content in enjoying your existence substance free. :) That said, IMHO, there are many things one can do: 1. if one suffers from mental health problems, they should probably avoid any mind altering drugs (OTC, prescription or illicit) without significant guidance from a medical / mental health professional 2. speak to a mental health professional, one that is open to leveraging these types of drugs for mental health purposes 3. Assuming you passed steps 1 & 2 or are confident you don’t need to bother with them…start small and with less intensive options (i.e. if you can’t handle something like marijuana in moderate to high doses, don’t bother [without following steps 1 or 2]). And as condescending as it sounds, if you’re ready for this step, experiment in the best possible environment (and in a good headspace to deal with what is coming) with an individual(s) you trust and do so with a low dose If you enjoyed your experience after step 3, you could consider slightly increasing the dosage or type of mind altering substances while still adhering to the advice mentioned in the previous steps. Maybe the problem is people not respecting the complexity of putting such a mind altering substance in their body. One isn’t required to do it and should only do so when they know what they’re getting in to and have a good understanding of the (for lack of a better word) consequences. Also, maybe individuals who have a very positive experience should be more explicit about providing a disclaimer that what worked for them isn’t guaranteed to work for others. Edit: and to more directly respond to your comment, IMHO, using something like LSD or any mind altering drug is a bit of rolling the dice.
frereubu 4y ago
Isn't this exactly the kind of response that the blog author is calling out? I have a friend who had no history of mental illness or prescribed medications and had an absolutely horrific trip that left him very unsettled for a good few months. The issue is that responses like this deflect onto other possible causes rather than accepting that sometimes people who could never have known differently can have truly dreadful experiences. I say this as someone who has had universally positive and very meaningful experiences with psychedelics, including LSD.
- ForestCritter 4y ago
  I would agree with both you and the author. There is always a possibility of a bad reaction and that should always be taken into account. Weed combined with beer makes me black out, not pass out, walk around not behaving like myself blackout. And yet I can handle large amounts of tequila. Regular weed use makes someone else I know hyper paranoid, mean and agressive. Simply not everybody is going to react well and there is no telling who that somebody is going to be, so those that want to try it should be aware of the risks.
dathinab 4y ago
> It looks to me that the author might have other health complications that caused the bad trips. This doesn't matter and is a very misleading IMHO. Because people having some per-existing conditions they don't know about and hasn't caused anything but supper middle issues is _extremely high_. EDIT (extremely likely to have some condition, not neccessary a condition which interacts with the drug you are about to take) And the problem with psychedelics is that the chance of both you getting long term problems if you have conditions from even small doses and you not knowing about this conditions and you and people around you not understanding the risk at all is high (at least if compared to some of the legal drugs, like alcohol). Through I believe they do have high potential in health care (assuming personal being well educated about this topic()), because one one hand this setting allows reducing the number of unknown risk factors, (should be) well educated, and directly know what to do if something goes wrong. () Except that the handling of pain killers in the US can make you question if that is reliable possible.
- skjoldr 4y ago
  You mitigate that risk by going into psychotherapy and finding a therapist who is a good fit for you before trying mind-altering substances. It's fairly obvious if you think of drugs as an extremely potent medicine for issues you weren't even conscious of. Any protocol for treatment of mental disorders starts with a disclaimer that psychotherapy should be the first step unless your situation is quite unusual. Then, if it so happens that your therapist thinks that there is nothing really wrong with you and that you won't get any real benefits from continuing to attend therapeutic sessions, and if you do not have any family history of inheritable mental disorders, you can try hallucinogens. It might be that most of the stuff written about psychedelics on the Internet doesn't treat them with this amount of respect, but the responsibility for your mental health is ultimately on you, and the information about the benefits of psychotherapy and the dangers of going into a trip with an improper set is out there.
  - dathinab 4y ago
    That's why I said it has potential in health care, where it could be prescribed by a therapist who knows well about this topic and involved risks. I.e. I did not mean self-medicated health care. While there had been limitations for research on this topics because of questionable laws they now are often somewhat relaxed. So by now there are some experimental treatment studies which use psychedelics to treat depression patients which the normal health care system failed to treat. One important factor is that therapy is always the foundation/basis of such treatments while the well controlled psychedelic trip is often the _last_ step in the treatment. I forgot about the details but I think it was something along the line of being depressed long term conditioning you brain to be depressed (even if the original source is gone) and psychedelics helping you overcoming this after you already started working on de-conditioning yourself.

by siva7 4y ago

travbrack 4y ago

Or they took something that was presented as LSD but was actually something else. This sounds like the kind of nerve damage people get from taking dangerous doses of MDMA. Not saying it's MDMA specifically but it could have been something neurotoxic.

pcthrowaway 4y ago
Their experience sounded nothing like MDMA. And some small group of "lucky" people do have similar after-effects from LSD or even mushrooms (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percep... ). I have no reason to think it wasn't LSD, but there's also a decent possibility it was something else passed off as LSD, which is a fun consequence of the war on drugs.

bsuvc 4y ago

[flagged]

pessimizer 4y ago
Arguing like this is no good. You're demanding that we accept a random blog post over a random comment, and demanding expertise from the random comment that you're not demanding from the random blog post. The comment you're replying to is speculative. It's all right for people with some personal knowledge to speculate.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

I don’t think they’re that unusual. I think there’s a major bias on the internet toward only allowing/supporting positive stories. Negative stories attract a lot of people trying to explain it away as due to underlying mental illness or some other generic explanation (which is inevitably so generic that it could apply to any user) It seems every negative psychedelic anecdote on HN is met with commenters that are resistant to the idea that the drug could possibly be negative for someone.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> It seems every negative psychedelic anecdote on HN is met with commenters that are resistant to the idea that the drug could possibly be negative for someone. Similar trend for reports on the negative health effects of cannabis
lagadu 4y ago
Obviously this is purely anecdotal but I thought I'd share my experience anyway: I hear a lot more often about bad experiences on the internet than I do in real life, and in my social circles using drugs for recreation is common.

tptacek 4y ago

What is anybody supposed to do with this response? Is there a test you can take to rule out long-term negative side effects from psychedelics? If not, aren't you just rolling the dice one way or the other? Mightn't we not just act as if there's a particular mental health complication called "susceptibility to long-term negative side effects of LSD"?

siva7 4y ago
Based on my experience many people aren’t well informed about possible complications when taking LSD. There are certainly negative side effects possible but there is also decades of research on LSD. There is no test to rule out long-term negative side effects from psychedelics but there are safety precautions when starting with psychedelics which weren’t adhered to based on the trip reports from the original author.
disposition2 4y ago
I’m going to start my comment off with…if you have any reservations about taking a mind altering substance, don’t do it. Just be content in enjoying your existence substance free. :) That said, IMHO, there are many things one can do: 1. if one suffers from mental health problems, they should probably avoid any mind altering drugs (OTC, prescription or illicit) without significant guidance from a medical / mental health professional 2. speak to a mental health professional, one that is open to leveraging these types of drugs for mental health purposes 3. Assuming you passed steps 1 & 2 or are confident you don’t need to bother with them…start small and with less intensive options (i.e. if you can’t handle something like marijuana in moderate to high doses, don’t bother [without following steps 1 or 2]). And as condescending as it sounds, if you’re ready for this step, experiment in the best possible environment (and in a good headspace to deal with what is coming) with an individual(s) you trust and do so with a low dose If you enjoyed your experience after step 3, you could consider slightly increasing the dosage or type of mind altering substances while still adhering to the advice mentioned in the previous steps. Maybe the problem is people not respecting the complexity of putting such a mind altering substance in their body. One isn’t required to do it and should only do so when they know what they’re getting in to and have a good understanding of the (for lack of a better word) consequences. Also, maybe individuals who have a very positive experience should be more explicit about providing a disclaimer that what worked for them isn’t guaranteed to work for others. Edit: and to more directly respond to your comment, IMHO, using something like LSD or any mind altering drug is a bit of rolling the dice.

frereubu 4y ago

Isn't this exactly the kind of response that the blog author is calling out? I have a friend who had no history of mental illness or prescribed medications and had an absolutely horrific trip that left him very unsettled for a good few months. The issue is that responses like this deflect onto other possible causes rather than accepting that sometimes people who could never have known differently can have truly dreadful experiences. I say this as someone who has had universally positive and very meaningful experiences with psychedelics, including LSD.

ForestCritter 4y ago
I would agree with both you and the author. There is always a possibility of a bad reaction and that should always be taken into account. Weed combined with beer makes me black out, not pass out, walk around not behaving like myself blackout. And yet I can handle large amounts of tequila. Regular weed use makes someone else I know hyper paranoid, mean and agressive. Simply not everybody is going to react well and there is no telling who that somebody is going to be, so those that want to try it should be aware of the risks.

dathinab 4y ago

> It looks to me that the author might have other health complications that caused the bad trips. This doesn't matter and is a very misleading IMHO. Because people having some per-existing conditions they don't know about and hasn't caused anything but supper middle issues is _extremely high_. EDIT (extremely likely to have some condition, not neccessary a condition which interacts with the drug you are about to take) And the problem with psychedelics is that the chance of both you getting long term problems if you have conditions from even small doses and you not knowing about this conditions and you and people around you not understanding the risk at all is high (at least if compared to some of the legal drugs, like alcohol). Through I believe they do have high potential in health care (assuming personal being well educated about this topic()), because one one hand this setting allows reducing the number of unknown risk factors, (should be) well educated, and directly know what to do if something goes wrong. () Except that the handling of pain killers in the US can make you question if that is reliable possible.

skjoldr 4y ago
You mitigate that risk by going into psychotherapy and finding a therapist who is a good fit for you before trying mind-altering substances. It's fairly obvious if you think of drugs as an extremely potent medicine for issues you weren't even conscious of. Any protocol for treatment of mental disorders starts with a disclaimer that psychotherapy should be the first step unless your situation is quite unusual. Then, if it so happens that your therapist thinks that there is nothing really wrong with you and that you won't get any real benefits from continuing to attend therapeutic sessions, and if you do not have any family history of inheritable mental disorders, you can try hallucinogens. It might be that most of the stuff written about psychedelics on the Internet doesn't treat them with this amount of respect, but the responsibility for your mental health is ultimately on you, and the information about the benefits of psychotherapy and the dangers of going into a trip with an improper set is out there.
- dathinab 4y ago
  That's why I said it has potential in health care, where it could be prescribed by a therapist who knows well about this topic and involved risks. I.e. I did not mean self-medicated health care. While there had been limitations for research on this topics because of questionable laws they now are often somewhat relaxed. So by now there are some experimental treatment studies which use psychedelics to treat depression patients which the normal health care system failed to treat. One important factor is that therapy is always the foundation/basis of such treatments while the well controlled psychedelic trip is often the _last_ step in the treatment. I forgot about the details but I think it was something along the line of being depressed long term conditioning you brain to be depressed (even if the original source is gone) and psychedelics helping you overcoming this after you already started working on de-conditioning yourself.