6 ms·

The Bad Trip Detective

60 points by dnetesn 3y ago

maebert 3y ago
The description of feeling like he was "in a coma or some afterlife limbo state" sounds similar to Cotard's syndrome [1], a very rare condition that can develop from untreated schizophrenia — basically an unshakable belief that you are, in fact, dead, and every other fact of existence will have to be reframed to support that belief. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard%27s_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard%27s_syndrome
- cess11 3y ago
  To me the description looks more like a kind of lingering dissociation that, in my experience, very large doses of 5-HT2a-psychedelics can cause.
cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
I’ve never had a bad acid trip, but genuinely have zero desire to do it again in my life. I’m just not interested in it anymore. I never really was. I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed doing acid, or any other psychedelic. I say this to establish that I’m not some kind of psychedelics fanboy or anything. …all because I need to say that there are few people that have tried to justify their stupid decisions more than Evans. The general population grossly misrepresenting and simplifying snippets of “””science””” from psychology today dot com is absolutely nothing new. I’ve got no doubt that anyone that involved in any of the referenced psychedelic research would in very strong terms dissuade Evans from his subsequent interactions with psychedelics. Much less, going from acid to something more extreme. He then seemingly proceeded to devote himself to some sort of predetermined-conclusion weird activism-laden academic pursuit, based on the false narrative that the ‘new’ man is lying to us about the dangers of psychedelics. When, in reality, I doubt that anyone worth a damn would’ve condoned his actions.
- brazzy 3y ago
  > He then seemingly proceeded to devote himself to some sort of predetermined-conclusion weird activism-laden academic pursuit, based on the false narrative that the ‘new’ man is lying to us about the dangers of psychedelics. The article does not support this portrayal at all. Just read the last sentence in it. Whether or not his personal experience with psychedelics involved known-bad choices is completely irrelevant to the results of his research. Unless you have any concrete evidence for bias in the design or analysis of his surveys, it is you who's building a false narrative.
tomgp 3y ago
I think if I'd had a bad experience on acid i might not then choose my next engagement to be with one of the most profound psychadelic experiences there is half way round the world with a bunch of strangers. Perhaps start with a light dose of mushrooms at home with some friends?
- brazzy 3y ago
  Maybe read more than just the opening anecdote?
  - bfmalky 3y ago
    I think they did. Perhaps you didn't get to the bit about the Ayahuasca retreat?
    - jtbayly 3y ago
      Perhaps you didn’t make it to the hundreds of collected survey responses?
    - brazzy 3y ago
      Looks like you didn't either. That's still the opening anecdote.
throwaway2562 3y ago
Bad trip-haver here. As a youth I was a moderate enthusiast for psychedelics (back when the goal was good clean fun, ie not spiritual enlightenment, cure for depression or modern mindfulness dingaling) but trust me, friends - you do not want an event like this in your life. Not even once. I am glad there’s some pushback against the current wave of blithe and frankly under-researched psychedelics-as-panacea crowd.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  I agree, it can make your life completely hell, for years
- jajko 3y ago
  It is a mighty tool and I stand by it, but it should be done only by balanced folks, at least initially under supervision. The rest is russian roulette with your own mental health, not the smartest move even if it helped few. Maybe with professional supervision this can be managed, but I think that should be reserved only for serious cases when other treatments doesn't work / has massive side effects. Now who is balanced and who is not is a topic on its own, but I am pretty sure psychologists can cca handle this in same way they handle ie gun licenses in any sane country. Generally fucked up childhood is pretty sure indicator of massive imbalance and issues, just dig deep enough. Family history is sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Even just broken/missing father figure while rest is cca OK messes up everybody affected in negative way. And there are so many folks like these. For some reason I didn't have many of those when growing up, but I've sobered up when I moved around, ie in competitive corporate sphere there are more folks with something like that than without, and the higher you go in power pyramid the worse it gets.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    shit man now they're telling us even the fun drugs are for people who had happy rich childhoods?
    - jajko 3y ago
      I don't think money comes into play, good people do raise kids well despite lack of funds. I was raised dirt poor, in messed up communism which punished my parents for studying universities (smart = enemy of the state, very typical for russian oppressors), but they didn't put any major issue into me as a child. Another case point - a friend of mine teaches small kids of many rich & powerful people in Geneva, Switzerland. Many, in some school years most of them are broken even in young age, ie self-harm, aggressive, lazy. But daddy has 7 lambos and ferraris in the garage. Many stories like this. Good people with wealth make great parents, but so do poor good folks. As for happy part, yes definitely. Do your own stuff, its just your life and nobody else in this world actually cares enough beyond few shallow words, but risks are there and they are real. Fixing issues at source before doing the most extreme stuff with your mind is more than advisable.
giantg2 3y ago
"But amid all the scientific and cultural enthusiasm for these drugs, little attention has been paid to bad trips and their after-effects, and even less to what might alleviate them." I don't think this is really the case. Maybe the cultural component isn't paying much attention to it, but the scientific part is. These are being researched as medicines. All medicines have side effects. These aren't being recommended for everybody. Most of the studies are looking at psychedelics as a last resort and not a first line treatment. They are also investigating or using best practices when it come to proper environment and guidance during the administration.
Arn_Thor 3y ago
I’ve got a healthy respect for psychedelics after noticing lingering effects on my reality perception and mood for several days after taking some strains of marijuana. I know it can help many people, but the thought of anything stronger than weed messing with your sense of reality should demand caution at the very least
- block_dagger 3y ago
  As someone who has eaten over 100 hits of LSD before I was old enough to drive, I can say it has helped me in my life. Wonderful memories, never a bad trip. I have used cannabis daily since I was 13 as well and highly (sorry, pun) recommend it for stress relief among other positive effects. Each person is very different when it come to these substances.
  - thrawn0r 3y ago
    I think you are either an extreme outlier (not having a unpleasant trip while having taken over hundred) or delusional about your drug consumption. Your recommendation of consuming a mind-altering substance DAILY for stress relief " and other positive effects" lets me lean towards the latter. While each person is indeed different, their brains tend to work in a comparable way.
    - block_dagger 3y ago
      Do you consider caffeine and alcohol mind altering substances? I do. Perhaps you’re ascribing too much intensity to the experience of using THC daily. For many folks it’s the base level or else our minds get a little wonky. See my other comment about my OCD/counting/introvert behavior.
  - DontchaKnowit 3y ago
    Sorry but if you started such heavy drig use at such a young age you have absolutely no way of evaluating if it helped or hindered your life. You hear this type of thing from psychedelic evangelists all the time "changed my life, learned so much" etc but when asked to substantiate these claims or provide any concrete evidence of behavioural changes or otherwise positive effects, they cannot. By the way, im not a luddite. Done my fair share, but I'm honest with myself, its mostly just recreation, and dangerous recreation at that.
z5h 3y ago
“Almost half struggled with existential confusion and “derealization,” the sense that everything was unreal.” That’s existential clarity. There is no such thing as color in light. There is no scientific reason to believe in free will. Still, an awareness of this doesn’t change our experience that there are colours and we have choices. What would be interesting is to understand the mechanisms of “mild delusions” that the brain creates to allow/motivate us to function. And why this is inhibited in some people after using psychedelics.
sersi 3y ago
> “I began to suspect that I was either in a dream of my own construction or trapped in some kind of fake reality constructed by someone else,” he wrote in an essay in 2020. “Could I be in a coma or some afterlife limbo state?” I've had similar thoughts while completely sober, wondering if the world was fake and I was just dreaming it. Usually when sleep deprived, after having just finishing a novel and coming out of the novel's world. Given that I'm susceptible to this kind of thinking, I've decided to steer clear of psychedelics because I can imagine that a bad trip is a real possibility. As a student, I was offered to try Salvia Divinorum and reading reports of bad trips on erowid (one person reported feeling like he was a brick on the wall for an endless amount of time) completely dissuaded me of trying it. Anecdotally, my cousin has taken LSD repeatedly and has had psychosis episodes that she thinks might be triggered by that. She's diagnosed with Schizophrenia though and has a family history of Schizophrenia so psychedelics were probably not a great idea for her.
- sweetheart 3y ago
  > after having just finishing a novel and coming out of the novel's world. Glad I'm not the only one! It can genuinely be a pretty unnerving feeling for a little bit.
- taneq 3y ago
  I had a series of dreams like this once. Each dream would start off like any other dream, some probably-objectively-improbable starting scenario extrapolated into a sequence of events, but then at some point I'd 'figure out the trick' and become aware of some glaring flaw in my subjective reality at which point the whole dream would collapse and reset, to be replaced by some new scenario. This repeated a bunch of times during the night (I think something like six but how would you tell?) and when I woke up for real it took quite a while to be certain I was back in 'baseline' reality.
- cess11 3y ago
  "one person reported feeling like he was a brick on the wall for an endless amount of time" I interpret these kinds of experiences as a form of dissociation as well, to me it seems the perception of time dissolves under certain forms of intoxication. I've had such experiences with cannabis, ketamine, salvia and a range of 5-HT2a-active substances. Mental exercises can bring about similar experiences too, like some forms of meditation and prayer. To me personally they haven't been as unsettling as some people describe. It's an interesting phenomenon, similar to how some episodes of Star Trek manage to communicate how a character has lived a full life in half an hour stuck on some 'subtemporal' planet or so before they're rescued and brought back to the rest of the crew, one can have the experience of being a brick in a wall for eternity or having lived for centuries as a hermit in a desert cave.
sweetheart 3y ago
The author's description of dissociation resonated with me, as I experienced a solid month or so of intense dissociation when I was 17, and the only way to describe it is by saying I _knew_ I was in a dream. It was terrifying, and came and went for seemingly no reason at all. I steered clear from any mind altering substances for about 10 years, as my relationship with my own mind felt permanently unsettled. Years later, though, after lots of therapy and educating myself, I came to learn that the dissociation is often a protective measure that the mind takes to handle incredible stress. It's so counter-intuitive; my subconscious mind is trying to protect me from something my conscious mind knows nothing about by sticking me into a terrifying dream state for a month? Thanks, I guess? I still haven't tried psychedelics yet, but I plan to now that I understand far more about my mind, and I've realized that what I was fearful of was my anxiety, and my mind has been trying to help me through that since day one. I say all this because the negative experiences discussed in this article sound like things I experienced without any drugs, as they were the result of unaddressed mental health issues that needed therapy and tender care.
- ganzuul 3y ago
  These drugs are similar to intense concentration meditation. You might want to familiarize yourself with relaxation meditation beforehand.
jtr1 3y ago
It seems obvious to me that anyone supportive of psychedelic treatment should be supportive of this kind of investigation. It does no one any good to suppress or ignore stories of negative experiences with psychedelics. On the contrary, research like this can help develop better screening protocols or follow up treatment to help minimize these effects, or even treat people who are suffering long term negative impact from a difficult trip.
- kiliantics 3y ago
  While better understanding is certainly useful, the framing does seem a little unfair to me. It's not like other treatments don't have their downsides. Most people will tell you they don't like seeing the dentist but few would say it's not worth it. I've had bad trips on psychedelics and I actually think they tended to be some of the more beneficial ones for me in the long run.
  - jtgverde 3y ago
    Seems unfair to compare a "bad trip to the dentist" to a person experiencing severe psychological effects liking being unable to make human connections and feelings of loneliness for 30 years Many of these experiences seem to have drastically impacted peoples lives in a very negative way. Much worse than a toothache!
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - itishappy 3y ago
      What does it mean to have a "bad trip to the dentist"? A dentist can also cause decades of discomfort, but most trips (both drugs and dentists) turn out great!
- amarant 3y ago
  I agree! I also think it would make sense for people not supportive of psychedelic treatments to be interested in this, for various reasons, including what you said, and also as an educational tool too teach kids so they don't try it illegally, which seems to be a major concern among those not supportive of this kind of research. Full disclosure: I live in Sweden,a country famous among other things for it's Draconian stance on drugs, and I'm less than amused by the propaganda that passes for narcotics education here.
denton-scratch 3y ago
> Almost half struggled with existential confusion and “derealization,” the sense that everything was unreal. For me, the main transformative of taking acid recreationally was that the world came to seem less solid, reliable and "real". To be clear, I regarded that as a positive outcome. A Buddhist teacher once explained to me that one of the expected effects of certain kinds of meditation was a growing sense that the world is insubstantial, as if it were made of tissue-paper that you could stick your finger through. I find that sort of view helpful; a world made of tissue-paper isn't "heavy" and oppressive. Anything can be changed. And in fact, that solid, reliable world isn't real; the real world is very different from the world presented to us by our senses. So this guy didn't find that insight helpful at all. Some people find it very hard to cope with. I'm not sure that the Galapagos Islands is the ideal place to sleep-off a bad trip! I'm inclined to agree with Evans that Leary's "set and setting" doctrine is far from a complete protection against bad trips. We used to attribute them to "bad acid", but that was bullshit; I just don't know what precipitates a bad trip.
- Disruptive_Dave 3y ago
  > Anything can be changed. Take that a step further; everything is change, quite literally.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    Lauren Olamina is that u
    - comboy 3y ago
      Full quote for those unfamiliar because it's so good: "All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change."
- cooldrcool1 3y ago
  I don't think you should assume what you experienced is the same thing that the author experienced. I have had both good and bad trips, ones that are like you described that lead me to imagine a world of possibilities after the trip and other ones that left me depersonalized. They definitely were not the same effect.
mtalantikite 3y ago
> “I began to suspect that I was either in a dream of my own construction or trapped in some kind of fake reality constructed by someone else,” he wrote in an essay in 2020. “Could I be in a coma or some afterlife limbo state?” ... “This isn’t real,” he thought to himself. “How do I wake up?” Any Buddhist practitioner would tell you this is sort of what you're going for in your practice. Buddha literally means "one who has awakened". Many practices ask you to consider reality as a dream, like Lojong in some lineages of the Vajrayana tradition [1], and to look at the impermanence of all things -- especially what we call 'self' -- as part of the path towards awakening. There's a reason why lots of the Buddhist lineages are set up to gradually introduce you to these things and wouldn't just throw you into the most esoteric parts of the practice right at the beginning. If you don't have the foundations for it I can imagine getting out of an intense psychedelic experience more confused than when you went in. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong
cat_plus_plus 3y ago
Yeah and mainstream antidepressant/anti-anxiety drugs also cause these effects and these persist long term after quitting. I also know someone who goes from raving lunatic to functional on proper meds and right back to raving lunatic if she stops taking them. So not saying don't use, but use only if your problem is serious and can't be improved with lifestyle adjustments. In particular, don't use psychiatric meds to cover up problems of your relationship partner who is giving you stress and poor self esteem. Some women in particular love to think you are the one who needs to be fixed.
PopAlongKid 3y ago
Reminded me of this recent news item: "The pilot who attempted to shut fuel off to the engines of an Alaska Airlines jet [in November 2023] after ingesting magic mushrooms has said that he had no intention of hurting anyone – but was trying to come out of a hallucinogenic state. “I thought it would stop both engines, the plane would start to head towards a crash, and I would wake up,”"[0] [0]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/10/alaska-airlines-pilot-engine-psychedelic-mushrooms https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/10/alaska-airli...
cainxinth 3y ago
I personally love the experience of so-called ego death ("complete loss of subjective self-identity") from psychedelics, but I can understand why other people don't. The brain filters reality in a highly organized and optimized manner. It takes all our sensory input and fuses it into a remarkably stable, though inherently subjective reality. Psychedelics attenuate the filter. Suddenly, things aren't so organized or stable. That can be very scary to some people and thrillingly fun for others. Add to that, deep-seated emotions and repressed memories, which can bubble up without warning when you lose control, and things get even more fraught.
- ganzuul 3y ago
  Ego can be balanced toward the collective or the individual. For a collectivist ego death would be something very different from what an individualist would experience.
aaroninsf 3y ago
Evan needs some education in set, setting, intention, etc. This sounds like exactly what happens if your relationship to other mind states is extremely limited. Would you get super drunk in a club while traveling and expect good results? This is like using power tools without instruction or supervision.
mitchbob 3y ago
https://archive.ph/2024.04.17-104015/https://nautil.us/the-bad-trip-detective-544328/ https://archive.ph/2024.04.17-104015/https://nautil.us/the-b...

60 points by dnetesn 3y ago

The description of feeling like he was "in a coma or some afterlife limbo state" sounds similar to Cotard's syndrome [1], a very rare condition that can develop from untreated schizophrenia — basically an unshakable belief that you are, in fact, dead, and every other fact of existence will have to be reframed to support that belief. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard%27s_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard%27s_syndrome

cess11 3y ago
To me the description looks more like a kind of lingering dissociation that, in my experience, very large doses of 5-HT2a-psychedelics can cause.

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago

I’ve never had a bad acid trip, but genuinely have zero desire to do it again in my life. I’m just not interested in it anymore. I never really was. I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed doing acid, or any other psychedelic. I say this to establish that I’m not some kind of psychedelics fanboy or anything. …all because I need to say that there are few people that have tried to justify their stupid decisions more than Evans. The general population grossly misrepresenting and simplifying snippets of “””science””” from psychology today dot com is absolutely nothing new. I’ve got no doubt that anyone that involved in any of the referenced psychedelic research would in very strong terms dissuade Evans from his subsequent interactions with psychedelics. Much less, going from acid to something more extreme. He then seemingly proceeded to devote himself to some sort of predetermined-conclusion weird activism-laden academic pursuit, based on the false narrative that the ‘new’ man is lying to us about the dangers of psychedelics. When, in reality, I doubt that anyone worth a damn would’ve condoned his actions.

brazzy 3y ago
> He then seemingly proceeded to devote himself to some sort of predetermined-conclusion weird activism-laden academic pursuit, based on the false narrative that the ‘new’ man is lying to us about the dangers of psychedelics. The article does not support this portrayal at all. Just read the last sentence in it. Whether or not his personal experience with psychedelics involved known-bad choices is completely irrelevant to the results of his research. Unless you have any concrete evidence for bias in the design or analysis of his surveys, it is you who's building a false narrative.

tomgp 3y ago

I think if I'd had a bad experience on acid i might not then choose my next engagement to be with one of the most profound psychadelic experiences there is half way round the world with a bunch of strangers. Perhaps start with a light dose of mushrooms at home with some friends?

brazzy 3y ago
Maybe read more than just the opening anecdote?
- bfmalky 3y ago
  I think they did. Perhaps you didn't get to the bit about the Ayahuasca retreat?
  - jtbayly 3y ago
    Perhaps you didn’t make it to the hundreds of collected survey responses?
  - brazzy 3y ago
    Looks like you didn't either. That's still the opening anecdote.

throwaway2562 3y ago

Bad trip-haver here. As a youth I was a moderate enthusiast for psychedelics (back when the goal was good clean fun, ie not spiritual enlightenment, cure for depression or modern mindfulness dingaling) but trust me, friends - you do not want an event like this in your life. Not even once. I am glad there’s some pushback against the current wave of blithe and frankly under-researched psychedelics-as-panacea crowd.

bowsamic 3y ago
I agree, it can make your life completely hell, for years
jajko 3y ago
It is a mighty tool and I stand by it, but it should be done only by balanced folks, at least initially under supervision. The rest is russian roulette with your own mental health, not the smartest move even if it helped few. Maybe with professional supervision this can be managed, but I think that should be reserved only for serious cases when other treatments doesn't work / has massive side effects. Now who is balanced and who is not is a topic on its own, but I am pretty sure psychologists can cca handle this in same way they handle ie gun licenses in any sane country. Generally fucked up childhood is pretty sure indicator of massive imbalance and issues, just dig deep enough. Family history is sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Even just broken/missing father figure while rest is cca OK messes up everybody affected in negative way. And there are so many folks like these. For some reason I didn't have many of those when growing up, but I've sobered up when I moved around, ie in competitive corporate sphere there are more folks with something like that than without, and the higher you go in power pyramid the worse it gets.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  shit man now they're telling us even the fun drugs are for people who had happy rich childhoods?
  - jajko 3y ago
    I don't think money comes into play, good people do raise kids well despite lack of funds. I was raised dirt poor, in messed up communism which punished my parents for studying universities (smart = enemy of the state, very typical for russian oppressors), but they didn't put any major issue into me as a child. Another case point - a friend of mine teaches small kids of many rich & powerful people in Geneva, Switzerland. Many, in some school years most of them are broken even in young age, ie self-harm, aggressive, lazy. But daddy has 7 lambos and ferraris in the garage. Many stories like this. Good people with wealth make great parents, but so do poor good folks. As for happy part, yes definitely. Do your own stuff, its just your life and nobody else in this world actually cares enough beyond few shallow words, but risks are there and they are real. Fixing issues at source before doing the most extreme stuff with your mind is more than advisable.

giantg2 3y ago

"But amid all the scientific and cultural enthusiasm for these drugs, little attention has been paid to bad trips and their after-effects, and even less to what might alleviate them." I don't think this is really the case. Maybe the cultural component isn't paying much attention to it, but the scientific part is. These are being researched as medicines. All medicines have side effects. These aren't being recommended for everybody. Most of the studies are looking at psychedelics as a last resort and not a first line treatment. They are also investigating or using best practices when it come to proper environment and guidance during the administration.

Arn_Thor 3y ago

I’ve got a healthy respect for psychedelics after noticing lingering effects on my reality perception and mood for several days after taking some strains of marijuana. I know it can help many people, but the thought of anything stronger than weed messing with your sense of reality should demand caution at the very least

block_dagger 3y ago
As someone who has eaten over 100 hits of LSD before I was old enough to drive, I can say it has helped me in my life. Wonderful memories, never a bad trip. I have used cannabis daily since I was 13 as well and highly (sorry, pun) recommend it for stress relief among other positive effects. Each person is very different when it come to these substances.
- thrawn0r 3y ago
  I think you are either an extreme outlier (not having a unpleasant trip while having taken over hundred) or delusional about your drug consumption. Your recommendation of consuming a mind-altering substance DAILY for stress relief " and other positive effects" lets me lean towards the latter. While each person is indeed different, their brains tend to work in a comparable way.
  - block_dagger 3y ago
    Do you consider caffeine and alcohol mind altering substances? I do. Perhaps you’re ascribing too much intensity to the experience of using THC daily. For many folks it’s the base level or else our minds get a little wonky. See my other comment about my OCD/counting/introvert behavior.
- DontchaKnowit 3y ago
  Sorry but if you started such heavy drig use at such a young age you have absolutely no way of evaluating if it helped or hindered your life. You hear this type of thing from psychedelic evangelists all the time "changed my life, learned so much" etc but when asked to substantiate these claims or provide any concrete evidence of behavioural changes or otherwise positive effects, they cannot. By the way, im not a luddite. Done my fair share, but I'm honest with myself, its mostly just recreation, and dangerous recreation at that.

z5h 3y ago

“Almost half struggled with existential confusion and “derealization,” the sense that everything was unreal.” That’s existential clarity. There is no such thing as color in light. There is no scientific reason to believe in free will. Still, an awareness of this doesn’t change our experience that there are colours and we have choices. What would be interesting is to understand the mechanisms of “mild delusions” that the brain creates to allow/motivate us to function. And why this is inhibited in some people after using psychedelics.

sersi 3y ago

> “I began to suspect that I was either in a dream of my own construction or trapped in some kind of fake reality constructed by someone else,” he wrote in an essay in 2020. “Could I be in a coma or some afterlife limbo state?” I've had similar thoughts while completely sober, wondering if the world was fake and I was just dreaming it. Usually when sleep deprived, after having just finishing a novel and coming out of the novel's world. Given that I'm susceptible to this kind of thinking, I've decided to steer clear of psychedelics because I can imagine that a bad trip is a real possibility. As a student, I was offered to try Salvia Divinorum and reading reports of bad trips on erowid (one person reported feeling like he was a brick on the wall for an endless amount of time) completely dissuaded me of trying it. Anecdotally, my cousin has taken LSD repeatedly and has had psychosis episodes that she thinks might be triggered by that. She's diagnosed with Schizophrenia though and has a family history of Schizophrenia so psychedelics were probably not a great idea for her.

sweetheart 3y ago
> after having just finishing a novel and coming out of the novel's world. Glad I'm not the only one! It can genuinely be a pretty unnerving feeling for a little bit.
taneq 3y ago
I had a series of dreams like this once. Each dream would start off like any other dream, some probably-objectively-improbable starting scenario extrapolated into a sequence of events, but then at some point I'd 'figure out the trick' and become aware of some glaring flaw in my subjective reality at which point the whole dream would collapse and reset, to be replaced by some new scenario. This repeated a bunch of times during the night (I think something like six but how would you tell?) and when I woke up for real it took quite a while to be certain I was back in 'baseline' reality.
cess11 3y ago
"one person reported feeling like he was a brick on the wall for an endless amount of time" I interpret these kinds of experiences as a form of dissociation as well, to me it seems the perception of time dissolves under certain forms of intoxication. I've had such experiences with cannabis, ketamine, salvia and a range of 5-HT2a-active substances. Mental exercises can bring about similar experiences too, like some forms of meditation and prayer. To me personally they haven't been as unsettling as some people describe. It's an interesting phenomenon, similar to how some episodes of Star Trek manage to communicate how a character has lived a full life in half an hour stuck on some 'subtemporal' planet or so before they're rescued and brought back to the rest of the crew, one can have the experience of being a brick in a wall for eternity or having lived for centuries as a hermit in a desert cave.

sweetheart 3y ago

The author's description of dissociation resonated with me, as I experienced a solid month or so of intense dissociation when I was 17, and the only way to describe it is by saying I _knew_ I was in a dream. It was terrifying, and came and went for seemingly no reason at all. I steered clear from any mind altering substances for about 10 years, as my relationship with my own mind felt permanently unsettled. Years later, though, after lots of therapy and educating myself, I came to learn that the dissociation is often a protective measure that the mind takes to handle incredible stress. It's so counter-intuitive; my subconscious mind is trying to protect me from something my conscious mind knows nothing about by sticking me into a terrifying dream state for a month? Thanks, I guess? I still haven't tried psychedelics yet, but I plan to now that I understand far more about my mind, and I've realized that what I was fearful of was my anxiety, and my mind has been trying to help me through that since day one. I say all this because the negative experiences discussed in this article sound like things I experienced without any drugs, as they were the result of unaddressed mental health issues that needed therapy and tender care.

ganzuul 3y ago
These drugs are similar to intense concentration meditation. You might want to familiarize yourself with relaxation meditation beforehand.

jtr1 3y ago

It seems obvious to me that anyone supportive of psychedelic treatment should be supportive of this kind of investigation. It does no one any good to suppress or ignore stories of negative experiences with psychedelics. On the contrary, research like this can help develop better screening protocols or follow up treatment to help minimize these effects, or even treat people who are suffering long term negative impact from a difficult trip.

kiliantics 3y ago
While better understanding is certainly useful, the framing does seem a little unfair to me. It's not like other treatments don't have their downsides. Most people will tell you they don't like seeing the dentist but few would say it's not worth it. I've had bad trips on psychedelics and I actually think they tended to be some of the more beneficial ones for me in the long run.
- jtgverde 3y ago
  Seems unfair to compare a "bad trip to the dentist" to a person experiencing severe psychological effects liking being unable to make human connections and feelings of loneliness for 30 years Many of these experiences seem to have drastically impacted peoples lives in a very negative way. Much worse than a toothache!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - itishappy 3y ago
    What does it mean to have a "bad trip to the dentist"? A dentist can also cause decades of discomfort, but most trips (both drugs and dentists) turn out great!
amarant 3y ago
I agree! I also think it would make sense for people not supportive of psychedelic treatments to be interested in this, for various reasons, including what you said, and also as an educational tool too teach kids so they don't try it illegally, which seems to be a major concern among those not supportive of this kind of research. Full disclosure: I live in Sweden,a country famous among other things for it's Draconian stance on drugs, and I'm less than amused by the propaganda that passes for narcotics education here.

denton-scratch 3y ago

> Almost half struggled with existential confusion and “derealization,” the sense that everything was unreal. For me, the main transformative of taking acid recreationally was that the world came to seem less solid, reliable and "real". To be clear, I regarded that as a positive outcome. A Buddhist teacher once explained to me that one of the expected effects of certain kinds of meditation was a growing sense that the world is insubstantial, as if it were made of tissue-paper that you could stick your finger through. I find that sort of view helpful; a world made of tissue-paper isn't "heavy" and oppressive. Anything can be changed. And in fact, that solid, reliable world isn't real; the real world is very different from the world presented to us by our senses. So this guy didn't find that insight helpful at all. Some people find it very hard to cope with. I'm not sure that the Galapagos Islands is the ideal place to sleep-off a bad trip! I'm inclined to agree with Evans that Leary's "set and setting" doctrine is far from a complete protection against bad trips. We used to attribute them to "bad acid", but that was bullshit; I just don't know what precipitates a bad trip.

Disruptive_Dave 3y ago
> Anything can be changed. Take that a step further; everything is change, quite literally.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Lauren Olamina is that u
  - comboy 3y ago
    Full quote for those unfamiliar because it's so good: "All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change."
cooldrcool1 3y ago
I don't think you should assume what you experienced is the same thing that the author experienced. I have had both good and bad trips, ones that are like you described that lead me to imagine a world of possibilities after the trip and other ones that left me depersonalized. They definitely were not the same effect.

mtalantikite 3y ago

> “I began to suspect that I was either in a dream of my own construction or trapped in some kind of fake reality constructed by someone else,” he wrote in an essay in 2020. “Could I be in a coma or some afterlife limbo state?” ... “This isn’t real,” he thought to himself. “How do I wake up?” Any Buddhist practitioner would tell you this is sort of what you're going for in your practice. Buddha literally means "one who has awakened". Many practices ask you to consider reality as a dream, like Lojong in some lineages of the Vajrayana tradition [1], and to look at the impermanence of all things -- especially what we call 'self' -- as part of the path towards awakening. There's a reason why lots of the Buddhist lineages are set up to gradually introduce you to these things and wouldn't just throw you into the most esoteric parts of the practice right at the beginning. If you don't have the foundations for it I can imagine getting out of an intense psychedelic experience more confused than when you went in. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong

cat_plus_plus 3y ago

Yeah and mainstream antidepressant/anti-anxiety drugs also cause these effects and these persist long term after quitting. I also know someone who goes from raving lunatic to functional on proper meds and right back to raving lunatic if she stops taking them. So not saying don't use, but use only if your problem is serious and can't be improved with lifestyle adjustments. In particular, don't use psychiatric meds to cover up problems of your relationship partner who is giving you stress and poor self esteem. Some women in particular love to think you are the one who needs to be fixed.

PopAlongKid 3y ago

Reminded me of this recent news item: "The pilot who attempted to shut fuel off to the engines of an Alaska Airlines jet [in November 2023] after ingesting magic mushrooms has said that he had no intention of hurting anyone – but was trying to come out of a hallucinogenic state. “I thought it would stop both engines, the plane would start to head towards a crash, and I would wake up,”"[0] [0]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/10/alaska-airlines-pilot-engine-psychedelic-mushrooms https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/10/alaska-airli...

cainxinth 3y ago

I personally love the experience of so-called ego death ("complete loss of subjective self-identity") from psychedelics, but I can understand why other people don't. The brain filters reality in a highly organized and optimized manner. It takes all our sensory input and fuses it into a remarkably stable, though inherently subjective reality. Psychedelics attenuate the filter. Suddenly, things aren't so organized or stable. That can be very scary to some people and thrillingly fun for others. Add to that, deep-seated emotions and repressed memories, which can bubble up without warning when you lose control, and things get even more fraught.

ganzuul 3y ago
Ego can be balanced toward the collective or the individual. For a collectivist ego death would be something very different from what an individualist would experience.

aaroninsf 3y ago

Evan needs some education in set, setting, intention, etc. This sounds like exactly what happens if your relationship to other mind states is extremely limited. Would you get super drunk in a club while traveling and expect good results? This is like using power tools without instruction or supervision.

mitchbob 3y ago

https://archive.ph/2024.04.17-104015/https://nautil.us/the-bad-trip-detective-544328/ https://archive.ph/2024.04.17-104015/https://nautil.us/the-b...