Marijuana never caused me any panic, but at the end of the trip, I was barely feeling anything and smoked a joint, what happened next was frightening. I felt an ache at my heart and considered calling the hospital for several hours, but was scared because of intoxication. I could not relax and sit at one place, there was darkening in my eyes, and peripheral vision was gone, and LSD made the feeling of fear massively intense. It felt as if my heart was going to stop just because I was thinking so much that I was dying.

I can only name what helped me then: I started walking short distances telling myself that if I manage to go from point A to point B then I'm fine and it's just a bad drug tripped. It helped, also tasting various flavours and hearing sounds from outside the street helped me focus my attention on something else. After a few hours of walking/tasting/hearing, I noticed my heart pace slowing down and the realisation that I wasn't in any real danger followed next. A terrible feeling that I will never forget. The bad trip lasted about 6 hours, and for the next few days, I felt a sharp pain in my chest.

read this before trying again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting

My personal rules for any LSD trip are: be in the company of others you feel comfortable being sober with (as in no drugs, not even weed or alcohol), be in a safe place or near a safe place you can get back to without much issue if things get overwhelming, relaxing music, lots of fresh fruit on hand. Oh, and make sure anyone you're with is not on any sort of anti-depressant. I've seen some bad mixes with SSRIs and psychedelics (primarily DMT).

You should be ready to go introspective during your trip. If things get overwhelming, lay down, focus on your breath, and remember you're tripping and that you will sober up in a few hours. Let yourself cry if you need to. The worst experiences come when you try to fight it.

These candy flipping practices seem like a great way to die!

However, every time I read about studies into psychedelics, I only ever hear about the upsides and not the potential downsides. I went through a similar experience to you - although not as severe. I had anxiety for about 3 years after my bad trip which luckily gradually reduced over time.

What worries me is that the more these drugs gain credibility in the medical field the more likely it is that depressed kids are going to self-medicate and given the ability of these drugs to multiply the user's existing anxieties, they should be the last people who should be experimenting and self-medicating with them.

Not just this, but they surround the sessions with intense therapy.

They're not just giving people psychedelics and keeping them calm. Look up the MAPS (a foundation for psychedelic research) protocol. People are given a series of intense therapy sessions, only some of which involve psychedelics.

Sadly, many of the studies fail to have an active control group. That is, they aren't comparing therapy + psychedelics to therapy alone. That's a major pitfall in the current research.

And unfortunately, the therapy component of the research is lost in most internet headlines and articles. People are walking away with the impression that psychedelics are inherently anti-depressant compounds, when the reality is that they're being researched as adjuncts to intense therapy.

My own story may be relevant to you. FWIW:

I was really into zen as a kid. Part of my rebellion against Christianity and leaving my church. Once while meditating, I accidentally had a pretty bad trip. (I can describe the actual trip separately.) I was completely unprepared, didn't even know such a thing was possible.

It's kicked my ass ever since.

From what I read (afterwards), others have called that kind of trip ego death, death-rebirth, religious experience.

In buddhist terms, if that was the 2nd stage, I had ZERO interest in experiencing the 3rd stage, much less the 4th stage (aka "enlightenment").

A few months later, I was diagnosed with an acute life threatening disease. I was hospitalized for months, spent a few years recovering.

So the upside to having the living shit scared out of me while meditating was that actual near death real experiences were emotional cake walks. My care providers were like "Who is this kid?!" My family was less amused by my apparent blasé attitude.

Any way. To wrap this up.

We're all going get "there" one way or another. You're gonna die. It's all pointless. Yadda, yadda.

But you can choose to resume your normal life. You cope. You adapt. Fake it, if you have to, like I did. And eventually the habit of day to day living, striving, struggling, smelling the roses will become your new normal. Most of the time.

Just one caveat. Your pharmacology can absolutely change your brain, personality, outlook. Mental well being isn't just happy self-talk. Mind and body are inseparable. So figure out that other stuff too, if needed.

I knew that wasn't ok at all so I ended up going back on my old SSRIs which, unsurprisingly, massively turned down the intensity knob on everything and brought me back to reality.

I think I struggled with the aftermath for about 6 months. At first I thought my anxiety was cured by the trip, but about 2 or 3 months after I started losing touch with reality. I am better now (due entirely to SSRIs) but still struggling with the generalized anxiety disorder I have grappled with for my life so far

[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-...

I politely ask you to do two things, if you haven't already.

First is to have someone, something in your life that keeps you accountable. Self-reporting is unreliable. My most recent example: I was on bupropion last year. I literally felt no different with or without. But it was harming me. My only clue was my activity monitor. (Apple Watch FTW.)

Second, never accept "No" or "idk", tenaciously seek the answers you need. Someone, somewhere has some of the missing puzzle pieces you need. Doctors (et al) are not omniscient and if they've not seen cases like you before, they couldn't possibly have those answers.

Be well. I hope things get easier for you.

I am sure I have overstated the risk, or maybe that is just my anxiety talking. I never had any actual plans to hurt myself, just overwhelming fear and dread to the point I wished it would end by any means.

Thankfully I have my wife to keep me accountable

If you're willing to share, I would love to hear more. How did you get so deeply into meditation? What was your practice like? What were you doing that got you to such a "bad trip"

I was just reading books and pondering. Sci fi, Sagan, Fritjof Capra, Taoism, Zen, some Buddhism. I didn't know any one who knew anything about this stuff.

I started meditating because I was struggling, had a lot time, nothing to do, and was trying to psyche myself up to start working again. I hadn't been diagnosed yet, so didn't know my failings were health related. I thought I just had a bad attitude, was being lazy.

I got pretty good at reaching a trance state. I was stuck on the notion of "no thought". Best I could do was let thoughts float away. So I started my notions of mental exercises. Visualize a sphere. Think of a color and try to see it with my mindseye. Imagine the center of my ego was my sternum and not my head, imagine the world from that perspective. Float above my own body.

So I was just doing my thing, pretending to have an out of body experience, and I slipped into a different state. The idea was really simple. It was like being able to actually internalize a trillion. Or like Fritjof's epiphany of seeing all the grains of sand on the beach.

I had the full impact of how big the universe is and how small I am, the briefness of my lifespan.

It terrified me. I reflexively pulled back, popped out of trance. And then I laid on the bed for a long while, trying to figure if I was back in my room, if I was dreaming, what's real or not.

I came out of it very different worldview. That whole ecological, holistic awareness, everything is connected, and other woo-woo descriptions. Popping that ego-centric bubble for just a moment.

Again, I'm just using other people's words for what best matches my experience. "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him." and all that.

Not sure if that's the same thing as ego death but it was terrifying.

I tried to resume shortly thereafter. FHCRC (always doing experiments) had a doctor working on pain and toxicity. Her angle was mindfulness, mediation, hypnosis. Didn't work on me.

Though I do yoga style relaxation, manage my pains, I've not been able to attain trance state again, much less the next stage.

I think it's because I can't concentrate, focus that way any more. Cuz chemo brain.

The only success I've had is with http://thewayofseeing.com. Focus is like a muscle. I've gotten a bit better. But my best effort is mindfulness.

re coping:

One day at time. Happy to be here. :)

Wish you well and I hope you have a fruitful journey :)

If any of what I share here is helpful for someone, it will be well worth drifting significantly off topic and perhaps over-sharing my personal experience.

That said, my experience is my own - other people's mileage may vary depending on their background and personal makeup. Trust your intuition (and your doctor / therapist if you have one)!

From your comments below (about being able to notice yourself out of existence), it sounds to me like you experienced both udayabbaya-nana (knowledge of arising and passing away) and bhanga-nana (knowledge of dissolution), as well as the other dukkha-nanas (knowledges of suffering) that follow [1].

It also sounds like you are familiar with the Zen analogs for these Theravada terms - sharing them here mostly for other readers.

These are well-known and understood phenomena, at least in Buddhism. Some modern yogis refer to this territory as the "Dark Night", a term borrowed from St. John of the Cross' work describing the experiences from a mystical Christian perspective[2].

The Atlantic had a good piece on this (touching on some relevant research at Brown) several years back [3].

I went through something similar to what you've described here with meditation, and similar to what many others have described here with psychedelics.

It took years of searching, research and growth for me to process and integrate these experiences and return to both a stable, consistent meditative practice and enjoyable / helpful use of psychedelics, including cannabis (which gave me panic attacks for many, many years).

For anyone who is in similar territory but wishes they could continue exploring: Bhajan / Kirtan [4] (example [5]) and Yoga Asana were both incredibly helpful for me, as was a-melodious chanting of various mantra and stotra.

Coming at the problem as a programmer with some understanding of machine learning - I looked at chanting practices as training data for my own biological neural network. A way to re-wire my relationship with meditation / spiritual practices / ego death.

The transition from my atheistic Buddhist practice to a sort of mystical pluralist practice that integrates many traditions was an interesting one, for sure.

I stopped seeing "god" as an absurd, surely-non-existent (for everyone) personal entity and began recognizing "gods" as undeniably-existing (for me) hybrids of:

* helpful anthropomorphic representations of key truths

* helpful anthropomorphic representations for lawful phenomena

* at the highest level: helpful conceptual placeholders for things that are completely impossible for me to describe

As a former atheist, I slowly became more and more comfortable with this framework. I think this was a combination of having grown up in a religious environment; having mystical experiences, searching for answers and finding documentation (independently arising in many different traditions) that closely mirrored my experiences; and feeling like there was tremendous mind-shaping power in a shared subconscious framework transmitted through trance-inducing chants practiced by millions of people over many centuries.

Like many, I would encounter truths through various mystical experiences and find great relief - only to fall back into unhelpful habitual patterns later. A daily relationship with one's personal Gods (in whatever form they take for you) is a very powerful psychological anchor for remaining tethered to truths discovered through mystical experience.

Lectures by Ram Dass[6], talks by Mooji[7] and dharma talks from many different teachers at Dharma Seed [8] also helped considerably.

I have some conjectures rattling around in my mind about _some_ manifestations of mental illness having _some_ of their roots in the territory of ego death (or close brushes with it). Many of us live in a society where all of our basic needs are met and there is ample time for introspection. Moreover, many of us fill a good deal of our non-introspective free time with music, cinema and television which has been shaped (directly or indirectly) by artists and thinkers under the influence of mind-expanding drugs, leading to further introspection (at least this was the case for me and many of my peers).

That is, I don't think someone necessarily needs to even be a yogi to wander into Dukkha-nana territory. Though, to be sure, the proliferation of superficial "mindfullness" practices will add to the aforementioned dog pile of causes and conditions for initial "spiritual awakenings" (for lack of a better term).

I'd love to share my entire journey and more thoughts on this (including 8 years living and traveling in Asia, trying to find answers). One day!

Lastly: if you find yourself in this territory and things are really bad, there are resources available to you! Check out: https://spiritualcrisisnetwork.uk.

Shenzen Young also has really helpful advice about when it's time to seek help from a medical professional: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ5B70ac_9M

==

[1] - http://www.buddhanet.net/knowledg.htm

[2](pdf) - http://www.carmelitemonks.org/Vocation/DarkNight-StJohnofthe...

[3] - https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-...

[4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtan

[5] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBso7TPtvJU

[6] - https://beherenownetwork.com/category/ram-dass/

[7] - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/satsang-with-mooji/id1...

[8] - https://dharmaseed.org/talks/

Makes me even more concerned when people talk about psychedelics as a low risk self-treatment for various illnesses. I myself have had a bad trip which resulted in years of anxiety and panic attacks (although after having done psychedelics many times before).

These days I steer clear of all drugs except for my SSRIs and alcohol, the latter being basically the only recreational drug I've taken that seems to not put me at some level of psychological turbulence.

I know its easy to say in hindsight, many of us tried those things when we didn't think about it, and it worked better for some and less for others.

I think the old set & setting has some proper meaning here and can vastly bootstrap the incoming experience. Having a calm, even soothing environment, no negative outside influences like badly tripping / drug rejecting friends who can drag anybody down to mud. If one is really unsure, have some friend 'spotting' for you and drag you back and calm down if bad trip comes. If one is in bad mental place, just don't do it, it ain't alcohol which can be taken almost on any mood.

Personally, I've never had a profound trip unless alone, relaxing on the bed with nice music in the background, but that worked for my specific personality.

Agreed, but part of the problem is that they're often framed by their proponents as a miracle drug that can cure you of depression, anxiety, and fear of death. So people with those problems will often self medicate with them.

And for some people, it totally works. But it can backfire tremendously, and actually worsen those problems. There's a psychonaut meme that there's "no such thing as a bad trip, just a difficult one", but that's absolutely untrue.

I think psychedelics have incredible therapeutic potential, though, and I'm looking forward to a world where they are legal, well tested and researched, and usable in safe environments with trained and compassionate professionals.

Once you have some sense of what to expect you can more readily use your judgment as to whether you're in the right headspace. I find it can be quite helpful to mitigate mild/moderate anxiety or depression.

But therein lies the crux of this kind of reasoning: those kinds of requirements are vague and highly subjective - what does "mentally balanced" entail? who determines that?

It would require a high level of self-awareness and even then, some woundings/mental illnesses may not be apparent until some sort of traumatic event (such as a bad trip). It's incredibly difficult to know ahead of time what kind of reaction someone is going to have to such powerful mind-altering substances and IMO although the advice of "set and setting" is important, it in no way will prevent all possible issues from happening.

IMHO psychedelics get a bad rap because they are used by people that haven't done even the bare minimum reading and preparation to have an optimal experience. It's not difficult to do, and once you are in the right place, with the right environment and mindset, it's very easy to use the altered mental state to do productive work on your own psyche.

A hammer is a useful tool as long as you don't hit yourself in the forehead with it.

"as far as I know it happened only once provably" = "I haven't heard of it, so it must not exist or be a lie". Pretty unproductive perspective to have...

I find your kind of flippant "well they just didn't do it right" approach a very common defense of various forms of dogma. Maybe you should consider that mind-altering substances can have consequences for even those who approach them in the most responsible way possible.

Definitely not true. LSD is one of the purest recreational drugs you can buy. If it's LSD it's 'good' LSD. Occasionally dox or nbome are sold as LSD but even that is relatively rare. Also you can just order it online.

You gotta test. Don't dismiss the need to test.

There was a time "just using Amazon" meant a whole setup that was not ubiquitous. People also are passionate about making darknet seem like a scary place, I've seen many askreddit threads about the "scariest thing you've seen on darknet" with anything to the contrary losing consensus very quickly. Found that odd and contrived.

Not as easy as amazon of course but often easier than depositing money in a poker site for example.

And that's not even mentioning that you can just legally order 1p-lsd on the clearnet the same way you'd order anything (though the UK, Germany and a few others have clamped down on it a bit).

How do you figure?

I regret not taking psychedelics, but I hallucinated from a large dosage of hashish and had visual disturbances for a couple of days after, so I figured it's better to not mess with other psychedelics.

I also got a bad panic attack from a moderate dosage of stimulants(bad idea mixing them) and I could not drink coffee for 2 years, or I would get a panic attack just from the coffee -- it all went away eventually and I can drink coffee without a panick attack now (though it does seem to cause joint pain so I try to avoid it).

Well honestly I had thought that LSD could be great for anxiety and depression under the right set and setting. Since I was very sure I could have a great setting (which I could) I thought that my chances of a bad trip were very minimal. Unfortunately I think I just didn't pay enough attention to the "set" part

Do you have any evidence at all to support this claim?

LSD isn't inherently an anti-depressant. The research around psychedelics involves many sessions of intense therapy with LSD used in some sessions to help facilitate the therapy.

Researchers aren't just dosing people with psychedelics and walking away. The drug itself isn't doing the heavy lifting of addressing the problems.

I was not under the impression that OP did LSD in a therapeutical setting.

Wait, you get this, too? I have searched for answers to this and gotten nothing. I have long suspected that my coffee habits correspond to my joint pain, but I have associated it with many other things in a search for truth. Can you elaborate?

My joint pain started a couple of years ago (early 30s), with really bad pain in my thumb joint after some exertion, X-ray or MRI showed I had some inflammation and excessive liquid, the pain went away after one month or so; then I got pain on the outside of my elbows (perhaps from incorrect posture and lifting my toddler all the time); I originally thought it had to do with my nicotine usage, but I quit for some good months and nothing happened, on the contrary, I started using more coffee and my pain got worse.

I don't think the coffee is 100% responsible, rather that it exacerbates some underlying condition; but so far it is pretty dramatic -- after quitting coffee for a couple of days, my pain is almost gone -- and that happened for too many times to be just a coincidence(though it could).

Second time was at a very small psytrance festival with my wife and her parents. I trust them completely and they are both very nice, and there were not any scary people about.

I would say that a festival (even small and friendly) is possibly not the ideal place to take psychedelics, unless you're very experienced. If you are particularly prone to paranoia, it can surface with psychedelics (even Cannabis) even in good settings.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness#Defense_agains...

I went on to have a wonderful & memorable experience, feeling closeness & positivity with every human interaction for hours. The worst part after I got over the initial freakout was coming back down. I've heard people talk about such early-stage freakouts happening on other psychedelics, too, but I don't have much experience there.

Everyone has to confront their own mortality eventually.

I am not sure whether this is actually true, or whether the rumination and pondering will mess me up more