"Benefits" of a bad trip

[kodanope]

Just wondering if anyone is interested in sharing their experiences of when a trip went bad (or somewhat bad) and still found it helped them improve their perspective/developed their consciousness? How did you feel/what did you do in the proceeding days/weeks/months?

I just dipped my toe in psychedelics and while I don't think I would say I had an entirely "bad" trip, it certainly wasn't 100% rainbows and sunshine!

 

[Matt8800]

37 minutes ago, kodanope said:

Just wondering if anyone is interested in sharing their experiences of when a trip went bad (or somewhat bad) and still found it helped them improve their perspective/developed their consciousness? How did you feel/what did you do in the proceeding days/weeks/months?

I just dipped my toe in psychedelics and while I don't think I would say I had an entirely "bad" trip, it certainly wasn't 100% rainbows and sunshine!

 

There is a lot one can benefit from challenging psychedelics experiences.

What exactly is challenging? It is a chance to be shown ones attachments and aversions. Once identified, one can work on releasing/letting go/accepting.

[iTommy]

Well... during the "bad trip " it can be quite emotionally challenging. I've had multiple trips where things took an uncomfortable turn. During those trips, some rather less-conscious patterns came to the surface, thoughts and even my senses (visuals in particular), reflected this darker side back to me. After one trip I felt somewhat suicidal for two weeks, after that, things started to calm down. I should note here that I've been feeling depressed for years now, and it's not always a good idea to take psychedelics in such a state even when one feels "fine" when taking it, although they helped me personally too. My trips are usually a mix of all kinds of emotional states, that can be therapeutic. 

Overall, I learned after those trips that there's still much to work on in different areas of my life. It taught me to have more respect of those substances, and to follow certain "guidelines" more strictly, before, while and after tripping. They taught me, that fighting what I am experiencing isn't a good strategy, but that surrendering to whatever there's happening is vital.  

Here's a trip of mine that didn't go how I hoped it would go: 

 

[Maya_0]

A bad trip should ultimately teach you something about what you're still holding on to. That you must still be holding onto something that pertains to "self" in order for you to interpret it as bad.

[tsuki]

@kodanope I tripped once and it was a very challenging experience.
Since I have no reference point, I wouldn't necessarily call it a bad trip, but I can imagine that it could leave some people deeply scarred.

The benefit is that it taught me the experience of deep, infant-like vulnerability, which was lost somewhere during my life as a man.
It allowed me to work on my sensitivity on a whole different level and I see a very rapid growth in my relationships and general attitude towards life. Not to mention the increase in baseline consciousness that I see accelerating for almost a month.

Even if you have a bad trip, it is a valuable experience because it shows you the areas you neglected or repressed.
In my opinion, tripping should be challenging and you should respect the substance. At the very least so that it does not become an escape from your problems. 

Edited March 2, 2019 by tsuki

[ivory]

Depends on what you mean by a bad trip. I've had trips where I felt extreme fear over the loss of control of my mind. And others where I had dark thoughts and emotions come up. There was not much benefit to the first, but definitely to the last. I learned a lot about what I needed to workin on as a human being.

[Nahm]

8g’s shroom tea....

Nahm: Can the tongue taste itself?

God: Absolutely not. 

Nahm:

[Conceptually-made]

I had a very bad trip couple months ago. It wasn’t just bad it was traumatic. 

Basically the acid was stronger than expected (or it was just me in my head potentiating the effects) which was one possible factor for what happened and although i was at home the set&setting werent the best due to the circumstances in my life. 

An hour and a half into the trip i started getting very paranoid and i was feeling like i needed to secure myself. And me wanting to be safe created the need for control which led to hell. I was dying while trying to control things. At one point i realized that i am experiencing death (not the full falling away of the self) but the ability to do and control anything (I COULDN'T DO A THING). But i still didn’t surrender (looking back there was full on enlightenment waiting for me if only i surrendered). I then realized i have at least 3 more hours of hell at this intensity and things got even worse. I just wanted to run. I was pacing and breathing heavily. I experienced a full on panic attack which made me incredibly scared for my physical body. Then i slowly crawled out of this hell but i was still very traumatised.

this experience created fear of psychedelic experiences. I was getting anxiety just by thinking about the hell you can experience. I was scared of it because I felt like there was nothing to do about it. I thought that even the surrendering part of it is not under my control and that “I” as a self cannot surrender so I cannot escape the possibility of a bad trip. After a few weeks i got one very important insight about surrendering. What I realized was that surrendering does not necessary mean relaxing. Sure relaxation comes after the complete surrender but in that trip i wasn’t truly surrendering. I was trying to calm down just to feel ok. I was wanting to let the experience flow through me pleasantly and not accept all the unpleasantness which would lead me to realizing pleasant&unpleasant are the same. I was trying to accept the bad by turning it into good and not realizing they are the same. 

 

Although i knew this insight earlier it didn’t really stick. I wasn’t working that much on non-duality around the time I tripped which made me forget the siginificance of that insight and lead me to hell. 

Now i have much better understanding about surrendering and i think i finally grasped the significance of it.

[kodanope]

14 hours ago, Conceptually-made said:

I had a very bad trip couple months ago. It wasn’t just bad it was traumatic. 

Basically the acid was stronger than expected (or it was just me in my head potentiating the effects) which was one possible factor for what happened and although i was at home the set&setting werent the best due to the circumstances in my life. 

An hour and a half into the trip i started getting very paranoid and i was feeling like i needed to secure myself. And me wanting to be safe created the need for control which led to hell. I was dying while trying to control things. At one point i realized that i am experiencing death (not the full falling away of the self) but the ability to do and control anything (I COULDN'T DO A THING). But i still didn’t surrender (looking back there was full on enlightenment waiting for me if only i surrendered). I then realized i have at least 3 more hours of hell at this intensity and things got even worse. I just wanted to run. I was pacing and breathing heavily. I experienced a full on panic attack which made me incredibly scared for my physical body. Then i slowly crawled out of this hell but i was still very traumatised.

this experience created fear of psychedelic experiences. I was getting anxiety just by thinking about the hell you can experience. I was scared of it because I felt like there was nothing to do about it. I thought that even the surrendering part of it is not under my control and that “I” as a self cannot surrender so I cannot escape the possibility of a bad trip. After a few weeks i got one very important insight about surrendering. What I realized was that surrendering does not necessary mean relaxing. Sure relaxation comes after the complete surrender but in that trip i wasn’t truly surrendering. I was trying to calm down just to feel ok. I was wanting to let the experience flow through me pleasantly and not accept all the unpleasantness which would lead me to realizing pleasant&unpleasant are the same. I was trying to accept the bad by turning it into good and not realizing they are the same. 

 

Although i knew this insight earlier it didn’t really stick. I wasn’t working that much on non-duality around the time I tripped which made me forget the siginificance of that insight and lead me to hell. 

Now i have much better understanding about surrendering and i think i finally grasped the significance of it.

16 hours ago, ivory said:

Depends on what you mean by a bad trip. I've had trips where I felt extreme fear over the loss of control of my mind. And others where I had dark thoughts and emotions come up. There was not much benefit to the first, but definitely to the last. I learned a lot about what I needed to workin on as a human being.

Thanks guys

I only had a single tab as i wanted to take things steady because it was my first go. The nature of my trip probably has more to do with my motivations (using it existentially rather than recreationally)

I had only some visual stuff with a picture on my wall and probably 70% of my experience was good - 25% was somewhat uncomfortable and the remaining 5% was somewhere between bad to "glimpses of terrifying."

The most concerning part for myself was as a result of my mind and "external reality" melding into one thing. (some aspects of this were completely fine although strange), but in regards to the negative aspects of it, I can't even think of the scenarios i was imagining because it was kind of confusing, but it was like my consciousness was all that existed and that physical reality/my life was just a temporary facet of it (i understand that this is very much what non-duality is about and is a common insight)

The main problem with this is that my mind became rather terrified of this at a few points, probably because i could see the truth of it. While i never saw any gruesome things. The terrifying parts were really only:

-moments that felt like time wasn't progressing and I was going to be stuck in a moment for an eternity.

-the other was where i felt like i might (as a result of this inquiry) cease to exist - as in lose all my memories, friends & family.. never see or feel anything ever again. My mind told me that this was dangerous and i'll never get back what i have.

I understand that this is, of course, the ego mind at play, facing the prospect of its death, I have heard about it many times and I think deep down i always thought "when i try psychedelics, i'll be able to surrender to it because I've been practicing mindfulness for so many years" - well this certainly showed me! Haha

The truth is (and i know many of you are well aware of this), it feels like you are actually going to die (or rather, just cease to exist.. or even worse, be placed in a moment of eternal suffering/insanity/no control).

Has anyone had experiences like this specifically? Also, any more insights into how to surrender to it?

I think next time i'll be having 3/4 of a tab lol.

Thanks again! 

 

 

[Conceptually-made]

32 minutes ago, kodanope said:

Also, any more insights into how to surrender to it?

I personally think that surrendering isn’t something you can learn or have a technique for. I think that in order to surrender you must either have a trip so strong to fucking demolish you or to be really developed In the field of non-duality. Which means you have to be willing to face all the darkest fears. You have to realize that all the bad possible stuff is nothing to run away and embrace it. Face it full on at its greatest intensity and not try to feel ok about it.Trying to let go will lead you to even worse places since there is a desire to let go(trust me I’ve been there hahah)

i am kind of repeating myself here but still... i hope it helps

 

[kodanope]

18 minutes ago, Conceptually-made said:

I personally think that surrendering isn’t something you can learn or have a technique for. I think that in order to surrender you must either have a trip so strong to fucking demolish you or to be really developed In the field of non-duality. Which means you have to be willing to face all the darkest fears. You have to realize that all the bad possible stuff is nothing to run away and embrace it. Face it full on at its greatest intensity and not try to feel ok about it.Trying to let go will lead you to even worse places since there is a desire to let go(trust me I’ve been there hahah)

i am kind of repeating myself here but still... i hope it helps

 

Seems to be about being truly brave hey.

Well, at least its simple and uncomplicated at the end of the day!

[JohnnyBravo]

@Conceptually-made

 

Greta post on surrendering.

 

Surrender doesn't necessarily mean trying to relax or being relaxed. I like this and I understand a little more what surrender is now.

And "you let go of the effort to not feel scared" is great. So you allow yourself to feel scared and uncomfortable, and on top of that, you release all the desire to try and change that uncomfortable state.

I don't think I've ever done that. Felt a feeling, and then fully let go of efforts in riding the feeling or trying to prevent myself just being really naked in the feeling without the hope of it going. That is scary.