The Bad Trip Detective

&gt; Almost half struggled with existential confusion and “derealization,” the sense that everything was unreal.<p>For me, the main transformative of taking acid recreationally was that the world came to seem less solid, reliable and &quot;real&quot;. To be clear, I regarded that as a positive outcome.<p>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&#x27;t &quot;heavy&quot; and oppressive. Anything can be changed.<p>And in fact, that solid, reliable world <i>isn&#x27;t</i> real; the real world is very different from the world presented to us by our senses.<p>So this guy didn&#x27;t find that insight helpful at all. Some people find it very hard to cope with.<p>I&#x27;m not sure that the Galapagos Islands is the ideal place to sleep-off a bad trip!<p>I&#x27;m inclined to agree with Evans that Leary&#x27;s &quot;set and setting&quot; doctrine is far from a complete protection against bad trips. We used to attribute them to &quot;bad acid&quot;, but that was bullshit; I just don&#x27;t know what precipitates a bad trip.

&quot;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.&quot;<p>I don&#x27;t think this is really the case. Maybe the cultural component isn&#x27;t paying much attention to it, but the scientific part is. These are being researched as medicines. All medicines have side effects. These aren&#x27;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.

I think if I&#x27;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?

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.

The description of feeling like he was &quot;in a coma or some afterlife limbo state&quot; sounds similar to Cotard&#x27;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.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cotard%27s_syndrome" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cotard%27s_syndrome</a>

The author&#x27;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.<p>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&#x27;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?<p>I still haven&#x27;t tried psychedelics yet, but I plan to now that I understand far more about my mind, and I&#x27;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.

Reminded me of this recent news item:<p><i>&quot;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.<p>“I thought it would stop both engines, the plane would start to head towards a crash, and I would wake up,”&quot;</i>[0]<p>[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;2023&#x2F;nov&#x2F;10&#x2F;alaska-airlines-pilot-engine-psychedelic-mushrooms" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;2023&#x2F;nov&#x2F;10&#x2F;alaska-airli...</a>

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

&gt; “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?”<p>Any Buddhist practitioner would tell you this is sort of what you&#x27;re going for in your practice. Buddha literally means &quot;one who has awakened&quot;. 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 &#x27;self&#x27; -- as part of the path towards awakening.<p>There&#x27;s a reason why lots of the Buddhist lineages are set up to gradually introduce you to these things and wouldn&#x27;t just throw you into the most esoteric parts of the practice right at the beginning. If you don&#x27;t have the foundations for it I can imagine getting out of an intense psychedelic experience more confused than when you went in.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lojong" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lojong</a>

&gt; “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?”<p>I&#x27;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&#x27;s world. Given that I&#x27;m susceptible to this kind of thinking, I&#x27;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.<p>Anecdotally, my cousin has taken LSD repeatedly and has had psychosis episodes that she thinks might be triggered by that. She&#x27;s diagnosed with Schizophrenia though and has a family history of Schizophrenia so psychedelics were probably not a great idea for her.

Evan needs some education in set, setting, intention, etc.<p>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?<p>This is like using power tools without instruction or supervision.

I personally love the experience of so-called ego death (&quot;complete loss of subjective self-identity&quot;) from psychedelics, but I can understand why other people don&#x27;t.<p>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&#x27;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.

Bad trip-haver here.<p>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 <i>do not want</i> an event like this in your life. Not even once.<p>I am glad there’s some pushback against the current wave of blithe and frankly under-researched psychedelics-as-panacea crowd.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;2024.04.17-104015&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nautil.us&#x2F;the-bad-trip-detective-544328&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;2024.04.17-104015&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nautil.us&#x2F;the-b...</a>

Yeah and mainstream antidepressant&#x2F;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&#x27;t use, but use only if your problem is serious and can&#x27;t be improved with lifestyle adjustments. In particular, don&#x27;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.

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.<p>…all because I need to say that there are few people that have tried to justify their stupid decisions more than Evans.<p>The general population grossly misrepresenting and simplifying snippets of “””science””” from psychology today dot com is absolutely nothing new.<p>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.<p>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.

“Almost half struggled with existential confusion and “derealization,” the sense that everything was unreal.”<p>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.<p>What would be interesting is to understand the mechanisms of “mild delusions” that the brain creates to allow&#x2F;motivate us to function. And why this is inhibited in some people after using psychedelics.