Disregard Everything I say

This isn’t something I’ve ever had to give much thought until recently but multiple people have been asking me about it so I decided to write an article on the topic.

I’ve never had a “bad trip” myself but I’ve seen enough freak outs to understand the basic psychology behind them and there are multiple reasons people freak out but it generally stems from forgetting some very obvious facts causing the tripper to fall into some easily preventable psychological traps.

So remember these facts:

• You are not dying:

You are just tripping balls. Providing you have paid attention to dosage you are not dying so calm the fuck down.

• You are not going to be tripping forever:

You are just tripping balls. Of course you are going to come down, everything will return to normal shortly. This is simply how drugs work.

• You are not going insane:

You are just tripping balls. If you’re having trouble maintaining conversation or functioning at any level then that is absolutely fine and expected, just lay back and pay attention to what is happening.

• You do not need to understand:

The experience of tripping is inherently incomprehensible and logic defying at higher levels and no amount of thinking will ever allow you to translate something so indescribable into mere English so just chill out and enjoy your trip. You can integrate what is happening to you once you have sobered up.

Being able to retain these facts at the deepest levels of psychedelic experience will always prevent freak outs from becoming unmanageable although a remembrance of these facts will only prevent a bad trip from being caused by internal thought processes which is the most common cause of a bad trip. A freak out can still be caused by external influences. These external influences however are also easy to avoid with a little common sense.

So avoid these things:

• Dangerous, loud, completely unfamiliar and public environments:

this should be fairly obvious, you should not be tripping in a town centre or bar and you should certainly not be tripping in a dangerous environment until you are very familiar and comfortable with tripping. The people will look horribly distorted and be generally irritating.

• People who are not also tripping:

Depending on who you are with and your relationship towards them the presence of people can be downright annoying with their consistent worrying and lack of understanding.
Drunken people should be avoided at all costs as their primitive behaviour is full of bad vibes.

• Higher doses than you are comfortable with:

Although the real stuff happens at level 4 and above psychedelic experiences I would never recommend that an inexperienced tripper jump right into these places. You should be starting with low dose trips with the goal of gradually working your way up each time as you familiarize yourself with the trip. If you exclusively stick to low doses you are a dabbler and shouldn’t have bothered in the first place, just smoke weed or something.

• Complex tasks:

On the day of your trip you should be certain that you have nothing that needs to be done, the simplest of tasks will become incredibly difficult and sometimes stressful during even mild trips. You should be lying down and listening to music, not performing chores. This includes driving and operating heavy machinery for obvious reasons.

• Bad vibes of any sort:

this one is the easiest to avoid, do not watch scary or unpleasant films and do not listen to unpleasant music. If bad vibes are encompassing your trip they can easily be escaped by quickly changing your environment, if you’re sitting down with the light off stand up and put it on. Change the music you’re listening to or move to a different area, going for a walk if you’re capable will also quickly solve the problem.

These external influences are another major cause of bad trips but yet again are quite simple to avoid if you’re not completely retarded.
However: Even with all these precautions there are 3 unavoidable contributors that come as an integral part of the trip itself, these aspects can still be dealt with using the right mental equipment.

So this is what they are and how to deal with them:

• Stressful events in life and insecurities about yourself and past events:

We are all complex people with our own sad little back story, subtle insecurities, depressive tendencies, regretted actions and past or present relationship problems.
None of us are 100% stable and tripping tends to cause people to unavoidably dwell on these aspects of life, especially during a persons first few trips. However, this is not a problem and only rarely unpleasant.
It’s the chemically induced instant psychotherapy of psychedelics that is its most important aspect and something that will benefit you and everybody in your life. You will solve and come to terms with problems in your life that you did not even fully realize were there, you will find yourself concerned with the well being of other social circles and people knowing full well that you probably never even cross their mind. It’s this aspect of psychedelics that will chemically force you into becoming a kinder, humbler, more self aware, more constructive, more positive and simply a better person so do not avoid contemplating these aspects of your life at all costs. Just understand that the reason you are not well adjusted is because the society we live in has held us all back enormously through means of cultural conditioning.  

• Intensely horrible or scary hallucinations

Although emotionally stressful these sort of hallucinations are not physically dangerous in any way as scary entity contact can only happen during intense level 5 freak outs meaning that you will not have any kind of motor control. This can generally only happen on substances such as DMT, Ayahuasca and Mushrooms and can be avoided by not taking excessive doses without a sense of familiarity.
If you find yourself in contact with a frightening hallucination, place or entity the easiest way to get it to stop is to sing, chant or ask the trip to stop. Generally if asked the trip will listen and go back to simple pretty patterns.

• Time loops and moments of eternity:

Becoming stuck in time loopsand moments of eternity is a fairly uncommon but still occasionally powerful aspect of tripping that contributes to people freaking out.However if you find yourself in a timeloop this is not necessarily a bad thing and not a reason to become agitated. Sure I’ve been stuck in time loops before and they were irritating but at the same time they were also fascinating. Never immediately assume that any mildly irritating aspect of a trip is cause for panic and cannot be learnt from, so just sit down and pay attention. You can usually escape a time loop by simply distracting yourself and changing your environment anyway.

With all this mental equipment and knowledge you should have absolutely no problem avoiding a bad trip and helping others avoid bad trips but although helpful, none of this will be as helpful to you as simply having a positive, rational outlook on the world and not taking yourself seriously.

The induced transcension that a high dose Psychedelic trip offers is literally the peak of human experience and being a citizen of a first world country with an internet connection and therefore access to these incredible substances makes the only thing stopping you, yourself.

The fact that you’re at least a little interested in psychedelics shows that you’ve come further than most ever will and have the potential to go much further if you choose to. So if you are far enough to do so, try your hardest to retain your motivation.