The Dark Side of Psychedelics
Disclaimer: This article is for harm prevention and not to glorify or encourage drug use. All Reddit posts included were granted permission to be used by the posters, except where the user account was deleted.
Psychedelics users ingest sacred molecules for a variety of reasons — to explore inner space, to face the shadow self and grow, and to feel that elusive spiritual oneness, to name a few. Whatever your reasons are for taking psychedelics, you are probably not taking them to create more problems in your life. Yet for many of us, problems arise from their usage, and we come face-to-face with the dark side of psychedelics.
Psychedelics users, sometimes referred to as trippers (people who go on mental “trips,” journeys, or vacations by taking psychedelics) or psychonauts (people who explore their minds by altering their consciousnesses), can experience the dark side both during and after a trip. When it takes place during a trip, the trip is called a “bad trip.” Bad trips can lead to some of the problems we see post-trip, but post-trip problems do not solely arise due to bad trips — they also arise from trips that you come out of thinking that everything is alright. For the rest of this article, we are going to explore some of the common problems that arise from using psychedelics.
Bad Trips
What is most important to understand about bad trips is that they can happen to anyone, and if you are a regular tripper, I would be surprised if they have not happened to you yet. To illustrate this, let us consider one of the most prolific authors on psychedelics: Terence McKenna. He was no stranger to bad trips, and spoke to the psychedelic community about the types of bad trips and how to deal with them. Regardless of his knowledge and years of experience, a decade before the end of his life (in the late 80s) he had an intensely bad trip in Hawaii.
“This trip that I had in Hawaii, I thanked God that somebody was there, that Kat was there specifically. Because just the sound of her voice completely ameliorated a whole spectrum of hard to describe but very icky things that were threatening to overwhelm me. And I don’t have trips like that very much, where I need somebody there…” — Terence Mckenna, The Transcendental Object At The End Of Time (2014)
McKenna placed bad trips into two categories: extreme discomfort and cognitive hallucination. Extreme discomfort is a discomfort with “how the situation feels,” and cognitive hallucination involves thoughts that create problems in a given situation. Perhaps the most well-known example of a cognitive hallucination would be the belief that one is dying or will die. This is an archetypal trip, and it is frequently accompanied by feelings of terror. McKenna says that the state of cognitive hallucination is “the edge of paranoia,” but there is often a very real paranoia at play in these situations.
“in the first trips I had to deal with my fear of ‘losing control.’” — John C. Lilly, The Center of the Cyclone
Another cognitive hallucination trippers experience is the thought that other people know they are high. In some cases, the trippers think that other people, sometimes their friends and trip sitters, are after them. And in the worst of situations, trippers can have thoughts that suggest suicide as a way out of their current crisis, as one trip report covered by Psyched Substance details. Since these are cognitive hallucinations (delusions), people may believe that what they are experiencing is real, resulting in real actions taken to achieve their goals for better or worse.
There’s No Such Thing as a Bad Trip
“even these bad trips, although they can be difficult, are beneficial and are a learning experience in the same way that a bad meal could be. You learned not to go to that restaurant, or maybe you learned something about what makes you sick, or what to be careful of in the future. If you are approaching life from a non-fearful perspective, where your intention is to learn, then you can extract benefit from almost any experience… I genuinely believe… it’s the difficult ones that are often the best. Those are the ones that really teach you something.” — Hamilton Morris, Joe Rogan Experience #1136
The world of psychedelia is filled with controversial ideas — one being that there is no such thing as a bad trip. The idea that there is no such thing as a bad trip is a tough statement to sell, because it is an absolute statement (and absolute statements can be disproved with counterexamples). On the Joe Rogan Experience, we see Morris struggle to produce a convincing argument as to why there is no such thing as a bad trip. The best argument Morris produces is shown above.
In the argument above, Morris claims that whether or not a trip is a bad experience is a matter of perspective, because you can choose to learn and grow from “almost any experience.” But consider this: if you survive a shark attack, and you grow into a smarter, tougher individual from the experience, is the experience of being attacked by a shark no longer bad? I would say that the attack itself was bad, and any growth that happened afterward was good. You could also say that overall you had a good experience, but parts of it were bad.
Ultimately, Joe Rogan provides a counterexample to the idea that there is no such thing as a bad trip. He points out that people can have psychotic breaks from using psychedelics, and Morris agrees that some individuals are susceptible to psychotic breaks. I am going to cover psychotic breaks in the post-trip section below, but they tend to start during the trip. Should they happen during a trip, they could be categorized as cognitive hallucinations, but others may feel psychotic breaks to be a third category of what could go wrong.
Instead of repeating an absolute statement like “there is no such thing as a bad trip,” which frequently sparks disagreement when it is mentioned within psychedelic communities, we can provide a charitable interpretation of what is actually meant by the saying. It is not that there is no such thing as a bad trip but rather that bad trips can be used for growth, excluding certain adverse reactions such as psychotic breaks.
“It is essential to inform a client during the preparation period that he or she may have difficult experiences during the sessions, and that these represent a meaningful and integral part of the procedure.” — Stanislav Grof, LSD Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Psychedelic Medicine
Critical to turning bad trips into a net good is what one does post-trip. Post-trip, trippers are encouraged to practice integration — integrating the trip into your psyche and everyday life. Ways to integrate a trip include journaling, meditation, and seeing a therapist or coach. One to two days immediately following the trip should be reserved for integration, although integration is a process that takes time, as you may have big changes you want to incorporate into your life. For instance, sometimes people find that they are no longer compatible with their significant other on trips. Others may realize a new sexual identity.
One recommendation is to not make important life decisions while tripping. Take time to process your thoughts, and that may mean returning to reality for a while to ensure you have made the right decision.
“It is absolutely essential after such trips to have at least one full day alone, observing what went on and, if possible, writing up or dictating what happened for later reference when one wants to refer back to the first trip.
This writing or dictating has two major benefits. One, it keeps one oriented during the secondary period, coming after the primary phase of the LSD effect itself. One has about three days to a week after a session in which to absorb it, “to grok it in fullness,” to make it part of oneself. Any activities on that second day should be kept to a minimum. There should be no responsibilities or commitments so that one can absorb what happened during the LSD state…
In my experience, the day after the session is quite as important as the session.” — John C. Lilly, The Center of the Cyclone
How to Cope During a Bad Trip
“And there are hard places. If there weren’t hard places people wouldn’t be so terrified of this stuff. So when you get to a hard place first of all don’t be an idiot. Don’t abandon yourself to fear just because somebody put something ugly in front of you. And if people put something ugly in front of you every day and all you say is ‘Yukk!’ So, it also works there. And there are strange places and we each have our own private hell. I mean that’s a place I go to nearly on every ayahuasca trip, that I call the meat locker.” — Terence McKenna, Psychedelia: Rap Dancing Into The Third Millennium
There are a variety of ways to cope with bad trips. Some may not work for you but will work for others. Try out different methods until you find what works for you. McKenna suggests that your priority in a bad trip is to “make your mind wander from the bummer.” While this advice sounds simple, it can be exceptionally challenging. For instance, have you ever tried to relax when you were stressed out? Trying to relax can be a source of stress in itself.
One of the ways you can recenter your mind and bring yourself away from a bummer is to have anchors. An anchor is an “an activity or physical object which keeps one grounded.” PsychonautWiki tells us that anchors can be things such as signs that remind you that you are tripping, your favorite music, a meaningful image or object, a mantra or motto (one mantra I have seen online is “Even the darkest nights come to an end.”), or even an outfit that you wear only when you are tripping.
As you may see, to make your mind wander from a bad trip, you end up doing some mental jiu-jitsu, but sometimes you cannot escape your physiological reaction. McKenna says that the body tends to go into a fight or flight response, but this response is not what you want to experience as a tripper. As a tripper, you want to recenter your physiology through deep breathing exercises. He also recommends singing as a way to increase oxygen with the added bonus of giving yourself something to focus on.
“Whenever you take a deep breath, you activate the SNS. The resulting burst of adrenaline speeds up your heart… Exhaling, in turn, activates the PNS, which slows down the heart. If you take a yoga or a meditation class, your instructor will probably urge you to pay particular attention to the exhalation, since deep, long breaths out help you calm down.” — Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score
Should you be hit with fear, do not fight it. McKenna quotes Frank Herbert’s Dune, and it is very apt, so I will do so as well: “I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.” It is imperative to allow the fear to pass through you. Fighting the fear could lead to negative post-trip effects such as trauma, or a diagnosis of psychedelic-induced PTSD.
How to Prevent and End Bad Trips
Bad trips are a part of the psychedelic experience, as we saw with McKenna, but there are ways to limit the possibility of a bad trip occurring. These include healthy / ethical living, thoroughly researching the drug(s) you plan to take, paying attention to set and setting, having an intention for the trip, proper dosing, and having a trip-sitter or guide with you during your trip. In the event that you are having a bad trip, it is best to work through it, otherwise you could develop negative post-trip effects. Only during the worst bad trips should you take a trip-killer.
Recently in a Sunday Service meeting at Sacred Garden Community, Pastor Bob Otis used the analogy of people taking psychedelics to plants being given sunlight. Plants will be burned when they are not adequately prepped for the sun, and although they may be prepped, there may be other unforeseeable factors that must be tended to before or after exposure to the sunlight. I like this analogy because God is often compared to the sun, but also because one complaint I have heard among the psychedelic community is that, like Icarus, they flew too close to the sun using psychedelics.
Set and Setting
Set and setting refer to the mental and physical environments, respectively, of a tripper. Another way to think about set and setting is that they consist of everything that is going to come together to produce your trip once you take a psychedelic. For instance, if you are a person with a fear of clowns (your set), it is a good idea not to trip in a place with clowns (your setting).
Your mental environment consists of everything that makes up your mindset: PsychonautWiki says it is your “thoughts, desires, feelings, general mood, and any preconceived notions or expectations about what they are about to experience.” Your set can be influenced by events you may not ordinarily notice or think about, such as a physical or mental illness (and if you suffer from mental illness, you must research how psychedelics will interact with it — sometimes not taking psychedelics is the best option). Trauma from the past that you may not have thought of for years can and often does arise.
Your physical environment is easier to control, but PsychonautWiki reminds us that our physical environments operate on us in both a conscious and subconscious manner. In other words, you may not realize that something, like a loud noise from construction, is bothering you if your subconscious if filtering it out. On psychedelics, that loud noise could become a source of problems. You will want to trip somewhere you feel comfortable (a place free from bad vibes), with people you trust.
Trip Intention
Healing Maps tells us that a trip intention is “something you seek to learn, understand, heal, or change,” but it is simply having a goal for your trip. To encourage your trip to go in the direction of your intention, it can help to spend time each day leading up to the trip reflecting or meditating on the intention. Once you trip, your intention may help guide you, but remember not to force the direction of the trip, as the trip will sometimes have you work on other things.
Remember that McKenna said if you have a bad trip, try to “make your mind wander from the bummer.” Should you have an intention going into the trip, you will have something to focus on as an anchor if the trip sours. Intention may also prevent bad trips by guiding you, and help you integrate your experiences by interpreting them with respect to intention afterward.
Proper Dosing
You will want to dose according to your intention. Some people microdose (or take very small quantities) to self-medicate and use regularly. Others take large doses known as heroic doses less frequently to experience more involved sessions and effects such as ego death.
Prior to taking large or even regular sized doses, you should test how the drug affects you at lower doses, and should work your way up gradually, or else you might end up as one of the many people who call emergency services because they got too high.
A common beginner mistake is to take some, not feel any effects when you believe it should be kicking in, and then take more. Do not take more. Sometimes drugs take longer to kick in.
Trip Sitters and Guides
Trip sitters are people who should be sober and step in as needed (and agreed to) for bad trips and emergencies. Remember the first quote provided by McKenna: after years of tripping experience, he was thankful he had someone there for his really bad trip. Even experienced trippers need help sometimes.
PsychonautWiki tells us that trip-sitters are sometimes referred to as guides, but the term guide is usually reserved for trip-sitters who take an active role in guiding the whole of the tripper’s experience. Guides tend to be for spiritual purposes. Whether they are a trip sitter or a guide, make sure you completely trust them! There are reports of women being sexually assaulted during their Ayahuasca ceremonies by shamans.
Trip Killers
Trip killers are drugs that are taken with the intention of ending your worst bad trips. Although they may not remove all the effects of the trip, they generally decrease the intensity of it and remove at least some effects. For classical psychedelics that work on the 5-HT2A receptor site (such as LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and DMT), benzodiazepines and antipsychotics are typically taken.
Always verify the interaction between particular drugs prior to taking them. Whether or not you have taken a classical psychedelic, please check Trip Sitter for instructions on which trip killer would work best for you. Remember that trip killers should be taken as a last resort.
McKenna was big on promoting cannabis to calm trips, but cannabis can potentiate trips and make them more intense instead of calming them down. It is not recommended that you use cannabis! What seems more promising is the use of CBD (a component of cannabis that is extracted or specifically bred for) to calm trips, as it may have potential as an antipsychotic and anxiolytic. Some anecdotal reports confirm that it works, but it cannot be recommended without seeing an official study.
Bad Post-Trips
Off the Deep End
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album has a song titled “Brain Damage,” and their album Wish You Were Here has a nine part song (condensed into two songs) titled “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” What do both of these songs have in common? They were written about former band member Syd Barrett, who ended up being dropped from Pink Floyd for his increasingly strange behavior. Many believe that he suffered from LSD-induced schizophrenia.
When Hamilton Morris argues that there is no such thing as a bad trip on the Joe Rogan Experience, he admits that his own best friend suffered a psychotic break and never recovered from it. Morris’ friend and Barrett are two casualties of psychedelics. They present the very worst post-trip symptoms.
What has been answered through studies (like the ones Morris cites) is that the mental health of users of classical psychedelics is no worse than the general population. The onset of symptoms in Morris’ friend and Barrett happened due to their underlying predispositions (meaning that their predisposition to schizophrenia was triggered by psychedelics). There is still the very real question of whether or not they would have lived normal lives were they to have never taken psychedelics.
“I have never seen adverse after-effects of an LSD session in an individual who did not have considerable emotional problems prior to the session. In a person who is reasonably balanced and adjusted, the negative sequelae the day after a supervised psychedelic session seldom go beyond such complaints as feelings of fatigue, headache, or hangover.” — Stanislav Grof, LSD Psychotherapy
“In over 3000 people that I have personally observed taking LSD, we’ve had only four cases of prolonged psychoses a matter of, say, two or three weeks after the session. All of these had been in a mental hospital before, and they were people who could not commit themselves to any stable relationship. And all of these people had nothing going in their lives. They were drifting or floating, with no home or family or any roots, no stable, ongoing life situation to return to. It’s dangerous to take a trip if you have no internal trust and no external place to turn to afterward.” — Timothy Leary, Playboy September 1966
To those who go on the forever trip, or “down the infinite rabbit hole” to quote one Redditor, I say Godspeed.
Dipping Your Toes in the Deep End
“It’s not unusual to hear stories of people being thrown in a loop for a week or more than a week… in my book True Hallucinations, I described but a two week episode that overcame my brother and I.” — Terence McKenna
Sometimes people temporarily enter psychotic or schizophrenic-like states. McKenna is an example of how healthy individuals seem to find their ways back to reality, although what type of reality they return to may be filled with odd thinking (as we will see). See the quote below that describes McKenna’s brother during their two week episode in which Terence and his brother both “evinced the classic symptoms of the two generally distinguished categories of process schizophrenia.”
“his thinking was moving backward in some fundamental way. In the same way that a film running in reverse seems to present a spectacle of wild and irrational confusion, yet manages in the end to have things in their proper places, my brothers[sic] ideas and physical movement seemed to me to be simply the exact reverse of logical expectations.” — Terence McKenna, True Hallucinations
When you return to reality, and are not either temporarily or permanently schizophrenic or psychotic, you may have some thoughts that you did not have before, or you may view life in a totally new way. While not schizophrenic, you may appear to others as if you were due to your odd thoughts (such as unverifiable claims or conspiracy theories). I have not seen this directly covered in the literature, but this is something I have observed in online psychedelic communities and in person (and is therefore anecdotal).
Similar to psychedelics exacerbating mental illness in the case of those with a predisposition to schizophrenia, psychedelics seem to exacerbate odd thinking where it exists. Odd thinking may be attributable to the fact that psychedelics increase suggestibility. Couple suggestibility with poor critical thinking skills (something we as a species still struggle with), and we have a recipe for odd thinking. Again, this is anecdotal and speculative, but it highlights a possible need for trippers to have close relationships that ground them and keep them from going too far down the rabbit hole.
Other Post-Trip Effects
Brain Rewiring
Another post-trip effect that comes from using psychedelics is a rewiring of the connections in your brain. When you are tripping, regions of your brain that do not ordinarily communicate are able to do so, allowing your brain to restructure (or rewire) itself. This “ability of the brain to change throughout life” is called neuroplasticity. Psychedelics increase neuroplasticity, and some, such as DMT and 3-Meo-DMT, do so in part through “the generation of neurons,” or neurogenesis.
“‘Simply making the brain more plastic itself doesn’t necessarily always lead to a positive outcome,’ he added. A controlled environment with trained therapists to guide and support the person during and after the experience is crucial to promoting that plasticity, ‘which can lead to learning, which can lead to healing and growth.’” — Alissa Greenberg quoting Fred Barrett, PBS
What I have seen in person and online anecdotally confirms these studies. For instance, one Redditor had the sensation of releasing a stream during orgasm while having sex with his girlfriend on psychedelics. Post-trip, he complained of feeling a sensation when he would urinate that was reminiscent of the feeling he experienced during his trip, although he specifies that the feelings he felt during urination were not pleasurable. The Redditor is experiencing a novel connection in their brain.
The example above may be considered a form of H.P.P.D., which will be briefly explained below, but the reason I separate rewiring the brain from H.P.P.D. is that there are other ways one can rewire the brain on psychedelics that do not fall under the category of H.P.P.D. For instance, from what I have seen, your trip impacts how you think and behave post-trip, and this is what The Psychedelic Experience suggests as well.
A guess as to what is going on would be that each time you trip, the pathways, or connections, in your brain that you select to use during the trip are strengthened. Again, from what I have seen, these effects may linger from a day to a week or may be long-term, as we saw with McKenna’s “thrown in a loop for a week or more.”
“The Tibetan manual conceives of the voyager as returning eventually to one of six worlds of game existence (sangsara). That is, the re−entry to the ego can take place on one of six levels, or as one of six personality types. Two of these are higher than the normal human, three are lower. The highest, most illuminated, level is that of the devas, who are what Westerners would call saints, sages or divine teachers. They are the most enlightened people walking the earth. Gautama Buddha, Lao Tse, Christ. The second level is that of the asuras, who may be called titans or heroes, people with a more than human degree of power and vision. The third level is that of most normal human beings, struggling through game−networks, occasionally breaking free. The fourth level is that of primitive and animalistic incarnations. In this category we have the dog and the cock, symbolic of hyper−sexuality concomitant with jealousy; the pig, symbolizing lustful stupidity and uncleanliness; the industrious, hoarding ant; the insect or worm signifying an earthy or grovelling disposition; the snake, flashing in anger; the ape, full of rampaging primitive power; the snarling “wolf of the steppes;” the bird, soaring freely. Many more could be enumerated. In all cultures of the world people have adopted identities in the image of animals. In childhood and in dreams it is a process familiar to all. The fifth level is that of neurotics, frustrated lifeless spirits forever pursuing unsatisfied desires; the sixth and lowest level is hell or psychosis. Less than one percent of ego− transcendent experiences end in sainthood or psychosis. Most persons return to the normal human level.” — Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Richard Alpert, The Psychedelic Experience
H.P.P.D.
Another post-trip effect is H.P.P.D. — hallucinogen persisting perception disorder — which is when trippers experience perceptual hallucinations while sober (after the hallucinogens wear off). These hallucinations tend to be “obvious as hallucinations” to the H.P.P.D. sufferer, but the hallucinations may negatively impact them in other ways. In The New Yorker, Dorian Rolston speaks with one H.P.P.D. sufferer who had to drop out of school and later had trouble with lane markings on the road, among other effects. In a study on H.P.P.D., it affected one woman’s career as an architect, and she contemplated suicide.
While H.P.P.D. is not completely understood, Rolston presents a theory of what is going on in the brain. The theory, created by Dr. Henry Abraham, is that H.P.P.D. is a disinhibition of stimuli in perception (meaning stimuli get stuck in perception instead of being cleared away). We also find out that the brain is ordinarily inhibited by GABA to ensure a proper flow — if you think back to the trip killer section, benzodiazepines are used to end bad trips, and they work on GABA receptors.
Although benzodiazepines do not always work on H.P.P.D. sufferers, it is one class of drugs used to treat H.P.P.D.
Rolston also quotes Irving Biederman, who suggests that H.P.P.D. sufferers may have “done something structurally to those interneurons, causing perceptual noise to exceed the threshold.” As we saw above, psychedelics can rewire your brain, so H.P.P.D. may sometimes be a symptom of rewiring, but there are other potential etiologies. Abraham hypothesized that the cause of some H.P.P.D. may be attributable to the “excitotoxic destruction of inhibitory neurons.”
“Reoccurring drug-like experiences after the administration of LSD and psilocybin are a common phenomenon occurring in up to 9.2% of healthy subjects (7.8% for LSD, 8.3% for psilocybin and 14.3% if both substances are administered)… None of the cases met DSM-V criteria for HPPD.” — Flashback phenomena after administration of LSD and psilocybin in controlled studies with healthy participants
Anxiety
So far I have looked at individual post-trip effects. Now I want to mention a group of associated effects: anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, and night terrors. These post-trip effects are probably the most common that I have seen reported. As we saw with McKenna, fear is an inherent facet of the psychedelic experience. When it is handled incorrectly, the fear can become a part of your everyday experience. This may be part of the rewiring effect — fear pathways are reinforced — or it may simply be a matter of trauma, as psychedelics place trippers in vulnerable states that subject them to extreme emotions.
Whatever the reason, when fear is brought back with you post-trip, it has the possibility of expanding past the fears that concerned you during your trip and into other facets of your life. Some people complain of becoming generally anxious due to taking psychedelics, and psychedelic-induced PTSD can be devastating to everyday functioning.
For those who are prone to anxiety, The Psychedelic Experience suggests a light benzodiazepine — Librium — prior to the trip. This may be surprising to many people, as many people subscribe to the idea that benozodiazepines should not be used during a trip unless it is an emergency. Yet I have seen people say that taking tranquilizers like benzos prior to a trip have helped ease anxiety. A drug that is used in place of a light benzo for some is phenibut (a drug that is closely related to benzos, as it works on GABA receptors, and is popular / legal at the moment in many places). Some people also suggest taking CBD prior to a trip. Again, I urge you to thoroughly research drug interactions before you take any of these.
To avoid failing to work through mental issues during psychedelic experiences, it seems best to either take anxiety reducers prior to a trip or avoid taking them during a trip unless it is an emergency. However, Stanislav Grof suggests that taking light benzos during a trip may not interfere with working through issues.
“In LSD psychotherapy, there is a continuity in the content of consecutive sessions. If we terminate an unpleasant experience by administering tranquilizers, the unresolved material will continue to surface in future sessions till the patient reaches the point where he or she is capable of confronting and resolving it. Therefore, the therapist should first exhaust all possibilities of a psychological intervention before considering tranquilizers. If a specific vicious interaction has developed between the sitter and the client, and the situation appears to be irresolvable, another therapist should be called to take over the session; provisions for such situations should always be made in advance.
If all psychological approaches fail and tranquilizers have to be used, it is much better to start with Librium (30–60 milligrams) or Valium (10–30 milligrams), which seem to alleviate painful emotions without interfering with the course of the session. As soon as possible, the patient should resume a reclining position with eyeshades and headphones, to continue the introspective approach to the experience.” — Stanislav Grof, LSD Psychotherapy
Disconnection
The last group of post-trip effects I am going to cover is based around people having trouble going back to everyday life. In the extreme, this can take the form of depersonalization or derealization — a sense of feeling detached from the self (functioning “on autopilot”) or environment (functioning as “an outside observer” to “one’s surroundings”), respectively. Although more frequently attributable to dissociative hallucinogens, classical psychedelics and other drug classes may induce these feelings.
Generally, there is a shift in consciousness that occurs in trippers — they become aware of things they had not previously been aware of, and this precipitates trouble returning to “the game.” For example, some who take psychedelics realize that animals are treated unethically, and they drop their traditional attitudes toward eating meat and become vegan. Some become introverted and feel they no longer connect with people in the same way.
“‘Games’ are behavioral sequences defined by roles, rules, rituals, goals, strategies, values, language, characteristic space−time locations and characteristic patterns of movement. Any behavior not having these nine features is non− game: this includes physiological reflexes, spontaneous play, and transcendent awareness.” — Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Richard Alpert, The Psychedelic Experience
What To Do if you Suffer from Bad Post-Trip Effects / How to Prevent Bad Post-Trip Effects
Seek professional psychological help if you suffer from anything that impacts your ability to live normally. Psychedelics are powerful tools that work on your brain and are not a toy. An aphorism in the psychedelic community is “respect the molecule.” When psychedelics are used respectfully and responsibly, there is less chance of bad post-trip effects. Going back to Dorian Rolston’s article, he mentions a study that showed no H.P.P.D. in 500 trippers from a Native American Church. Western civilization must learn how to properly use these molecules. For many, it may require a new way of thinking — a new way of living.
