Comment by AnthonBerg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AnthonBerg | Hacker News Reader

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I think you’ll be fine.

Anecdotal:

I get very anxious from marijuana. Somewhat manic even. I hate the feeling. I’m generally not a stranger to anxiety in life.

I don’t get anxious from LSD. I _have_ felt anxiety on it that I had been repressing, felt it kind of wash over, but it was ... useful. Not difficult. I knew what it was. I wasn’t lost in it. It wasn’t like being swallowed by the uncomfortable anxiety from marijuana that kind of takes over or drives.

And, well, I think a low LSD dose actually helped me resolve a thread of anxiety I had had since I was a child. An permanent and obsessive safety-seeking walk down an endless tree of decisions and judgement. Kind of a background thread. I kind of ... found it again? Had forgotten it was there? And could revisit it and ... know to stop. “Just stop judging”, i.e. judging the situation. And it felt like I could. It still feels like something was let go of. But idk!; Anecdotal!

There are studies that show that when starting with low doses, then very few people get anxious. Other studies show that when people _do_ get anxious, there are still lasting benefits to well being. As I understand it. There’s a decent seeming summary of this on http://tripsafe.org

There is no comparison between paranoia from weed and a bad trip from mushrooms/lsd.

One can leave you permanently mentally scarred and the other will make you paranoid for a few hours.

I have stoner friends and lsd/mushroom friends. Some of the latter are still dealing with issues today from a single bad experience from a trip they had years ago. I cannot say the same of my stoner friends.

I never had a _really_ bad trip, but I some some things which felt quite evil to me up to the point of pure existential crisis which stayed for some time.

Have you done shrooms? Wondering how shrooms work on someone who can get anxiety from weed.

Not the poster, but I had to stop smoking weed because of anxiety and paranoia. I have also taken magic mushrooms in a variety of doses, up to 7g dried, and have not experienced any anxiety or paranoia like I did with weed. I had one magic mushroom experience that started out as a really bad trip, but I was able to manage the anxiety and ride it out until halfway through, when it became a wonderful, uplifting, euphoric experience. Contrast that to that one time I did a dab and had a panic attack and couldn't do anything about it.

I have to disagree. While weed certainly can and does induce anxiety on occasion it is no where near as intense as magic mushroom trips. It’s not on the same level.

A mushroom trip can leave you feeling refreshed regardless but if you have a bad trip it may expose you to your deepest and darkest fears and become a terrifying nightmarish experience that weed couldnt induce if you tried.

The horror of a bad a trip didn’t necessarily teach me anything other than to respect mushrooms much more than weed.

I have had friends say the same. There is no comparison of the paranoia from weed vs the absolute horror of a bad trip.

I feel that people who say there is havent really done a lot of either to know the difference.

It's very dose dependent.

"At a dosage of 1.6 grams in a therapeutic clinical environment, we might expect 0% of people to experience some extreme fear, for an average of around 1 minute of strong anxiety, and we might expect around ~45% to report a persisting positive increase in mood from this dosage assuming they had first tried 0.8 grams, and then 1.6 grams5"

Via https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-shrooms/#start-small

Based on studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27578767 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3308357/table/T... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3308357/

>> The horror of a bad a trip didn’t necessarily teach me anything other than to respect mushrooms much more than weed.

Give it time. It can take a decade of reflection to untangle/parse.

> I feel that people who say there is havent really done a lot of either to know the difference.

I don't know why you are dismissing my experience like that, or why you think that I do not have a lot of experience. Have you ever had a panic attack? Anxiety and paranoia are something I would get consistently from weed. I never felt the same anxiety, and never felt paranoia, on mushrooms. I never had a panic attack from mushrooms. Almost every psychedelic trip I take (between 50-60 so far) has a range of negative aspects, but I am able to better control myself, something that is not the case with marijuana. I have experienced terror on both mushrooms and LSD, and I was able to keep it together and turn it around every time. FWIW, I also prefer to do relatively large doses (3-5 grams mushrooms, 2-7 hits of LSD).

I have, and they don't have any similar anxiety-inducing effects on me. On the contrary mushrooms reduce anxiety for me.

A friend did have a very anxious trip - it's possible. However it was topical for him. An introspection into deep issues of security and control, and probably a too high dose for that occasion in his life, with not much experience. But he's fine after!

The psilocybin family's effect is imo a bit more "fantastically bewildering" than LSD. In a sense like old fairytales are sometimes curiously and bewildering to a child. (Comfortably bewildering!) It's hard to put into words. It's a place of beauty. It can be scary if you're an anxious type (like I am myself) and go in a bit fast. (Haven't had an anxious experience myself though.) BUT it doesn't have to be scary or uncomfortable even if bewildering - and usually isn't except in exceptional cases - and doesn't occur with low starting doses afaik, there are still lasting benefits even if you get anxious (iow it is processing), it passes, and the interesting thing is that you're somehow always fine if you let go. A kind and insightful tripsitter is all the insurance I would need I think.

It's really interesting and really hard to explain. Maybe check out the studies and study protocols. Plenty of stuff on http://maps.org – As an example, I believe it has been shown that psilocybin mushrooms strongly reduce anxiety in terminal cancer patients. In a lasting way. I cannot imagine a more trapped and anxious state than terminal cancer. So even id there is anxiety while under the influence, it seems to mean something.

I also get (mild) anxiety from weed but LSD gives me a nice, relaxed, "everything is great" feeling. Shrooms are very similar, though I get more introspective and depressed unless I'm somewhere nice. I don't like doing LSD/shrooms in my flat or in crowded places, because they bring me down. I'll need to try on a beach or in a forest next time.

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