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Comment by tremarley | Hacker News Reader

We can get bad trips with any type of drug. Even weed and alchohol.

It can be so bad that we never want to try it again. It's all apart of the journey and the experiment.

I've had a couple bad trips, and I'm glad I had them. They created clear fear, paranoia and terror that I'll always remember. It caused me to appreciate the 'real' world a lot more.

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I've had some horrible experiences with alcohol, but nothing compared to the experience of eternal torture I felt with psychedelics.

I'm not glad I had them. The pain wasn't worth it. The lessons I learned could have been learned in different (safer) ways.

The worst nights of alcohol poisoning, vomiting, and multi day hangovers aren't even a tiny fraction of the suffering I felt on psychedelics.

Comparing a bad psychedelic trip to a bad experience with cannabis or alcohol is kind of trivializing it. A moderate LSD dose can last 8-12 hours and at its peak is much, much more intense. Unless you have some valium on hand, if things go south there is no escaping it. You can't just go to sleep like you could with alcohol or cannabis.

Edibles can kick your arse in a major way and go on for hours. I've had a few experiences that surpasses most of my trips on LSD. But I agree that a moderate-high dose of LSD that goes south is much harder to control. Sometimes it's just like a bomb detonates in the center of your mind, and you're using the next days (weeks, months or years) collecting the debris and trying to piece them together.

"Take it easy duuude, but take it!" - Terence McKenna

What is moderate-high in your book?

I would say 150mcg is a moderate dose, maybe pushing into the high dose territory. Anything beyond is high dose. And kamikaze at 500mcg? Beyond that you have thumbprints.

All subjective, and the lines become fuzzy.

I mean, you can have a bad experience on alcohol, but I'm not sure its a useful comparison between doing dumb things blacked out on a CNS depressant or being a sad drunk to.... dissociating, thinking you are dead and literally everyone you ever cared about was a fleeting and imaginary while the panic circuits in your brain are cranked up to 11 for 8 hours

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