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Comment by ge96 | Hacker News Reader

For DMT it's immediate. Even closing your eyes you see colors (flashes of light). I was sitting at a wooden table and the grain patterns were moving especially the circular placemat in front of me with concentric rings. And I remember being scared of my own arm like wtf is that. It was brief though minute or two it was over.

I have not done LSD or mushrooms as I have a bad childhood/repressed memories and I worry of having a bad trip.

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DMT hallucinations are very different, and a lot more vivid, than those from LSD or mushrooms. With the latter, at least with eyes open and in reasonable doses, the effect is not so much as seeing "new things", but seeing the same thing somehow differently. There may be some slight morphing-type movement, but it's still obvious that you see the "same things". I don't think the visual effects are really significant part of LSD/Mushroom trips. They are just easiest to verbalize (unlike e.g. some weird brainfucks like forgetting what a door does), so they are talked about more.

With DMT it can be as if someone suddenly put VR glasses on you.

I'm just afraid of being trapped in a bad trip for hours ha may seem like eternity, maybe it's not so bad/try micro dose.

Edit: tangent: it's interesting, I jumped out of a plane before (tandem) and when I landed I didn't change as a person.

> I have not done LSD or mushrooms as I have a bad childhood/repressed memories and I worry of having a bad trip.

That's a reasonable stance. I've found "bad" trips on both to be incredibly healing, nevertheless. I'm sure the outcome depends largely on your state of mind at the onset. Combining with MDMA could take the edge off bad memories that come up and grant space for processing them directly.

What do you think about doing it with a sober friend to control you? I guess you could be alone in a room and they monitor you if you need help.

Also micro-dose. It's funny the movie Jobs 2013 it shows him doing acid and he's in the field, I'm like "Oh if I do acid I can be like Steve Jobs" not serious but was wondering maybe... unlocks your brain somehow.

A sober, or an experienced trustworthy, tripsitter is almost a must. A small amount of MDMA (especially if you're not familiar with it) before taking a psychedelic can be helpful as mentioned. Having some sedatives just handy just in case may itself lessen the probability of unpleasant effects.

Micro-dosing is mostly placebo. But a good idea is to start with small doses (check e.g. the "threshold limits" at Psychonaut Wiki), and maybe faster shorter acting substances like 2C-B or mushrooms rather than longer acting like LSD.

Also good to acknowledge that psychedelics just aren't very enjoyable experiences for many, and even for most they are rarely unambiguously good.

Yeah I'm wondering if you can tell like I can't smoke w because I get paranoid/scared of people. I just drink in a social setting

edit: tell as in if you can't handle w, shouldn't do acid/psychedelics ha

Psychedelics aren't necessarily as anxiety/paranoia inducing as weed, and even the effects in general aren't necessarily as intense. Of course it depends on the dosage, the person and the setting, and paranoia from weed most likely correlates with difficult psychedelic experiences.

benzos end LSD trips, so if you are worried about a bad trip, just have a xanax with you when you do it and if you want out, take one and in 30 minutes you will be okay.

IMO its the worry itself which causes the bad trip not actually the repressed/bad memories. I know lots of people with bad childhoods who have great trips, but anybody who is anxious or worried about anything on the trip will have a bad time.

If you are in a good place surrounded by good people and you are happy, then it should be a good experience. If you go into it worrying about what will happen then the drugs will compound that anxiety, not relieve it.

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