The Psychedelic Experience FAQ

Personally, I think everyone should experience psychedelics when they're ready but to think that they are harmless is dangerous.

The effects of drugs are like having an addiction: you won't know at all what it's like until you try it and once you do, there's no going back, for better or for worse

Do not mistake insanity for interesting and creative. Heavy drug abuse can cause major permanent brain malfunction that results in a real compromise of sanity, and the result is not pretty.

These HN drug threads are always filled with fearless commentary like this by young people who have never seen the before and after.

I have no problem with people who choose to explore alternate states of consciousness, whether through meditation, brainwave entrainment, sensory deprivation, or psychedelics. I don't think they're "insane" for doing so. Most people who use LSD or psilocybin come out of the experience with no lasting harm. Albert Hoffman, who discovered LSD, used it into his 80s with no health problems. (He lived to be 102.)

However, if you spend significant time in a hipster enclave (e.g. Williamsburg) you see the long-term effects for people of certain mental patterns. The problem is that the people who are most attracted to frequent psychedelic use are also those, in my opinion, most vulnerable to the mental problems that this lifestyle can exacerbate.

Cocaine and alcohol are extremely dangerous, but everyone knows that. I think the danger of psychedelics (which are biologically non-toxic) is that they can appeal to an experience-chasing mentality, and that they sometimes become entwined with a pattern of self-medication for an existing mental problem that would be better treated by a real psychiatrist.

I've altered my consciousness a lot over the course of my life, and won't get into details (real name) but I haven't used any of these drugs for years. I don't even drink, except for an occasional beer with dinner. Drugs are not necessary. The way I think of it is that altered consciousness is like a wilderness. Meditation is like riding your bike into it, in the sense that if you're not in shape, you won't go very far but you'll be able to go back out. Keep riding, and you'll be able to go deeper over time. Psychedelics are more like hitch-hiking. You catch a ride, can go deep into the thick of it, and end up with no idea where you've landed. You hope you can find a safe ride back. Most of the time, you get a ride back and you're fine, but the probability of disaster is not zero.

Quantatively perhaps, but qualitatively, insanity is not subjective. It's a miserable, miserable experience I would wish upon no one, and wish no one would experience. Weird is fine, funky beliefs are fine, insanity is a different quality altogether.

These conditions can be initiated by using books or movies to reach dark ideas, or even aimless or subconscious thinking (too much thinking time or idleness).

That is just a bad trip. The problem is that if it brings up a lot of issues and you can't properly integrate them then you will have chronic anxiety issues, and any resulting physical brain changes would be from the chronic anxiety rather than from the psilocybin itself.

The normal advice when this happens is to do the drug again and to try to resolve whatever issues came up. But if you're on anti-depressants right now then that's not really an option, and you also probably wouldn't want to do that without a more experience guide.

I used to think of that night as the cause, but I later noticed that I had been building up to some kind of "breakdown" for months. I had always been a bit more tense, a bit more worried, and more sensitive than most. I had a deep belief that, if I tried hard enough, I could prevent bad things from happening. This sense of control is at the root of anxiety disorders. Most people don't think bad things will happen to them, so they lose no sleep about it. Those of us with anxiety issues are just the opposite: we're constantly trying to prevent and prepare for the worst, even though the majority of those feared events will never materialize.

Anyway, if you haven't already done so, I suggest that you not think about the mushrooms as being the cause but rather the trigger. Once anxiety attacks begin, they are very difficult to control. It wasn't the mushrooms specifically; rather, it was the anxiety that caused the downward spiral, as the conditioned fear response gains strength through repetition. (There's a load of good publications about this.) In short, there aren't two versions of you ("pre-mushroom you" and "post-mushroom you"); you just had a serious transformative experience.

Anyway, sounds like you've found some ways to address the anxiety. Life isn't easy, had you never taken shrooms, well it wouldn't be your life. There may be some transformation that comes from the anxiety -- Eckhart Tolle, for example, suffered from severe anxiety and depression for years, and then, one night the weight of the world was gone. If we could all be so lucky.

Many, if not most people go through their lives mostly unconsciously, with very little introspection or understanding of their subconscious. Many of them have serious issues and demons from their childhood or other trauma that they've never dealt with and do everything within their power to avoid thinking about.

Is it really a surprise that when they take a substance which has the effect of powerfully bringing subconscious content to consciousness, a substance they've never been taught how to use properly, that some of them are unable to deal with and are frightened of what they find?

Too many people take psychedelics with little clue as to what to expect, or with intention to just "party" or "see some trippy colors", not realizing just how powerful these substances are, and not realizing that they should be treated with respect and prepared for properly (we could say a lot about set and setting here).

Furthermore, psychedelic users rarely know what to do with or how to integrate what they learn after the experience is over. This lack of integration and refusal to deal with negative as well as positive emotions and subconscious content can also cause many problems.

This is why psychedelic use is best done under the guidance of experienced therapists or in a shamanic context where the tripper can get help both during and after the trip.

I'm not saying that doing or not doing any of the above is what led to the bad trip you experienced, or to the anxiety attacks afterwards. I don't know you or anything about how you approached the experience to hazard a guess. However, it would not surprise me if some of these issues were at play here.

Most panic attacks are that way.