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Comment by mpg33 | Hacker News Reader

As a person who has an anxiety problem I'd be worried about having a bad trip. I have never done LSD though..

Having a bad trip is definitely a possibility, but it's not something that's very predictable, as the entire experience is completely foreign. You can significantly reduce the chance of a bad trip by putting yourself in a comfortable and safe environment, however.

Also, I've found "bad" trips to be just as valuable psychologically as "good" ones, though they can seem life threatening in the moment.

The benefit of using LSD in a psycho-therapeutic environment is the opportunity to work through the anxiety that comes up during the trip.

For a lot of people, an emotional breakdown can act as the catalyst for a life changing emotional breakthrough.

edit to add: 'bad trip' is a subjective term.

You're certainly right in the subjective use of "bad trip". I think the term has been applied to maybe too wide a spectrum of psychedelic experience, I've usually seen it manifest itself as one of these two:

A. An unpleasant experience where the user is forced to confront uncomfortable realities about themselves and the "world". This is usually a feature of most trips, it could last a few minutes or hours. This can often be a net-positive experience as the user navigates their way out of it and realize the baselessness of some of their more troubling assumptions.

B. An experience where the user entirely loses touch with "reality". Sometimes this resembles the symptoms of a very strong panic-attack. It includes feelings of imminent death or the feeling that the user has permanently altered their psychology forever or has gone irreparably insane. This can last for the entire duration of the trip and have permanent, lasting effects long after the drug has worn off.

As someone mentioned further up the thread, "A" can sometimes spiral out of control into "B".

Just an anecdote... I've had several "A" style bad trips, and they all ended up being net-positive for me. I've had one "B" style bad trip in the late 90s, and still haven't gotten 100% over it.

I have an anxiety problem and I did LSD before it was diagnosed (but not before I had been suffering anxiety issues for years).

My trip was pretty normal, but I freaked out in the weeks and months afterwards. I knew next to nothing about LSD, and managed to whip myself up into an anxious (also ignorant) frenzy about the dangers of the drug, the possibility that I would now go insane, etc. These were not pleasant or productive times.

So, two bits of advice for anyone with anxiety thinking about hallucinogens:

- Know the facts.

- Be aware of possible negative interactions with popular meds (e.g. SSRIs, etc.)

Note: I haven't done LSD again. I'd like to try Ectasy, but I'm on meds for anxiety/depression that don't mix well with MDMA.

I would try to find pure mdma, plan on getting off your meds a couple weeks in advance, and then give it a spin with a friend you can really talk honestly with. I've known two people who have completely eliminated their anxiety after one dose which subsequently cured their depression (address the cause (anxiety) and the problem goes away).

Shouldn't be a problem in a safe environment, specially when you're well informed about what's going to happen. Most bad trips are due to fear of the unknown, too high dose or a bad environment.

Lower dose = lower probability of having a bad trip, FWIW.

If you have a problem with anxiety, don't mess around with this stuff without the oversight of a professional.

The term "professional" should be taken euphemistically here. You will likely have a much better time with someone highly experienced with hallucinogen usage rather than a scientist in lab conditions.

I would be concerned that a lot of people feel like they're a lot more capable of tripsitting someone with an anxiety disorder than they really are.

That may be true, but scientific and academic credentials do not qualify anyone any more than direct experience. Would you trust a spelunking guide that has 100 trips down a cave, or someone who got a PhD in spelunking without taking any actual trips?

Are those my only two choices? I might instead choose not to cave at all.

On hacker news we are only allowed binary decision making no matter how analog the situation, but obviously the optimum solution is to talk to / work with both, although I'm guessing they aren't going to literally work with each other at the same moment. Which is really too bad. I could totally see a GP, Specialist, and Patient relationship developing.

No, they aren't. I was responding to the implied meaning that you only have one choice, that being professionally trained medical/scientific experts.

smoke an indica first to lower your anxiety.

Does weed actually lower anxiety? I've heard the opposite. Sorry, total nooob here :).

YMMV. When I used to have serious anxiety, it would sometimes make me have a full on panic attack. I don't know if it was indica or sativa.

But I know people who have sworn by it as a treatment.

Now that legalization is becoming a reality, maybe we'll get better science on this issue and find out the what, when, how and whom of its effects on anxiety.

I'd put money on your anxiety coming from a sativa. I've had Sativa panic attacks before (even on a 50/50 hybrid) from half a joint, whereas I could smoke massive bowls full of indica and not have a problem.

I tried the cbd type of weed that's suppose to be good for anxiety and found no benefit. I'll note the dispensary did not have any means for testing for chemical components, other than a pen that detects counterfit currency. I found for my constitution less is definetly more. I found it slightly helped with depression--sometimes--at a very low dose(like 1/2 a small puff). I sometimes think most of the benefits claimed are Placebo? That said--it's easy to get a prescription for. In the Bay Area, getting a doctor to write a script(good for one year) cost $100.00. When I got my script, the doctor was seeing a patient every 3-5 minutes, and only took cash. What a business?

I think a lot of it depends on the individual and I've been told several times that the variety and strain can make a big difference.

Anecdotally, it used to make me relaxed and only occasionally a little anxious if I had to unexpectedly play "straight" while under the influence.

Nowadays it's like a 50/50 shot whether it will just give me a "buzz" or whether it will make me incredibly anxious. I've mostly chalked it up to the stronger stuff I'm more likely to come across now that I'm not a broke college kid buying the cheap stuff but I also think a large part of it is that I'm a different person that I was 15-20 years ago and perhaps I just don't react as well to it anymore.

Either way, I mostly abstain these days except when I'm in a situation where the potential for anxiety is incredibly low.

Honestly depends on the strain. There are three types of Cannabis (Sativa, Indica, and Ruderalis) which all have different psychoactive effects.

If you smoke a Sativa-dominant strain, you will be lost in your own head for a good while, and will experience paranoia/anxiety as a common side-effect.

Cannabis Indica, however (White Widow, Hash Plant, etc) is a full-on couch-lock body high. I have high anxiety, and after smoking a bowl of indica, I'm about as mellow as can be.

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