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As the meme says, there are no bad trips. If you’re serious about psychedelics and not simply taking drugs for entertainment, you’ll always get the trip you need, but not necessarily the trip you wanted.

A “bad” trip just means you either needed to process some difficult stuff, or you might have violated a bunch of rules regarding set and setting. In both cases, you get the expected outcome.

Honestly, difficult trips are often the most rewarding since they help break up stuck patterns of thinking and behavior or bring things to the light you’ve been trying to hide from yourself whose repression caused internal suffering etc.

This always assumes you’ve done your homework and you don’t suffer from e. g. preexisting medical conditions. If you’re schizophrenic and take psychedelics, you might have an actual bad trip, that’s a completely different story, naturally.

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tatterdemalion@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
You have no idea what you’re talking about. Stop spreading dangerous information.

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i_need_your_bones@piefed.social ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Nope. Bad trips exist. I was sat laying down in my bed the entire time crying whiley mind was spiraling down shitty paths that after the trip made zero sense. I was disguested with myself. I couldn’t make myself move. Not locked in but zero motivation. Like that feeling when you need to pee but stay in bed because you don’t want to move.

I tried to cheer myself up think logically about the shit going through my head. It made it much worse. I wanted to die. About three and a half later I finally got out of bed and into the shower to cry. I remembered everything I thought of and that I hatedyself but it all wasn’t true. Completely illogical.

What did I gain from this? Nothing. You can say whatever you want to pretend there’s some underlying massive rebelation or positive that trip should have given me but I reject that whole heartedly. It just made me feel awful for about 5 hours fucked me up for about a week and made me hesitant do mushrooms again.

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- scrion@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  So, what did your integration look like? Did you talk to a professional about this? That’s the part most people seem to leave out, and without that, well…
  
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Ashiette@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There are bad trips. Sometimes, yes, ‘bad’ trips are just an expression of one’s mental state, exacerbed. You can look into it, ponder and maybe do some introspection because it is necessary.

But sometimes bad trips are just bad trips. The drugs just hit too hard, or you’re not prepared for it and you go spiralling down an infinite staircase of pain and anguish. But you have nothing to gain from it, except the memory of a bad experience.

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- scrion@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I agree. I tried to hint at it, but I should have probably formulated it less dismissively, less absolute. That’s on me.
  
  What I wanted to express is the unfortunately very common notion that each beneficial trip, or any trip really, has to be a pleasant experience, and that’s simply not true.
  
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  - captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That’s why I prefer to frame it as three types of trip: good, challenging, and bad. Good trips are fun and maybe productive, challenging are productive and unpleasant, and bad are unpleasant and unproductive.
    
    It can be really easy to mistake what should be challenging for bad and that’s where things like therapy techniques (cbt and dbt can really help here) and reintegration can be vital. But some people describe wholly unpleasant trips that don’t increase self awareness or present opportunities for growth or healing, as well as some people going in to psychedelics when they don’t have the tools or the spoons or the right mood that day.
    
    For that last bit, every trip should begin with an honest reflection of your mental state and if you need to bail for the day, because once you get on the ride you can’t leave until it’s over.
    
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  - thejoker954@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    No you really didn’t “try to hint at it”.
    
    Honestly you sound like a teenager who just discovered drugs and really enjoys them so you went down the research rabbit hole.
    
    And there’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but everything you said sounds like it’s coming from an arrogant/privileged place.
    
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    scrion@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    For what it’s worth, I’ve been actively involved in psychedelics for almost 51 years, so I trust even you will be able to deduce that I’m unfortunately the opposite of a teenager.
    
    I already admitted that I opted for a rather inappropriate way to express an opinion that was (rightfully) misinterpreted and tried to better express what I was trying to get at.
    
    You are free to completely dismiss that attempt as well, but please don’t try to bring seniority into this.
    
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CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Retarded take. Yes, there are bad trips.

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TherapyGary@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
People don’t like to hear it because it sounds like invalidating toxic positivity, but you’re right. Aside from fringe cases, there’s no bad trips- only challenging trips. It may even be traumatic, but that doesn’t make it an inherently bad trip- it’s all about how you respond to it and what you do with it after.

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- i_need_your_bones@piefed.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  In that case there’s no bad anything. No bad experiances ever. The word bad is meaningless
  
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  - TherapyGary@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Kind of, yeah. If you think this is dumb (beyond your reductionist take, I mean), I’d genuinely recommend you read Viktor Frankl (I ignore the religious stuff tho, personally, tbc)
    
    It’s a specifically important distinction to make for psychedelics though. If you go into it thinking bad trips are real, you’re more likely to have one, and you’re more likely to have a defeatist attitude afterward creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
    
    Especially when using psychedelics therapeutically, it’s extremely beneficial to go into it with the mindset that there’s no such thing as a bad trip. It reduces the odds of having a challenging trip in the first place, makes them less challenging when they do happen, and improves successful integration of challenging trips afterward
    
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    i_need_your_bones@piefed.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    So your issue in actuality the word “bad”
    
    I think this is detrimental. You can reject the word bad and pretend everything is something good if you handle it right but this is just reductionist and unhelpful.
    
    Even with your examples you speak transformativly. This is a much better framing. Turning something bad into something beneficial. Life and lemons
    
    When you have a bad trip you’re having a bad time. Pretending that it’s impossible for a trip to go bad makes it so when one does your advice is rejected. Framing it as a “challange” puts burden and blame on the individual that is undue. On Shrooms you are not in control pretending you are often is what leads to a bad trip. Acceptance of the mindset, of the trip, is the most common and most effective suggestion one can have for psychedelics. You aren’t in control past set and setting. It’s not your fault if things go south.
    
    Praise be the shroom god allow them to send you as they wish. Go with the water not against it. Float like a log and even though the water is quick you won’t drown.
    
    Bad isn’t a bad word. It’s just a descriptor.
    
    Sure, often (not always) bad can lead to good even great but rejecting the reality of the negative for forced and fictional goodness is delusion. If that trick of the mind helps that’s ok for you but inherently blaming others who recognise bad makes you lesser.
    
    Outside of psychedelics the issue is the same. Blaming, which is exactly what you’re doing, others for the bad positioning it as framing and a failure to realise it’s all actually good bits people with little chance for help to be given.
    
    To go to the absolute, absurd, worst example. A child sa victim. Should they have rejected the idea of bad? What happened to them was good they failed to create? No. Can they make good out of it? Yes. The experiance was still “bad”
    
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