The term “psychedelic” was coined by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond: “To fathom Hell or go angelic / Just take a pinch of psychedelic.” But today’s public messaging around psychedelics has a dangerous tendency to gloss over the “fathoming hell” part, which has been euphemized into the language of a “bad” or “challenging” trip.

Challenging trips are generally ones that involve encounters with intense anxiety, unwelcome loss of control, surfaced trauma, or physical discomfort. They’re difficult experiences in the moment, but ultimately, once things settle down, they can be cast in a therapeutic light, and people look back on them as worthwhile.

Then there are just plain bad trips that do not resolve into a harmonious insight, no matter how much therapy, intention, and journaling you throw at them. “Choking, breathless, I was having a grief-tinged cosmic panic attack,” the Harvard theologian Rachael Petersen wrote of her experience in a psilocybin clinical trial. “A small kernel of doubt: a splinter wedged between me and the world … What if terror is just that — terrible, terrifying, absolute?”

The positive sides of psychedelics — therapeutic promise, spiritual renewal, and radical forms of creativity — attract more interest, and more funding, than research into what might go wrong for a minority of users. And to be clear, even outside of the well-controlled settings of clinical trials, the majority of psychedelic trips do seem to lean positive. One recent study that surveyed 613 lifetime psychedelic users drawn from a nationally representative sample found that 82.4 percent reported “never” or “rarely” experiencing bad trips. More than 90 percent reported either no subsequent impairment in their ability to function, or difficulties lasting no more than 24 hours.

    • TherouxSonfeir@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      I used to do a lot of shrooms. All my experiences were good except my last one. I went in with a lot of baggage, knowing that might be an issue—and it was. It was a miserable journey that I was stuck in for hours repeating, and I haven’t done them since.

      However, the result of that “bad trip” was me making huge positive life changes—like moving across the country, getting a new career, finding new friends, and most importantly: taking the gun out of my mouth.

      So, was it “bad?”

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 years ago

      Bad trips can also happen to people with undiagnosed mental health issues.

      You shouldn’t be giving mushrooms to people with say, bi-polar disorder, in hopes that it helps.

      The reason we should be using an abundance of caution is because a lot of fucking hippie dipshits want this to be mental health cure-all when it isn’t. (I can say this because I am a hippie dipshit.)

      It is very helpful for certain mental health issues, but not all of them.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        I had that stance on cannabis. It is a basically harmless way to relax, it does have some medical benefit to some people with horrible mental or physical problems, but it isn’t going to cure cancer. Stop pretending and lying about it. Once someone catches you lying they lose trust and that is hella hard to regain. Again, yes it should be legal and yes doctors should write scripts for it if the situation calls for it, no it isn’t going to magically reverse every ailments.

        I have not tried shrooms. When they are legal I probably will.

    • nkat2112@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      Thank you for sharing this most insightful comment! I wasn’t aware of that and it makes a lot of sense. Have a great day.