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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

> When a freak brain hemorrhage struck out of nowhere a couple of years ago, I became a little depressed, stuck in a rut, and strangely fearful of death. So when I heard about people (in my neighborhood, even) using hallucinogens to push beyond their preoccupations, to help them live without fear, I decided that was a trip I had to take.

Ironically, I had a bad trip on LSD where I thought I had a brain hemorrhage, and the experience damaged me for years.

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I believe on you. I read the those bad trips can be really bad. Using LSD when you are depressed is dangerous.

It's a shame to see this comment in gray. You're right. It's not as if LSD has an intent to be therapeutic. It's a molecule that primes a brain for strange experiences. There's no reason why those experiences have to be good. They can be terrible.

How did it damage you? Did you continue to think you had a brain hemorrhage even after you became sober or was it "just" very traumatizing while it lasted?

I had decided to meditate and watch my breath at the peak of the experience, and felt my consciousness separate from my full body, and move upward into my brain (similar to the visual in the intro to Fight Club). I felt like I was a singular point floating around the blood vessels in my brain, and this freaked me out, so I took a sharp turn, which burst a vessel at the top of my sinuses. I felt the blood rush into my throat, and then I got tunnel vision and lost the ability to talk, and felt like I was passing out. A friend of mine said something that seemed like an incantation at the time, which pulled me out of it, but I was left with the belief that I could kill myself with my own thoughts. I was in a mental prison, constantly guarding myself from thinking certain thoughts. It took me years to break out of this prison, and I'm still scarred by it.

I have taken hallucinogens since and have been fine. I've never had anything nearly this bad on mushrooms, if that says anything. Mushrooms seem to guide you to a place, whereas LSD drags you there, whether you want to go or not.

> Mushrooms seem to guide you to a place, whereas LSD drags you there, whether you want to go or not.

That's interesting. I've never taken mushrooms but I've always heard the opposite, that LSD is easier to guide yourself and mushrooms drag you.

Wow, reading this... I've had the exact same experience last year with something I was told was LSD, but later I found out it was 25I. Either way, the similarities are uncanny, except I didn't get specifics like "I think I burst a vessel" or something like that. Instead it was directly tunnel vision, avoiding talking, felt like I was passing out and for a good while afterwards I avoided some thoughts thinking I could "flashback" to that "almost-dying" moment.

The way I was freed from that prison, however was spiritual and it wouldn't add much to share it here. It did show me that even though some psychoactives can guide you, others come without a teacher and anything can happen to you.

Disclaimer: regular ayahuasca user

I had a similarly dragged experience, but with mushrooms (5g dry cubensis, chopped and boiled, solo).

At first I felt that I was perceiving the chaotic source of the projection that is our reality, which was interesting. This turned into a super vivid nightmare in which I went through previous points in my life in which I had in fact died and all the following memories were just imaginations made up in the moment of death. After this I regained some awareness of where I was but was convinced I had stabbed myself in the stomach for quite a while.

The dose was quite high, but I didn't feel that I had control over any of this at the time. I wouldn't trip without a sitter again (or a long playlist queued up - only had one CD which ran out).

Afterwards I noticed that other tryptamines I tried (DMT, LSD) risked flashbacks to that experience, although this could have been placebo. I have since had positive trips :)

Trips can be very difficult, but they're not necessarily bad. Rick Doblin from MAPS talks about how MDMA can be used to integrate a difficult trip.

Funnily enough, it's possible to have such experiences on a trip that is otherwise very positive. I panicked a few times that I may have severed my genitalia and been unable to feel it due to LSD - my partner was helpful in calming me down and making the experience truly great.

It can definitely understand why it can be so damaging.

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