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What Is a Bad Trip?

Psychedelic drugs such as lsd, mushrooms, and molly can cause hallucinations known as a “bad trip”. learn what causes a bad trip, how to identify warning signs, and how to stop it..

A trip refers to the intoxication from a drug that causes hallucinations. It is called a trip because the sensations that a psychedelic ( hallucination-causing ) drug causes can be so strange that it feels as if you are in a whole different world. A bad trip, also sometimes called a bad  acid  trip, occurs when the trip a psychedelic drug causes is negative.

Bad trips can lead to excessive fear, agitation or emotionally disturbing situations. Someone who is having a bad trip may feel as if time is standing still and may have disturbing hallucinations that cause extreme fear or mood swings.

What Causes a Bad Trip?

There are several things that can  increase the probability of a bad trip , but anyone who is using psychedelic substances is at risk of having a bad trip. Some of the things that can increase the risk of having a bad trip include:

• Taking higher doses of a psychedelic drug
• Being in a negative emotional state before using or while using psychedelics
• Being in settings with excessive stimulation
• Using  alcohol  at the same time as using a psychedelic drug
• Not having someone stay with you while using psychedelic drugs
• Not drinking enough water

While avoiding these risks can reduce your chances of having a bad trip, anyone can have a bad trip at any time while using psychedelics. Someone who has been using psychedelic drugs for years and has never had a bad trip can have a bad trip while using, even if they have not changed anything about how they use.

Drugs That Can Cause a Bad Trip

Any drug that can cause hallucinations and lead to a trip can cause a bad trip. These drugs are called psychedelic drugs and are often used for the hallucinations they create. Some common psychedelic drugs include:

• LSD  – Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known as  acid , is primarily taken for the hallucination that it creates. LSD is probably the best known psychedelic drug.
• DMT  – N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a powerful psychedelic drug that can lead to a bad trip. Because of how strong the effects of  DMT  are, it is more likely to lead to a bad trip than many other psychedelic drugs.( See More:  What is DMT
• Mushrooms  – Psilocybin mushrooms, also known as “shrooms” or “magic mushrooms,” are hallucinogenic fungi that can lead to a bad trip. A bad mushroom trip may also be referred to as a bad shroom trip.
• Molly  – Molly, a slang name for the drug  MDMA , is a psychedelic drug that is commonly used in parties or raves. Bad molly trips are more common in situations where people become dehydrated from over-partying.
• Salvia  – Salvia, also known as “sage of the diviners,” is a hallucinogenic drug that is shorter-acting and more potent than many other psychedelic drugs. Bad trips while using  salvia  are reported to be more terrifying than those experienced while using other psychedelic drugs.
• Marijuana  – Bad trips while using  marijuana  are uncommon, but can definitely still occur. Some of the most common bad trip symptoms occurring with weed are anxiety and facial numbness.

Symptoms of a Bad Trip

Bad acid trip symptoms are highly individualized and may be different from previous bad trip symptoms for the same individual. Some common bad trip symptoms include:

• A sensation that time is standing still
• Negative thoughts or interpretations of events around you
• Extreme paranoia
• Extreme and sudden mood swings
• Negative hallucinations that may include sensations, sounds or sights

If you are with someone who is experiencing these symptoms and they have recently been using a psychedelic drug, they could be having a bad trip. If you are with someone who is having these symptoms and you are not sure if they have taken any drugs, you should take them to the nearest hospital or call 911.

How to Stop a Bad Trip

Stopping a bad trip may not be possible, but there are things that can be done to  help someone who is having a bad trip . If someone is having a bad trip, they should be moved away from noise and stimulation, as this can make a bad trip worse. A bad trip guide can also help. This involves having someone who is sober stay with the person having the bad trip and talk them through the trip. Not everyone will benefit from a bad trip guide, and some people may develop a paranoid attitude towards the guide or even become aggressive.

Some medications may help to stop a bad trip, but these can only be given in a hospital. Calling 911 or going to the nearest emergency room can help provide someone who is having a bad trip with these medications.

Related Topic:   Treatment options for LSD

Carbonaro, T.M., et al. “ Survey Study of Challenging Experiences […]egative Consequences .” Journal of Psychopharmacology, August 20, 2016. Accessed August 14, 2019.

Davis, Kathleen. “ Salvia: What Are the Effects? ” Medical News Today, January 16, 2019. Accessed August 14, 2019.

Sturtz, Rachel. “ Refinery29: 7 Ways To Help Someone Who’s Having A Bad Trip .” Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, 2019. Accessed August 14, 2019.

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What to Expect On Your Next LSD Trip

Picture yourself in a boat on a river…

You don’t exactly remember how or when you got there, but you know you went willingly.

The skies, suddenly marmalade, gave no warning about their transformation. Millions of sounds come to you sharp and vivid. And there you float, right in the middle of it.

Are you ready to hop into the boat? Maybe it’s your first time, or maybe you are an experienced tripper who wants to get their mind straight before embarking again. In any case, here’s what to expect on your date with Lucy.

THE TWO SIDES OF THE TAB

Before taking LSD , you should know a couple of things.

The first is to know and understand the nature of a psychedelic. Psychedelics take over your brain, and LSD is a potent psychedelic. There will be some funny business going on inside your skull. You need to be prepared to see, hear, and believe things that you didn’t expect.

Second, despite the psychedelic nature, preventative measures against uncomfortable effects are possible. Taking LSD doesn’t mean you are helpless and completely at the whim of the substance. It shouldn’t frighten you. With  a little bit of preparation and awareness , you will significantly improve your chances at a positive, enjoyable trip.

Interested in a legal psychedelic experience in Amsterdam? Click here for more details.  

SIDE EFFECTS AND SAFETY OF LSD

Some effects of LSD are benign and even enjoyable. Visual distortions, hallucinations, and altered emotion and cognition are common. Other side effects are less enjoyable, and potentially harmful– an increased heart rate and body temperature, anxiety, nausea, and psychosis are all possible after taking LSD.

Despite how powerful LSD is, much of that power comes from the subjective experience of the trip. In terms of physical toxicity and potential danger, LSD is relatively safe. There have only been a handful of deaths reported from LSD intoxication , and they are usually at doses many, many times higher than normal recreational amounts.

As long as you take measured, responsible doses, have a reliable source, and space out your trips, LSD should have few or no harmful or negative side effects.

You want to trip with good company. Now, there’s an important distinction to make here: good company doesn’t necessarily mean close friends. There are some close friends of mine that I wouldn’t want to trip with, simply due to the nature of their personality and energy. It doesn’t mean they are horrible people. However, some people possess traits that are more acid-compatible.

If you’re tripping in a group, and are unsure about your compatibility with the other members, you should look for these types of people. From my experience, you want to trip with someone stable, calm, and aware. Those who handle confusion and uncertainty well are usually the best at dealing with LSD.

It’s a big plus if you don’t mind speaking nonsense with them, and even better if you can hold periods of silence with each other. While tripping, there’s a good chance you will find yourself engaged in a captivating conversation, only to realize midway through that you have no clue what you are trying to say.

There is also the option of tripping with a guide or shaman. If it is your first time, you feel very nervous, and a guide or shaman is available, I would recommend it. Just make sure they are experienced and trustworthy. I would avoid tripping in a group without any active “babysitter.” A group of people all on LSD are susceptible to the quick and uncontrolled spread of negative emotions.

“You want to trip with good company… and good company doesn’t necessarily mean close friends.”

ENVIRONMENT

Trip somewhere where you will feel comfortable. Different elements contribute to comfort. Beauty is a big one. Every time I’ve been in an ugly place, it has deeply bothered me. A dirty, unkempt, or uninspired place is more likely to influence your trip negatively. LSD often enhances your perception of things, not just through your senses, but through your emotions and feelings. So somewhere that usually doesn’t bother you much may have a surprisingly strong effect on your emotions while on LSD. Take this into account when you are planning your trip.

Nature is the gold standard. A house where you feel comfortable is good, too. But noisy places, with cars zooming by or lots of people walking around, has a good chance of turning things sour. You may suddenly feel paranoid or agitated by the presence of strangers. Even if you are comfortable with large crowds, the distractions often take away from your ability to meditate upon deeper insights during and after the trip.

Feeling secure is vital when setting up an enjoyable trip.

Your emotions will be volatile and unpredictable. If you don’t know where you are, if you feel unsafe, or if some unwelcome situation from home or work comes up, your confusion and uncertainty will blindside you. LSD can make your emotions tough to manage.

So get your affairs straight before embarking on an LSD trip. Have a plan. Put some thought into it. You don’t need to schedule your activities minute by minute. You won’t stick to a schedule anyways. Just keep yourself away from situations that are unnecessarily stressful or dangerous. In a way, you want to carve out an isolated environment for yourself, untainted by the ongoing stresses of daily life. Finally, turn off your phone.

Click here to learn everything you need to know about LSD

FOOD, DRINK, AND OTHER PREPARATIONS; DO’S AND DONT’S

It is common to lose your appetite for the duration of the LSD trip, which can last up to 12 hours. It’s smart to eat beforehand and to drink water before, during, and after. I’ve found that I start to get hungry during the tail end of the trip, and love to grab a big meal to enjoy while still feeling the effects. Junk food is appalling, smoothies have been disappointing, and Indian food is my reigning favorite.

I also love to trip around a fire, so I always try to trip where open fires are allowed. Camping by the beach is the perfect situation for me. You can have a swim in the ocean, enjoy plenty of open space, and at night, get a clear view of the stars. Just make sure to have enough clothes and blankets if you are going to camp or trip outside during the evening.

Finally, some do’s and dont’s to consider when taking LSD:

• Stay hydrated. It’s fine and expected to not eat much after taking LSD, but LSD can raise your body temperature and you may not realize how much you are sweating. It’s never a bad idea to carry some water with you and remind yourself to drink.
• Have supplies. Stay stocked with any snacks, beverages, smokes, or miscellaneous consumables that you might want while using LSD. The substance can make you fidgety and want some ambiguous thing, so don’t leave your future self hanging.
• Drive or operate heavy machinery after taking LSD. Don’t expect to be able to pull this off, and don’t put yourself and others at risk. Even if you drop it immediately and take a quick drive somewhere, you never know how quickly the substance might take effect. A simple trick for how long to wait– since LSD lasts for up to 12 hours, just wait until the next day. You’ll either still be under the effects or will be too tired.
• Communicate with people you don’t want to communicate with while on LSD. This should go without saying, and LSD probably won’t release your inhibitions so much that you’ll start calling your boss. But still, it might be a good idea to put your phone away for a while, or not trip down the block from your work.
• Disappear. It’s fine if you don’t want to advertise your trip, but make sure you either have a sitter with you or someone knows where you are and what you are doing. This is particularly important if you are going out in nature or somewhere new. LSD is a great motivator to break and change plans, which is great during the experience, but may sometimes be dangerous or very inconvenient. Just keep yourself tethered somehow to your life back on earth, give yourself a north star.
• Eat heavy or unhealthy food. You probably won’t want to anyways, but heavy meals can bog you down and the LSD might magnify the physical discomfort from an unhealthy meal.

DROPPING THE TAB

LSD is taken sublingually, via paper or gel tab. Sometimes it’s dropped on a sugar cube or piece of candy, and other times the pure liquid substance is administered. Whatever the method, LSD is quite tasteless. Paper tabs are my least favorite, because of the taste of ink and the texture of the disintegrating paper.

It’s common to hold the tab under your tongue for a while. People have recommended I keep it down there for as long as an hour. I’ve also tried simply swallowing the tabs without holding them under my tongue at all, and in my experience, it makes little difference.

Read our guide on how to Microdose with LSD

ONSET, DURATION, AND PEAKS

An LSD trip usually lasts anywhere from 6-12 hours.  I always feel a sort of buzz as it comes on, which flows through my clammy hands and tense jaws. The onset comes with a surge of energy and an increase in sensory perception. The timeline for an LSD trip can vary depending on dosage amount and the individual. With a stronger dose, some of the physical, buzzing effects that precede the trip can come on quicker and stronger. With a normal dose you may feel completely normal for up to 30-45 minutes after ingesting, but with a stronger dose you might feel the onset within 15 minutes. Usually trips that last long, more than 10 hours, can be linked to higher doses.

Higher doses may also bring on “peaks” quicker, and for a longer period of time. Peaks just describe periods during your trip when the effects feel stronger. These may last anywhere from 10-15 minutes to an hour or longer, though in a peak “minutes” or “hours” may not have much meaning. Hallucinations, hysteria, laughing fits, and other uncontrollable experiences can happen during peaks. In between the peaks you get your moments of deep thought, self-observation, and clarity.

An LSD trip is just a long ride up, down, and through these peaks. I wouldn’t worry about trying to distinguish peaks from non-peaks while tripping, though. Peaks and non-peaks are more things you think about after the trip, not during it.

THE EFFECTS OF LSD

The effects of LSD vary. I rarely hallucinate on LSD, but always see warping images and very vibrant, glowing colors. A feeling of synesthesia, or of sensory inputs mixing with each other, is also likely. For instance, while tripping, I once realized I had been masticating and moving my fingers while watching the sunset. I really could taste and feel the texture in the red, orange, and blue colors of the sky.

There is a very cerebral aspect of an LSD trip, as well. You will think differently, almost as if you have another personality. LSD trips get very introspective and insightful. But taking acid won’t guarantee that you will gain wisdom. Sometimes, you might only experience the feeling of realization, without truly realizing anything at all. It’s very common to think you are on to some huge breakthrough, only to completely lose it.

However, it’s also common to gain some real insights. During one trip, I started thinking about a personal problem that was bothering me at the time. I realized that I shouldn’t avoid thinking about it and that I could confront this issue while tripping. Before allowing myself to grow too anxious, I pictured the problem as a knot. I thought of all the compounding factors bothering me, and I imagined all the worst case scenarios. The knot grew and tightened. And then, I simply untied the knot and felt at ease. I still use this method in my daily life when I get caught up in anxiety.

People who have used LSD likely have at least one experience like my insight about anxieties and knots. Perhaps this phenomenon can be explained by examining how LSD affects the brain. Thanks to recent groundbreaking studies and brain scans, scientists have seen that LSD diverts brain activity away from our “default mode network”, which is associated with memories and our sense of self. At the same time, LSD increases brain activity in other areas that usually don’t see as much brain activity. According to a co-author of a study from Imperial College London examining the effects of LSD on the brain, the altered neural activity leads to “a feeling of being part of something larger and more transcendental” than our everyday self.

The science helps explain why so many people attest to the life-changing effects of LSD. It’s common for a group of people to bond over their personal LSD stories– it’s such a unique experience that few things are as interesting to discuss or explore. People may talk about certain small details they noticed during their trip, for example a single piece of grass or a rock that they end up focusing on for hours in wonder. They might discuss, as I did, some sudden insight that relates to their own life or behaviors, where a simple solution to a longstanding problem suddenly comes to light.

It really would require a radical change to our brains in order to feel and learn what many have from LSD. I don’t know of any other single experience that you could voluntarily undertake with such a high likelihood to change your life.

There are also challenging, uncomfortable effects of LSD. You might feel paranoid, anxious, or flat out scared. If you can’t outthink these unpleasant emotions, try changing your environment or talking to someone to distract yourself. Another disarmingly simple tactic is to smile.

Though proper preparation helps you avoid these “bad trips,” they can still happen despite the most careful precautions.

Read our full guide on how to avoid “Bad Trips.”

In fact, your feelings of anxiety and discomfort might only increase after trying to stop them. The effects may go even further, until you lose all self-control. I’ve had a trip where I ended up walking the streets shouting nonsense and even got into a shoving match with a group of people. I had no control over myself, and looking back on it, it’s as if someone else took over my body.

People usually call these “bad trips”. Sharing great trip stories is popular, but it’s probably just as interesting and common to discuss bad trip experiences. These stories can range from small things like trash on the floor or a crowded area becoming increasingly unsettling, to more intense experiences like feeling haunted or oppressed by some sinister energy. Some people experience intense states of paranoia or fear, which can last hours.

To some extent, feeling fear or negative emotions while on LSD is unavoidable. But you can still take steps beforehand to avoid putting yourself or others at harm. If nobody is hurt, these bad trips can sometimes be quite edifying. They give you a healthy respect for the substance, allow you to appreciate your sanity and self-control, and expand your scope of experience. The best thing you can do if you have a bad trip is to reflect upon and learn from it. Take bad trips seriously, but don’t blame yourself.

Bad trips happen. If you only have fun when you take LSD, you don’t fully understand the substance.

After your LSD trip, you may feel strangely bland. A headache or slight hangover feeling is possible, but this is likely due to a lack of sleep, and unrelated to the actual acid. The “hangover” from taking LSD is more like a readjustment to normality. It’s an opportune time to reflect on your experience and appreciate your sobriety.

Whenever I trip on LSD, I always allow myself an ample amount of time before my next trip. Personally, I wait at least three or four months. I don’t base this timeframe on any rule or law, rather on my specific tolerance and interest in psychedelics. Depending on your clock, I’d only recommend you give yourself enough time to learn from your experience, to get bored again with what people call “normal life,” and to grow open to the full possibilities of this substance called LSD.

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Fantastic article! That wondrous feeling of being one with the universe; you realise everything is energy; you realise a blade of grass is family.

And afterwards you know you have been somewhere that is not fully explainable in words, but you are glad you have been there.

And as you say, when it is true acid, it is such a spiritual/emotional experience that you need time to absorb the wonder; you treat the experience with respect and don’t have a desire for a next trip for long intervals.

I think if it was freely available the world would be a better place.

So sad that the Netherlands has decayed into a neo-liberal conservative ‘government’.

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Trip Killers: How To Stop an Acid Trip

Occasionally, a psychedelic trip can take a turn for the worse. This group of “trip killer” drugs are used by experienced trip sitters and medical professionals to stop the trip in its tracks.

What Are Trip Killers?

1. alprazolam (xanax), 2. lorazepam (ativan), 3. diazepam (valium), 4. clonazepam (klonopin), 5. zolpidem (ambien), 6. quetiapine (seroquel), 7. olanzapine (zyprexa) , how long do trip killers take to kick in, psychedelics that have trip killers, psychedelics that don’t have trip killers, 1. are you in over your head, 2. are you or those around you at risk, 3. do you need to sober up asap, who shouldn’t use benzodiazepine-based trip killers, 1. the “bad trip”, 2. you or your trip sitter realize it’s time for a trip killer, 3. you enter “the placebo effect”, 4. the trip killer begins to take effect, 5. the trip comes to an end  , 6. you feel almost sober, 1. sourcing the trip killers responsibly, 2. get the dose right, set (mindset), final word: using trip killers .

In most cases, “a bad trip” is just your mind’s way of showing you factors in your past or present life that need to be confronted and dealt with. However, in some cases, a bad trip can become nightmarish to the point that it may put yourself or others in danger.

In these situations, it may be beneficial to have some form of a trip killer on hand to get you out of the negative headspace and effectively “kill” the trip.

Let’s delve into what trip killers are, when to use them, explore the risks, and discuss what to expect when you use one halfway through a psychedelic journey.

Trip killers are substances that help mellow out or block the effects of psychedelic substances. They “bring you back to reality” when a trip takes a dark turn. 

Trip killers are taken with the intent to end a psychedelic trip. There is no one substance that will help end a psychedelic experience, and not all trip killers are effective for all psychedelics — you have to use the right trip killer depending on what substance you’re using. 

The most common trip killers are benzodiazepines, but other drugs, such as certain antipsychotic medications, can also be effective. 

Just as it’s important to know the right dose of the psychedelic you’re using, it’s important to take the right dose of trip killers too. Some of these substances are exceptionally potent and should be taken with great care. 

Trip killers are a last resort and should only be used when the effects of a bad trip start to become dangerous to oneself or others.

Ideally, people who are at risk of such an experience will be under the supervision of a trained psychedelic facilitator who can help walk the user through the challenging visions they may be receiving. In many cases, the bad trips are where most of the benefits of psychedelics derive from — so stopping them in their tracks should be avoided if possible. 

Top 7 Trip Killers

By far, the most effective and commonly used trip killers are benzodiazepine drugs . We’ll look at these substances first because they offer the strongest and fastest-acting way to end a psychedelic experience. 

Benzodiazepines aren’t for everyone; some people should avoid them entirely. In these cases, there are other options available (keep reading). 

It’s important to note that benzodiazepines can be dangerous, especially if mixed with other sedative drugs or alcohol. They’re also notoriously addictive. Taking benzos habitually doesn’t end well for anybody. 

For now, let’s take a look at the most common trip killers:

Alprazolam is one of the fastest-acting trip killers in the benzodiazepine family — but it’s also one of the shortest-lasting. The effects of Xanax, although fast-acting, only last for around four to six hours. 

Xanax is a favored trip killer among psychonauts purely because of its fast-acting nature. It’s designed for people to use at the first sign of an anxiety attack to stop it in its tracks. 

The effects of alprazolam start to kick in within 15 minutes or so and reach peak effects in as little as 45 minutes. 

Xanax does have a habit of wiping your memory, in a sense. When consumed with other substances or at too high a dose, it can make you black out and lose all memory of the previous night. 

When you consume Xanax as a trip killer, you should be prepared to lie down and get some rest. When you awake, you may have an extremely blurry memory and struggle to recall anything about the experience. This can be a positive or negative point, depending on what you want to achieve from the psychedelic trip. 

Lorazepam is considered an intermediate-acting benzodiazepine. This means it won’t kick in quite as fast as something like Xanax — but the effects last for over eight hours. This is a better option for long-lasting psychedelics, such as DOX compounds, 2CX compounds , or other amphetamine psychedelics .

Lorazepam is great for getting you out of a bad trip, but it may cause drowsiness to the point you fall asleep. This can be a plus since it allows you to rest easy after a bad experience, but it does put a complete halt on your psychedelic experience. 

Diazepam isn’t as fast-acting as lorazepam and alprazolam, but it is one of the longest-lasting of the popular benzodiazepine trip killers. The effects of diazepam can last for over 12 hours. 

It’s reported that this trip killer takes “too long” to take effect when swallowed in pill form. However, the onset of effects can be sped up significantly by chewing the drug, so it can be sublingually absorbed under the tongue.

Diazepam works great to get you out of a nightmarish thought loop, but it doesn’t have the same effect as lorazepam and alprazolam in the aspect of drowsiness. Many people report that taking diazepam during a bad trip helps them calm down without completely removing the psychedelic effects of the drug.

Clonazepam is considered the slowest-acting of the benzodiazepine trip killers. It can take between one and four hours after taking it to reach peak levels in the blood. Of course, this can be sped up by chewing the pill and allowing it to absorb sublingually.

Although clonazepam takes a long time to kick in, the effects can last up to 12 hours, and the half-life is also long, standing at around 40 hours — meaning it won’t be cleared from the body for a couple of days.

This is the least popular of the common benzodiazepine trip killers, but it’s often one of the easiest to get hold of (depending on where you live). Some like Klonopin for its euphoric nature, which many other benzodiazepines don’t have. 

Zolpidem is classified as a Z-drug — which is a group of compounds that exert benzodiazepine-like effects but have an entirely different structure. 

These drugs work in much the same way as benzos and are also considered useful as trip killers. But there’s one catch — these drugs tend to be much more sedative than their benzodiazepine cousins. People who take Ambien to stop a trip will almost always fall asleep shortly after. You may or may not remember the experience the following morning. 

While Z-drugs carry a lower risk than most benzodiazepines, there’s still a great deal of risk associated with their use. Getting the dose right, avoiding mixing with other depressants, and only using if you’ve been approved by a doctor are still key elements for using these substances safely. 

Although nowhere near as popular as benzos, another common option is antipsychotics like quetiapine (Seroquel). 

Antipsychotic medications treat psychosis. People with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression, and Alzheimer’s are often prescribed these.

Quetiapine is classified as an atypical antipsychotic. It differs from typical antipsychotics because it produces fewer extrapyramidal symptoms and has a lower risk of tardive dyskinesia. In simpler terms, it produces fewer side effects than typical antipsychotics, such as the inability to sit still, muscle contractions, tremors, and stiff muscles.

Antipsychotics are the best trip killers for people that can’t use benzodiazepines or Z-drugs. 

Seroquel typically takes 20 to 60 minutes to kick in when consumed sublingually at a dose of around 25–50 mg. 

Olanzapine is another atypical antipsychotic reported to be effective in dulling the effects of psychedelics. This compound has a particularly high affinity for the 5HT2A receptor and is, therefore, better for killing the trips from tryptamine-based psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin, or DMT.

Zyprexa is less effective for dopaminergic or NMDA-based psychedelics such as the psychedelic amphetamines (MDMA, MDA, cathinones) or arylcyclohexylamines (PCP, ketamine, and others).

Olanzapine usually takes around 30 minutes to kick in at a 10–20 mg dose. 

How Do Trip Killers Work?

Benzodiazepines such as diazepam or lorazepam (or other sedative anxiolytics) are usually the substances a doctor will administer if you’re submitted to the hospital due to signs of psychosis from consuming too much of a psychedelic substance.

These drugs work similarly to those for someone with a panic or anxiety attack. They have anxiolytic, sedative, and relaxant properties that all work to reduce anxiety levels and negative thought loops. 

More specifically, benzodiazepines kill the trip by amplifying the activity of GABA in the brain. GABA is a neuroinhibitor — which means it reduces brain activity. 

When we’re anxious, the inhibitory effects of GABA result in a dramatic reduction in anxiety levels. We think less, care less about our problems and feel more calm and relaxed. In higher doses, this causes full-on sedation. 

The same concepts apply to psychedelic experiences. Paranoia, anxiety, and fear responses experienced during the psychedelic state can all be muted by dulling brain activity with GABA-boosting drugs.

Antipsychotic trip killers work a little bit differently. These drugs work as serotonin and dopamine antagonists (blockers). The exact mechanism is still not fully understood, but the leading theory is that certain antipsychotics reverse the effects of psychedelics by blocking the 5-HT2A receptors. 

5-HT2A is one of the main receptor sites on which psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin work. Some, but not all, psychedelic substances bind to these receptors to induce their psychedelic effects.

Every trip killer is different — some kick in quickly (10–20 minutes); others take an hour or more. 

Here are some of the average onset times for the four most popular benzo-based trip killers listed above. 

These refer to the oral onset time of these drugs. It’s not a good idea to smoke, inject, or snort benzodiazepines for any reason.

• Alprazolam (Xanax): 10–20 minutes
• Lorazepam (Ativan): 20–45 minutes
• Diazepam (Valium): 1–2 hours
• Clonazepam (Klonopin): 45–60 minutes

When Do Trip Killers NOT Work?

Trip killers don’t work on every psychedelic substance. Benzodiazepines and antipsychotic medications are effective for standard, serotonin-based psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin. However, there are a few substances that don’t have any effective trip killers. 

Always educate yourself on any substance before using it. You should know how much to take, what to expect during the trip, and onset times and duration. You should also know whether there’s an effective trip killer for it.

Psychedelic trips from some of the most commonly used psychedelics can be stopped by the use of benzodiazepines or antipsychotic medications. 

These are the most prevalently used and have the most research surrounding them, though trip killers likely work on more substances than the ones listed below.

Here’s a list of commonly used psychedelic substances that do have effective trip killers:

• LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) (and other lysergamide psychedelics )
• Psilocybin (the active compound in magic mushrooms )
• 4-AcO-DMT (synthetic shrooms)
• 5-MeO-DMT (the active compound in bufo toad venom )
• N,N-DMT (the active ingredient in ayahuasca )
• 2C-B (and other 2C psychedelics )
• NBOMes (N-bombs)
• Synthetic Cathinones (Bath Salts)
• MDMA (and other MDXX psychedelics )
• Mescaline (the active compound in Peyote & San Pedro cactus)

Some psychedelic substances do not have trip killers. Not all psychedelics affect the brain in the same way; therefore, trip killers, such as benzodiazepines, will not end all psychedelic experiences. 

For example, many dissociative drugs like PCP or ketamine work via the NMDA receptors in the brain. The psychedelic trips these drugs produce appear to be unaffected by benzodiazepines. Making matters worse, most dissociatives are also considered sedatives — which are notoriously dangerous to mix with benzodiazepines. 

Other substances, such as salvinorin A from salvia or any of the deliriant hallucinogenics, don’t diminish after taking benzodiazepines or Z-drugs. There are no effective trip killers for these substances. 

If you plan on consuming any of the substances listed below, be warned that you have no option but to ride the experience out naturally. Never consume a substance that you’re not comfortable with.

It’s a good idea to have a trip sitter around that you trust who can help you through a difficult experience should it arise.

Here are some of the more common psychedelic substances that do not have effective trip killers:

• Datura (a hallucinogenic flower from the nightshade family)
• Brugmansia (commonly known as angel’s trumpet)
• Phencyclidine (and other arylcyclohexylamines )
• Ketamine (and other dissociatives )
• Grayanotoxins (found in Rhododendron flowers)
• Xenon gas or nitrous oxide gas
• Salvia divinorum

When Should You Use a Trip Killer?

Preferably, you should never consume a trip killer. A “bad trip” can often unlock a door that will show you traits in our personality (our “ shadow ”) or traumas and aspects in life that we need to heal in order to live a better life. 

A typical “bad trip” is often a lesson containing vital information we can use to work on ourselves and get over mental blocks that reduce our quality of life. Using a trip killer to end an experience like this may be counterintuitive. Doing so could close “the door” that leads to healing.

Many experienced psychonauts swear off ever needing to consume trip killers to end a trip because they believe every vision has value. However, trip killers definitely have their place. You should always be safe rather than sorry and never bite off more than you can chew in terms of set, setting, and dosage. End the trip if you feel you’re in over your head. 

As long as you use psychedelics responsibly , you’ll likely never need a trip killer. Proper dosing is the best way to ensure this, but having your frame of mind and setting fit for a psychedelic trip is also important. This way, if a bad trip occurs, you have the strength to deal with it. 

Sometimes, we don’t get it right. A “bad trip” can spiral out of control into a nightmarish event that can be truly traumatic. When this happens, you and the others around you could be at risk. 

People who swear off trip killers may have experienced a challenging trip but may not have had a truly terrifying one. It may never happen, but it could occur at any time, so it’s always wise to have some form of trip killer available.

A nightmarish loop of events during a trip can seem to last forever, and in some, it can lead them to cause harm to themselves or others. This is rare but not unheard of. Trip killers can be a lifesaver for those who find themselves trapped in such a situation. 

In our opinion, trip killers should be a part of every psychonaut’s tool kit. You should strive never to use them, but they should be readily available in case a trip takes a dark turn that you feel you can’t benefit from or work through without putting yourself or others at risk. 

No matter how responsible you are when planning a psychedelic trip, there are times when circumstances come up that are outside your control. You think you have the day to sit and trip, but suddenly something comes up (family emergency, etc.), and you need to be sober ASAP. 

Even though a trip killer won’t make you feel “normal,” it’ll speed up the process and make you more clear-headed than you would be without it. 

Some people should avoid benzodiazepine-based trip killers at all costs . This section outlines who should not take these types of trip killers and what they can use instead.

Although most psychedelics aren’t addictive, benzos definitely are. Anyone with an addictive personality or who has had a past dependence on benzos or similar substances should avoid using these as trip killers. 

Benzos have some of the longest-lasting, worst, and most savage withdrawals of any substance on the planet. 

Withdrawal symptoms can last for months. If you become addicted and prolong the use of these substances, quitting cold turkey isn’t an option. Simply quitting after prolonged benzo abuse can be life-threatening due to the body seizing up. 

In simple terms: don’t use benzo-based trip killers if there’s a chance you’ll get addicted to them.

What To Expect When You “Kill” a Trip

As I’ve mentioned, trip killers aren’t an instant solution. You’re not going to magically become sober as soon as the pill touches your tongue. The onset time and experience will vary depending on the type of trip killer consumed, the dosage taken, the psychedelic consumed, and how far into your trip you are. 

That being said, I can give you a rough idea of what happens when consuming a benzodiazepine trip killer during a bad experience.

Let’s paint a hypothetical picture. 

A few hours after consuming your chosen psychedelic, you enter an area of dark and disturbing thoughts somewhere in your subconscious mind. At first, tell yourself, “It’s okay; it’s just the psychedelic messing with my brain.”

After a while, you start to convince yourself that this is, in fact, real, and you begin to sink into nightmarish thought loops.

If the situation starts to get out of hand, a trip killer might be employed to bring you back to some semblance of reality. 

You chew one milligram of Xanax in the hope that the sublingual absorption will allow it to take effect quickly. 

Although unpleasant, the acrid taste of the trip killer in your mouth relieves you. You associate the taste with the trip coming to an end. When you swallow your saliva, you feel a wave of calm rush over you because you know that this nightmare will all be over soon.

About 15 to 30 minutes later (depending on the trip killer consumed), you notice a wave of relaxation come over you. Any feelings of anxiety and panic start to wash away as the drug begins to take effect.

Not only do the dark thought loops start to diminish, but you also start to feel as though you don’t care about much of anything at all. You become emotionless and calm. You may or may not continue to experience hallucinations, but none of them seem to steal your attention. 

If you’re not laying down already, you’ll probably seek out somewhere to post up and relax for a while as your muscles start to feel weak.

One hour after taking the trip killer, your hallucinations have likely died down substantially, and you feel much more rational and level-headed. You may even regret taking the trip killer — if you were in this head space originally, perhaps you wouldn’t have had such a terrifying experience.

Two to three hours after ingesting the trip killer, you feel more or less sober (depending on the psychedelic you consumed). Most of the effects of the psychedelics have worn off, and if you’re not already asleep, you’re probably feeling pretty drained and ready for some zzz’s.

You’ll be emotionally and physically exhausted by this time, and you’ll likely reach for a bottle of water and a hefty snack to restore the energy lost throughout the ordeal.   

Safety Aspects to Consider When Using Trip Killers

There are a few things to consider when purchasing and adding trip killers to your psychedelic tool kit. The most effective trip killers — benzodiazepines — are restricted in terms of sale and use. This can make it difficult to legally purchase these drugs, which is where our first safety aspect stems.

If you cannot obtain trip killers (benzos) in a legal way — via prescription from a doctor — the level of risk goes up substantially. 

The most popular benzodiazepines for recreational use are Valium (diazepam) and Xanax (alprazolam). These can be obtained on the black market, but it’s not recommended.

Illegal vendors distributing Valium and Xanax don’t necessarily consider the consumer’s best interest. Several samples of these substances have contained drugs such as fentanyl (an extremely dangerous synthetic opioid). 

Clandestine drug manufacturers use tablet molds that produce exact replicas of the prescribed Xanax and Valium tablets. Criminals produce pills with these molds that look the same but contain a cocktail of potentially life-threatening substances. Whether you’re tripping or not, taking one of these pills at any time may pose a serious health risk. 

Basically, unless you’re getting your drugs from a pharmacy, you can never be sure the drugs you’re using are safe. 

If you absolutely have to purchase “trip killers” from the black market, you must test them using — at the minimum — a fentanyl test kit. We cannot stress this enough. 

You can also buy benzo test kits to help identify what adulterants may be contained in your pills. 

You should check your benzos before you need them. You’re not going to have time to test them for safety if using them as a trip killer. 

Another safety aspect to consider is, of course, dosage. Getting the correct dosages for each substance is critical to avoid overdosing . However, you also need to consume enough of the substance to kill a trip. 

Several individual drugs fall under the benzodiazepine classification; although similar, the required dosage for each differs. 

It’s important to note that your weight, gender, and familiarity with the drug will affect the exact dose. A heavier person that regularly consumes benzos will need a far larger dose than a small-framed person that has never tried the substance before.

Below I’ve listed the recommended dosages of the four most popular trip killers based on first-hand reports and prescribed dosage guides. However, you should take these numbers with a grain of salt and do your own research outside before consuming anything to kill a trip. These substances can be dangerous. 

• Alprazolam (Xanax): 0.5 to 1 mg
• Lorazepam (Ativan): 0.5 to 1.5 mg
• Diazepam (Valium): 5 to 10 mg
• Clonazepam (Klonopin): 1 to 1.5 mg

As you can see, the recommended dosages for killing a trip vary and depends on where you are on your trip.

Again, I can’t stress this enough — everyone’s required dosage will be different because of a variety of factors. Unfortunately, your required dose will be something you’ll have to find out through experience. Just be aware that trip killers of this nature don’t work immediately, so don’t keep dosing if you don’t experience any trip-calming effects right away . This is how overdoses occur. 

How To Minimize the Risk of a Bad Trip

Trip killers should only be used in an emergency when a trip takes a dark turn that could harm you or others around you. It’s best to avoid trip killers at all costs, and these steps can also help you have the best trip possible.

Preparation is key. If you’ve experimented with psychedelics before, you must have heard of set and setting.

The set is the frame of mind you’re in. When consuming psychedelic substances, you should never be in a negative, anxious, or unstable state of mind. Entering a trip with negative thoughts in your head is a surefire way to a nightmarish trip.

It’s important to relax your body and mind before entering a trip. This can be done by simply putting yourself in a good headspace by recalling a positive memory or experience. Practicing meditation and/or yoga can also help you relax into a positive state of mind.

The setting is the space you’ll experience the trip in. The setting is extremely important in psychedelics and will help you stay in the right “set.” Playing relaxing music, putting beautiful pictures around you, and lighting a few candles can make the setting more relaxed and inviting.

Many people also like to trip out in nature. This is a fantastic way to do it; however, several variables can affect your trip. 

If you head out into nature for a psychedelic trip, ensure it’s in a safe area with no foot traffic. Make sure the weather is good, and there are no external factors that may “freak you out.” The last thing you want is bad weather (a storm, for example) or a stranger entering your space — this will likely lead to a bad experience.

Another way to ensure a smooth trip is to have an object nearby that means something to you. This object helps connect you to the physical world and can get you back on course if your trip dives into a dark place . Simply holding the object and looking at it may just be enough to snap you back to reality. 

This technique is definitely something to try before resorting to the use of trip killers.

Trip killers may be an important part of the psychonaut’s tool kit. Hopefully, you will never need to use them, and you should strive to work through difficult experiences rather than chemically halt them. 

However, if you have a truly terrifying psychedelic experience, they will help you get back to reality as quickly and safely as possible.

The most popular and effective trip killers are benzodiazepines or Z-drugs, but some antipsychotic medications are also effective and a good alternative for people with addictive personalities.

When sourcing trip killers, it’s important to test their purity. Several drugs on the black market are contaminated with fentanyl — an extremely dangerous synthetic opioid that’s similar to morphine but much stronger. This drug can be life-threatening, so it’s of paramount importance that any drug sourced on the black market is tested thoroughly.

Regardless of whether you have trip killers available, you should always practice safe psychedelic use. Ensuring that your set and setting are perfect before a trip helps mitigate the risk of a bad trip occurring. As we said, you should never need to use a trip killer, but they should be available as an absolute last resort.

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Bad Trips Exist. Here’s How to Heal After Them.

In the psychedelic community, we often hear “bad trips don’t exist,” but that’s simply not true, article by dr. erica zelfand published on may 15, 2023 updated december 18, 2023.

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I know that bad trips exist, because I’ve had one. 

I know that toxic positivity exists, because I’ve been gaslit by it.

Here’s what I wish other people understood:

First, let’s define (and redefine) the term “bad trip,” because the phrase has become too polarized for anyone to think straight when they hear it. I think it’s because “bad trip” is an umbrella term for two very different experiences: challenging journeys and traumatic ones.

Challenging journeys are uncomfortable. They hurt like hell. They can be terrifying. They may send us to the underworld, catapult us to hell realms, or shove us way beyond our comfort zones. But when we work through those experiences—focusing on working with the material instead of running away from it—deep growth, learning, and healing happen. We emerge—hours, days, or weeks later—raw yet triumphant, with vulnerability and solace. 

When a person feels unsafe during a challenging trip, however, their journey runs the risk of becoming traumatic. 

Traumatic journeys are a serious injury to the nervous system and psyche. The word “trauma” gets thrown around a lot nowadays, so it’s important that we remember what the word really means. Trauma does not mean feeling offended or rattled. Trauma does not refer to a distressing event, but rather to the nervous system’s response to the experience. Trauma imprints on a person’s subconscious in a lasting way. Trauma can harm a person’s sense of Self, their sense of safety, their ability to navigate relationships, and their ability to regulate their emotions. Trauma, in other words, is a psychological and neurological injury that has negative ripple effects. Like everything in life, trauma can ironically come with a gift, some silver lining or shred of gold. And yet, traumatic trips are distinctly different from challenging ones, to the detriment of our wellbeing. When I talk about “bad trips,” I specifically mean traumatic psychedelic experiences.

READ: How To Survive A Bad Trip

Preventing and Transforming Traumatic Trips

Thankfully, there are things we can do to prevent traumatic trips. We also have tools for transforming challenging journeys so that they are more likely to become healing opportunities and less likely to traumatize a person. 

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These include:

Intention : The reason for taking the psychedelic substance. If somebody’s intention is to have fun with their friends at a festival, for example, they may feel very perturbed when the curtain of the subconscious is pulled back and their psyche accesses challenging material (such as a rape, assault, or other intense thing the person has survived).

Set : Set refers to the person’s headspace. Are they feeling agitated when they take the substance? Are they scared? Are they taking the drug because they feel peer pressure to do so? Are they drunk or high? Research suggests that individuals with high levels of neuroticism are more likely to experience a bad trip.

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Setting : Chaotic, noisy environments that require filtering information, focusing externally, or otherwise staying on guard come with high traumatic trip potential. I’ve had many clients experience challenging and traumatic trips at raves and festivals.

Company : Tripping with people you don’t trust, or that you’re trying to impress, comes with the risk of a hard or traumatic trip. For example, one of my clients took LSD with a group of guys. During her trip she sensed that her “friends” were trying to coerce her into sex. Narcissistic or under-trained “shamans” and facilitators can also cause harm.

Substance : The drug itself matters. Pressed pills are more likely to be adulterated with other, more harmful drugs than pure preparations. Professionally, I have seen ayahuasca , LSD, and 5-MeO-DMT cause more traumatic trips than psilocybin or MDMA.

Orientation to the Drug : Does the person know more or less what to expect from the substance? I always counsel my clients on what to expect from the experience and how to navigate the trip. This includes educating them on longtime psychedelic researcher Bill Richards’ “ flight instructions .” I emphasize the importance of turning and facing the terrifying material that may arise during the journey, rather than trying to escape it. I also make sure the client understands the logistics of the substance, like how long the journey may last. Eight hours into an LSD trip, many have panicked, worrying that they broke their brain. Knowing that an LSD trip can last up to 14 hours , would have saved them a lot of distress.

Dose : Higher doses of substances typically require more orientation on how to trip, as they dig deeper into the psyche and our physical energetic holding patterns. They are also more likely to turn sour if the tripper cannot let go and surrender. The common thread here has to do with surrender. To get the most out of a psychedelic experience, we need to be willing to surrender. If we’re in a situation in which we feel that it is unsafe or unwise to surrender, we risk having a challenging trip.

READ: Set and Setting: Why Preparation Matters

Bad Trips May Still Happen Despite Set and Setting

The majority of traumatic trips occur in situations in which one or more of the above factors is sub-optimal. That being said, I personally endured a traumatic trip in which all of the above were quite dialed in. The night of my traumatic trip was the third of a three-night ayahuasca ceremony. I liked the other people in the group. I trusted the facilitators and their skills. The medicine was pure. The environment was soothing and well contained, with beautiful music. During the first half of the ceremony, I released a huge grudge I’d been holding onto for years. I enjoyed feeling more space and lightness in my body as a result.

After I drank my second dose of the brew, however, I took a hard nosedive. It’s difficult to put into words what happened, but I was thrust into an experience that was too much, too rough, too fast, and too hard for my nervous system. I felt like my brain was being raped, and like I would psychologically snap (in more of a “breakdown” than “break though” way). It all felt very, very out of control and unsafe.

The medicine carriers helped me out of the ceremony space and tried to soothe me outside. Somebody stayed with me at all times until I vomited up the salt water they gave me to drink and limped back into the ceremony space to whimper under my blanket. It took me eight years to fully recover.

Healing After a Traumatic Trip

If you have survived a traumatic trip, here are some tools that may help:

• Don’t bother trying to convince other people that you had a traumatic trip. Ignore the “no such thing as bad trips!” gaslighters and the “we all get the trip we need” bypassers. Find people who believe you and want to support you. Your job right now is not to debate the issue of bad trips: your job is to get your nervous system feeling as safe as possible so that it can heal.
• Nurture yourself. Treat yourself as you would if you had just endured a terrifying car accident, a rape, the death of a loved one, or any other potentially devastating experience that can injure the psyche, body, or spirit. Rest. Take time off if you can. Meditate. Pray. Keep your blood sugar balanced with regular, balanced meals. Exercise. Get therapy, energy work, and/or bodywork. Ask for help. Be good to yourself. I personally found warm epsom salt baths helpful, as I felt contained within the bathtub and embraced by the warm water. Craniosacral therapy was also a gentle-yet-effective modality for me.
• Even if the traumatic trip was a result of poor planning, improper set and setting, or other “user error,” be kind to yourself. 
• Ditch the victim mentality. Shit happens. It isn’t always personal.
• There may be a huge blessing in having endured this trauma, but you don’t need to hold your feet to the fire until you find it. Just heal. If the blessings are there, they will rise to the surface in due time. Ignore the bubble of toxic positivity that often comes with pseudo-spiritual communities and frequent-flier scenes. You can decide for yourself, later, if everything is indeed connected or if it’s all truly a blessing.
• You will know when and if it’s time to take psychedelics again. Don’t buckle to peer pressure. Trust yourself. Personally, going back to ceremony too soon after my traumatic experience did me more harm than good: I took the medicine while feeling nervous, and was thrust into several challenging, dysphoric trips that frankly gave me garbage data. Eight years later, however, I felt the arc was finally completed during a peyote ceremony.

Trauma exists on this wild planet, even when everyone does their best. Be gentle with yourself, and with one another.

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DoubleBlind Magazine does not encourage or condone any illegal activities, including but not limited to the use of illegal substances. We do not provide mental health, clinical, or medical services. We are not a substitute for medical, psychological, or psychiatric diagnosis, treatment, or advice. If you are in a crisis or if you or any other person may be in danger or experiencing a mental health emergency, immediately call 911 or your local emergency resources. If you are considering suicide, please call 988 to connect with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Using ‘trip killers’ to cut short bad drug trips is potentially dangerous

Professor of Neuropharmacology, University of Central Lancashire

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Colin Davidson has previously received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH, USA) and the European Community for projects related to stimulant drug abuse and novel psychoactive compounds respectively. He is currently a paid consultant with the Defence Science Technology Laboratory (MOD) working on new psychoactive compounds.

University of Central Lancashire provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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As interest in psychedelics has grown, so has interest in ways to end a bad trip. Recent research reveals that people are giving potentially dangerous advice on social media on how to stop a trip that is less than pleasurable.

Psychedelics cause changes in a person’s perception of reality. One of the earliest descriptions of a psychedelic experience in western literature can be found in Aldous Huxley’s 1953 book The Doors of Perception . Huxley describes mostly beautiful visions while tripping on mescaline.

And then there were the Beatles seeing “tangerine trees” and “marmalade skies” and “a girl with kaleidoscope eyes”.

The last few years have seen a resurgence of illicit use, not only of established psychedelics, such as LSD and magic mushrooms (psilocybin), but also of the novel psychoactive substances that are psychedelics, such as AMT, 5-MeO-DALT, mCPP and methoxetamine.

There is also renewed interest in studying these drugs as treatments for mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Even a single dose of these drugs appears to have long-term therapeutic effects.

But not all trips are pleasurable. Research shows that if someone is in a bad mood or depressed then they are more likely to have a bad trip , as are people who take too high a dose.

This sort of experience might include extreme fear, time standing still and mood swings. Very high doses of LSD can also cause agitation, vomiting, high blood pressure, hyperthermia and other nasty side-effects. But at regular doses, psychedelics are relatively safe .

To mitigate against bad trips, people will often take the drug in a relaxing and safe environment, and they might include a friend, or “trip sitter” to look after them for the duration of the trip. This was a common practice in the 1960s among people taking psychedelics.

Trip killers

More recently, though, some psychedelic users have been turning to “trip killers” to end a bad trip. These are drugs that can either block the direct effects of the psychedelic or simply reduce the anxiety associated with a bad trip.

Few clinical studies have examined trip killers, but one has found that ketanserin – a drug used to treat high blood pressure – reverses the psychedelic effects of LSD.

A recent article in the Emergency Medical Journal analysed posts on Reddit about trip killers. The researchers found 128 threads with 709 posts from 2015 to 2023.

Trip killers were discussed most often for LSD (235 posts), magic mushrooms (143 posts) and MDMA (21 posts). The most commonly suggested trip killer was Xanax (an anxiolytic) followed by quetiapine (an antipsychotic), trazodone (an antidepressant) and diazepam (an anxiolytic). Alcohol, herbal remedies, opioids, antihistamines, sleep medication and cannabinoids were barely mentioned.

Receptor blocking

LSD and magic mushrooms create their effects by activating certain proteins in the brain. These are called 5-HT2A receptors and are usually activated by the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT). There are 14 known 5-HT receptors, but psychedelics have specific activity at only the 5-HT2A subtype.

To kill a trip then, one simply has to give the drug user another drug that blocks (rather than activates) the 5-HT2A receptor. Many prescription drugs can do this and they tend to be antipsychotic drugs .

Quetiapine from the list above is one popular example, while another antipsychotic, olanzapine, was mentioned in 14 posts in that study. Similarly, the atypical antidepressants trazodone and mirtazapine also block the 5-HT2A receptor.

One can think of these trip killers as working in the same way that naloxone would be used for heroin or fentanyl overdose. These drugs activate mu opioid receptors in the brain, while naloxone blocks these receptors. Naloxone is therefore used to treat life-threatening respiratory depression from opioid overdose.

Another option for the psychedelics would be to decrease the anxiety associated with the trip by taking anxiolytics, such as benzodiazapines – alprazolam (Xanax) and diazepam (Valium) being the most popular in the posts analysed above. These would also help the drug taker to fall asleep.

Some of the trip-killing drug doses suggested in the Reddit posts were high. For example, quetiapine was suggested to be used at 25mg to 600mg, but clinical guidance for these drugs suggests a single dose of up to 225mg.

The doses suggested on Reddit for alprazolam are 0.5mg to 4mg but the clinically suggested maximum dose is usually 2mg to 3mg. Four milligrams could cause low blood pressure, oversedation and respiratory depression. Unfortunately, benzodiazepines are also highly addictive and can lead to overdose deaths.

People who turn up at A&E suffering from a bad trip or overdose of a psychedelic will be reassured in a calm environment. If that doesn’t work, they are likely to be given an antipsychotic or low-dose benzodiazepine, at a clinically advised dose.

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A Trip That Doesn’t End

Early one night in the fall of 1987, a college freshman ate half of a microdot of lysergic acid diethylamide on his way to a party. He was young, but more than a little familiar with mind-altering chemicals: LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and other, less common psychedelics. This trip, by comparison, turned out to be only a “mild experience.” The tingling euphoria, splendid visuals, and sudden bursts of insight mostly wore off by the time he retired to his dorm. But the following morning, some effects still remained.

“I opened my eyes to see what time it was,” he said, on the condition of anonymity. “As I looked away, I immediately realized that the light from the digital clock was streaking.” Throughout the day, other signatures of the hallucinogen high struck him. When he shifted his gaze from a page he was reading, a ghostly afterimage of the text materialized in the air, hanging legibly for a few moments. When he turned a page, a long cascading series of replicas trailed behind, like a stroboscopic photograph.

The streaking and trailing and after-imaging persisted for days. He began to panic. “I really lost it,” he said. “I was sitting in one of my first college classes and, like, hallucinating.” He met with psychologists, who could discern little. He called his parents, who could discern less. He became unhinged, wandering campus in a daze, squinting at the world as if through a kaleidoscope. “I broke down,” he said. “I could no longer go to class. I couldn’t do anything.” He quit school, moved back home, and entered rehab. His search for a diagnosis came up empty: no underlying medical condition, nor had the drug been laced with something sinister. Weeks, months, then years went by. The trip just wouldn’t end.

Psychedelic lore is littered with cautionary tales . But it remains to be seen whether reports of hallucinogen persisting perception disorder—quite literally, the persistence of hallucinogen-induced perceptions—should count among them. Hallucinogens are enjoying something of a revival: the drugs are being tried recreationally by nearly one in five American adults (approaching that of the nineteen-sixties), while being tested empirically for their powers to heal alcoholism and other addictions , anxieties from impending death , P.T.S.D. , major depression , and even cluster headaches . Reading too much into H.P.P.D., some say, could squelch the renewed intrigue—even though, to some extent, the risk factors, causes, and effective treatments remain a mystery. Others, though, suspect that unraveling this mysterious disorder could reveal clues for the more familiar ones. According to Dr. Henry Abraham, a lecturer in psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine who privately sees patients with substance-related disorders, neurophysiological shifts observed in H.P.P.D. patients “may yield useful models for anxiety, depression, psychosis, and even addiction.”

A chronic and debilitating condition, H.P.P.D. warps the perceptual faculties: the external senses are marred by a constellation of mostly visual distortions , while the internal ones are paralyzed by a concoction of dissociative symptoms, panic attacks, and depression. The doors of perception are not so much cleansed, as Aldous Huxley famously found after his first experience on mescaline, as they are cracked open and left askew.

H.P.P.D. does not generate hallucinations, technically speaking. Sufferers can appreciate that their perceptual aberrations are unreal—that their surroundings only appear blurred by afterimages (palinopsia) and trails (akinetopsia); shimmered by sparkles and flashed by bright bolts of light; interrupted by transparent blobs of color floating around; electrified by visual snow; magnified or shrunk by “Alice-in-Wonderland” symptoms; adorned by halos around objects, around people’s heads. The pseudo-hallucinations are ultimately unconvincing, if deeply unsettling.

Eventually, a sense of permanent unreality casts a pall over the acid-fuelled dreamscape, and sufferers disassociate—from the world, due to derealization, and from themselves, due to depersonalization. At a recent Society of Biological Psychiatry conference, Dr. Abraham presented findings, later published in the S.B.P. 2012 supplement, that suggest up to sixty-five per cent of H.P.P.D patients chronically endure panic attacks, and fifty per cent, major depression. Some patients feel their only relief is suicide.

The cluster of symptoms first appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1986. Ever since, the official diagnosis has been lumped together with “flashbacks.” Brief fragments of a trip that occasionally bubble up to one’s consciousness, flashbacks may arise from sudden spikes in the cerebral cortex—stirring perceptions, sensations, or emotions mimicking those of the hallucinogen high, in the absence of any chemical. But as the term has been popularized, flashback has been rendered “virtually useless” diagnostically, writes Dr. John Halpern, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and lead author of the most recent literature review of H.P.P.D. In the review, published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence , Dr. Halpern reasons that by conflating two distinct diagnoses, a strict definition of H.P.P.D. has remained elusive, leaving its prevalence obscured. Yet, “it seems inescapable,” he concludes, based on twenty related studies dating back to 1966, “that at least some individuals who have used LSD, in particular, experience persistent perceptual abnormalities reminiscent of acute intoxication, not better attributable to another medical or psychiatric condition.”

Peer-reviewed accounts of drug users whose world had been transfigured permanently can be found as early as 1983 , prefiguring the initial D.S.M. entry. In a case-control study of a hundred and twenty-three LSD users, Abraham was among the first to catalogue reports from those who flashed psychedelic and never turned off: a struggling shoe salesman whose dark-brown pairs bled into the navy-blues; a confused student whose text jumbled into “alphabet soup”; a distracted office worker whose flower pot slid back and forth along the windowsill. “This isn’t flashbacks,” said Abraham. “We have to call it what it is: a persisting perception disorder.”

Preliminary estimates of the prevalence of H.P.P.D. dismissed the disorder as an outlier, implicating as few as one in fifty thousand hallucinogen users. The most recent large-scale survey, questioning nearly twenty-five hundred users, found that over one in twenty-five were considering treatment for H.P.P.D.-like symptoms . But because participants, recruited from the popular drug information Web site Erowid, did not represent the average dabbler, and because only a small portion of them had actively sought medical care, the tally remains somewhat inconclusive. “Unfortunately,” writes Halpern, assessing the scant literature, “the data do not permit us to estimate, even crudely, the prevalence of ‘strict’ H.P.P.D.”

If “strict” cases of H.P.P.D. turn up only rarely in scientific journals, though, at HPPDonline.com, a Web forum tracking research developments and connecting sufferers, nearly nine thousand monthly visitors give some indication of what lies beyond the academic purview. They report burning and throbbing and numbing and tingling. They claim that surfaces undulate (“breathing walls”), objects vanish (“they mix with the floor”), and beams of light splinter into shards of extended rays (“star-bursting”). They share encounters that seem inexplicable—”fluids flowing down from my left temple,” “a chemical aftertaste”—and plead for the group’s insight. They raise suspicions: “Every time I walk past a certain type of tree the leaves begin to shake.” They despair: “I hear my brain.”

And they may be making their symptoms worse. While H.P.P.D. sufferers do misperceive their environment, some researchers suspect that severe anxiety—perhaps an underlying condition—aggravates those misperceptions. As noted by Matthew Baggott, a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatric genetics at University of Chicago, fMRI studies generally show close links between the attention and visual systems .

Such observations have raised doubt over whether hallucinogens are the root cause of the disorder, and even whether H.P.P.D. is a bona-fide diagnosis. “The more you focus on the condition, the more it spirals out of control,” said Halpern. “So sufferers must practice letting go, which most Americans tend to struggle with.” In one study of five hundred Native American Church members , each of whom had taken peyote hundreds, even thousands of times, no H.P.P.D.-like symptoms were reported. “Our culture is still evolving to deal with what it means to be intoxicated by these substances,” Halpern reasons. “H.P.P.D. may be an incomplete description of the syndrome.”

But if H.P.P.D. is to some extent self-perpetuated—perhaps by a naïve culture, perhaps by anxiety-prone individuals—it is not self-induced. Running a battery of standard neurological tests on dozens of H.P.P.D. patients throughout the nineteen-eighties and early nineties, Abraham and co-authors Dr. Frank Hopkins Duffy, a neurologist, and Ernst Wolf, a neuroscientist, found evidence suggesting the flow of impulses through the central nervous system has been chronically altered. When a light is flipped on, the brain still registers darkness for a while; when a light flickers, it registers a steady beam; when an array of colors is presented, it confuses those in proximity. Jennifer Groh, a professor of psychology and neuroscience and the director of the Neural Basis of Perception Lab at Duke University, has extensively investigated the visual-processing system. While she has not studied H.P.P.D. specifically, Groh has found that the brain is generally unable to distinguish stimuli according to their source; even a single stimulus, artificially induced over and over, is treated as genuine and novel. The so-called staircase-of-eye-movements effect, Groh reasons, would predict some of the symptoms—at least the trailing, after-imaging, and poor darkness adaptation—observed in H.P.P.D. patients. “Their brain may not recognize the stimuli as simply the same repeated request,” she says.

Consistent with Groh’s findings, Abraham offers his own account of why H.P.P.D. causes sensory input to linger within neural circuitry, firing even after the stimulus is gone. “What we have proven through psychophysics, electrophysiology, and quantitative analysis,” said Abraham, “is that when the brain of an H.P.P.D. person is stimulated by some perceptual force in the environment, mostly visual, the stimulus is disinhibited.” Objects of perception, in other words, are not readily disengaged, breaking up an ordinarily seamless flow of conscious experience. If the brain is like a paintbrush, then H.P.P.D. appears to make the bristles sticky, and the old stimuli—colors, shapes, and motions—muddy the new.

Frank Durgin, a professor of psychology and the director of the Perception and Cognition Lab at Swarthmore College, affirmed that Abraham’s theory holds promise. “The disinhibition hypothesis is pretty safe as a generic account,” said Durgin. “There is a lot of inhibition involved in normal perception. Failure to distinguish and inhibit noise signals is a reasonable first guess about a variety of hallucinogenic effects.” The theory seems to be consistent with the current science of perception, according to Irving Biederman, a professor of neuroscience and the director of the Image Understanding Laboratory at the University of Southern California. A healthy brain, Biederman explained, is bathed in inhibitory neurotransmitters—gamma-aminobutyric acid, primarily—in order to mute mild perceptual noise (like visual distortions), and ultimately to safeguard against full-blown cacophony (like seizures). H.P.P.D. patients, he offered, might have “done something structurally to those interneurons, causing perceptual noise to exceed the threshold.” (According to some scientists, most psychoactive drugs, including psychiatric medications, can alter the brain’s neural structure.) While neither Durgin nor Biederman study such rare perceptual disorders as H.P.P.D., their expertise is illustrative: the symptoms of H.P.P.D. are just the kind of perceptions ordinarily present in the brain, only occluded—or inhibited—from consciousness.

What is least known about H.P.P.D. is treatment. “Unfortunately,” Halpern writes, “the literature on this point remains largely anecdotal.” Options are limited: palliative care from more drugs (benzodiazepines and anti-epileptics), adjustment through psychotherapy (of the cognitive-behavioral or straight-talking variety), a pair of sunglasses. While the college freshman, now middle-aged, is celebrated by his psychiatrist as “the poster child for healthy adaptation to the disorder,” healthy adaptation is no cure.

One day several years ago, he was taking a draw from a cigarette after work when he noticed, for the second time, a sudden shift in his vision. He had finally gotten his life on track—securing a degree, starting a family, building a career—and had managed to bury his past. He occasionally struggled to read fine print, especially late at night, and became disoriented by lane markings, especially on an overcast day. (“And when I smelled pot, I ran for the hills,” he said.) But if his inner life was disfigured, few—not even his wife—could tell. Until, he recalls, “something clicked.”

What happened next was a blur. “The visuals got ramped up, like somebody raised the volume,” he says. “I was sent back immediately into panic mode, going through the emotional roller-coaster ride that I did back in college.” Tremors of panic that had been stamped out were swiftly rekindled. “I fell off the grid for a week,” he says. He began fearing, perhaps as many others with mental illness do, that the spectre of madness can be raised without warning, that “you may never make it out.”

Dorian Rolston is a freelance writer covering cognitive science.

Illustration by Ron Kurniawan.

How to help someone having a bad trip on LSD/shrooms

How to help someone having a bad trip on lsd/shrooms..

Are you currently having a bad trip? See this section.

What to do if someone is tripping on psychedelics and becomes anxious, to avoid it turning into a “bad” trip

• Mild anxiety: “The appropriate first response is to provide strong personal support and reassurance (O’Brien, 2006).” Interact with them in a “comforting and reassuring manner.” 1
• You “should convey a solid sense of security and calm, while empathizing with what may be an incredibly intense and unpleasant experience.”
• Don’t try and ‘talk them down’ and back into reality. These “may be counterproductive and aggravate a difficult reaction (McCabe, 1977).”
• Remind them “to surrender to the experience.”
• You may offer “a supportive touch to the arm or shoulder with verbal reminders that the participant … has taken the hallucinogen, and that he or she will return to normal consciousness in ‘a few minutes’ or ‘a few hours’”
• If verbal interactions are of limited help due to their intense experience, “a powerful form of reassurance (sometimes called ‘interpersonal grounding’) is simply holding the hand of the participant (McCabe, 1977). Many volunteers report that during such experiences, a reassuring hand provides an incredible sense of stability and connection. Monitors should demonstrate this practice during preparation to normalize hand holding during sessions.”
• These methods should be enough if the other guidelines have been followed. The paper notes that reassurance was sufficient for any cases of distress in 54 recent study participants.
• Oral 10mg Valium (diazepam) can be used. “In these cases, we recommend a 10 mg oral dose of diazepam (Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1979).” Xanax is slightly less ideal than Valium, but can be used as an alternative, with 0.5-1mg being roughly equivalent to 10mg Valium. 2
• Emergency department personnel “who are inexperienced with hallucinogen effects can readily escalate and prolong an adverse reaction.” “Therefore, all possible efforts should be made to treat a difficult experience in the session context, even if pharmacological intervention is required.” 1

Free support service

Trip sitters can contact Fireside Project if you’d like support while tripsitting someone - call or text 6-2FIRESIDE (623-473-4733).

Are antipsychotic drugs good for bad trips?

Antipsychotic drugs include: Seroquel (Quetiapine), Chlorpromazine, Haloperidol, Perphenazine, Fluphenazine, Risperidone, Olanzapine, Quetiapine, Ziprasidone, Aripiprazole, Paliperidone, and Lurasidone. 3

Also, antipsychotic medications (e.g., risperidone, olanzapine) should be available in the event that an adverse reaction escalates to unmanageable psychosis. However, experienced clinicians have suggested that although antipsychotic medications may reduce psychotic behavior through sedation, [the use of antipsychotic medications] may be problematic because the effects may be abrupt, unpleasant, and intense and their use may result in subsequent psychological problems (McCabe, 1977; Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1979; Grof, 1980). Furthermore, pretreatment with the antipsychotic haloperidol has been shown to exacerbate the psychosis-like effects of psilocybin (Vollenweider, et al., 1998), suggesting that haloperidol should not be used as a rescue medication. 1

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3056407/ [return]
• http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/2172250-overview [return]
• https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/mental-health-medications/index.shtml#part_149866 [return]

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Viagem Louca

Vem brincar comigo Vieni a giocare con me (você não vai se arrepender) (non te ne pentirai) Vem brincar comigo Vieni a giocare con me (você vai se sentir bem, sabe?) (starai bene lo sai) que comigo vai sumir che con me sparirà todo seu problema e toda a negatividade. ogni tuo problema ed ogni sorta di negatività. Eu te prometo, eu não minto Te lo prometto io non mento (nunca minto) (non mento mai) se deixe levar e os problemas vão desaparecer lasciati dominare e spariranno i guai sou um pedaço de bondade sono un tassello di bontà você sabe onde me encontrar, procure um bilhete pra liberdade. tu sai dove cercarmi cerca un biglietto per la libertà. Vamos ficar por aí, sozinhos, horas e horas Staremo in giro soli ore ed ore vamos fazer muitos jogos, vou te fazer rir faremo tanti giochi ti farò divertire talvez você tenha algo melhor pra fazer forse hai da fare qualcosa di meglio mas eu vou apagar qualquer erro seu ma io cancellerò qualsiasi tuo sbaglio será que eu tô errado?! Nãooooo.... mi sbaglio io?! Nooooo.... Vem brincar comigo e eu vou te mostrar Vieni a giocare con me e te lo proverò você vai viajar como esse beat viaggerai come questo beat então vem brincar com sua viagem louca. su vieni a giocare con il tuo bad trip.

Vem brincar comigo Vieni a giocare con me (ainda?) (ancora?) você não gostou? Pra mim parece que você curtiu. non ti è piaciuto? A me sembra che tu l'abbia gradito. Muita gente fala mal de mim, mas Molta gente parla male di me ma agora que me conhece, sabe que não é assim. ora mi conosci sai che così non è. Como antes, mais do que antes Come prima, più di prima vou te dar aquelas sensações que você procura e vou satisfazê-las ti donerò quelle senzazioni che tu cerchi e le appagherò sabe que sozinho, você não vai conseguir sentir sai che da solo, non le potrai provare então o que tá esperando? Vem me procurar su cosa aspetti? Dai vienimi a cercare su vem brincar comigo vieni a giocare con me serei aquele que vai animar seu final de semana, viu?! sarò colui che animerà ogni tuo week end vedi?! Não há mais preocupações Non ci sono più le preoccupazioni se coloque no lugar de quem faz explorações calati nei panni di chi fa esplorazioni vem viajar comigo (meeeh) vieni a viaggiare con me (meeeh) vem brincar comigo (meeeh) su vieni a giocare con me (meeeh) sou seu amigo, vem cá. so di essere l'amico per te dai su vieni

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