Bad Trips
Bad Trips
Categories include:
A sense of “brokenness” or that one’s death is impending
Fears of unwanted thoughts/feelings intruding into consciousness
Derealisation - a sense that things feel false, or do not appear real
Isolation - a sense of being locked out of the world and unable to reach others
A revelation of what feels like truth, but is unacceptable on some level, or can’t be believed
A feeling of being possessed by a spirit or entity
A sense of being haunted by something which has changed mood, or energy
Feelings of inappropriate grandiosity
A sense of disillusionment with mundane reality, after glimpsing the sublime
Unfortunately, not every experience with psychedelics is positive. Challenging experiences, or so-called “bad trips”, can occur when a person is not adequately prepared for their experience, when they do not feel safe in the setting the experience occurs, or when their fear takes hold and they fight to resist the effects of the drug. While not all bad trips have negative outcomes, a certain proportion of people find themselves struggling after a challenging experience with psychedelics.
In these instances, I employ a specific integration protocol, based on the work of Sean O’Carroll. Sean has mapped out various categories of distress and difficulty that bad trips can promote, and has developed a therapeutic approach to work with these issues.