Psychedelics - The Perfect Guide For Beginners

Erowid Psychoactive Vaults : The Psychedelic Experience FAQ v1.1

First time tripping on shrooms/acid? Click the link and read

Edit: The guide is long, so for those of you who are too lazy to read that, here's the most important information (though I really recommend that you read the full guide).

1. Setting is very significant in determining what your trip will be like. Try to chill at a place that is familiar, comfortable, and secluded. Dosing and then going to some public, crowded place will probably increase your chances of a bad trip.

2. Music is another important thing. If you're having a bad trip, the appropriate music can boost you out of it so you can start enjoying your trip again. Like the author of the guide, I personally enjoy The Orb, to me it's the perfect tripping music. For the first 3 hours, try to listen to upbeat or calm, soothing music to set the right mood.

3. Always try to trip with at least 1 other person. That way you guys can look out for each other and overall just have a better experience. If you guys have a group with people with you, try to decide unanimously on decisions like turning off the lights or changing the music. If one person says no, then you should just let things be. People tend to get sensitive while tripping.

4. DON'T TRIP IF YOU ARE IN A BAD MOOD. PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS WILL JUST MAKE YOU FEEL 105810350138503 TIMES SHITTIER. Only experienced users should try doing this in order to try to confront their problems, not beginners.

5. Shroom trips may last 6 hours while acid trips may last up to even 12 hours. Although neither of these drugs are necessarily more powerful than the other since drugs affect everyone differently, beginners may be more susceptible to bad trips on acid simply because of the longer duration.

6. When tripping, it's important to just let yourself go. Don't fight the effects of the drug or try to maintain grip on reality or try to act normal, it may result in panic which leads to a bad trip. Just relax and let the drug do its work. This is why knowing the effects of the drug beforehand is important, so that it doesn't catch you by surprise when tripping.

7. If someone in your group is having a bad trip, don't be a dick. Be consoling and remind them that they took shrooms/acid, that they chose to do this and the effects will end. The person may not even be able to tell you that he/she is having a bad trip so if you notice that he/she is acting scared or too quiet, ask if everything is ok. If they express a fear (examples: am i going insane? am i dying? etc.), then specifically counter that fear and tell them the above.

8. If you are having a bad trip, changing the music or relocation (if possible) can be REALLY helpful. I personally think that the latter is the better solution, but if it's not possible, then do the former. It's quite strange, it can feel like you just clicked a refresh button in your mind and you start out with another clean slate. Interesting I think.

For the list of hallucinations, scroll down the erowid guide to the list of both open-eye and closed-eye hallucinations.

SECOND EDIT: I'm just gunna paste all the hallucinations right here. (Though of course, these aren't the only hallucinations that you can have)

List of Hallucinations From Erowid

CEV = Closed Eye Visuals
OEV = Open Eye Visuals

Red/green/blue blips (CEV or OEV)
Possibly the most common type of hallucination, this usually occurs at the onset. The basic idea is that a layer of red, green, and blue blips - kind of like looking at a TV set from real close - is superimposed on everything. Most visible in darkness.

Pixelization (OEV)
The second stage of the RGB effect is "pixelization", ie. everything seems to be composed of separate little bits, like pixels on a computer screen. This effect is difficult to describe, all I can say is you'll know what it is when you see it. People who aren't computer freaks think it looks like a fine mesh or web placed over your field of vision.

Tracers (OEV)
Moving objects that contrast sharply with their background (tip of lit incense stick against a dark room, ball flying against the blue sky, etc) leave colorful trails.

Red shift (OEV)
Everything looks like you're looking at it through glasses with their lenses dyed red. Now you know why hippies loved red sunglasses so much... =)

Breathing (OEV)
A very common effect at medium to high doses, the object in question starts to pulse in and out, bubble, shift, split into multiple layers, morph to the point of being entirely unrecognizable... Usually visible in bigger objects, such as expanses of sand, clouds, textured walls and carpets, etc.

Melting (OEV)
The direct corollary of breathing, best seen in plants and trees. The object in question starts acting like it was made of plastic, and somebody started to heat it; it distorts, flows downwards, maybe wiggles a bit from side to side in a cosmic dance of sorts. Shadows may exhibit a special form of melting: they move by themselves.

Haloing (OEV) [description by jkent@jkent.seanet.com]
Usually my shroom visuals start off as a "haloing" of misty rainbow colors off of anything I look at. Eventually, as the trip intesifies, I get what I call "kodaking" or "poloroiding" - the "halos" around the mundane 3-D objects begin to morph into "snapshots" - usually of family members or past experiences recalled from differing perspectives.

The "snapshots" have a kind of "infinite ripple effect" around the edges, as if they are evaporating away in time... this is not exactly right, but I don't know how else to describe it. Ooh, maybe this... They are fractalized around the edges. I have studied this effect for quite some time and I have come to believe that this "hallucination" is due to a shift in the speed at which I perceive light. The "fractalized edges" tend to strobe and flicker and recede off into infinity. The closer I scrutinize the edges the more complex they become - ad infinitum. Good music, good pot, or a combination of both will "animate" the snapshots - get them morphing and oozing into different scenes more rapidly. I call this "imagination grease".

X-Ray Vision (OEV) [description by jkent@jkent.seanet.com]
I remember riding on a bus with a friend of mine while I was moderately dosed with shroomahuasca (1.5 cubensis shrooms + 1 rue capsule). When I looked at his face, I could see the network of blood vessels pumping blood through his head and brain. I could see through his skin and see his skull. It was really creepy but really cool too. I started laughing so hard I had to put my head in my hands to stifle the noise. On another trip (similar dose - it's my usual), I was looking up at a tree and suddenly I could see every vein in the tree and the sap running through it in very slow but steady progression. I could also see "specks" like little ants coarsing through everything, including my own body. They flowed through space in organic patterns - from the tree, to the deck, to my legs, etc. I do not know what these "specks" were. I first assumed they were some kind of insect, but they were far too small. No one with me (dosed or sober) could see them so I shrugged it off as "tripper's delusion". However, when hiking once (dosed), I was lying on a rock and noticed the SAME THING. This time I scrutinized it and found that there were actually tiny little "bugs" of some kind scurrying along the rocks.

They were smaller than the tiny dirt particles dusting the rocks, but they definitely moved in insectlike patterns. I showed them to my firend, who was also tripping, and he couldn't see them. Then I said "no, they're REALLY tiny, like ATOMS," and suddenly HE saw them too. We were both blown away. I still don't know what they were - mites, bacteria, etc - but they were unmistakeably there. The were eating or excreteing some type of lichen that was all over the rocks and trees in the area we were in. It was amazing. I had been hiking in the same area sober many times and I had never seen them. When I went back once sober, I could see them if I looked REALLY close, but only in the tiny area I stared at, and it really strained my eyes. When dosed, I saw them everywhere (like millions of trails of ants...) Talk about visual accuity!

The Guardian (CEV or OEV)
A few people, including yours truly, are lucky enough to have a constant hallucination that lasts for the duration of trip and even afterwards; Castaneda mentions these in his books and calls them "guides" or "guardians". Two forms include a little blue lattice containing red and green blips, and a bright red star. These may or may not recur in different trips and also flash back after the trip itself is over.

Geometric patterns (CEV)
One type of hallucination is the geometric pattern. There are many subtypes of these: Mandelbrots, spirals, wave interference patterns,etc. The unifying feature is that they tend to be in primary colors and of a fractal nature, ie. the same basic pattern is repeated continually. These are two-dimensional with lower doses, but they become 3D on higher doses. _Psychedelic Experience_ calls this "The Internal Flow of Archetypal Processes".

"The Fire-Flow of Internal Unity" (CEV)
Another type taken from _Psych Exp_, this involves more of *feeling* something than *seeing* it, although there are undescribeable hallucinations accompanying the feelings. The distinct difference to the last one is that the visuals are not geometric and separate, but amorphous, dim shapes directly linked to the emotions one is experiencing, which can be positive (bliss, love, peace) or negative (isolation, withdrawal, sadness).

Traditional patterns (CEV)
Visuals containing imagery from Aztec, Mayan, Native American, Indian and African cultures are quite common. These vary from seeing something exactly like a picture/statue of a native god to more vague visions of scriptures and temples to just a fuzzy idea of the hallucinations being 'drawn' in a specific style.

Hallucinations (CEV, rarely OEV)
Actual hallucinations - ie. objects that are recognizable and appear real, but are not there - may occur on high-dose trips. If lucky, the tripper may even be transported into a literal, as opposed to merely figurative, Alice-in-Wonderland type alternate universe. This is not the same as merely feeling things like "I felt like a satellite" or "I was transported by the music", with real hallucinations the visuals are equivalent to a color 3-D movie on a 360-degree screen.

Entities (CEV, rarely OEV)
Encounters with other beings are a recurring feature of high-dose trips. I will not tackle the complex philosophical issues of what they are (if anything), how they got there, and what they mean; all I know is that they exist. Some common types:

The "mantid", an alien-looking insect-headed creature that tends to appear extremely intelligent and aware and neutral/negative towards the tripper. Can be green or grayish-white.
The so-called "DMT elf", a gnome-like playful, funny and usually friendly entity.
Happy dancing little people that appear in large groups.
Shapeless, but conscious, masses of hyperspace protoplasm.
There are other types, but these four seem to recur quite often.

Clear Light of Reality (CEV or OEV)
Nirvana, ego loss, Non-Game Ecstasy, enlightenment, ultimate truth, "the infallible mind of the pure mystic state", etc. One thing's for sure, you'll recognize it if you get there. =) Again, while any decent trip will seriously reduce the domination of the ego and let you see quite a lot that you wouldn't normally notice, the "Clear Light" kind of total ego loss is quite rare and even experienced trippers consider themselves lucky if they've had a single one of these so-called 'Level 5' experiences.

 

np. And nice; the key part in avoiding a bad trip is to just let your ego go and not trying to fight the drug by attempting to maintain a grip on reality

 

Updated, listed the most important stuff in original post except for the list of hallucinations which you can find in the erowid guide

 

Well the author of the guide addresses basically what you said. Quote from the guide:

"By now, you're probably completely freaked out and convinced that the psychedelic experience is some horrible ordeal where even one little detail going wrong will lead to 12 hours of hell. This view is, fortunately, false; this FAQ has an unfortunate tendency to stress the negative side of things. With low doses, just get the basics of set and setting OK, and everything will go perfectly. Only with higher doses is there any real risk of a bad trip, and even then careful preparation, ruthless self-analysis, and well-selected companions can reduce the risk to nearly zero. (If you are planning a high dose journey, see the HDS.)

But let me tell you a little story. My first trip was on a medium dose of Psilocybe semilanceata, and I later ranked it as level 2-3 out of 5. At 10 PM one day, a friend called me up and told me to come over, we're going to trip _now_. We had been planning in general for a while, but an unexpected opportunity had cropped up and we decided to use it. So there I was, with one hour to prepare, never having used a drug other than alcohol in my life, going to trip in a completely unfamiliar apartment, with no triptoys, no suitable tripping music, and in general completely unprepared for what was going to happen.

So, we dropped. And I was bowled over. My world view shattered. 6 hours of ecstasy, hovering on the edges of sanity. And despite the lack of preparation, it was a truly incredible and almost entirely positive experience.

All I can say is, don't worry. Just approach the trip with an open mind, and everything will be alright."

 

bumping so more people can read the guide

 

^ Lots of threads asking questions about shrooms.

 

Yea dude I did that on my first DXM trip, it was so frightening and scary, I became absolutely convinced I was going insane lol..but the first half of the trip was good, only the second half was bad. Definitely worth the experience though.

 

Yea, it was my first time trying DXM when I was "fighting" the trip. I don't do it anymore, I just know that the trip becomes fucking horrible if you try doing it

 

bump again..so many threads asking about shrooms and acid

 

Lol wtf? Can you show me where, I've read this guide like 3 times and I never noticed that