Reflection: Learning from a Bad Trip

I'll preface this post by saying I'm not the one who had the bad trip, but it was an eye-opening experience.

Not this past weekend but the one before that, on a Thursday actually (beginning of the weekend for my friends taking summer courses), myself and six of my friends decided we wanted to trip on very pure LSD, 100ug. I already was uneasy about tripping with this many people, especially since it was a couple people's first time doing any psychedelic. However, myself and two others were very experienced, and they insisted, so I went with it. We smoked a little bit of weed after taking the tabs, and it actually went very well for quite some time, everyone was enjoying the drug and it was very intense for 100ug, visuals were very evident and the body high was euphoric. However, 7 people in a fairly small room got some restless, and we decided to go for a walk. It was dark, around 12-1 am at this point, and we live in a very small town (like 1 sq km), so there was no danger of encountering anyone. We were having a great time, enjoying being outside. However, one of the party members began talking about how "tripping balls" was the biggest joke ever and how he needed to tell the world. This is when things began to go downhill. He got in this mindset that he had to tell everyone he was tripping balls, and he began to yell, shouting "I'm tripping balls!" and "Everyone! Everyone!".

Now, I've heard of and encountered acid loops before, but in my experiences they were small, like not being able to look away from a mirror or unable to go somewhere because of looping. However, this loop was so much more intense than that. He started repeating the same things over and over, shouting that he was tripping balls, which began to frighten some of the group since everyone was sleeping and we did not want people knowing we were tripping. He became unresponsive to us, and it seemed as though he was possessed, and not in his own body, like he was on autopilot while his actual consciousness slept. Luckily, our friend we were staying with, his mother is one who does not care about drugs. She helped give him some sedative (unsure, she seemed to know what she was doing), and three of the group had to carry him into the car and drive him way out into the country and let him loop himself out. Eventually he came to. At first he had severe amnesia, could not remember us or himself, where he was, etc., but finally he slept and the next day was completely normal. He explained that he blacked out, did not remember anything, that he was dreaming, and that his dreams were uncomfortable and somewhat scary.

The entire experience was frightening, and made the rest of the trip very uncomfortable, although most of us left, thinking the less people there, the better. I managed to reflect for the rest of the time, and eased myself into contentment.

Truthfully, the guy that looped was not ready for a psychedelic experience, and I'm somewhat upset I did not identify it sooner. He is a fairly anxious person from what I hear, and he has joined a fraternity that treats him very poorly. I believe there were many reasons on top of that that led to his experience.

Looking back at the experience, I realize there is much to learn. First of all, tripping with that many people only increases the chances of a bad trip happening. We all underestimated the experience, especially me and my best friend, who are both fairly experienced tryptonauts. We did not give enough attention to caution. Fortunately it all turned out alright, and there were no lasting consequences to the experience. However, I am disappointed in the lack of respect we all, including myself, gave the drug. I think we all learned a valuable lesson. Since then, I have limited my trip circles to no more than 4 people. If one has not tripped, then I will ensure a sober sitter.

TL;DR: bad loop had my friend screaming the same things over and over, had to lock him in a car in secluded spot to wait it out.