Ow, my brain

[Poke my Bunny]

Alright, here's the lowdown:

My "friend" Z was an avid pot smoker for about a year and a half. He never had any troubles, except the occasional paranoia and embarassment from not being able to handle a conversation while high. Then about 2 months ago, Z bought an eighth from a dealer, and on the way home (in the car), passed around about 8 bowls with 3 other people. Everything was going fine, for awhile. A very strong body buzz, and a very fogged mind that could barely concentrate on anything. He was leaning his head up against the back window and had the biggest grin on his face that he's ever had. Then, literally out of nowhere, a huge wave of unknown, terribly frightening, disturbingly horrible, and all-around mind-altering doom came on him. Everything had a red tint to it, like he was looking through glass, or something. His heart was racing, he was rocking in his seat, and his mind literally had a new thought once every 1/10th of a second. Most of these thoughts were, "What is happening?" "Who am I" "Where am I?" "If this doesn't stop, I will kill myself" "I need to stay at my friend's house" "I can't go home now, not while this is happening.", etc. It felt as if nothing was real, all of his perceptions were destroyed. Like as if everything he had learned in his previous life was fake.

He ended up convincing his friend to let him stay at his house. When he got there, he rocked back anf forth in a chair for about 3 hours. He could still feel the effects of the weed, even though it had been a long time since he had smoked. It was the most traumatizing experience in his life. After it was over, his mind felt as if it barely worked. He went to slee and felt relatively fine, with a minor hangover (felt like shit).

The next week, he went back to his friend's house and smoked half a bowl to see if he could handle it. When it kicked in, he metaphorically fell into the same pit he fell into the last week. It literally felt like he was falling into a pit, and the pit was the horrible feelings. As he fell into the pit, he recognized what it was, and climbed out. He told his friend, "Shit, it's starting to happen again, but since I know what's happening I think I can be fine." As he went back to his friend's house, he felt high, but not like he used to feel. It was a different high, a scary high. He was laughing at ridiculous things, but he kept falling into the pit and bringing himself out. Everytime he fell in, it felt horrible. Literally, like nothing has ever happened, and what is happening now, is nothing. He felt high for another 3-4 hours. After his friend went to sleep, he was still very confused, and still felt vulnerable to the pit. He went to sleep and when he woke up he still had the weird hangover.

He hasn't smoked weed since, and sometimes he still feels like he's falling into the pit, even though he's completely sober. He gets counseling now, and eats healthier, takes vitamins, etc. It sounds like he has developed some kind of anxiety disorder. Maybe derealization or depersonalization, or both. Maybe panic disorder, who knows? Does anyone have any idea what he can do? He wants to do more drugs like shrooms (maybe next week), and maybe start smoking weed again, but he is horribly terrified of the pit, so he doesn't want to risk falling in. He'd like to know what kind of treatment he could use to stop these feelings of non-reality that occur randomly and are so scary that he thinks that suicide is a reasonable option. By the way, he's never been suicidal at any point in his life, and thinks it is ridiculous.

[Poke my Bunny]

*bump*


Can anyone respond to this?

[enquirewithin]

He wants to do more drugs like shrooms (maybe next week), and maybe start smoking weed again, but he is horribly terrified of the pit, so he doesn't want to risk falling in. He'd like to know what kind of treatment he could use to stop these feelings of non-reality that occur randomly and are so scary that he thinks that suicide is a reasonable option. By the way, he's never been suicidal at any point in his life, and thinks it is ridiculous.

Drugs are not for everybody. I really wouldn't advise anyone taking mushrooms if marijuana is giving you worrying experiences. I would guess that 'the pit' is caused by some underlying worries/ problems. If your friend cannot find a way to face them, perhpas he would be better off not smoking at all-- or taking mushrooms.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good advise

[old hippie 56]

Sounds like your friend needs professional help quick, not mushrooms. You better keep a eye on him if he is suicidal. Lost a close friend years ago to depression brought on by excessive drug use. So, if you can, help him as much as possible.

[fatmanstan]

Sure that weed wasn't laced with anything?

[Poke my Bunny]

He's not suicidal. It wasn't laced with anything, I'm sure.

[Poke my Bunny]

He's also getting counseling, and has been told to research any "abilities" instead of looking for disorders.

Would anyone have any idea where to look to find some abilities/powers (sound corny) like this?

[Hotboxed151]

I don't think that it was the Cannibus that made you feel this way. It probaly overexaggerated your feelings that you had before smoking.

[Alicia]

I agree with Hotboxed above it important to know , that when there are things on your mind doing anything mildly psychoactive can make you dwell on your life,issues or just confuse. Mushrooms will easily do that to you if your mind set is not right. wait till your mindset is sorted , as taking anything with those issues will just conjure them up. You can also sway it thou by doing other things when high, music can change the mood considerably, next time if you want to try have supportive environment friends, teddy bears, chocolate. listen red hot chillipeppers is good. Worse comes to the worse. The experience will end No matter how difficult it can be just remember it will end

In other word "abilities" maybe it mean as in find a new way of thinking, or in things in general.There are books that are self help written by psychologists that may help if thats what your referring to. IF in doubt see a psychologist. and explore. :P

[LucidDeathTrip]

This happened to SWIM last summer. He had been smoking for about 6 months when one day in his friends backyard something weird happened. He kept zoning out and forgetting the conversation. He went inside and just started "freaking out". From not being able to sit still, to racing thoughts, to thinking he was going crazy. SWIM would not like to get further into this other than say it was one of the most terrifying experiences of his life.

I have read many reports about this crazy shit and have found the same type of experiences. Hell, my friend who has been an avid shorter for some time had the panic episode a couple of months ago and he thought it would never happen.

My advice would be to be in your most comfortable setting possible when smoking. For his experience, SWIM thinks it was a mix of getting high to quickly, being at a place he was not too familiar with/people not too familiar with, and the fact that he was relatively new to smoking (6 months). If you ever find yourself slipping into the madness again, tell yourself it's just a drug, take a piss, listen to some music, talk to somebody about something; anything to get yourself back in the loop.

I hope this helps and good luck in the future.

[old hippie 56]

He needs to quit dwelling on that one bad experience, and hope for the best the next time. Like Lucid said, set your surroundings, close personal friends that he can trust. Hell, swim still gets those feeling from time to time, but a person has to ignore them.

[Poke my Bunny]

Thank you guys so much, this is really a big help.

I'll update you guys on SWIM's condition the next time he decides to smoke, which might not be for another month, maybe a few months.

Thanks again, guys. Do any of you mind if I print out these posts and show them to SWIM's counselor?

[LucidDeathTrip]

My post is your post.

[Alicia]

Nope not all .. hope it helps

[old hippie 56]

Go ahead, maybe the counselor will learn something.

[unnamednn]

SWIM has depersonalization disorder for one year now which came on due to a very bad deliriant trip.
After that SWIM smoked weed 3 times and had some very wierd bad trips.. hard to describe actually due to the depersonalization and derealization. One time he was listening to some hip-hop and felt the band were his friends from another dimension
which had different names there and they were calling him on his different name and
where using very wierd non-existing words for everything.. so on a note things can get
pretty shacky and fucked up sometimes.
Now SWIM smokes weed regular and learned to cope with these things which now are
somewhat common for him (panic attacks,hyperventilation,fear of dying and paranoia)
and enjoys the trip better than before .
From what you've described seems like depersonalization/derealization symptoms.
My advice is to try and smoke lesser amounts than before and see how that goes..
swim can really get high on tiny ammounts and has learned that higher ammounts tend to get him closer to the 'edge of hell' because of his disorder.
SWIM wishes speedy recovery and best of wishes to all people here confroting with some form of unenjoyable mental illnes.
Peace!

Reputation Comments on this post:

good post and good job following the rules!

[100mg Methylphenidate]

Marijuana causes anxiety attacks(also known as panic attacks) for a lot of people. There are also limited symptom attacks(LSA), which are basically the same thing, except less severe, sorta like a partial panic attack. This has happened to swim MANY times. He's learned that this decreases as tolerance goes up. Smoking too much does tend to give overall anxiety though.

Maybe swiy should just try smoking smaller amounts less frequently? Just because there's going to be 5 blunts going around doesn't mean swiy has to hit all of them. Just get to the point where swiy knows he's high, but isn't out of control.

Combining xanax, vicodin, alcohol, or tobacco can also help these symptoms a lot when smoking, although, combining things with weed has made swim throw up multiple times from sheer intensity of the buzz.

[Pavelo]

Even if one's tolerance is pretty big one can still "OD" on MJ.. and then the horrible feelings can come.

But SWIM thinks that almost all the anxiety related issues are because of some subconcious discomfort, stress, etc.

[psyche]

This is not any unexpected effect from cannabis. I guess SWIY has always expected cannabis to be relaxing and mind foggying substance, but there are other sides of it too. In fact, at the beginning of the SWIMs smoking times, SWIM always had very, very psychedelic effects from weed, and found it ridiculous that some compare it in any way to alcohol. It was just mindblowing and nothing was real. He was unable to concentrate on doing anything, sometimes even unable to comprehend what other people were saying but that was rare. Usually he just would talk very much and have a very spacey mindset. When he smoked alone he would just put music on and lay down and close his eyes, and as soon as he did that the world around disappeared into nothingness and very vivid patterns and things formed in front of his eyes. He couldn't ever imagine going to a public place in a mindset like that. He very much enjoyed the unreal feeling it brought on and never took anything seriously, because he had such a huge respect for cannabis at the beginning that whatever happened was so interesting and intense.

But ofcourse as a few years went by, the effects of cannabis became very much more regular, and he was just foggy-headed. And he hated it. He would want to go back in time to smoke weed and lose himself in a cozy land of absurdness and pure feeling.

Ofcourse it's not for everybody, and when you are expecting something else it can get panicky. It's a normal side effect. Maybe some underlying issues might be excabareted. I suggest that if you still smoke, reserve a whole day for it and listen to music or watch a movie if it's possible to concentrate. SWIM never thought watching a movie while high because the effort to concentrate to it would be a waste of a fantastic mind-journey. Listen to music and try to relax, let only the music exist and concentrate on your surroundings, and remember you have all day to feel really weird

[ZombieCarWash]

x and his friend y were having a decent dxm trip, and they decided to smoke a fair amount of some good bud. x been smoking for a couple years, y 6 months or so, they were having a great great trip. x and y started smoking, it was getting greater and greater, then all of a sudden, everything turned awful. not awful absolulty horrifying, they both started to realise that they were having a bad trip. It was incredibly disturbing, the strange thing was though was that they both saw the red tint your talking about, its really strange that you mentioned that. the red tint had only appeard once the bad trip came about.

anyway they pulled themselves togather and desprately escaped what seemed like the end of their lives. Neither of them had really comprehended the horror of having a bad trip, they learned quite a lesson though, when things get really really bad, hold your self togather and fix whatever is causing the trip to go bad. X cant get over how much of a difference that made, he feels like he could have some serious psychological problems had he not pulled out of it.

[wintrojan2k]

SWIM can attest to the reality that habitual use of cannabis can alter the chemistry of ones brain. Just recently it has been reported that chronic use of Cannabis can lead to the onset of schizophrenia, reported in a number of medical journals. SWIM reports that SWIMs dreams are filled with almost paralyzing paranoia. In that someone is trying to hurt SWIm or some other irrational fearful. SWIM finds if he gives 1 week of respite from smoking that SWIm's dreams are less fearful. As with all foriegn compounds each person will respond diffrently

[Each Hit]

Originally Posted by wintrojan2k

SWIM can attest to the reality that habitual use of cannabis can alter the chemistry of ones brain. Just recently it has been reported that chronic use of Cannabis can lead to the onset of schizophrenia, reported in a number of medical journals. SWIM reports that SWIMs dreams are filled with almost paralyzing paranoia. In that someone is trying to hurt SWIm or some other irrational fearful. SWIM finds if he gives 1 week of respite from smoking that SWIm's dreams are less fearful. As with all foriegn compounds each person will respond diffrently

oddly, swim stops dreaming when he is using marijuana. well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say he has no recollection of dreaming. after not using for a few days, he starts dreaming again. they usually are strange at first, sometimes a little scary. swim always thought it was odd that his dreams stopped when he was consistently using. i wonder what is going on in swim's noggin (and swiy's) to cause that.

[psyche]

oddly, swim stops dreaming when he is using marijuana. well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say he has no recollection of dreaming. after not using for a few days, he starts dreaming again. they usually are strange at first, sometimes a little scary. swim always thought it was odd that his dreams stopped when he was consistently using. i wonder what is going on in swim's noggin (and swiy's) to cause that.

I think it's about the behavioural effects of cannabis. It makes one generally more lazy and can lead to boredom(that's the case for SWIM). Uneventful days lead to uneventful nights, as dreams are a sort of simulator for problem solving in evolutionary viewpoint. In dreams one goes through the days events in a symbolic manner, and it has an integrating effect; many solutions to seemingly difficult problems come after a good nights sleep. The short-term memory loss and foggy days offer not much food for subconscious.