Experiences - LSD-less Trip/flashback.

[Mr Innocent]

I had a very strange experience on new year'sday and I wonder if anyone has seenanything similar happen.We wereup all night doing what you do on new-year's eve when it came down to me, 2 close mates and a girl we all know sitting at my mate's with burst heads about 11:00am 1st January when the trips came out. The girl, having not tripped before was not offered any as was my mate who had had a pretty extreme bad trip at a music festival about 5 months previous and which I had talked him down from. This was not his first bad experience and it was agreed all round that he should not ever use lsd again so it was down to the remaining two of us who necked 2 each.Now this girl is a bit younger than me andI have known her since she was about 11 but her company wasn't familiarand having her there showing signs of a pretty hefty non-psychadelic buzz,drinking and speaking too much and too fast wasn't doing my trip any good so I took my other, tripping, mate aside and explained myself. He totally understood and we agreed that he would explain it to her and put her in a taxi home. She was ok with it, my mate did a sterling job under the circumstances- it was a difficult one to handle with a head full of acid but meanwhile my other mate seemed to be picking up on the strange vibes and started to ask what was going on. He started to believe that he too had been given acid. When I tried to explain that he hadn'the would say that he felt that he WAS tripping and started to get very agitated. He started to look really scared and totally clueless, and the other two of us watched him 'come up' on his trip, standing up, sitting down, expressions going from totally wide eyed, scared, untrusting to listening to me normally then suddenly going away on a totally random tangent. We suggested a walk to clear the air but he didn't trust us- his best mates-and wouldn't come out. My mate went to his girlfriends flat and left us and for about 5 hours it felt like we were back at the music festival with him having totally lost the plot and pulling the same vacant, frightened, faces and tensing himself up. He definitely, 100% did not take lsd but was 100% tripping, just like 5 months previous. I think he found it hard to take it in that knew he wastripping out badlyI wastalking him down, but yet I had had two acid and he had none because he was rather sheepish and didn't really say much when he did come out of it. My own brain was feeling really strained to bursting point by this time and I made him walk up with me to see my fellow tripper and talk about it. I felt he didn't want to talk about it. he seemed pretty shell-shocked by the whole thing so we madecertain before he went home that he knew just what had happened, that he had had a bad trip and had definitely not taken, or been spiked with acid. This is a fact.


Has anyone ever encountered this? Is it possible for certain people to trip on the vibes of others? This was an extreme sudden and very intenseexperience for all involved and neither of us will trip around this friend of ours again.


P.S I've still to apologise to the girl!!

[Micklemouse]

Contact high's can be pretty scary, especially if you've had a bad experience with Alice.

Psychedelics and entheogens open you up to all sorts of influences, and this can stay with you for a long time after coming down. Also, people on acid 'leak' like crazy - swim can walk into a room of trippers, spot who's dropped and be feeling pretty trippy within 10 minutes, without dropping( swim and Alice came to an arrangement some time ago, so haven't dropped for a few years - still get the contact high though !).

A number of factors could have played a part in your friends experience: the fact that you'd all been 'up' for quite some time would have made him more sensitive; the association between his previous bad experience and the person he tripped with tripping around him could well have triggered a flash back; and like I said, the sensitivity to contact high can stay for a long, long time, and trippers leak!

Well done for talking him down whilst tripping yourself - that takes some strength! Swim's been in that situation a few times, and I know exactly what you mean about feeling like your heads going to explode. Somehow swim could partition off his own trip, and still have a good one whilst dealing with the other person's freak out. Always felt blessed by Lady Alice in this respect, and never had a full blown bad trip! Try and talk it through with your friend, if he's willing, and with someone else you trust - dealing with bad trips can be pretty traumatic, especially if tripping yourself, and talking it through can help make some sense out of it.

Not tripping around this person is a very good idea - sounds he still has some healing to do.

Hope this helps. All the best!

[Mr Innocent]

That is exactly what it felt like. The air was thick with acid vibes around my mate and it took him straight back up there. A flashback to the festival seems more like what happened as it turns out the girl we asked to leave was someone we met near the start of his bad trip there andit seemed to be herleaving and saying her goodbyes in the acidy atmosphere that started it all again. Night in chaos in the bat of an eyelid although once we all met up again we still kept the banter goin fine with the exception of my mate who was no reallysaying much and just seemed to be trying to get his head around the fact that he'd just had a bad acid trip on no acid. He went home looking quite shocked and I've yet to speak to him about it but I really need to because to be honest he almost looked like he didn't believe us just before he went. Aye. Need to speak to him.


Cheers..