Antipsychotics seem theoretically (and by online accounts empirically) more effective. While benzos reduce the panic, antipsychotics would function more similarly to an off-switch.
Interesting, I didn't know that. Now I wish I'd had a Xanax after my one trip which kept me awake until 4-5 am after taking acid around noon (otherwise it was an incredible day, it was just annoying not being able to sleep).
Don't benzos have some pretty nasty side effects and/or dependency potential though? Maybe this drug is a bit more targeted / less risky?
They absolutely have dependency potential, but you have to be regularly taking them for that to be an issue, a fact which the doctor who was merrily prescribing me them failed to mention. Kicking them was much easier for me from an addictive perspective than cigarettes, but with dramatically worse side effects.
They’re also going to make a certain percentage of the population feel incredible (or just allow them to relax/sleep when they can’t usually), so they’re also very more-ish.
In short: taking them once a quarter is unlikely to be an issue unless you already have poor impulse control and easy access to them, in which case: just don’t start.
I think weed is a gamble if you have history of getting anxious on weed. All my friends use weed for relaxing, but even the tiniest amount always makes me very anxious. I still like weed, but only when I'm cozying up, watching TV and feel very safe (here, I still feel the "anxiety" but usually of the form "excitement"). I would not smoke any amount of weed on a psychedelic.
Unfortunately, I used to not have this problem then one time had a "bad trip" while high out of my mind on weed. After that night, weed has been an entirely different experience. For about 2 years I couldn't/didn't smoke weed because even tiny tiny tiny amount triggered a full blown panic attack. After about 2/3 years I was able to smoke a little with friends and enjoy music, vibe etc. Nowadays I smoke weed very rarely as I like the physically-relaxing effects on a lazy sunday watching TV. But it still makes my brain go berserk! Sometimes it's fun as I start overanalyzing stupid shows like It's Always Sunny or The Office, but if I feel a little vulnerable it doesn't end up well. :( What I learned though, is when I start panicking on weed, taking a short walk is immensely helpful as the effects only last 30 mins to an hour so if you just keep walking around neighborhood you feel fine.
This is the opposite of what I would suggest. Marijuana + acid is a classic recipe for intensity, and a way to re-enter a trip when you're coming down.
That smoking a psychoactive when you're on an intense psychoactive somehow helps you go to sleep makes you at extreme outlier fwiw.
Benzos are given to hundreds of millions of people every year, so they're pretty safe in my opinion. But they must not be taken for longer than a few weeks and/or in high doses! Because if you stop them cold turkey, you can die from the withdrawal effects (seizures).
Thing with most drugs is - we barely know which long-term/not clearly traceable side effects they have.
We have these big issues like heart attacks, strokes, cancer, mental issues, gene defects - all of which don't have obvious causes but surely increased with pollution, drugs and chemicals
Benzos can be deadly if used with opiates or alcohol, as all suppress breathing and in combination can just stop it while the person sleeps.
Yes, they are quite addictive if taken recreationally or used frequently for anxiety/sleep. Withdrawal is allegedly worse than opiates and can kill through seizures if done too suddenly.
Benzodiazepines are also thought to be carcinogenic to some degree.
When used for sleep, benzos will affect sleep quality even though they allow you to go to sleep more easily.
That all said, I have used a few types infrequently for helping to get to sleep and found them absolutely delightful, waking up refreshed and energised (and still somewhat relaxed) the next day.
Dependency issues, some memory loss, coordination. Real concerns if you're going to take it every day or drive or something. Nothing that would present a serious issue for this kind of occasional use.
I take a benzos for anxiety and havent had issues and it dependance personally.
If you aren't using it to get high (so as intended for panic attacks / aborting lsd trips) and using it very infrequently (e.g. Only for lsd trips) you'll have no problems at all.
The issues are usually when you take it daily, especially if you take enough for the recreational effects. (Although daily isn't necessarily bad if you are being very careful with a doctor).
Tl;Dr - yeah benzos have issues with tolerance/depedancy but if you are only using what you need therapeutically, especially since lsd requires you to space out trips, then you're unlikely to have issues.
You can still be awake, but you won’t be tripping any more, the sleep only comes if you actually lay down and try to go to sleep or take a large enough dose of benzos.
They dampen the effects and quell the anxiety, and depending on what stage of the trip you're in and how hard you're tripping they may effectively kill it entirely. I would take a bit of valium on the tail end of a trip to sleep or quiet my brain as it reconstituted itself after being atomized into the cosmos. I only took benzos once during the upward trajectory of a trip near the peak, after suffering physical panic symptoms from a strong batch of wild-picked wavy caps (first and only time I've felt physically threatened by a psychedelic). It didn't kill the trip, but it killed the panic and allowed me to enjoy the experience.
The one time when I did continue drinking heavily while tripping (when younger and more foolish), it seemed like the alcohol had no effect. I finished an entire bottle of gin and several beers. Once I did come down it hit me like a bus and the next day I had exactly the hangover that this stupidity deserved.
I've never been able to even contemplate eating while tripping and the idea of drinking alcohol while tripping turns my stomach, I find it much easier to just take some alprazolam or diazepam if things start getting out of hand. That's just me personally though, I've tripped with a guy who went and bought and ate a whole chicken while tripping...
I usually buy smoothies and drink them for some calories and to feel full. Luckily I don't get too much body load, it's just the idea of chewing and eating that weirds me out
Sure, I'm no stranger to fasting, I wouldn't call it pleasant though. Eating can be a very strange experience, I have vivid memories of a burrata I felt like I could climb into but it's definitely nice not to be hungry
Set and setting. Trip with some poor people who haven’t seen a fresh fruit since grade school and look out instead for the magical “fruit” drinks that taste of their literal colors.
Never, ever, mix any other drug with alcohol - or for that matter don't mix any kind of drugs unless you are specifically aware of the purity, the amounts consumed and the interactions between the agents, and are under the supervision of a doctor.
If there is one thing that carries a real risk of fucking up (other than ODing) it is mix consumption.
You can check this chart for dangerous interactions between common recreational drugs. As far as I know it's well researched. Alcohol and acid are fine together, it just suppresses the effect.
LSD is a remarkably safe drug when it comes to interactions with other drugs.
No interaction is not the same as "fine". See the post about the person who had a whole bottle of gin and some beers but didn't feel the booze until the next morning. A lethal alcohol dose is already dangerously easy to reach.
Yep, I trip a lot and have always kept a few beers around for me or some friends. One beer really kills off the higher level stuff. It's always been magic.
Never heard of the other experiences ITT. Alcohol is a well known off-switch in all of the beat nation sort of literature.
Then again I think we are often talking about different substances when we say LSD. You'll find someone who supposedly has this great connection and the second you take their ticket, you have the instant dread of tasting metal knowing it's not LSD.
Some alcohol and some acid go well together imo. Alcohol surely doesn't stop the trip. Maybe it smoothens the come up a bit. I only do low doses of both though.
I took a few hundred or so micrograms a couple weeks ago. I did a dab weighing about .15g during the strong part, and I didn’t notice any perceptual shift at all.
Yeah, I’ve found having a beer definitely takes away some anxiety/twitchiness and brings me back to reality a bit faster. But it was the same for me, towards the end of a trip. Not sure how it works for somehow rapidly being swallowed by the void.
In my experience, the acid smashes straight through the effects of the alcohol. I drank quite a lot during the peak once, it didnt affect me at all. (Mind you my trip was okay, no anxiety i wanted to get rid of.)
The tail end was pretty rough though, getting slammed back into reality AND a nasty hangover wasn't fun.
All in all it felt pretty pointless. Not recommended.
My first trip so far, took only 1/3rd of a ticket. IDK what I really experienced, just some slight visuals. Definitely more pleasurable than mushrooms (less poisonous, less lyrical, more positive).
They aren’t toxic or poisonous, but psilocybin does have a nauseating effect on many people. The cell walls of the mushrooms can be hard for some to digest as well, which is why many people make a tea or tinctures. You’d have to consume an absolutely insane dose of them — so much so that the current lethal dose isn’t known — for safety to be a concern at a toxicological level. Emotionally and mentally, different story.
MDMA will not reduce the effects of LSD but remove the element of fear and bring your imagination into more pleasant areas. This is something that Rick Doblin, the founder of MAPS, describes in the latest Tim Ferriss podcast.
All of the other responses are accurate -- combining the two will augment and possibly lengthen the experience -- but if you're familiar with both substances enough to feel confident in combining them, I've always found that 70mg dose of MDMA and a big glass of water will pull me right out of a trip that's heading south, and pretty quickly, into more glorious places.
But again, disclaimer: this is really only for folks experienced enough to know how to navigate each separate space well, and for those that have confirmed, tested, pure, high quality MDMA.
I highly recommend everyone candy-flip at least once, just to see why they call it candy-flipping (because everything looks like lovey-dovey glowing gumdrops). However, in my experience, the serotonin release from the MDMA tends to overwhelm the LSD, and you pay for it with the inevitable comedown and MDMA hangover the next day instead of the blissful LSD afterglow.
