Trip-Sitting: Medical Triage, Shadow Work, Therapy (v 3, updated July 7, 2026)
Did you know there's a safe natural trip killer? Ipomoea pes-caprae!
Quick Triage Web-App Version HERE
Inner Signal App To The Rescue!
I’ve developed the Inner Signal app, based on my Inner Child Reparenting & Self-Hypnosis Guides, plus my sleep guide, plus my meditation guidance, plus this bad trips guide. It’s designed to help you gently reparent yourself while in trance states (or without trance if you’re already altered), use the most appropriate meditations for your circumstances, and help you through difficult altered states. But if you prefer the old-fashioned reading and applying without an app, read on:
Quick Bad Trip Checklist
Use this in order. Medical safety first. Then room, body, human support, action-lock, and only then deeper psychological or spiritual interpretation.
1. Is this medically or physically dangerous?
Trouble breathing, chest pain, seizure, fainting, severe overheating, injury, suspected overdose or dangerous drug mix, serotonin-syndrome signs, severe confusion, violence risk, self-harm risk, constant vomiting, or someone who cannot be kept physically safe?
Get urgent help while giving basic first aid if you can. Do not try to spiritually process a medical emergency.
2. Is anyone about to do something unsafe?
Pause unsafe momentum: roads, balconies, water, stoves, knives, crowds, fights, strangers, driving, posting, texting, or leaving alone.
Put away car keys, the phone if posting/texting is becoming risky, weapons, sharp objects, and anything that turns a temporary state into a permanent consequence.
3. Is the room wrong?
Fix the basics: light, sound, temperature, privacy, bathroom access, music, crowding, and the number of people in the room.
Usually one calm sober person is best as the main anchor. If that person cannot safely handle the situation alone, add one more calm adult or a crisis professional — not a crowd.
4. Does the body need stillness or movement?
Do not make this ideological. Try the safest option for two minutes and see what happens.
If stillness helps: sit against a wall, lie under a blanket, hand on heart, hand on belly.
If movement helps: slow pacing, gentle stretching, shaking out arms and legs, wall push-ups, or one boring ordinary task.
If movement makes things more impulsive, return to sitting or lying down.
Avoid strenuous exercise if there is overheating, chest pain, faintness, severe confusion, stimulant use, unknown drug mixtures, or medical instability.
5. Is there a human anchor?
If possible, contact one grounded person. Say:
I’m in an intense state and I’m scared. I don’t need you to solve my life. Please stay with me, speak slowly, remind me where I am, and help me not make any big decisions until tomorrow.
If you took a substance, you can say:
I took something. I am in [place]. It is [date/time]. This is intense, but it will change.
If this came from meditation, breathwork, fasting, sleep loss, kundalini-style practice, or emotional overwhelm, say:
I’m in an intense state. I am in [place]. It is [date/time]. It will change. I am stopping the practice and coming back to ordinary reality.
6. If you are alone at 3 a.m.
One lamp on. Blanket. Water nearby. Keys away. Phone for support only, not posting. Write where you can see it:
This will change. No big actions until morning.
If the body needs to move, do something safe and boring: pace slowly, fold clothes, wash one cup, tidy one surface. If movement escalates you, sit against a wall or lie down. Protect sleep as soon as possible.
7. Is the mind too intense, but the trip does not need to be aborted?
Try grounding before trying to chemically or forcefully change the state:
Hand on heart and belly.
Longer exhale breathing.
Buteyko-style reduced breathing: nose-breathe softly and slowly, taking in slightly less air than you want, until there is only a faint air hunger. No strain, no long breath-holds while intoxicated, and stop if it spikes fear.
Silence or one calm track on repeat.
Low light, blanket, simple reassurance.
Slow pacing or gentle movement if that reduces pressure.
Some people over-breathe during panic, and low CO2 from hyperventilation can produce tingling, lightheadedness, and unreality feelings that make the trip feel more threatening. Gentle breathing reduction is meant to soften that loop, not create a new breathing project. Source: Johns Hopkins on hyperventilation.
8. Is the person euphoric, grandiose, or full of cosmic certainty?
Not every dangerous state feels bad. Bliss, certainty, and “I have a mission” can be more dangerous than fear because the person may not want grounding.
The action-lock applies double: no driving, posting, confessing, confronting, redosing, disappearing, giving away possessions, testing theories, or proving anything tonight.
If the revelation is true, it will survive sleep and breakfast.
9. Are visions, entities, memories, or cosmic conclusions giving commands?
Do not try to win a metaphysical argument. Also do not agree with harmful conclusions. Reflect the feeling, then redirect to safety, non-harm, sleep, and ordinary reality.
A good response sounds like:
I hear how vast and certain this feels. Many traditions say God is in everyone. That makes every body sacred, not disposable. Peace is the godly move tonight. No proof is needed. We protect life and sleep first.
If there is a specific target, weapon, movement toward action, escalating violence, or the sitter cannot safely contain the situation, get crisis or emergency help.
10. Is the gut the main problem?
Nausea, diarrhea, a dirty/toxic feeling, or a parasite-die-off feeling may need body-level support, but do not let “toxins” distract from medical red flags like repeated vomiting, severe abdominal pain, dehydration, blood, fever, confusion, fainting, or overdose signs.
My personal first thought here is zeolite rather than charcoal, because charcoal can reduce the trip and can also bind many substances. This is a personal field note, not standard emergency medicine.
Activated charcoal has real toxicology uses, but it is not a casual at-home fix for a medically dangerous poisoning, especially if the person is vomiting, sedated, seizing, or unable to protect their airway. Source: clinical review on activated charcoal.
11. Is nausea still the main problem after basic gut support?
For heavy psychedelic nausea, Ipomoea pes-caprae is my strongest personal tool, but it can become a trip-reducer or trip-aborter at higher amounts. Treat it as a personal, plant-specific field note, not a universal instruction.
12. Do I actually want to abort or reduce the trip?
First ask whether the trip is merely difficult or actually unsafe. If it is unsafe, get help. If the person truly wants to reduce the trip, possible personal tools include stronger Ipomoea pes-caprae, niacin, or actual charcoal — but these should not replace medical care when medical danger is present.
Charcoal may reduce absorption of some substances, but it is also situation-specific and can be dangerous with vomiting or impaired consciousness. Source: Poison Control on activated charcoal.
13. Is this shadow work?
If yes: love, awareness, inner child, somatic release, gentle witnessing. But do not jump to meaning before the person is safe, hydrated, oriented, and not about to do anything rash.
14. Can I send love to the one suffering?
If yes, do that. If no, stabilize first: room, body, breath, human, time, sleep. Then try again.
15. What support can I contact?
Identify local crisis and peer-support resources before you need them. Options vary by country.
Fireside Project Psychedelic Support Line — U.S.-only, non-emergency psychedelic peer support.
TripSit web chat — online peer chat for drug-related support.
Find A Helpline — country-specific crisis lines, including phone, text, and online options where available.
ICEERS Support Center — integration-oriented support for people in difficulty after psychedelic experiences; not emergency care.
Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project — education and peer-support resources for post-psychedelic difficulties.
Bottom line: safety first, room second, body third, human fourth, no rash actions, sleep if possible, then meaning.
Expanded Deeper Triage
If someone’s in trouble, ask these in order.
1. Is the body in danger? Not “is this scary” — is the body failing. Breathing trouble, chest pain, seizure, losing consciousness and not returning, serious injury, dangerous overheating, signs of real poisoning, or a credible danger of someone hurting themselves or another person. This is the one branch where time is real and presence is not the intervention, so get medical help. Everything else on this list is a different kind of problem. Don’t make someone “sit with it” while a body is going under.
The ER is not a magic fix, and for a purely psychological crisis it is often not even a good one. A scared, psychotic-feeling person who shows up to an emergency room usually gets a benzo, and benzos don’t reliably touch psychosis and in some people produce a paradoxical reaction — more agitation, more fear, not less. The antipsychotic drugs that work better for that come with their own weight and their own interactions, handed to you by someone who doesn’t know what you took. So calling for help is not the same thing as getting good care, and the real cost is rarely “we waited an extra minute” — it’s “we waited hours to be given the wrong medicine.”
2. Is the room wrong? Too much light. Bad music. A hostile person. A sitter trying too hard, or not helping at all. Too many people talking. A phone buzzing. Wrong temperature. No bathroom, no privacy, no sense of safety. A huge amount of what gets called “deep psychedelic crisis” is just a nervous system begging for a more comfortable room. So fix the obvious before you reach for anything else: dim the light, drop the sound, stop the chatter, clear out extra people, offer water without forcing it, sort the temperature, open up bathroom access, stop touching unless touch is actually wanted, talk slow, don’t argue, and do not explain the universe at someone who is scared. None of that is glamorous. It’s just mercy.
3. Is this emotional material? Crying, grieving, remembering, contacting a real wound? Then the answer is loving awareness — not interrogation, not analysis, not “what does it mean“ every thirty seconds, and definitely not “bro, you’re purging ancestral karma” while they’re white-knuckling it. Just presence. A phrase that helps: this feeling is allowed to move through; I don’t have to become it; I can love the part of me that feels it. Or simply: can I send love to the one who’s suffering? Don’t drag someone out of real grief. But don’t trap them in it either if it’s just looping and grinding them down. Love isn’t stubbornness.
4. Is the body driving the mind crazy? Sometimes the mind isn’t in a metaphysical crisis at all — the body feels awful and the mind is writing cosmic horror to explain it. Nausea, heat, exhaustion, dehydration, overstimulation, no sleep: all of it becomes “spiritual content” once you’re altered. So don’t assume every horrible thought is a revelation. Sometimes the body just needs quiet, water, cooling, warmth, rest, a calmer room. The body isn’t beneath the spirit. It’s part of the field.
5. Can love be reached yet? This is the deepest question and usually not the first practical move. If someone’s too overwhelmed, too scared, too sick, too hot, too scrambled, “just send love” won’t land. Stabilize first. Then love. The order matters.
When to bring in outside help
Bring in medics for:
High fever
Confusion/delirium
Severe agitation
Muscle rigidity
Shaking/clonus
Eye jerking
Tremor plus overactive reflexes
Seizure
Fainting/collapse
Chest pain
Severe high BP/heart rate
Trouble breathing
Inability to walk/talk normally, or symptoms after MAOI + serotonergic combo.
Hunter criteria, especially emphasize clonus, tremor + hyperreflexia, or hypertonia with temperature above 38°C.
Bring in mental-health support if
The person may be unsafe to themselves or others
Psychosis-like symptoms outlast the acute state
If sleep won’t come back
If mania or suicidal thinking shows up
If panic won’t settle
If they can’t function afterward
If the trauma material is bigger than the room can hold
Medical Emergency First-Aid
There are a few remedies you can apply in an emergency before calling medics, since they might take time to come. Assuming the symptoms are not diagnostic of Serotonin Syndrome (see below):
Niacin, CBD, and magnesium chloride for seizures (and likely Ipomoea pes-caprae would help), brain damage, and psychosis.
DMSO and magnesium chloride for general brain damage (like inability to control bodily functions or speak etc.), psychosis, injury, chest pain, overdose.
Magnesium chloride is the form of magnesium that absorbs in one minute. Other forms can take hours (although an epsom salt bath is helpful pretty quick also).
Serotonin Syndrome (SS)
SS includes some symptoms above but it can’t be treated with the treatments above. And it is somewhat common with psychedelic interactions and overdoses because psychedelics are serotonergic drugs. Most people do not know that nearly all opioid drugs can also cause excess serotonin via gabaergic inhibition, with the exception of buprenorphine. So sometimes the combination of a psychedelic (especially with iboga or MAOi) with an opioid can lead to SS.
Diagnosing Serotonin Syndrome
One standard diagnostic approach is Hunter’s Criteria. If one or more of these lines are checked off, it’s probably SS:
Spontaneous clonus: Involuntary, rhythmic muscle contractions and relaxations, occurring without needing to stimulate the ankle or knee reflex.
Inducible clonus + agitation: Clonus that is triggered by an examiner (e.g., rapid ankle dorsiflexion) alongside patient restlessness or agitation.
Inducible clonus + diaphoresis: Triggered clonus alongside sweating.
Ocular clonus + agitation: Rapid, rhythmic, involuntary eye movements alongside patient agitation.
Ocular clonus + diaphoresis: Ocular clonus alongside sweating.
Tremor + hyperreflexia: Noticeable shaking (tremor) alongside abnormally brisk or overactive reflexes.
Hypertonia + fever: High muscle tone (rigidity) alongside a temperature above 38°C (100.4°F), occurring with either ocular or inducible
Do this immediately if SS is diagnosed:
Stop all suspected serotonergic substances. No more SSRI/SNRI/MAOI, tramadol, MDMA, DXM cough syrup, 5-HTP, St John’s wort, SAM-e, linezolid, stimulant redoses, or harmala/ayahuasca-type MAOI exposure until a clinician/t Toxicology clears it. Serotonin syndrome commonly follows medication additions, dose changes, overdoses, or combinations, and can develop within minutes to 24 hours.
Call emergency help or poison control and arrange transport. Do not drive yourself. Forum cases repeatedly show people underestimated severity; one user specifically warned to get someone to drive you to ER ASAP if symptoms start.
Cool the person without delaying transport. Move to a cool room, remove excess clothing, use fan + cool damp cloths, and ice packs wrapped in cloth at neck/armpits/groin if hot. Do not put a confused, seizing, or very weak person in a bath. Do not rely on fever reducers; toxicology guidance says antipyretics are ineffective for serotonin-toxicity hyperthermia because muscle activity is the driver.
Keep stimulation low and prevent exertion. No pacing “to burn it off,” no exercise, no crowds, no arguments. One forum pattern is that akathisia/restlessness makes people want to move, but muscle activity is exactly what can worsen heat and rhabdomyolysis risk. Physical restraint can also worsen muscle contractions; medical sedation is preferred when agitation is severe.
Hydrate only if fully alert and not vomiting. Small sips of water or oral rehydration are reasonable. Do not force fluids, food, pills, or charcoal if confused, vomiting, sleepy, or at seizure risk.
Gather the evidence for the ER. Bring pill bottles/packages and write: exact substances, dose, timing, last dose, recent dose increases, supplements, recreational substances, temperature, pulse, BP if available. Poison-control first-aid guidance emphasizes having the substance, amount, timing, symptoms, age/weight, and containers ready.
Give the antihistamine called Cyproheptadine (brand name, Periactin), which antagonizes serotonin receptors. It’s sold over the counter in pharmacies, and it makes sense to have it on hand. Anecdotally, it has stopped SS quickly for some people, but it isn’t validated as a general cure.
Aside from that, hospitals treat SS with benzos (niacin isn’t safe for SS, although I would try beach morning glory), antipsychotics (DMSO not safe with SS), cold blankets (don’t use a cold bath), IV magnesium sulfate (it may help to take magnesium chloride orally as it absorbs fast), antipsychotic drugs, IV fluids, and monitoring.
Non-Crisis At-Home Medicinal Remedies
There are certain bad trips, which, although not medical emergencies, just damage people rather than helping them deal with something that needed dealing with. Often these are due to dose, timing, combinations, body state, or environment. Start low and go slow is still the basic rule, but even that is not enough if the body chemistry or setting is wrong.
This is the category psychedelic people often miss. Sometimes the mind is not having a profound spiritual crisis. Sometimes the body is poisoned, nauseated, overheated, underfed, overfed, sleep-deprived, parasite-die-off sick, or dealing with a badly timed dose.
If the bad trip has a sick-stomach quality, diarrhea, nausea, toxic heaviness, dirty body-feeling, or the sense that the mind is going crazy because the gut is going crazy, I treat that differently from a purely emotional crisis.
This is where my personal rescue hierarchy comes in.
This rescue hierarchy is deliberately placed before the mystical sections. Not because biochemistry is more important than love, but because love does not mean ignoring the body.
If the body is unsafe, get help. If the room is wrong, fix the room. If the gut is driving the mind insane, do not pretend that is automatically shadow work. If the dose or combination is the problem, do not turn that into a spiritual curriculum.
Only after medical danger, environment, dose, gut toxicity, and biochemical overload have been considered do we return to the deeper question: what if this really is sorrow, fear, shame, inner-child material, demons, jinn, shadow thoughts, or the mind learning how to love what it previously exiled?
My Personal Rescue Hierarchy
Important safety boundary before this section:
What follows is not medical advice, not a universal protocol, and not something to copy blindly. These are my personal field notes from my own experiments and observations. Different drugs, bodies, medications, psychiatric histories, heart conditions, heat exposure, dehydration, dose, and combinations can change everything.
Gut Toxin / Parasite-Die-Off Tools
These would be the first thing to use even as a preventative measure, on the come up, because cleaning up toxins has to come before considering other causes of distress.
Zeolite & Ferment (in ZHoly3O)
If the bad trip feels like sick stomach, nausea, diarrhea, toxic heaviness, dirty body-feeling, parasite die-off, or mental hell driven by gut hell, zeolite and/or the ZHoly3O ferment are often the tools I think of first. Many types of ferments work to different degrees, including kombucha, kimchi, apple vinegar, but I prefer fermented beet juice made with apple vinegar & salt.
As for the ferment, smelling it helps a lot. Drinking a spoonful can also be useful altho it might cause itching if someone is low in histamine-processing bacteria, which then requires taking some activated charcoal to reduce gut histamine.
In my experiments, zeolite needed to be prepared correctly. I use powder zeolite, not nano-liquid zeolite. I generally found that many zeolites did not work, and quality mattered enormously. Most zeolites have clogged pores because they haven’t been cleaned.
For my own ozonated zeolite, I first mix the powdered zeolite into water, then use an ozone water purifier machine in a glass vessel (ozone destroys plastic). I am talking about ozonating water, not inhaling ozone gas. In my experiments, a machine producing about 2 grams of ozone per hour was sufficient: about 10 minutes of ozonation produced a working zeolite. Less time did not work as well, and more time did not noticeably improve it.
I also avoid letting zeolite touch metal during preparation. Zeolite adsorbs metals, which is part of why it is used for heavy-metal removal, so I do not want it sitting in contact with a metal vessel or metal utensil before I ingest it. I use glass for ozonation and storage whenever possible.
Zeolite does not feel like much to most people when they are sober. It becomes much more obvious when the trip has a toxic/gut-driven component. Put a spoonful of zeolite (some need a teaspoon, some a tablespoon) into water and sip on it slowly. It also helps to rub the zeolite on your body and to hold the zeolite jar in your hand.
Actual activated charcoal
Activated charcoal can also help gut toxicity, but it has a major downside: it adsorbs drugs. That can be exactly what you want in some cases, but it can also flatten or reduce the trip.
So I do not treat actual charcoal as interchangeable with zeolite.
If the goal is to reduce drug absorption or stop a toxic gut situation, charcoal may be relevant. If the goal is to preserve the trip while cleaning up the gut feeling, I prefer zeolite.
Also, because charcoal can adsorb medications and drugs, I would be cautious about using it around medicines someone depends on, and mention charcoal use if the person ends up in the hands of medics.
Nausea Smoothers If Gut Is Not Toxic
When ozonated zeolite and the ferment don’t help, it’s time to consider addressing nausea that may be caused by simply too high a dose of psychedelics acting on serotonin receptors in the gut.
Smelling Metta NMT + Syrian Rue Oil
Metta NMT is covered more in-depth in the Haoma post, but basically, you can smell a crude version just by basifying Mimosa hostilis, Acacia confusa barks with washing soda, and mixing syrian rue seeds in oil to smell the oil. You might be surprised how much this can help nausea and mental overload.
The Syrian rue oil itself is also anti-psychotic and does not seem to have MAOi drug interactions like regular Syrian rue seeds or tea, but eating the oil doesn’t work, only smelling or putting on mucous membranes. 1mL of the oil can block a trip, while smelling it won’t block, but offers protection against excessive intensity.
Coffee Cherry for Nausea & Brain Recharge
Eating a couple coffee cherries is helpful for nausea. It can make a trip blissful and sleepy for a few hours, then later produce a lot of mental clarity and physical energy, almost like a perfected amphetamine. It can also extend the trip. That can be useful and very healthy if planned, but if someone is already going a bit manic, this might not be the first tool for them.
Beach morning glory — Ipomoea pes-caprae (Also can Kill Trips)
By beach morning glory, I mean Ipomoea pes-caprae, not morning glory plants in general. This distinction matters. I have tried many related plants and cousins, and they did not work the same way. Nobody sells this except me, that I know of.
For me, Ipomoea pes-caprae always reduces psychedelic nausea when I get enough of it. I have not tested it on non-psychedelic nausea, so I am only speaking about psychedelic nausea.
Even picking a leaf can have an effect if the broken, juicy part touches sensitive skin, especially under my fingernails. If I am careful not to touch the broken or juicy part, I can avoid that effect.
A tiny nibble of leaf can smooth nausea and make the trip nicer without killing it. A whole leaf can easily kill the trip. In my experience, a whole leaf can also prevent tripping for days afterward.
This was not only true for me. I once gave beach morning glory to a woman who was feeling nausea and dysphoria during a psychedelic state. I was in a rush to help and may have given a little more than I would now. Within a couple of minutes, she shifted from miserable to very happy. That experience helped convince me the effect was not only personal to me.
If I were trying to preserve the trip rather than stop it, I would go much more slowly and cautiously, because beach morning glory can cross the line from smoothing the trip into aborting it.
Mental Stabilizers That Do Not Abort the Trip
Ocean water
Ocean water is one of the simplest and most surprising stabilizers I have found. I noticed this in Kenya and Florida.
If a trip is too strong, touching ocean water can be extremely soothing. I do not mean touching the outside of a bottle that contains ocean water. I mean touching the ocean water itself, even if the water is stored in a bottle. Direct contact with the water is what seems to matter.
It has a grounding, cooling, organizing effect that is different from DMSO, aged ozonated-charcoal water, zeolite, or beach morning glory. I do not understand the mechanism. I only know that ocean water has repeatedly felt like a powerful natural remedy for excessive psychedelic intensity.
Shungite, aged ozonated-charcoal water, or just boiled charcoal water, to protect the energetic field
Aged ozonated-charcoal water is different from both zeolite and actual charcoal.
If I actually ingest the charcoal itself, the charcoal can help toxic gut feelings, but it can also adsorb the drugs and reduce the trip. For that reason, I usually do not use the charcoal itself unless I am willing to lose some of the trip.
What I usually use is the water portion: water that was ozonated in contact with activated charcoal, then allowed to sit after the charcoal has fallen to the bottom, or water ozonated with plain rock charcoal. I am not talking about inhaling ozone gas or exposing anyone to ozone. I mean the water after active ozonation has stopped and residual ozone has dissipated.
That water does not fix the gut in the way zeolite does. Zeolite is what helps when the mental distress is coming from gut toxicity, parasite die-off, nausea, diarrhea, or the sick-stomach feeling.
Aged ozonated-charcoal water works more on the crazy or too-intense mental feeling: too much psychedelic energy for the mind, wrong environment, anxiety, high EMF, or a state that just feels mentally overloaded. It can turn the trip from “too much” into calm release without necessarily aborting the trip.
Another difference is that zeolite does not feel like much to most people when they are not on loveyhuasca or psychedelics. Aged ozonated-charcoal water does. Most people I have given it to find it relaxing even sober, by smelling it, touching the water, or drinking the water portion.
I have even seen aged ozonated-charcoal water calm a crying baby through touch alone. No ozone gas was present. This was simply contact with the water after ozonation had stopped and residual ozone had dissipated. I include this because it suggested to me that the relaxing effect was not only adult expectation or psychedelic context.
Earlier in my experiments, I made the mistake of directly smelling ozone gas during a psychedelic state. It intensified the experience and became mentally alarming. DMSO did not help that situation, but aged ozonated-charcoal water helped rapidly. I do not recommend inhaling ozone. I mention this only because it showed me that DMSO and aged ozonated-charcoal water solve different kinds of overload.
If you don’t have an ozone water purifier ($20 on Amazon), you can get some of the benefits just from boiling water with charcoal in it. You can also just touch/hold some shungite. They sell shungite pendants on Amazon. Similar feeling to touching/holding a cleaned zeolite. Avoid drinking shungite unless it’s been properly washed of heavy metals.
DMSO
DMSO is another stabilizer I have used when trips became too intense but I did not want to abort them.
It overlaps with aged ozonated-charcoal water, but they do not always work to the same extent. Sometimes DMSO works better; sometimes aged ozonated-charcoal water works better. I do not yet know why, but there’s no generally no harm in taking both and you can also mix them. Ozonated charcoal water has a perfect safety profile, DMSO is a close second.
Side effects:
Astringent: 100% DMSO concentration will usually irritate skin on the top half of the body. If it causes itching, mix it with water or aloe vera if you can get the real aloe juice without chemicals. If you leave 100% DMSO on skin it can crenate it and then it takes a week to look plump again. If you put DMSO into a dry mouth it can burn the tissues. Make sure your mouth is moist.
Nausea: if drinking DMSO, dilute it in water/juice/milk and sip gradually rather than drinking a lot all at once. Sensitivity differs.
Reduced sleep: DMSO reduces the amount of time that I sleep if I take too much, too late, or over too many days consecutively. It builds up past a certain dose threshold. That threshold seems different for different people. This is proven in rats, but some people find it helps them with sleep, but that’s because it is reducing whatever symptom they had that prevented them from sleeping.
Body odor: Past a certain threshold dose, you may smell like sulfur. I find if I put it into milk, I don’t smell.
Interactions: DMSO can interact with other drugs in some cases:
don’t put it on unclean skin; it brings chems in
don’t nebulize too much DMSO if you’re a smoker and your lungs are full of tar, it brings all that into your blood (you’ll start feeling weak as a first symptom)
don’t take it with drugs that shouldn’t absorb quickly, like corticosteroids, NSAIDs, harmalas
don’t take it with cholinergic drugs, since it’s also cholinergic, although cannot find any anecdotes of this being a real issue. Make sure to supplement extra choline since it depletes that.
don’t take with blood thinner meds, since DMSO is also a blood thinner.
Contraindications:
DMSO could reduce seizure threshold
DMSO might make a cluster headache worse, even tho alleviates tension headaches when rubbed on head (especially with magnesium chloride).
DMSO may cause histamine release in some people. Caution advised with MCAS.
A Final Trip Killer
Niacin (a form of Vitamin B-3)
Niacin, specifically the flushing form, has effectively aborted trips for me and friends, but I dislike it compared to pes-caprae/Beach Morning Glory above.
I mention it only because most people do not have access to pes-caprae (although I supply it). I would not treat niacin as harmless just because it is a vitamin, although it has been used for decades by orthomolecular doctors for psychotic conditions. It seems to act both as a natural benzo, and as an antipsychotic. You can read the clinical literature in the book, Niacin, The Real Story, by Abram Hoffer, M.D.
Side effects:
Niacin flush: feels like itchy sunburn heat. Totally normal, but some people find it too uncomfortable (while some enjoy it).
Heartburn for sensitive stomachs or if taking too much at once.
Drowsiness. But the sleep quality is usually terrible.
Higher-dose or repeated use can create real risk, especially with liver issues, alcohol, medications, or sensitive physiology.
Other forms of vitamin B-3 seem to be less effective for relaxation (niacinamide, for example, gives some people relaxation sometimes, and sometimes hyper focus, depending on their state). Avoid sustained-release niacin and the useless, non-flush hexanicotinate form.
Some Remedies Require More Caution
Not every useful substance is a rescue tool. Some things are interesting in the right context but might be the wrong choice when someone is already destabilized.
Humic acid can produce a hyperintelligent state for me, but that can look manic from the outside and could become destabilizing for someone prone to mania or without meditation training. I would not use it casually during a bad trip.
Cinnamon can produce an intense “brain surgery” or “brain scraping” effect, especially the first time it combines with ayahuasca-like states. That may be therapeutic in the right context, but it is not a casual rescue tool.
I would also be extremely careful with Acacia confusa eaten with Mimosa hostilis. For me, that combination has produced hellishly intense psychosis-like and autism-like states before later transforming into a week of extraordinary creativity and joy. The eventual benefit did not make the crisis itself something I would recommend.
Iboga (especially male iboga) potentiates many drugs and can be dangerous. A low amount of iboga combined well for me, but doubling it became dangerously intense. I mention this only as a warning.
Shadow Work & Tripsitting Yourself or Others
(I don’t endorse MAPS as an organization, but this is a good intro video.)
Hello, Lovey Bunny! I hope you are presently well, and if not, I pray that you feel well soon!
While my post here is a collection of my own wisdom on this topic, I would be remiss not to also link you to the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project, which is set up to help people know the full risks and recover if they do “gamble and lose” with psychedelics.
Psychology, Grounding, and Meaning-Making During a Bad Trip
This section comes after medical safety triage. If the medical section says to get urgent help, do that first. The goal here is not to make trips, meditation, breathwork, or other altered states less spiritual. The goal is to make the body, room, and relationships safe enough for any real spiritual or psychological learning to actually land.
Psychological First Aid: The First 5 Minutes
Do this before metaphysics
Pause unsafe momentum. If you are wandering toward roads, balconies, water, stoves, knives, strangers, crowds, fights, or the phone, slow down and make the space safer first. Then experiment: sit, lie down, pace slowly in a safe loop, shake out the arms and legs, stretch gently, do wall push-ups, or do one ordinary task. Movement is allowed. Unsafe movement is not. Do not drive, run into the street, go outside alone, or do strenuous exercise if you are overheated, faint, having chest pain, severely confused, on stimulants or an unknown mix, or medically unstable. Lower the lights. Reduce noise. Put away car keys, the phone if you might post or message recklessly, knives, stoves, and other hazards. Sip water; do not chug. Get one sober, kind person nearby or on the phone if you can.
Say out loud: “I am in [place]. It is [date/time]. This is intense, but it will change.”
If a substance is involved, add: “I took something. These effects rise, peak, and change.” If this came from meditation, breathwork, fasting, kundalini-style practice, extreme stretching, ritual, or a retreat, say instead: “I am in an intense state. I am stopping the practice now. My job is ordinary safety.”
Make the body safe: choose stillness or safe movement; sitting, lying down, blanket, water, bathroom if needed, slow pacing in a contained space, or one ordinary task.
Make the room safe: softer light, less sound, fewer people, no unnecessary stimulation, and a clear path if pacing helps.
Make behavior safe: no driving, no posting, no fighting, no running into the street, no unsafe exercise, no “one more dose,” no “one more round” of breathwork or practice.
Make contact safe: one grounded lead person, not a committee of frantic people. If safety is slipping, that person can quietly recruit one additional calm adult as backup.
Make sleep possible: protect sleep tonight; for euphoric or grandiose states, sleep is not optional decoration, it is the first medicine.
Make meaning wait: no diagnosis, no cosmic conclusions, no life decisions while peaking or destabilized.
If this is a non-drug altered state, the clock may be less predictable than a substance curve. The practical move is still simple: stop the practice, eat something ordinary when safe, let the body settle through stillness or safe movement, keep the body warm, and sleep. Do not try to push through the portal just because the portal opened.
Stillness or movement?
Do not treat sitting, lying down, pacing, stretching, or exercise as ideology. Treat them as experiments. Try one for two minutes and ask: Does this make me safer and clearer, or more activated and impulsive? If lying down feels trapping, pace slowly in a contained space. If pacing turns into flight, sit against a wall or lie under a blanket. The goal is not to stop the body; the goal is to stop unsafe momentum and let the nervous system discharge without creating new danger.
A useful order is: body → room → human → time → meaning. Most people try to start with meaning because the experience feels cosmic. But when the nervous system is on fire, love becomes practical first.
Get a Human Anchor
Many bad trips and destabilizing altered states get worse because the person is alone with a frightened or over-certain mind. Many also get worse because too many people crowd in and start giving advice, arguing, spiritualizing, or panicking. The middle path is simple: one calm human anchor as the lead. If safety, fatigue, logistics, or violent/self-harm risk exceed what one person can hold, the lead can bring in one additional calm adult or crisis professional. That is backup, not a crowd.
Script for the person tripping or destabilized
“I’m in an intense psychedelic or altered state and I need grounding. I don’t need you to solve my life. Please stay with me, speak slowly, remind me where I am, and help me not make any big decisions until tomorrow.”
Script for the sitter or friend
“I’m here. You’re not alone. This is a wave. We do not have to solve your whole life right now. Let’s make your body safe, keep things simple, and stay together.”
Live and after-support resources
Save the relevant links and local numbers before you need them. Resources change, hours change, and not every service works in every country. Psychedelic peer support is not a substitute for emergency, medical, psychiatric, or suicide-crisis care.
During or soon after a psychedelic experience
Fireside Project: U.S.-only per the current FAQ; phone/text psychedelic peer support at 623-473-7433, daily 11 a.m.–11 p.m. Pacific Time. Non-clinical; not emergency care.
TripSit live chat: browser-based harm-reduction chat for people using drugs and people supporting them. Peer/community support; not clinical or emergency care.
Global crisis and emotional-support directories
Find A Helpline: global directory of free helplines; many offer phone, text, online chat, or WhatsApp. Not psychedelic-specific, but useful when you need a human quickly.
U.S. crisis chat/text options
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: U.S. call/text/chat for suicidal crisis or mental-health crisis.
Crisis Text Line: U.S. text/chat/WhatsApp support; their site also points to partner text lines in Canada, the UK, and Ireland.
Integration and post-experience support
ICEERS Support Center: up to five free online integration sessions for challenging experiences; risk-reduction support, not a substitute for medical or psychiatric treatment.
CPEP online peer group: free confidential monthly support group for post-psychedelic difficulties; not therapy and not immediate crisis care.
Cheetah House: resources, consultations, and support groups for meditation-related difficulties, including chat-based peer support.
If you’re alone at 3 a.m.
Turn on one soft lamp. Get under a blanket. Put water nearby. Put car keys away. Use the phone only for direct support, not posting or dramatic messages. Write “This will change. No actions until morning.” where you can see it.
If you can reach a calm person, send the script above. If not, use Fireside if you are in their coverage/hours, TripSit webchat for drug-related peer support, or Find A Helpline/local crisis chat if the issue is fear, despair, self-harm, or being unable to stay safe. If your body needs to move, keep it safe and boring: pace the same hallway, fold towels, wash a cup, brush teeth, do gentle stretching, take a calm shower, or do a few slow wall push-ups. If movement makes you more frantic, sit by a wall with both feet on the floor or lie under a blanket. Then protect sleep.
When this is beyond peer support
Get urgent help now if someone may harm themselves or others, cannot be kept physically safe, is trying to run into roads/water/heights, has command voices or fixed terrifying beliefs driving action, is becoming violent, is severely confused and unreachable, has dangerous physical symptoms, has gone without sleep long enough that judgment is falling apart, or the sitter cannot safely contain the situation. A statement like “I might kill someone to test this theory” is not merely philosophical content; it is a safety signal.
Use local emergency services for immediate danger or medical emergency. In the U.S., 988 can help with mental-health crisis guidance, de-escalation, and connection to local crisis resources when there is not an immediate physical emergency; 911 is for immediate danger, crimes in progress, medical emergencies, weapons, violence underway, or a situation you cannot safely contain. Outside the U.S., identify your local emergency number and crisis line before you ever need them.
For the Person Helping: Calm Anchor, Not Guru
A good sitter is not there to win a philosophy debate, perform a rescue fantasy, impose an interpretation, or prove how spiritually advanced they are. Zendo-style harm reduction can be summarized as: create a safe space; sit rather than guide; talk through, not down; and remember that difficult is not automatically bad.
Do
Speak slowly and use fewer words.
Ask simple questions: “Would less light help?” “Music or quiet?” “Closer or farther away?” “Water?”
Reflect without arguing: “That sounds terrifying.” “I’m with you.” “Let’s breathe together.”
Offer choices, not commands.
Keep the space quiet, private, warm, and physically safe.
Call for help early if safety is slipping.
Translate the metaphysics into shared safety values: “This feels sacred and huge. Sacred power protects life tonight.”
Set clear behavioral boundaries without humiliating them: “I will not help anyone hurt themselves or another person. We are keeping every body safe.”
Don’t
Do not try to win a metaphysical argument with visions, entities, memories, or cosmic conclusions. Also do not agree with harmful conclusions. Reflect the feeling, then redirect to safety, non-harm, sleep, and ordinary reality.
Do not tell the person they are crazy, broken, weak, punished, or failing the medicine.
Do not crowd them with five worried friends.
Do not force eye contact, touch, music, prayer, chanting, interpretation, or insight.
Do not teach nondual demonology to someone who needs the lights down and a doctor.
When the Content Turns Toward Harm
If someone says, “I am God, so I can kill,” do not make the main intervention “No you’re not” or “That’s delusional.” That can become a status fight. Also do not nod along as if harm is spiritually neutral. Treat it as a safety signal and give them a bridge back into non-harm.
Non-combative philosophical grounding
Try: “I hear how vast and certain this feels. Many traditions say God is in everyone. That makes every body sacred, not disposable. Peace is the godly move tonight. No proof is needed. We protect life and sleep first.”
Other scripts: “Maybe you are touching something divine. Divine doesn’t need a violent test.” “If it’s true, it survives breakfast.” “Tonight the commandment is: no harm, no proof, no mission, sleep first.”
This is neither “just call police” nor “ignore the philosophy.” The order is: do not debate to win; do not validate violence; redirect inside the person’s value-world toward peace and protection; increase containment; bring in crisis help as early and as least-coercively as the situation allows.
If they keep talking about harming someone, move from conversation to safety. Create distance from potential targets. Keep your own exit. Do not block, crowd, threaten, mock, or try to physically wrestle weapons away. Quietly remove means only if it can be done without confrontation and without making yourself a target. If you are the only helper and safety is slipping, recruit one additional calm adult or crisis professional as backup. Call crisis or emergency help if there is a specific target, means, movement toward action, escalating agitation, weapons, violence underway, or you cannot safely contain the situation.
If you call emergency services, be specific and brief: “Someone is in an altered-state or mental-health crisis, has made a threat to harm others, may have access to [means if known], and we need a medical/mental-health crisis response and de-escalation support. Please send crisis-trained responders or EMS if available.”
Grounding Menu: Body, Room, Breath, Human, Time
Grounding is not failure. Grounding is love becoming practical. Choose one or two of these, not all of them. Too many techniques become another form of panic.
Body
Feel both feet on the floor.
Put one hand on heart and one on belly or solar plexus.
Hold a blanket, pillow, stone, cup, or pet.
Slowly unclench jaw, hands, belly, and shoulders.
Try safe movement for two minutes: slow pacing, gentle stretching, shaking out the arms and legs, wall push-ups, or a boring household task.
Then check: did movement make you clearer or more impulsive? Keep what helps; stop what escalates.
Breath
Exhale longer than you inhale for ten breaths.
Try: inhale 4, exhale 6. Do not strain.
Or try gentle Buteyko-style reduced breathing: breathe through the nose, soft and slow, taking in slightly less air than you want until there is faint air hunger. Hold it there gently.
Never force breath-holds while intoxicated or panicked. Stop if it spikes fear, dizziness, chest pain, or medical concern.
Whisper: “This is a wave.”
Room
Name five ordinary objects.
Look at one stable object and describe it plainly.
Say: “This is a wall. This is a blanket. This is my hand.”
Human
Ask one calm person to stay with you as the lead anchor.
Let them remind you where you are.
If safety is slipping, let that lead person bring in one additional calm adult or crisis professional.
Do not process with the most reactive person in your life.
Time
Say the date, place, and approximate time.
Remind yourself that substance effects usually rise, peak, and change.
For practice-induced states, remind yourself: “I stopped the practice. Food, ordinary contact, and sleep help the system come down.”
Put big decisions into tomorrow’s notebook.
Ordinary world
Eat simple healthy food, like a fruit, when you can.
Do one ordinary task if the body needs movement.
Pace in a clear, contained path if pacing helps.
Walk slowly with a sober person if the environment is safe.
Step outside only away from roads, heights, crowds, and water.
Avoid strenuous exercise if there is overheating, chest pain, faintness, severe confusion, stimulant use, an unknown drug mix, or any medical concern.
Movement evidence note: the best-supported general advice is not “never move”; it is “create a safe, low-stimulation environment and choose responses that reduce danger.” A 2024 study of strategies for resolving challenging psychedelic experiences identified physical movement, intentional breathing, sensory engagement, sleep-seeking, and social support as part of how some people navigate difficulty. So this guide treats movement as a tool to test, not a rule to obey.
Buteyko evidence note: the published clinical base for Buteyko-style breathing is mostly about asthma and breathing retraining, not psychedelic or spiritual-practice crisis. It is included here as a gentle grounding option because panic over-breathing can lower CO₂ and directly create tingling, lightheadedness, confusion, and unreality-feelings (Hopkins Medicine). Keep the easier “longer exhale” option first; never strain or turn breathing into another achievement.
No Rash Actions: Visions Are Not Commands
During an intense trip or altered state, the mind can make everything feel final, cosmic, and urgent. That does not mean it is safe to act.
24–72 hour action lock
Until you have slept and eaten, do not drive, travel, break up, quit your job, confess everything, confront anyone, accuse anyone, send the message, post the revelation, give away possessions, call your ex, call your parents to explain the universe, or decide you are permanently enlightened or permanently damaged.
Write it down. Protect sleep. Revisit it sober with one grounded person.
Treat all trip content first as experience-content, not fact-content. “I saw it” does not automatically mean “I must act on it.” “It felt cosmic” does not mean “I should obey it tonight.” No entity, deity, demon, ancestor, angel, algorithm, mission, kundalini surge, or insight gets to override basic safety.
No revelation makes murder, assault, coercion, sexual boundary-crossing, reckless driving, or self-harm safe tonight. If an insight requires violating consent or harming anyone, it is not an instruction. At minimum, it goes into the notebook until sober review with a grounded person.
When the Trip Feels Amazing: Euphoric Certainty
Not every dangerous state feels bad. Sudden total certainty — I am God, I am chosen, everyone must hear this tonight, I finally understand everything — can arrive with bliss. Bliss is not proof of safety.
The risk here is often not panic. The risk is action: the 3 a.m. broadcast, the confession, the drive, the grand purchase, the sexual boundary-crossing, the public prophecy, the violent proof of a theory, the “I never need sleep again” plan. The action lock applies double when the revelation feels wonderful.
Two questions while glowing
Have I slept? If not, sleep comes before mission.
Has this happened before — and how did it end? If this is a recurring pattern, especially with lost sleep, racing thoughts, pressured talking, or everyone else saying you are not yourself, get grounded support before acting on anything.
The revelation will still be there after breakfast. If it is true, it survives sleep. If it cannot survive one night of rest, it was not a revelation; it was an emergency impulse wearing angel wings.
(Re)defining “Bad Trip”
While some people might see shadow work as a bad trip, especially if they were not planning on doing shadow work at that time, there are also other types of bad trips which do not seem related to shadow work, and vice versa. Of course, any type of negative experience could lead into shadow work, and there is no end to the amount of difficult experiences we could have to work with in samsara, but it does make sense to minimize the sources of present-moment trauma so that we can work on the stuff that’s already there.
A bad trip is not proof that you are broken, punished, unspiritual, impure, or permanently damaged. It means your nervous system, meaning-making system, body, environment, memories, dose, or relationships got overwhelmed. The right response is care, not blame.
Spiritual ≠ “Getting Your Ass Kicked”
The point of all the triage info above is not to make trips less spiritual. It’s to make them useful. Sometimes people think they deserve to suffer because of past karma or self-hatred, but suffering in and of itself does not fix anyone, unless it is the kind of suffering which yields insight, and that requires some clarity of mind and heart.
That’s one side of the difference between spiritual bypassing and spiritual practice:
Bypassing goes to whatever your view of ultimate truth is — “we are all One,” “I don’t exist,” “this is all karma,” “everything is Love” — while ignoring the person shaking in the corner.
Practice says: love is here, and because love is here, we’re going to make the room safer, call for help if it’s needed, stop pretending, and hold this without becoming it.
That’s tripsitting. That’s shadow work. That’s the path becoming practical.
Spiritual ≠ Just Always “Feeling Good” Either
On the other hand, a well-rounded trip should not only leave us with practical lessons, but also put us in touch with suffering as well as freedom from suffering, lest we become “so spiritually high that we are no earthly good.” After all, “Life is full of suffering” is Buddha’s First Noble Truth. If we totally ignore that part of life, then we are just dissociating from it or spiritually bypassing in the other direction, and then we start saying things like “Everything is Love, including violence.”
Many people want to meditate or use psychedelics to feel good. I’m definitely one of those people, and Buddha also said that meditation should generally feel good. On the other hand, my friend Eshwar found that shadow work — bringing the light of love and awareness to trauma-formed negative mind-states and tendencies — constituted about 99% of his path to heart-chakra awakening. For people in modern times with so much trauma, and even some in Buddha’s time, it makes sense that shadow work and inner-child reparenting would be primary before more authentic liberation from the identity illusion can happen.
Some people might find that if they bypass shadow work in meditations and therapy sessions, they encounter it more in real life without understanding why. I definitely did encounter it in my first two marriages quite a lot, to my bewilderment. I wish everyone could confine shadow work to the safer realm: meditation, therapy, journaling, prayer, honest conversation.
But sometimes the real world smackdown is simply unavoidable for deeper learning.
Shadow work isn’t BDSM or “feeding your demons.” It’s bringing loving awareness to the parts of the mind that got built in fear, pain, humiliation, rejection, and plain survival. Inner-child reparenting isn’t decoration here — it’s the center of it. Most “negative mind-states” aren’t philosophical mistakes. They’re young parts of you still waiting for love, protection, permission, and an explanation nobody ever gave them.
Start deep healing with my Inner Child Therapy guide & app, and Self-hypnosis guide & app.
Skip this inner work, and the trauma doesn’t vanish. It leaks — into marriages, friendships, sex, money, your spiritual community, the way you read reality itself. I’d love for everyone to do this work in the safe room: meditation, therapy, journaling, prayer, honest conversation.
But sometimes the world hands you the curriculum through heartbreak, divorce, betrayal, illness, or the morning you realize the enlightened persona was mostly a nice outfit.
Why Do Bad Trips Tend to Happen?
Sometimes, when we try to focus on what we want, we instead face our blockages:
That frame can be useful. But do not make it the only frame.
A bad trip or destabilizing altered state can also come from dose, drug interactions, sleep deprivation, cannabis, hunger, dehydration, unsafe setting, sexual or social pressure, unresolved trauma, panic loops, medical symptoms, psychosis-like symptoms, fasting, intense breathwork, meditation overload, retreat pressure, or simply too much too fast. Not every hard experience is a profound lesson. Sometimes the lesson is: lower the dose, stop the practice, sleep, eat, choose safer people, and stop pretending the room is okay when it is not.
Here are some top cognitive distortions to watch out for, from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which can lead into bad trips or prevent you from overcoming them:
Catastrophizing: “This will never end.”
Emotional reasoning: “It feels true, so it must be true.”
Mind reading: “Everyone can see I am broken.”
Fortune-telling: “My life is ruined now.”
All-or-nothing thinking: “Either I am enlightened or I am doomed.”
Personalization: “This cosmic horror is specifically my fault.”
Spiritual bypassing: “Because everything is love, I don’t need boundaries, doctors, sleep, or consequences.”
The Fear/Panic Loop
A common bad-trip loop is fear trying to solve fear. The person feels terror, then tries to answer the terror with metaphysics, diagnosis, conspiracy, spiritual certainty, or desperate action. That usually feeds the loop.
Loop breaker
Name it: “This is fear trying to solve fear.”
Stop debating: no metaphysics, diagnosis, or life decisions while peaking.
Move down the ladder: body → room → human → time.
Repeat: “This is a wave. I don’t have to solve it while peaking.”
Dealing with Sorrow: Missing Versus Sending Love
At one point I felt a certain pamphlet was helpful on the topic of sorrow, although it was a bit “ultimate” and too “Advaita” for my taste. At this point, I think it is more helpful for people to focus on love rather than missing someone or something.
Missing hurts. Sending love feels good.
This sounds obvious, almost embarrassingly obvious, but it took me months of daily loveyhuasca after my ex-wife “Bee” left before I really understood it.
Missing someone is contraction. It is hunger, ache, self-reference, and the painful fantasy that love means needing the person to return. Sending love is different. Sending love is pleasure. It feels good in itself, even if the person is gone. Love does not have to grab. Love can bless.
The difference is enormous.
The mistake most people make with love states is that they simply enjoy the love. Or they send heart emojis to all their friends. That is nice, but it is not the deepest utility.
The deepest utility is sending love to the places where love is missing.
Send love to the person you miss without demanding them back.
Send love to the part of yourself that is still waiting for them.
Send love to the inner child who thought someone else had to rescue him.
Send love to the ashamed parts, angry parts, lonely parts, terrified parts, and exiled parts.
Hand on Heart and Gratitude 🫶🏿
Putting a hand on the heart can change the direction of the trip. This is especially useful if the problem is emotional contraction, grief, fear, or loneliness. The point is not to “think loving thoughts” in a fake way. The point is to give the body a simple signal: love is here.
Put one hand on the heart. Put the other hand on the solar plexus, just under that hand, to send love to the inner child. Sometimes that is enough to shift the whole field. Once you send love to the inner child, you can send love to all beings who need it right now. By recognizing you are not the only one suffering, the field of awareness can open up in a liberating way, with real heart magic!
Gratitude comes in at this point like icing on the cake. When we can be thankful for every lesson, every difficult experience, and ever reprieve, thankful especially for heart openings and compassion, we have really unlocked a deep connection to the sacred. Never force gratitude, but let it gently bubble up!
Touch, consent, and compassion
Self-touch is different from someone else touching you. When another person is helping, compassion does not mean grabbing, hugging, restraining, stroking, or crowding someone. Ask first: “Would touch help, or would you rather have space?” Good support can be silent presence from six feet away.
If the person says stop, freezes, pulls away, or seems unsure, stop. Touch should be nonsexual, consent-based, and never about the helper’s needs.
Demons, Jinn, Entities, Shadow Forces
I have faced demons and jinns during psychedelic and exorcism-type situations. The most important discovery was that fighting them was not the answer. Sending love was.
In one especially dramatic situation involving another person, the entity seemed to attack me and another person psychically. I sent it love, and within a few seconds it went away. The other person could not do it immediately; I had to show her how, and it took hours of practice before it worked, since she had never gotten deep into “Love Thy Enemy” before.
I don’t need to settle whether these are objectively real or internal formations, because the response is mostly the same either way.
Hatred, fear, shame, pride, and rage make hooks. Love removes hooks.
When something terrifying shows up, the usual mistake is to fight it with the exact energy it eats. Panic fights panic, hatred fights hatred, pride fights pride, and now there’s a little war running inside your own consciousness. The better move isn’t bravado. It’s love.
But that’s not easy advice, and I won’t pretend it is. Almost nobody can authentically love what’s terrifying them while terrified. That’s why you train it before the emergency: practice sending love to a frightening image, to a hated person without approving of what they did, to your own shame, your own body, to sickness and aging and fear and death, to the inner child. Practice being the space instead of the storm.
The point isn’t passivity. It’s becoming unhookable. A demon can fight hatred, feed on fear, argue with pride, seduce grandiosity. Love gives it nothing to grab.
Safety rule
Even if the entity feels completely real, it does not get to make decisions for your body. No entity gets to tell you to hurt yourself, hurt someone else, drive, jump, run away, accuse someone, sexually cross a boundary, or make a life decision tonight.
And again — if the person is too far gone medically, physically, or psychologically to reach love, stabilize first. Don’t teach nondual demonology to someone who needs the lights down and a doctor.
Abuse Memories, Recovered Memories, and Certainty
Psychedelics can bring up true trauma material, symbolic trauma material, distorted fragments, fears, fantasies, archetypes, past-life narratives, and mixtures of all of the above. Do not dismiss what arises. Also do not treat intoxicated certainty as the same thing as evidence.
Do not confront tonight
If you see or remember abuse, betrayal, murder, past lives, hidden crimes, or cosmic plots: write it down, get safe, and do not confront anyone while intoxicated or destabilized. Bring it to a trauma-informed therapist, integration specialist, or trusted grounded person after sleep.
The experience may matter deeply. It may be psychologically true, symbolically true, literally true, partly true, or not true in the way it first seemed. You do not have to decide that tonight.
Dealing with Shadow Thoughts
When we begin trying to purify our minds, many of us find a natural and scary thing happen: the opposite of purification seems to become visible, like Newton’s Third Law of motion is at play — every action arises with an equal and opposite reaction.
Our shadow thoughts and feelings are not a problem. They are a natural co-arising which we do not need to attach to, like the shadows of objects in the sun. But what I notice is they are also a result of too much focus, which stresses the mind, and forces the mind to seek a way out of that stress, most obviously in the opposite direction of the focus you put it to. So, relax, unwind, unbind, and unweave the identity illusion/mind/unified experience. For more depth, check my pamphlet on already-perfect.
Note: I am not parroting the simplistic Hermetic principle of opposites required for understanding anything. I don’t think it makes sense to say you must feel hate to feel love, since babies who are hated do not feel love, and babies who are loved do not feel hate. But in the subconscious where concepts reside, there are often two sides considered.
During a trip, the practice is not to identify with every shadow thought, suppress it, confess it to everyone, or turn it into a permanent self-diagnosis. The practice is to notice: “A thought is here. A feeling is here. It is intense, but it is not the whole of me.” Then return to body, room, human, time, and love.
The Joker Poem
At the centre
of the spinning circle
sits the joker
with a mirror
in his hand,
reflecting all to everyone
to help them understand.
His face is fierce, yet gentle,
his eyes, they pierce you through,
you cannot escape his gaze
no matter where you go,
no matter what you do.
His smile is warm, he draws you in,
he is so calm, why are you
so confused by him?
Your thoughts are like a raging storm
between the whirling sky and sea,
nothing seems certain any more,
nothing’s how it used to be.
Once things were clear in black and white,
you thought you knew the wrong from right,
you drew the line, and cut it fine,
between the day and night;
but now your world is crumbling,
there’s nowhere you can call your own,
nothing’s solid anymore,
not even cities made of stone,
not even your own body,
not even flesh and blood,
not even skin and bone.
The sun and moon are falling on your head,
the stars are tumbling down,
flowers sing like angels,
in the winter town.
The dead are living, the living dead,
fire turns to water, water burns instead,
silence is so full of sound, time stands still,
you hear the earth turn round.
Your life flashes before you,
is that thunder, or the beating of your heart,
you don’t know if this is the end,
or something new about to start.
You don’t know if you’re dreaming
or if you are awake,
and as you go on spinning
you see the joker’s mirror
reflecting every move you make.
You show him good,
and he will show you evil;
you show him truth,
and he will show you lies;
you show him life,
and he will show you
how all that’s living dies.
You show him happiness,
and he will show you sorrow,
you show him yesterday,
and he will show you tomorrow;
you show him poverty,
and he will show you wealth;
you show him sickness
and he will show you health.
You fall as if forever, falling
spinning round and round,
tumbling into empty space,
without up or down
and thus you will go on falling
until you understand
how opposites arise mutually,
then you and the joker
will dance, hand in hand.
Then you will know the truth:
that all is of one taste;
then you and the joker
will have the same face.
— Unknown
After the Storm
Don’t rush to turn a hard experience into content. Sleep. Eat simple food. Drink water. Walk. Journal. Pray and meditate gently. Talk to one grounded person, not twenty chaotic ones. Don’t make huge decisions right away, don’t diagnose yourself off one intense night, don’t assume every vision was literal or every fear was false. Let the system settle.
Minimum viable integration
First 24 hours: body care — sleep, food, water, warmth, ordinary contact, no big moves.
Next few days: write the facts — substance, dose if known, setting, events, triggers, what helped, what made it worse.
Then: ask what it may have meant emotionally, spiritually, relationally, or practically.
Last: make small behavior changes that reduce suffering and increase love.
What kind of aftermath is this?
If symptoms linger, name the pattern instead of collapsing everything into “I’m broken.” Different patterns need different supports.
Anxiety/fear: grounding, routine, reduced stimulation, CBT-style reality testing, therapy if it persists.
Sleep disturbance/nightmares: sleep hygiene, no more substances, professional help if severe or prolonged.
Derealization/depersonalization: ordinary-world grounding, exercise, nature, outside attention, less rumination, peer/family support, therapy if needed.
Visual distortions/HPPD-like symptoms: reduce stress and substances; seek professional support if it interferes with life.
Social disconnection/shame: one or two safe humans, peer support, no social-media crowdsourcing while raw.
Existential shock: write it down, slow down, return to practical love before building a metaphysical system.
Trauma material: trauma-informed therapy or integration support; no immediate confrontation while destabilized.
Paranoia or psychosis-like beliefs: get professional support quickly, especially if beliefs are driving unsafe action.
Somatic hyperarousal: gentle movement, breath, grounding, medical care if symptoms are severe, unusual, or worrying.
No “another ceremony will fix this” reflex
Do not take more psychedelics, cannabis, ketamine, intense breathwork, fasting, kundalini-pushing, sleep deprivation, extreme meditation, extreme stretching, or “another ceremony to fix it” while destabilized. Stabilize first: sleep, food, routine, sober support, ordinary body, ordinary world. Deep practice can wait until the floor is back under you.
Then ask: what actually happened? What was medical or environmental? What was emotional? What was old trauma? What was fantasy? What was useful? What changed how I behave? What needs therapy, an apology, rest, or some plain practical action?
The fruit of insight isn’t how cosmic the story sounds. It’s whether suffering goes down and love gets more available.
Additional Resources
A number of other alternatives to standard mental health care listed at alternativementalhealth.com
U.C. Berkeley offers a free class based partly on the experimentally validated Buddhist teachings to learn to be happy and help others to be happy.
You can get some tips on shadow work in Buddha’s teachings on the topic, summarized in this video by the monk Ajahn Jayasaro:
Additional Resources for Paid Subscribers
If you are reading this while someone is actively in trouble, do the checklist first, then use the resources below:
