First and foremost, I want to emphasize the following: when consuming entheogenic plants in a ceremonial setting, we are not talking about ‘tripping.’ Tripping is partying until the early hours with drugs, with no focus on any form of inner work or self exploration.
In a ceremony, you are ‘traveling’ through your inner world under specialized guidance with respect and focus, in a safe environment (set & setting). Using the word ‘tripping’ to describe this process is disrespectful and oversimplifies the power of these intelligent entheogenic plants and what they offer us. A humble and respectful attitude is the least we can offer.
Psychoactive sacred plants and psilocybin ceremonies show us the way inward, connect us with our soul, create new pathways, and lead us to awareness with unconditional love. This directly bridges to the question, ‘What is a bad trip?’
Nature simply IS, period. There is no judgment or value attached to it being good or bad. It embodies both and remains in balance, the centre, that also wants to be remembered within you—a place of pure consciousness without judgment.
Psychedelic plants show you both sides of the coin, also the shadow sides. Which is not surprising since these are aspects we’d rather not face and avoid. However, they need just as much attention to be seen as the sunny side. It’s a part of you, and rejecting it means rejecting a part of yourself.
So again; a ‘bad trip’ during a ceremonial connection? No. What happens is that you encounter experiences you have suppressed for a very long time and often burdened with; fear, shame, anger, confusion, sadness, and sometimes disgust.
How an experience resurfaces during a Plant Spirit Process or psilocybin session varies for everyone. It may be very visual, vivid, bright, with confident and full with love. Or it may come as an unpleasant / disturbing feeling that slowly emerges into your consciousness and body. Sometimes accompanied by physical sensations that can be challenging. ‘The dark night of the soul’. This is a story / an experience that’s also hidden inside you. It longs for your open and unconditional attention.
To make this more concrete, here are a few experiences that may be perceived as intense during a psychedelic ceremony. However, knowing this and receiving prior explanations can alleviate some of the fear, replacing it with healthy curiosity.
Birth Experience
Read my previous blog about birth trauma; birth is an impressive and intense experience, every human goes through it. For some, it has more impact than for others, but for many of us it’s a traumatic experience.
On an unconscious level, the body wants to process this experience because it wasn’t possible during the experience itself. There, dissociation occurred, a freeze. Given that fight or flight was not possible during the entire birth experience.
This proces may ‘reach the surface’, into our consciousness during a Plant Spirit Process session. This physical and emotional re-experience may come with feelings of fear, suffocation and suppression, which is very understandable. The stages in the womb can transition from a warm, welcome, oceanic feeling to a toxic, unwanted environment.
during a psychedelic journey.
It can be challenging during a psychedelic journey, but also very spectacular, liberating and spiritual to have a rebirth experience.
If you are not informed about these diverse experiences— which are actually quite common—such an experience might feel like a bad trip. Now that you have this information, and if you’re having a session with a specialized guide and plant worker, you will have a different perspective on the experience rather than simply labeling it as ‘just a bad trip.’
Death Experience
First of all; you’re not dying in a entheogenic plant ceremony, it’s an experience.
As mentioned on my site as well, the transition phases of death and birth are intense and sometimes traumatic for every person.
When you connect with entheogenic plants in a ceremony (like psilocybin, psilohuasca or ayahuasca) the subconscious and unresolved themes resurface in our consciousness. It wants to be healed on emotional level.
An unprocessed death experience might resurface during a session to be processed. Let me explain this a bit more.
This re-experience can be the (recent) death of a family member, good friend or partner with whom you had an emotional bond. Even if your bond was not loving, an emotional bond can also consist of feelings of shame, sadness or guilt.
You may experience someone else’s death or a past life’s unprocessed death experience in ceremony. It ‘the unprocessed’ sees a window to heal what, in many cases, can indirectly also provide you with a form of liberation or release.
When is a death experience not fully processed?
– Sudden death: accident, suicide, murder
– During a prolonged illness with medication (often with a foggy / fragmented mind), like palliative sedation
– Lack of acceptance of death, with the phases of denial, anger, bargaining, depression lingering. Read more about these stages in Kübler-Ross’s books, like; on dying and grief.
Note; A fully processed death experience ( which we al longing for) is marked by total surrender, acceptance, inner peace and awareness of the process of dying.
You might imagine that, given the many forms of death above, this is unfortunately not a natural certainty.
Physical, Sexual and Emotional Abuse
One of humanity’s greatest wounds is our sexuality, which has endured frequent abuse and suppression in various forms for many centuries. Realize this is a deep wound often wrapped in dissociation, shame and or guilt. It’s hidden in our pain body ( Eckhart Tolle). This Box of Pandora, the pain body was your protection. You freeze (dissociate) and the hole traumatic experience has been putted away under the carpet. It never happened to me. It’s a natural instinctive reaction, often occurring in (young) childhood, because the impact of the event was unbearable to endure at the time. It’s very common to have been under pressure from the perpetrator as well, leading to imprints such as:
– It’s your fault
– You can’t tell anyone or…. (something bad will happen to you)
– You are worthless
– Or worse; This never happened.
Remember that your body and soul want to heal and the traumatic experiences of (sexual) abuse are always waiting to be healed. Healing involves going through the hole emotional process in a safe environment, allowing to free yourself from this torment and old pain.
These physical emotional or sexual abuse resurface your consciousness. Yes it’s challenging, painful and accompanied by fear or sadness. However, I say it again; This is not a bad trip! The healing is in the pain.
Transgenerational Experiences
Healing ourselves and seeking awareness often involves insights into our ancestry line. What happened in the generations before us? What was unprocessed or unspoken? Many themes were not addressed by our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Every family has a secret. One of the deepest wounds is recent; war.
Understanding yourself, your origins, who you are and who you are not, can bring intense experiences from your family line into your consciousness during a psychedelic process.
We don’t label all these experiences as a ‘bad trip.’ That’s the mind saying, “I don’t want to feel or face this”. That we call; Resistance.
Realize that fear is the key for healing during a Plant Spirit Process or Psilocybin session. The fear you attempt to avoid often casts the greatest shadow, but behind it lies the path to awareness, answers, love, liberation, forgiveness and acceptance. Let curiosity shift your perspective, even in daily life.
Dear interested reader don’t be put off by this blog. From my many personal experiences and those of many participants, I can share that, as remarkable and sometimes absurd as it sounds, all these experiences can be full with blessings, beauty and strength and confidence. These entheogenic therapeutic plant ceremonies requires curiosity, brave hearts and resilient souls.
Misinterpretation. Most of the times what has been labeled as a “bad trip” might have simply been a difficult but necessary part of the process of self-discovery and healing, rather than an inherently negative experience.
The Other Side of the Coin: Love, Liberation, Relaxation
Facing your fears also opens the gates to pure joy and bliss. Archetypes, spirit animals and ascended masters, offering us beautiful lessons or showing us other worlds and awakening our hidden talents and beauty within ourselves.
At one point there is forgiveness and you dance with the Gods. The fertile ground for potential and creativity is revealed again.
Is the Fear Completely Gone?
Realize that in life fear doesn’t disappear, it’s part of life. We have no control over external events, but we do control our relationship with fear. You can change that by realizing and accepting this during a psychedelic ceremonial Plant Spirit ceremony. Your perspective in daily life will also change. You take responsibility and ownership which comes along with resilience.
You’re aware that life isn’t always rosy and may sometimes be intense, but there is trust. There is a fundamental safety within yourself. You know you can rely on yourself.
Despite everything and everyone, a person can always choose how to respond to a situation and decide how to feel and act concerning what happens. Mandela’s famous example illustrates this.
Forgiveness as the Gateway to Freedom
If we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Everything can be taken from a person except one thing:
The human freedom to choose your attitude under any circumstance,
To choose your way.
– Viktor Frankl
Important Note
A negative experience (‘bad trip’) can occur in situations where contraindications are not considered. This can happen with various medications and physical or mental conditions that do not align with specific entheogenic plants. It can also occur when someone is in a state where introspection and self-examination are not possible, such as in psychosis or when someone experiences hallucinations and delusions in daily life.
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