How to have a safe psychedelic trip | Psyche Guides

A psychedelic experience can be deeply rewarding, but also carries real risks. Here’s how to avoid a bad trip

Humans have consumed substances with consciousness-altering properties for millennia. Traditional societies used them in healing rituals, initiation ceremonies and to make contact with the gods and the dead, among other practices. Today they are known as psychedelics, and include the naturally occurring compounds psilocybin (found in ‘magic mushrooms’), DMT and mescaline; the hallucinogenic tea Ayahuasca, used by indigenous peoples in the Amazon basin; and the hallucinogenic shrub iboga, found in West Africa. Synthetic hallucinogenic compounds, most famously LSD, emerged in the 20th…

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