For many people, the term “tripping” conjures up images of hippies in the 60s wearing tie-dye and crowd surfing at Woodstock. The term brings to mind peace signs, flower children, school buses painted with psychedelic patterns, bell-bottom pants, and The Beatles. Words like “third eye,” “ego death,” and “higher consciousness” come to mind.

For many people, too, “tripping” can mean “bad trip,” and a bad trip can mean all sorts of terrifying things—nightmarish hallucinations, say, or existential panic.

But tripping, when done safely and under the right conditions, can be a therapeutic experience, as many psychologists today will attest. And their claims are backed by research; the science of tripping has come a long way, and there’s plenty of evidence that tripping on substances like LSD and magic mushrooms from a magic mushrooms dispensary [valid where legal] can do a person a lot of good.

Benefits of Tripping

A good trip may, for instance, make you smarter, healthier, and happier. That may sound too good to be true, but there is evidence that psychedelics can help terminal patients confront their mortality, smokers smoke less or quit, and alcoholics drink less or quit.

Not only that, but psychedelics may help us become more creative, better at our jobs, less anxious, more accepting of ourselves, more self-aware, and more empathetic.

How Tripping Works

When someone takes a psychedelic, such as psilocybin (magic mushrooms), peyote, or LSD, a lot happens to their brain. Not enough peer-reviewed studies have been conducted to reach any solid conclusions, but some neuroscientists think psychedelics work by decreasing electrical activity as well as blood floor in the “default mode network” (DMN) of the brain.


The brain’s DMN, which can be measured with the fMRI technique, refers to a network of interacting brain regions. These regions are activated when someone is not focusing on the outside world, but rather on their inner world.

When we trip, the boundaries between ourselves and the world softens, and we stop thinking as rigidly as we normally do in our day-to-day lives. That means we are able to see the world, including ourselves, with fresh eyes. It also means we may experience a happy or even euphoric mood, and feel more at peace with ourselves and life in general.

What Happens After We Trip

After we trip, we may continue to feel better and perceive and think differently than we did before tripping. Our mood may be better than before, and we may be less inclined to drink, smoke, or obsess over things that make us stressed or anxious.

A common experience among those who safely take psychedelics is that they leave the experience feeling less isolated and alone.

To be sure, taking psychedelics, even under medical supervision, can be an unpleasant experience. Some people experience dizziness, mood swings, sleeplessness, anxiety, or even psychosis—that is, some people have a bad trip. However, there are things you can do to decrease the likelihood of experiencing a bad trip. You can, for instance, take psychedelics under the supervision of session monitors, also known as trip sitters.

So, if you’re going to go on a trip, make sure you do it right.

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