I always seem to get this wave of anxiety before inducing any sort of trance... It usually subsides once I actually ingest whatever plant or chemical I am utilizing, but I wonder if this is affecting my experiences at all. I meditate before and after ingesting the sacrament, and I use crystals and tingsha bells in order to help guide me through my experience. These things help to an extent, but I still get that anxious feeling beforehand. Perhaps it is caused by the memory of difficult experiences when I was younger and more naive? I have not had any difficult experiences in the last few years since I learned how to approach these tools with respect. Does anyone else experience this?

I certainly experience it. With almost every experience. Sometimes I can able to relax into the experience if I am off for the next few days and am taking a small dose.

It is normal. For the people who don't get anxious maybe it's time to lay off the psychedelics for a little. Just my opinion.

It is 100% normal to be anxious. Different people have different ways to deal with this. Usually, for me, just going outside and laying down in the grass or going and touching trees/leaves puts me in a great loving mood.

Its only natural the anxiety is rooted in the fears of the unknown. When we were huntergathers we needed fear to keep us alert in unkown situations to ensure we survive. We still do.
Acknowledge it dont give it weight and let it pass to give way to joy.

My high school theatre teacher used to say: "stage fright is good: it shows you care about your performance."

Wise words. I think the same holds true of any kind of drug or experience at all: anxiety just shows that you care about yourself, which is very healthy.

Blessings
~ND

If we're talking specifically about anxiety induced because of the intention to go in a self-hypnotic trance,
It is because certain parts of the instinctive center disagree with your intention.

One thing which is very helpful to to focus on the genitalia ( which we often neglect) and to observe how anxiety energy is separate from pure sexual energy. IME by breathing with the pelvic floor and keeping attention on the G-point/prostate tends to help anxiety energy funnel into pure sexual energy more quickly.

However, I would warn that this isn't the type of work that leaves one with much time to step back and behold a finished product. And one must always keep remembering the heart and forehead as well. Lofty work tbh.

On the other hand, acknowledging that one is about to bring an external stress in to the body, as others have said, should be regarded as the responsible response ( pardon the redundancy)


Consider smoking pot, it is rarely treated with reverence an most people don't feel anxious before taking a toke.
Because most people are tramps (unable to value things and trample over them)

So IMO pre-flight anxiety is a good thing and can provide a certain amount of drama necessary to come out of a mental backflip an into deep ecstasies.

Thank you all for the excellent responses! I will definitely keep these perspectives in mind.

I usually get anxious too. You never know where that journey might be heading. There were times where I was very confident. Actually many years, without any fear of psychedelics. They had kicked my ass several times but I could always just handle it and I knew I'd be fine.

But then suddenly on one trip I went way deeper than ever into a hellish nightmare, and since then I'm always a bit anxious and extra cautious. I've had some very challenging trips the last two years but they've all taught me a lot and I've changed a lot in my life these two years.

My last trip was two weeks ago and it was a bit extreme. But very good. I had been dosing harmalas for two weeks beforehand, 100-200mg. a day, so my system was probably a bit saturated with harmalas. Then I ate just one gram of lib caps and had one of the strongest and longest trips of my life. Very good, ecstatic and healing, but also very difficult at the end.

And I'm better now than I've been for a long time. Years

Great responses all.
Have preflight anxiety with spice and, nowadays, a little trepidation before taking LSD etc.
The spice was so much more overwhelming than other psyches that I am blown away. Have always enjoyed all my experiences but find it hard to dive back in for whatever reason. Have had deep and rough LSD trips that one would think would prepare me but just never seem to feel up to a flight lately.
Some wild variations in strength of some Let I picked up has me unsure whether 2 hits will be enough or way too much so that had added some insecurity with my favorite molecule. Definitely think it's time to dose some mescaline, get back into meditation and then visit the spice again and seek guidance.
Thanks for sharing all.