I've read my fair share of trip reports over the years, but can't say I've come across anyone writing about a bad or scary trip on cactus.

If I'm mistaken, can anyone link me to a negative trip report?
Does anyone know what it is about this entheogen that generally facilitates a positive trip (and doesn't induce a negative trip)?
Are any other entheogens as reliable as cactus in this way?

From my own experience, it puts the user in a mindset which is better able to cope with the phenomena encountered than a sober mind.

I can't say its impossible to have a bad trip on cactus. Every experience I've had with it aloud me to see the good in everything. With some precaution as to set and setting this is the most gentle of the entheogens imo.

It seems to me people only have negative cactus trips when mixing with cannabis or other psychadelics.

I imagine a high enough dose in the wrong setting could prove to be undesirable, but Ive had nothing but glowing experiences. Physical side effects can be uncomfortable, but nothing serious.

its damn near impossible, but still possible

yes but only when cannabis was involved and once I got really anxious and nearly fainted in a parking lot from low blood suger. My rule of thumb for me personally is no long fasting before I trip-ever..and no cannabis with it. I mean I will dose on an empty stomach in the morning but I dont call that fasting. All that means is I slept all night so obviously I was not eating.

a girl i was dating briefly had an emotional breakdown when i popped her psychedelic cherry with a modest dose of cactus resin, but to be fair she was a nutcase who barely held it together when sober. She just had small dent in her ego and was faced with the reality of her choices in life and couldn't handle it. As traumatic as it was at the time, she immediately got her priorities in line and started down a better path in life. good thing i started her off on cactus and not ayahuasca

Generally cactus is extremely forgiving.

SWIM has had one or two minor negative cactus experiences when either the cactus was ingested at the wrong time or when it was taken for the wrong reason. All this becomes very apparent in due course.

SWIM has only had one very difficult experience when still new to cactus . SWIM felt that negative experiences were impossible with this medicine so decided to up the dose.

SWIM was not expecting a 36hour marathon experience which at times was utterly ovewhelming - almost dmt like. The extreme intensity and length of the experience were exhausting and shaded the experience in a negative light.

Part of the anxiety/paranoia was triggered by not scheduling in sufficient time (SWIM WASN'T EXPECTING 36 HOURS!) and the thought of possibly having to go to work and interacting with clients in that state.

personally, no i havent

over the last few years out of everyone ive introduced to cactus only 2 had "negative" reactions

the first was in my first year of knowing achuma, i had decided to get the local drug scene crowd to try cactus (hoping it would begin their path to a satisfied life of purpose) i brought this guy fresh cacti and instructed him on the preparation and the process for ingestion. being that he was the ring leader of this band of totally misdirected young adults i gave him the most magnificent specimen of the bunch. i advised that he split it as it was a very thick cutting and a base cutting to boot. he responded memorably with "NA Ill do it all, i do like triple c's n shit" dumbstruck and having already given him the cactus i tried reasoning that he may get another use out of it whereas everyone else had a one time deal, still he refused.

it was several months before i saw him again, infact i didnt realize it was going to be him until i met him under a different name. when i met him originally he was going by the name "phat shawn", this time on a journey to acquire the elusive LSD i was greeted by "Rex" who did a double take when he saw me. whats more is i brought cactus with me again to barter for LSD and he actually stumbled backwards when i brought it out, saying "Get that shit away from me"
Caught between laughing and sincerity i asked about his experience. he told me that he did it the last day of high school, after school and went home and ate it. he proceeded to have a house party. he went to his bedroom and put a towel over his head and stood in the dark closet and began to dance, then feeling more comfortable he came out and went outside to burn his books and papers, dowsing the old texts with gasoline he ignited it and burned off his eyebrows in the following combustion, in the ensuing calamity he tore off his shirt and ran barefoot down the road for several miles, then he felt great and made his way home to appreciate the last of his party and eyebrowlessness.

after hearing this strange tale i asked him if it was really so bad, and he said no, it was just "too intense"...


the second person to have a "bad" experience was a good friend of my girlfriend. having just met her and being as enthusiastic and ubridled about my passion for achuma i offered her some. i began to explain what it was i was offering and general information regarding achuma and the experience, she cut me off and told me she had grown san pedro before. a bit embarrased i preached to someone who grew san pedro i ceased the explanation and having already fasted that day i gave us all a foot out of the tea i had prepared
as the experience wore on my girlfriend and i casually smoked some cannabis and listened to music after showering. we offered this other girl a shower, to herself obviously, and she declined (first mistake imho, you dont refuse mews achuma advise having 0 experience yourself )
she began complaining of not liking aspects of our apartment, she didnt like the music, she didnt like the decor, she felt sick, she blah blah blah, she focussed on negatives. more time went by and she remained totally silent lying on the floor. at hour 4 she reached up and and exclaimed "o my god" and that was it. dumbstruck my girlfriend and i looked at each other and kept enjoying the music and smoking some more cannabis. this girl an hour later decided she needed to go home, so she left after i made sure she had decent enough motor skills to make the quarter mile walk.

later she explained that she was totally unprepared for how strong it was going to be having never done cactus (i assumed she knew as she grew it but she had literally only grown one in her window cill for a few months) also, while she was at our house there were voices telling her how aweful she was and even when she was explaining how she didnt like the things in the house she was rising and falling in extreme time dilation, she told me i would teleport around the room as our conversation continued....

as it turns out she is a hooker, funny right?

in conclusion people who approach cactus in a narcotic light or lead a totally unwholesome lifestyle are in for a bit of a stark revelatory experience

the hooker also had dmt/mushroom/lsd/mdma experience,
so i assumed shed be fine... mybad g

Thanks everyone for taking the time to write up replies. I wonder what it is about cactus that generally "protects" people from bad trips. It certainly gives me more confidence to explore a higher dose, and perhaps explore a different setting.... i.e. outdoors.

My own concerns are primarily the length of the trip and the time dilation which I viewed as negative and cause for concern. Reading some reports of people experiencing portions of their trips lasting 3 to 4 weeks (yet it not being a major concern) makes me feel I'm really not cut out for this kind of thing - I don't know.

I suppose it's a case of Emerson's "Do the thing you fear most, and the death of fear is certain."

get familliar with the cactus, gently increase your dosage, cultivate ritual dosing, because a breakthrough is...

it makes me wonder if i have ever really broken through before, its just a whole different thing, it seems impossible in hindsight...

I have never had a bad trip on cactus. But i have had experiences with it that where so bizarre that i was glad that i was in a safe place. With large amounts of cacti, set and setting is just as important as with any other psychedelic. In larger amounts, torches or peyote don´t qualify as party-drug as the experience get´s just as weird as a shrooms or ayahuasca experience.

I've only had one difficult cactus experience, and I attribute the difficulty to factors outside of cacti. The entirety of the day before this cactus trip had been spent performing my first dmt extraction using the "lazyman's tek." My lack of experience led to inadvertently breathing in too many chemicals, particularly naptha.

The following day I ingested a tea made from dried cactus like I'd done many times before. About 5 hours into the normal, expected experience I got a crushing headache accompanied by a greatly upset stomach, which prevented me from taking any pills for the pain (or at least keeping them down). I attribute the unusually bad headache to the previous day's chemical exposure.

The cactus part of the experience took the form of a beat down by Gaia for evaporating so much solvent into the air. The next 10 hours were spent in extreme pain and nausea while feeling tremendous guilt over how disrespectfully I'd treated the planet. This is the only cactus experience I never wrote about, though the lessons were immediately taken to heart. Needless to say, I no longer use that tek!

Everything is connected!

CS

Outdoors is by far the best place to do cactus in my opinion.

I have never taken a big dose, not yet anyway, but I'd do just like mew said. Work your way up.
As for 3-4 weeks effects...these would most likely just be a really rocking afterglow leaving you feeling more ambitious than you were previously with a little gung ho attitude about life thrown in as well.

I've only done small-medium doses. But I'm eagerly awaiting my first real medium size doze.

My handful of experiences have all been amazingly positive. The 2 where I purged were actually the best 2. Both times purged early and still had an amazing trip!

Hi Joe,

I didn't really phrase that correctly. I was referring to time dilation. I read one or two reports where people felt parts of the trip lasted 3-4 weeks when in fact it only was 3 or 4 hours of the trip maybe in real life. Terrifying thought. I don't know how one deals with that at the time.

Mew its not impossible...just expect an extremely long experience

Well, my better half wound up in the hospital and I ended up in jail (while peaking, thats another story in itself), so yes its deffinitely possible.

Im not going to do a full report here or anything but ill breifly explain what happned. It was due to a number of different circumstances, our first time with bridgessi or any cactus, dose was probably a bit much, unfamiliar setting, and we worked that day (we work at a call center very stressfull, probably not good to bring that into a trip), also she didnt purge.

She says she started to feel like she was there for a very long time, she got very paranoid thinking we were all against her, keeping her there against her will starving her to death. Things got very hellish when we went upstairs to lay down and try to chill out. Its a open 2 story home, so from the second floor you can see into the living room on the first floor. She fell over the banister from the 2nd story to the first. This was probalby one of the scariest moments of my life. I ran down the stairs as fast as I could thinking she could have broken her neck or something in the fall. She didnt end up with any serious injuries from the fall, just banged up pretty good. But it looked way worse than it turned out to be. Her face was covered with blood, and she was obviously really freaking out at this point. The only thing i could think to do was call her mom, but before i could do that she ran out of the front door, screaming. I went after her of course, we were both barefoot, it was early april about 2 in the morning, cold and windy with freezing rain. She was walking down the street, screaming, throwing her clothes on the ground. I tried to cover her with my hoody and hold her to calm her down but everything I did to try to help was just more proof that I was agianst her in her mind. We walked about 2 blocks and I saw a cop driving by. He would have stopped anyway im sure but I flagged him down, I was scared and needed help, mostly I was concerned about her well being. Like an idiot I told the cop what we had taken, foolishly thinking that he would be more worried about helping us than prosecuting us. He called an ambulance, and arrested me. From the back of the cop car I could see her violently resisting inside the ambulance as they restrained her and gave her some kind of injection, im assuming it was a sedative. Anyway in the end everything turned out alright, we just ended with some debt from lawyer costs and the ambulance ride. I think she is still having some issues with integration, and this was about a year and a half ago.

Maybe sometime down the road I will post a more detailed report, there is so much more to tell about that night. Maybe I can talk her into writing up a report from her poit of view as well. I think there are alot of people here that could help her come to some understanding of what happened that night. We all learned a big lesson that night, do not underestimate the power of these teachers. They have taught me that everything i know could be ripped out of my hands without warning, my entire world could fall apart at the seems at any moment. I can either decide to live in fear of that fact or just surrender to it and appreciate and be thankful for every fleeting moment that I am blessed enough to experience.

what i was trying to say was, the breakthrough experiences ive had seem impossible when reflecting upon it in a linear mindest, impossible as in "baffling" "mind boggling" "beyond understanding", not impossible in the sense that it didnt happen, because, well it did

cool