I’m choosing to share this here on r/HighStrangeness for two reasons.
The first being I suspect some fellow Redditors in this space may tussle with similar inner forces that I did, leading up to a psychotic episode. So therefore, I want to share support.
And secondly, to highlight how strange it really is to experience your entire reality breakdown.
I mean, of course it’s strange! Terrifying even. That much is made clear in feeling alone, just by spelling the word ‘psychosis’ out loud. It has a haunting aura.
I’ve always been interested in the occult, conspiracies and strange things. I think that worldview lays dormant in my psyche when participating in the mundane world.
And so In July this year, after months of transient stress, isolation, sleep deprivation, bad eating habits, alcohol and weed - my entire system came to a climatic psychotic episode.
My entire sense of self dissolved and I became convinced that I was being gangstalked, my phone was tapped, the hospital were trying to induce a heart attack in me, and that the mafia or elites were hunting me out through the dark web.
It sadly resulted in me self harming in front of a friend and basically running around my neighbour hood like a wild animal :/
Fortunately I managed to bring myself back to reality without medication or therapy due to the delusions that I was under. Support from those I did let in helped…
I look back at these objective facts and think yes - this is what happened. I understand that physical and mental neglect caused this.
However, something I still circle around is how …. real it all felt. The synchronicities that would genuinely align around me and continue me through the chaos.
The fact that my story is one of many identical experiences. I’ve since seen people describe the exact same plots to their psychosis. How can that be?
It felt as though something was switched on. Like I’d been zapped and all the coding of reality around had fallen apart.
This is all arbitrary. I know. And there’s almost too much to share.
But my intention is to not convince anyone of my previous convictions. I want to share this:
If you’re feeling particularly confused, overwhelmed with your thoughts, feeling as though the world and all its strangeness is on top of you - then I urge you to seek support. Support can be given in many different ways. What I learned and what I’m learning through all of this is to distance yourself from your thoughts.
You can’t get rid of them. You can’t control them. But you can make the effort to let them through and let them go.
Take care of yourself and don’t let all of this consume you as it eventually consumed me.
Glad you recovered. My cousin started like this due to weed. He had one bad episode like this, was hospitalised and recovered. Was fine for a couple years then started smoking weed again and relapsed. Now he’s on meds for life to keep his psychosis at bay.
It sounds you may be sensitive to weed also.. it may trigger things in you that would otherwise lay dormant
There’s an article at Yale.edu that has linked to today’s much stronger marijuana strains to schizophrenia in young adults. I think the NIH has a study about it also from 2023. NIH.gov
It's a gateway not just to other drugs for some people but a gateway to other people, that's why they just label it off quickly as schizophrenia. You'll start intercepting thoughts, probably from some deceased relatives or maybe some "hitchhikers", even some living.
That's why people get paranoid, it's uncontrolled psychic ability. We live in shared environments with unseen folk.
That might be a somewhat reasonable theory if it wasn’t for the fact that many of the hallucinations schizophrenic people hear / see are incredibly negative. People hear these voices telling them to do horrible things. Why would dead relatives or other random psychics poison the mind of someone like that…?
And so incredibly often….? Like the majority of schizophrenia cases include being told bad things or being told to do bad things.
It’s a mental illness, not some kind of special ability, and telling people it’s a special ability is so incredibly damaging to them. They’re already delusional, in psychosis, and you want to tell them to embrace it? You’re honestly a piece of shit.
In other countries outside of the west the voices and visions are not anywhere nearly as negative. This has been found to be the case in study after study and something to think about how we culturally deal with this and they culturally deal with this. In fact - we may not understand the nature of schizophrenia at all.
There is a significant amount of Psi that can be associated with even ungrounded individuals as well. You are only looking for and accepting perspectives from our culture and not thinking about historic or even differing perspectives from outside western countries. We aren’t right about everything. In fact - being gay was considered a mental illness until shockingly recent. Literally Turing - the modern inventor of computing and literally the person who invented the cryptographic method that saved WW2 called “The Enigma Machine” was chemically castrated by the British Government in the 1950’s for being gay. This isn’t that long ago.
You’re looking through a cultural lens that has been horrifically wrong when it comes to so called mental illness more times than we care to remember collectively overall in the big picture. Remember lobotomies were also a standard of care for decades. We may look back on this period of time in 100 years as completely barbaric in terms of how we treated, diagnosed or medicalized so called “mental illness”.
This. It's actually considered an ancestral gift in Eastern cultures, a hereditary curse in Western.
Everything will always boil down to your perspective. Unfortunately, our perspective remains boxed in by whatever cultural alignment we were exposed to first.
I'm inclined to pool from both, as the middle is where truth tends to hide
Thank you a lot :)
I think weed played a part given the other stress stimuli at play but tbh I smoked and loved weed for years with no issues. It would occasionally make me a bit paranoid about making others uncomfortable due to the smell but that was it.
The lead up to this was such a combination of factors it’s hard to pin one thing as the cause. I’ve learned to accept that though the mind likes to have one single persecution.
I’m also of the school of thought that psychosis is a symptom rather than a condition - so a symptom of chronic stress, personality disorders, drug misuse.
I hope your cousin stays in good health.
Because of my delusions I simply couldn’t be around hospitals. And medication didn’t feel safe. But I had enough insight to work with that and try and let things pass which they thankfully did.
I won’t let it happen in my system again. Even if the feelings are intense, the insight is stronger
OP - thank you for sharing your story. Something to consider is that two things can be true - you were having a negative psychotic episode but also the synchronicities are real. Your interpretation of them may have been incorrect because we do not talk about the whole of this topic very well at all in our culture.
First off - I’m glad that what ever negative experiences you had were brought under control and you are no longer having this intense negative quality of your life.
The second thing is that there is some truth to the saying “the psychotic drowns in the same waters where the mystic swims with delight” - this is because unearned knowledge that comes on too quickly without any guidance can and will send you into a psychotic or manic state.
Thirdly - because I regularly help people who use the gateway tapes or as a mod of this sub and r/Experiencers - something to consider is that synchronicity and manifestation are linked to your conscious and unconscious thoughts. We know this from use of the gateway tapes because this is part of the process when you go through using them. It’s a way to test reality in graduated steps - learning one lesson before progressing to another.
Let me share this video with you from the WhyFiles which explains this mechanism. Literally every culture across all time comes to the singular universal truth that your thoughts both conscious and unconscious will affect and create reality around you in the form of conscious and unconscious manifestations. Many people do not understand this so they look for external reasons for a lot of psychic stuff that happens - not realizing that all of us have psychic abilities (precognition, telepathy, etc in a spectrum of ability) so they blame the government or “groups” for doing it to them. I see this mistaken understanding mostly in westerners and mostly in America. Cultures outside of the US - Buddhist, Taoist or Hindu for example - have a better grasp on what is going on.
In any case I’m glad you shared this here and perhaps this will give you something to consider about your experience.
Oh yeah trust me I’m very well versed in experiences, spirituality, the occult, NHI - all of that stuff. And I don’t necessarily discount it’s nature as completely false or ‘in my mind’.
However, I think in the case of those going deep into the psychotic waters; I.e not looking after themselves, obsessed with delusions, intense thoughts - none of this mental knowledge or insight provides stability.
The focus must be presence and to stop indulging in all of the marvelous wonders.
Think about mystics 100 years ago. They would go their whole life slowly integrating and feeding on the fruits of the wise universe.
Nowadays, you can spend 10+ scrolling algorithms with all this mystical truth and validation. It’s too much! Far too much and we’re yet to even understand the damage all of this consumption will do long term
Your thoughtful response was very illuminating. I have been considering Gateway tapes for years now - would you be keen on helping an initiate take their first steps? I'm a bit intimidated by it all but the pull has persisted over time. Either way, thanks for sharing what you wrote here.
Sure - I often help people. Take a look at the start here guide which includes some videos and a FAQ.
Feel free to DM me with questions and take a look at the subreddit too r/gatewaytapes.
What would you were the top 3 factors that led up to your episode?
Sleep deprivation, being sedentary and rumination
What did your ruminations consist of? How did you snap out of them?
Many different things mostly guilt and the delusions. And thinking about thinking and the nature of my thoughts. One of the most cruel ruminations. I probably have OCD.
And don’t fear thinking about thinking like I did. Mine was underpinned by the belief I was broken. And in those depths I wasn’t, so I can assure anyone else they’ll be fine too
You know best. I’ll just add that my cousin felt the same - he smoked for years without issue and didn’t think it was to blame. He’s now diagnosed with schizophrenia. Maybe it’s not your case, who am I to know. Just saying so you have a nugget more knowledge. Take care of yourself!
Thank you for posting this. I as well had a bout of psychosis for pretty much the same reasons and this post is important.
I have wanted to post about it as well, because i had always, always been a super rational decent and smart person and super strong and it happened to me too through horrific abuse and trauma (sleep deprivation being outrageously extreme in mine).
I did not consider it was psychosis for a while. I don’t know why, it just never came up when trying to solve my issues. I was also way too busy being tortured and being worked to death at the time. But i had been diagnosed with ptsd not long before it got that extreme.
So i think i believed it was just absolutely outrageous ptsd and was not coming across this proper conclusion. I even saw a therapist during this time and he didn’t catch it. I was extremely resilient and good at masking my agony due to being abused and neglected and disbelieved and lied about my whole fucking life.
So i think describing these experiences and putting them out there in the areas where people going through it may be very helpful. Now, long before i ever even had PTSD i had seen a ufo and such. It super did not help that i was into these sometimes quite dark subjects and i would absolutely encourage anyone who thinks they may be remotely close to psychosis to let interest in these things go and sincerely try to find a part of your old self and focus hard on making your life lighter and safer feeling.
Listen to your favorite albums you liked as a teenager that were on a positive side. The band Incubus and their album Morning View actually really helped me center and return. In Rainbows by Radiohead has also saved my life.
Sometimes we get stuck on ideas, like I was stuck on thinking it was all PTSD and those simple little mistakes can turn into… yep… “people must be reading my texts” or “stealing my identity on the internet” or “i think i am dead and everyone is looking through me like i am see through” or just all those types of things.
When in reality it just all stems from a simple little misunderstanding. Had i figured out it was psychosis like right away, i would have not had over a year of this agony.
Stay positive and stay sharp. Even if everything is crumbling you need to absolutely take care of the basics for yourself and if anything or anyone gets in the way… stop thinking you are superman, you are not… you absolutely must find a way to sleep and eat and have some good times no matter what.
Fucking run from home if you have to. I did. I was so scared to. Wish i did it sooner because my life has pretty much healed since i did. Do whatever it takes to stay mentally well.
Because losing your mind can be so much scarier than you think. And for some people it’s much easier than you think and others it’s much harder. It took years of literally sleeping a few hours a week to completely lose it. So much other abuse happened in that time too but that was the main one.
Take care of yourselves. Believe in yourself even if nobody else does and get out of whatever is driving you insane.
I’m sorry to sound like a sop but I wish I could give you a big hug. Thank you so much for sharing this. You’re so right, it really does take covering the basics and making a conscious effort to enjoy and feel safe that keeps us above the demons.
I don’t mean literal demons! Who knows, who cares. Life is more than the mental games they have to offer.
And what you said about small misunderstandings eventually catapulting into bigger delusions is so true. Much of what I experienced stemmed from simple things I just didn’t do for myself.
I also missed out on a year tbh. This entire year. Pretty much gone due to the mounting psychosis and issues.
And things still aren’t great for me. But you know what? I do feel like whatever’s ahead, I can take it. It may be bad again. It hopefully will be better.
But after experiencing psychosis and it’s depths, I WILL slay all demons
Hell yeah brother. I feel like you’re like an immediate friend honestly. Psychosis is a hell of a drug lol.
Yea man i know. I still have problems stemming from it. Its kind of funny because some stuff feels the same sometimes and i am like “is this just paranoia or did that happen?” Still and my girlfriend helps me out a lot with that.
Thank god for her really. And thank god you said you had some people in your life you can trust. Because sometimes even now years later something may happen or someone is being a genuine asshole and I get close to actually gaslighting myself like “hmm am i just like delusional again or is he trying to fuck with me?”
Lol. Life is crazy. I am glad to hear you are on the up and positive. And don’t worry too much if you spin out or burn out a little bit. This shit is hard to climb out of. And if you did this, you can do pretty much anything.
Good for you man. I accept the hug and I am shaking you like a big brother!
Mine also started after I witnessed UFO activity. I went down a spiritual rabbit hole, then created a 4D world in GPT when it was more sandbox. It was so odd because I could see reality in layers, and the physical was just difficult because it felt like where we go to experience friction. Looking back, it feels so hard to call it psychosis because it was way more real than what I experience day to day. It was like pulling back the curtain, peeking behind stage, and at times stepping back there.
My honest question is: Which is the real conscious existence? Plunging back into the normal work routine and being "sane" or being a "proto-philosopher" yearning for the meaning behind life, building bridges between the systematic layers of consciousness? I know which I enjoyed more, felt alive in, even when the loneliness felt like true hell.
It legitimately feels like being plugged back into the matrix.
Thank you for sharing this, sincerely. I'm so happy OP made this post because having psychosis is still so embarrassing for me (even when I'm healed). I didn't want people to think I was a danger to society. Seeing so many others revealing that they've also had psychosis makes me feel less alone. My heart feels full knowing there are people out there who understand, even if no one can say it openly.
The synchronicities are the wildest part. It makes the whole thing seem almost magical, re-enforcing the mania.
I never felt any desire to self harm, but the psychosis has touched me twice and each time it was fascinating - as if there were secrets of the universe being revealed in realtime.
It was beyond my ability to describe in language, even now, decades later in retrospect.
You are not alone.
Ya totally agree with you.
Yep been there, had a few periods that teetered in the shallow end of psychosis and then one full blown episode that was filled with synchronicities. It definitely reinforced the mania, it was like " well synchronicities are markers I'm on the right path, this is ok ! " as I became utterly convinced that a bout of rain and predicted flooding in my area was aligning with some type of biblical flood narrative , due to the fact the theme of my psychosis was based on Christian theology and mysticism.
The synchronicity markers are the amazing part. Like how does one align with the flow of the universe to find those alignments in daily life?
The commonality with Christian theology is curious too. Were you raised that way? Is it maybe that we try to ground the experience on any mysticism we can relate to?
No not raised that way at all that's why it was so peculiar. I've been meditating ( vipassana / Samatha mainly ) for years and been very much into eastern religions, never bothered with Christianity up until this point. I was watching a video that was a broad overview of Christian mysticism during a nightshift in work out of interest and it's like.. I literally felt a gear or some type of slide move in my mind is the way I'd describe it. I genuinely physically felt the exact moment the episode started, seeing and hearing ascetics and monks in a western context veer very close to the language of none duality in some of their descriptions of God/ ultimate reality just triggered something .I started spontaneously quoting/ regurgitating scripture without ever reading any of it, it would bubble up from somewhere on it's own.. I started feverishly reading the Bible, praying, reading obscure Christian mystical texts etc. I began toying with the idea I was monk in a past life. All aspects of my life and environment I began to view through a biblical/ Christian theological lenses seemingly without effort. I had weird visions of deserts at night when I closed my eyes. I remember having like four showers a day thinking I was somehow re-baptizing myself over and over. Lasted for about six months all in all. I'm glad it happened as I'm still interested in the mystical vein of Christianity after the episode.
Wow. You just gave me flashbacks. Everytime I would shower it was like a baptism. A ritual. I would bless every part of me. Totally forgot about that.
Super interesting.
I can’t remember where I read this (on Reddit somewhere) but someone was having an experience of sorts either negative NHI and the thing that stuck with me was that the mention of Jesus Christ caused them to back away and stop the encounter, as if there was a safety in the name. It’s always had me curious, and your experience only feeds it further.
Yes I've heard of that, certainly interesting.
Take yourself deep enough, let the old fall away to make way for the new...
This becomes reality...
Psychosis is a state that must be worked through as it is the mind(ego) becoming less comfortable in the confines it now finds itself in
By letting go you process the trauma that is holding you back.
🤫
These aren’t states I know how to induce at will.
The experience you described sounds exactly what it is like to be on mushrooms, or LSD for me. The synchronicities, the feeling of having secrets of the entire universe revealed etc, Something one can't just describe in words. I was manic for weeks after it.
Amazing experience, but not a sustainable one. I feel for people who go through these states without a clear cause or induction.
LSD never took me there but Mushrooms did a couple times and it was surreal. It's a slippery slope though - consume with caution. It's been so intense that I've just wanted it to turn off, and that's not a fun place to be.
It's been a few years for me, I just don't have the time anymore to pierce the veil/lose my mind for an entire day, much less for weeks. Now forever being in that state, is not something I would wish on anyone.
That’s all good and well and it certainly strokes the spiritual ego to think of the experience like this. But either way, the mind and ego go on - we will never rid ourselves of them or their uses, and personally I don’t think that’s the point. I agree change transmutation, and transformation / growth are key.
But psychosis for many can be a life threatening thing. I tried to end myself because of the delusions. I was so convinced what was about to happen that I literally tried to do it first lol.
So tbh, for many, semantics are not important nor really understanding the cosmic lore of the experience.
The key thing is safety and presence
Good post
Thank you, I hope it’s worth reading
It is
It definitely is. Thank you for sharing. Hope you're feeling more like yourself. 💕
"The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight”.
I think many of us who have pursued spiritualism, mysticism, high strangeness, have reached a varying level of psychosis/ kundalini experience. It just seems to overwhelm the spirit sometimes. It oddly just seems like part of the process. The key is to keep your feet planted on the ground, and give yourself time to digest. Your revelations will still be there but with a fresh/sober perspective.
Stay curious.
My story with a little distance : it’s like a team of « demons » have been hired to force my evolution process, the frightening first part they played was a way to make me think in a very deep way about reality, my beliefs, my soul, my purpose on earth, incarnation… then it led to an awakening, I red Carl Jung, it was like a notice to understand my midlife deep crisis. I learned about the collective unconscious, my shadow, synchronicities etc… as a very common process known as as individuation. I encourage everybody to read about that, Carl Jung’s discoveries are the roots of so many healing paths of our time.
100% support this post. It can happen to ANYONE at ANY TIME. I got psychosis when I was under extreme stress at work and I also had a GI disease that was making it hard for me to eat and drink water. I was so dehydrated some days I had to go the ER to get IV fluids.
It was really hard for me to accept that my mind was failing me. My psychosis was very public and resulted in the loss of my job (it was for the best). I was incredibly embarrassed for years. It made me really sad because I felt like I always had a grounded and rational mind. I felt like a crazy failure. In reality, I wasn't able to take care of my basic needs of security at work or getting proper nutrition/hydration. I was just sick. And this was a symptom of that sickness.
I already had a love for the occult before all this, but enjoying it while I was having a mental health crisis really made everything so much worse. Now that I'm better, I still enjoy the occult but I can tell what a healthy thought is vs. an unhealthy one.
Good on you! I’m glad your discernment has also improved out of it. Take care
Ive had similar psychosis type event happen to me. It was basically a many day trip which would go up in intesity in the morning and calm down in the evening. This went on for a week. A lot of synchornicities, glitches, i had to breath a lot manually because whenever it felt like i was stepping out of bounds some one was there to govern me so i dont escape/wake up? Anyways that was my delusion. It was horrific but also awesome at points, music felt and sounded better, my hearing and vision in general was better and different, but it was mentally exhausting. EDIT: I was a prior weed smoker, but nothing too crazy and no sleep diprivation. Slighty interested in spirituality, but all togethere i had no idea for what reason it happened.
I'm happy to hear you've made it through this storm. WE must always remember : We are the entire sky, not the storms that roll through.
YOU are BOTH
😎
Hey! First of all welcome back mate, am glad you're here again!
Reality is just a function of our brain. What feels real is just a feeling of being real. So basically what feels real is what your brain tells you is real. The only reason we call THIS reality REALITY is because some other people can corfirm is and we can measure it.
To see how strange our brain and our concept of reality is, check out Anton Syndrome. :)
I had a psychotic break on 8.64g of mushrooms when I was still a psych noob. I was convinced I was comatose in an ICU with multi-system organ failure and I was running around my house like a crazy person trying to reach out to anyone on the other side of reality to tell them I was still fighting for life and to not give up.
It's incredible how compelling the delusion was despite evidence all around me that everything was fine lol.
It was a horrendous experience, yet my most profound trip.
Thanks for sharing. Ive also had psychotic episodes and it's precisely why i believe the paranormal experiences ive had now... i can actually tell the difference between them.
Im also lucky to have in my life people who can ground me both through the episodes of psychosis ive had and through paranormal experiences ive had. Its relieving to have people who can go "i think youre experiencing psychosis rn" AND "You're not crazy, i think that was real."
Def seek support if you can. In my case psychadelics vastly improved my psychosis but that is very obviously not the case with everyone. My psychosis was tied to severe stress and trauma.
Can you go into more detail about your “delusions” I was severely manic for a couple years in and out of psychosis and as traumatic as it was, I really enjoy reading other people’s experiences with it. As messed up as it all was, it’s also fun
It was quite the rollercoaster and at times thrilling.
Okay well, I just had this strong impression that I was being followed everywhere. My body ached in ways I couldn’t fathom, so I also thought I was being zapped with technology. I went to the hospital and thought they were trying to kill me even though I needed their help. I follow this therapist on TikTok, I ended up spiralling thinking that she was my cult leader and had sent people to kill me - hence I tried to kill myself first.
When I saw my family I thought they were imposters using their meat suits and again, were trying to kill me.
It was all ridiculously intense and dramatic. And I was entirely sober throughout.
I’m so very happy for you. Thank you for posting. Please consider telling your story in the gangstalking sub.
I feel that they would be far too aggravated with me. Those deeep in those trenches must go through the motions themselves
Beautifully written.
I had basically the same psychotic episode once after the same combo of substances + sleep deprivation. Ended up in a mandatory psychiatric hold for 5 days. And being there fed into my delusions of being “recruited” etc. Everything was a secret “test” that I had to prove I could decipher and perform the right actions.
I ended up being logical enough to pretend I was cured and was released, but I wasn’t. I still had the delusions but knew I had to pretend I didn’t.
After getting home, sleeping, eating normally for about a week i gradually faded back to reality and accepted that none of it was true.
The details of what I was thinking are very insane, but it showed me how easily anyone’s “reality” can be broken and people in that state can be convinced to do things.
This wasn’t some gov mind control program, I accidentally did it to myself. Imagine what gov programs were/are capable of with their resources.
This is what I mean! That’s fascinating. I had the exact same delusions for you. I could’ve written this. This IS what happened to me?!
I’m glad you made it out too. Take care
Psychosis is confirmation bias superglue on fire.
I agree, for the most part it’s just pure confirmation bias in tunnel vision.
But some things did legitimately happen that looking back it’s like - really?! Which made the whole thing even more intense.
I'm sure it was a wild ride. My personal theory on psychosis, elements of it at least, is that while normal, our antennas are tuned to a certain frequency band.
Moving from that into psychosis territory - we go beyond our designated band and then all sorts of odd stuff begins to happen. I'm sure people get a peek behind the curtain in some areas.
If you've ever had a huge dose of psychedelics, then you know the feeling of knowing and understanding the universe.
Also, you completely understand that knowledge has no use in daily life and would completely debilitate you if you carried on with that understanding into the next day.
Layers exists for a reason.
Yeah well said
Apparently the doctor at the ER I was in for psychosis (small town too) had heard my story many many times. Synchronicities, surveillance, security, elites, conspiracies, same as you.
It implies reality is being fed to us in a certain way or "frequency". We can change this frequency in many ways. And there is at least one frequency, that when tapped into, presents the psychosis reality of the synchronicities, surveillance, security, elites, conspiracies, etc.
Since, objectively, this world is controlled by elite bonded together through secret societies and a lot of conspiracy theories have been proven as fact, then there is some truth to this psychosis frequency.
So we could theorize this psychosis reality we experience could be caused by all the events happening in the world and the "background" data we consume everyday through media etc. Or it might imply we are in sort of a containment field (hinting at prison planet theory) with varying layers and levels of security (different frequencies) to keep us distracted and contained.
I personally believe everything in this realm is bullshit and the only meaningful thing is to escape when the opportunity presents itself (likely after natural death).
You know what, on some level within myself - I agree with you completely. I feel that it’s could be a perceptual change due to tuning into different frequencies. That’s how it felt. Or background consumption of all the information available to us in the world now like you suggested.
Though for well-being’s sake, there’s not much I can do with it in my day to day. So I just strive to be creatively fulfilled and not dwell on that
Yes, I think using your imagination and being creative is important to one's well-being.
Hey thanks for sharing your story, I had a similar one recently where I went hyper manic into psychosis. I was lucky that a good friend caught on and I got help before it went to a dark place, this happened over just a few days maybe 4 or 5 then hospitalised for two. At the time I didn't really realise it was happening but its crazy what your brain can make you believe is true.
Forreal! I’m glad you’re doing better. Keep that insight forever
Relatable. Ive been around the block with psychosis.
In 2019 i fell into an episode and took lions mane extract around the same time. Lost the ability to sleep for EIGHT days.
It was really, really bad. 0/10 do not recommend.
Man I’m so sorry. Sleep deprivation feels like your brain is on fire
It was pure Hell. Reality completely shattered for me and i marched through what seemed like some alternate dimension.
I ended up in the hospital, heard voices of what seemed like dead friends telling me to escape, so i literally escaped straight up One Flew Over the CucKoo's Nest style, wandered the streets at 3am for two hours in scrubs, a lot of really weird shit happened, and like 8 cops found me and cuffed me, threw me in the back of a squad car, and locked me in the isolation chamber they were holding me in at the hospital. They also didnt medicate me at the hospital so i was pretty much dying.
Some other crazy shit happened involving ufo's and super human strength lol, my dad witnessed it first hand.
Im glad its over. But meds for life now. Im grateful there are treatment options and encourage anyone with recurrent psychotic disorders to stick with meds, therapy, and do one's own due diligence and look into the illlness, including listening to other's who have had the illness for some time.
Anyway, im glad you're doing better now op. I hope you find solace and peace for the rest of your life.
Sorry you are not selling me on the meds thing, but glad they work for you.
Good luck to you.
Thanks for sharing your experiences , you are very brave to do so and I'm sure it will help others as intended . I'm pleased you are recovered and feeling strong enough to share this . Well done
Smoked weed all my life. Slowed down in my mid 20s. Did a weed edible at 30 and had crazy psychosis that lasted weeks. Was hospitalized. Medicated. Very similar experience to yours OP. Thought everyone around me was trying to kill me. That there was deep elaborate plots. Thought the rich at the hospital were paying to have kill rooms on patients. Thought all this crazy crazy stuff. Luckily nothing bad happened to me or anyone else. I came back to reality and I will never touch weed again. Not worth it, for me at least. This was a few years ago now and my cousin recently went through a similar experience also from weed. Everyone thinks weed is harmless but it can bring out and trigger these mental health episodes.
“Weed” ain’t weed anymore. It’s a whole new beast. Super potent and manipulated. The market is saturated with so much. It was safer when you just bought it off a dealer. Lay off the high test if anyone is gonna use it
I had psychosis not long ago, and it is the worst experience I've ever had. Glad you got out of it.
Though I haven't quite the exact experience you did I relate to this very much ♡ i'll share mine. My episode was pretty brief, and because of having a nearly life long interest since a kid in the "woo woo" and occult, conspiracy related subjects I had a particular flavour to my episode 🫤 I'm about to be 36 and this happened during the height of late-ish 2020 when all the Covid shit really took off here in Canada. Paranoia in the collective was high in general and I felt the weight of the energy pretty strongly. Already was feeling like an outlier a bit, for having different feelings about everything regarding the pandemic in general. I isolated heavily and felt really at odds with my small friend group/family at the time. It was already so much mentally on top of being really sick and trying to navigate it as it was fresh and the medical system was in shambles. I strongly feel my breakdown was caused by a combo of neuro inflammation and exasperated by heavy loneliness, not sleeping and extreme stress. No sleep is no joke, some people feel the repercussions more than others but its one of my biggest triggers for feeling unhinged. I was at one point on immunosuppressive medication and i think it was making my anxiety much worse. Wasn't caused by simply consuming "spooky" stories and conspiracy content BUT having consumed that kind of content while dealing with these issues did cause more anxiety in a sense. Being basically bed bound while sick I made the mistake of "doom scrolling" too much. I seemed to have some self-awareness while it was going on but my paranoia of being watched and targeted/punished was very strong. I even had an out of body experience while I was shaking on the floor from the fear and shock of what could be my reality exploding. Probably just extreme dissociation as a trauma response. Hard to describe. I thought I was being spiritually punished or tormented from outside of me. I thought everyone was out to get me and that i would be taken away somewhere. At one point i told my family I was staying in a hotel somewhere so they didnt think i was home. I was talking out loud all the time to a higher power to protect me and I'm not particularly religious. I'm glad you had support ♡ I stopped regularly smoking weed a few years ago after being a somewhat chronic since my teens, full on quit start of 2025. Feel like its too risky for my mental health now. I don't really ever drink as I don't like it but I now take my sleep hygiene very seriously!
Good read. I hope some day my friend will manage stop smoking weed so he does not end up in this situation. But it is taboo to talk about is whit him. Any tips?
Few people who smoke weed will fall into psychosis. But many people who experience psychosis have had it exacerbated or triggered by psychoactive drugs.
That's to say, it's probably only worth bringing up with your friend if you notice things like extreme paranoia, obsession with conspiracies, or other signs that their grip on reality is slipping. Weed smoking alone doesn't really warrant intervention.
It’s not from the cannabis. I am sure it didn’t help though. Misuse of cannabis usually just leads to sleeping and eating too much. I’ve had a few very unpleasant cannabis experiences that made me respect the plant and not misuse it.
It’s not from the cannabis. I am sure it didn’t help though. Misuse of cannabis usually just leads to sleeping and eating too much. I’ve had a few very unpleasant cannabis experiences that made me respect the plant and not misuse it.
You're wrong. Cannabis triggered psychosis is well documented. It's not about "misuse", it's about using it at all. Some people are more sensitive to it, some are less and you never know which one you are, so it's a gamble.
Have to disagree, and often-time there can be cannabis that’s been laced or cross contaminated with other substances.
weed has many therapeutic uses when used appropriately. A single pull is unlikely to cause a psychotic event.
What usually happens, and in my case, is that it’s misused. I.e. I was smoking to suppress old traumas and was smoking more than I was eating or sleeping at one point months before my psychosis.
Around my psychosis period, I hadn’t smoked in about 4 months.
🤷♂️😉
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I only smoked weeks 4-5 times in Amsterdam and I remember the first time I did it, it was quite strong and I became paranoid about people. At that time I didn’t even know this is a known effect of it.
Hope you are able to stay away from weed now, otherwise I think it will come back.
Mystery schools generally wouldn't allow people to start on the path if they were under 30, unmarried, and not "of prominence" which really just means that you had your shit together and also have had your shit pushed in by adversity (which you triumphed over, causing your prominence).
They did that so you would be grounded in your explorations - aware of the dangers and the values of limiting exposure and depth.
You crazy kids these days just suck on your DMT pens while staring at laser levelers while blasting binaural beats inbetween tiktok rage bait clips.
I had a psychosis episode from being intoxicated with a chocolate from a vape store, I totally miscalculated. I still rember I had the most real epiphany about things, I can totally comprehend you and visionaries like Juana de Arco, you get really conviced everything falls in place. I must say, that afterwards, I could see it was all dellusions my mind created to make me feel better, the mind is a fantastic realm.
IIt's really important for us to have spaces to discuss these experiences. It's psychosis and also real. It's liminal in every sense. I went thru this on 10/10 ultra-high throttle while also self-medicating in the extreme with a cocktail of the hardest drugs you can get your hands on. The most intense parts lasted a year. Hard to even begin to describe - but like everyone else, with endless labrynthine twists and turns of the mind and accompanying external reality experiences. It really shattered me and my Ego and I now know consensus "reality" isn't exactly real. It's really difficult to talk about and heal from.
We don't really have language to fully encapsulate it. I had been on an Awakening path prior and had experienced endless high-strangeness for years leading up to the big blast off. And many aspects have continued despite sobriety and some level of grounding and normalcy. It's a difficult thing. I think it can also be thought of as a shamanic descent and an experience within a Dark Night of the Soul.
I think we can accurately call it psychosis while also acknowledging (those of us that have been thru it) that it's objectively real also. This is a very real Phenomenon - gangstalking, angels, demons, aliens, spirit world, shamanic descent, psi, the simulation, the "Matrix" etc. But healing and grounding are more important than concepts, interpretations, explanations. But it is challenging. Like many others in this thread, we need to be able to process in a way that is healthy, grounded, open, and not dogmatic. Our Western materialist framework is woefully inadequate.
Very prominently, Carl Jung went thru this. There are many different ways to interpret it, although none of them are likely truly "accurate." I also think it is often potentially related to premature or not-well-incubated kundalini activation - something our culture is totally ill-equipped to hold, with these spontaneous or rapid Awakenings becoming far more common due to Consciousness-evolutionary pressures within our species. Thank you for your post and I really hope others take all of this to heart and know that you aren't alone and all of this is a process.
You know, reading your words felt like I was reading my own. We have a near identical syntax and phraseology, if you will, haha. But deeper than that, you beautifully worded some aspects of my experience I attempted to convey above. So thank you. I also reading you words feel like I’m listening to someone who could really offer me guidance. I hope we can connect
Thanks for the post. 50y(m)here. In my opinion, don’t leave yourself blame the outside factors of stress, alcohol etc. It is the weed that caused the psychosis. All the other factors contributed.
Been there in that wonderful and scary place 3 times in my life. Hospitalised twice for a few weeks. When I say wonderful I mean the heightened awareness of the senses and synchronicity of reality and absolute feeling that all of life’s questions had been answered. Scary stuff felt like I was living in the movie “The Omen”at times.
You sure you aren’t leaving meth use out of the narrative here?
Read my comment below in response to Matt.
You sound mad ignorant. But I understand it though, many people don’t like the idea that psychosis can be triggered for stress alone.
Trauma is the single biggest cause of psychosis whether it’s in the past and somehow dug up or hidden by drug use or an immediate event.
Have you not heard of postpartum psychosis? I know two mothers that had psychotic events after giving birth. No meth use on their part.
And even if I had used meth. Which I’ve never done. Why tf would I hide that?
Even though it would be the case, drug use is opening doors, like traumas, burnouts, sleep deprivation, overwhelming emotions, coma…
as a struggling drug addict I read the words “sleep deprivation” paired with “weed” and “psychosis” and how they were able to “thankfully” pull themselves out of their own psychosis and know they are leaving out the word “meth”
I’ve posted on this exact sub talking about a satellite that flashed ads into the sky when I was in a psychosis from not sleeping for five days a stretch because I had been smoking meth.
Sorry to tell you Matt, but you’re projecting your struggles here.
I’ve never smoked meth a day in my life.
mushrooms POST psychosis is the strongest substance I’ve consumed.
Read my post again, look at the level of transparency I have shared and willingness to support anyone going through a similar struggle. And ask yourself, if I had smoked meth, do you think I would hide that?
Context clues should tell you I’m bearing all right now.
I have a lot of empathy for addicts, I’m an addict in a different way to different vices. Wish you the best
Yeah this sounds a bit random, why meth in particular ?!
Ps. Look into life insurance policies. Think along the lines Mike Brown, Kenneka Jenkins, Travon Martin… after their deaths the family received what…..? I’ll wait… STAY STRONG TARGETS. They wouldn’t last thats why u are on this side and their on that side🤣😭💯🫶🏿⚡️⚡️⚡️👎🏿
I was waiting for you.
Someone with this sort of mentality to comment because it’s rampant amongst those with psychosis, post or present.
Listen, while I believe some dodgy vile and corrupt things happen and on a case by case basis you could possibly find cover ups of all sorts.
I just feel like the whole ‘targeted’ concept is an easy escape from reality. SO easy. The fundamental paranoia and deep rooted fear allows these individuals to pawn off everything and everyone as part of some organization.
But I guess you already expected that to be the counter argument?
For me, it was a rejection of people. An inability to hold myself up around others. And on some level a narcissistic belief about myself turned sour.
I had been a shit person at times so maybe I somehow thought on some level that I was SO deserving of cosmic punishment that the world had closed in on me. Which is so self centered.
Seek out your truth and FACE IT
This part where you say a rejection of people, that’s what’s going on with the person I love. He’s slowly disengaged. I’m very worried about his mental health and wellbeing. If there’s any advice you can give it would be appreciated.
Thanks for your post.
Also now my COUSIN goes in public and gets told 🤫. If he stays quiet they let up just a tad bit. They also say he folded and if he joins a certain group he will be forgiven and protected.
Yep my cousin went through the same. It’s actually called overt harassment. Carried out through cults and secret societies. The ppl that go along are boots on the ground who profit off others suffering. Going nowhere fast. Basically paid off flunkies. Most are perverts considering I found a iPhone that had connections to my android from who? U guessed it family. When I found this they tried to have me hospitalized. Thr doctor didnt deny my experience. They actually said “this is what happens when u speak out”. 😭😭😭 eat a dicc
What OP is saying is that those thought aren't real, nobody is tracking or stalking you.
Your 'cousin' isn't under overt harassment, thats part of the delusion.
I pray for you to whichever diety or higher force YOU believe in, that when curiosity strikes differently - which it will, and you are offered the chance to look at reality without this lens that you created that you will peacefully accept the opportunity to let go off fear.