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Dizzy, Paranoid Weed Freakouts

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r

23:45 / 13.02.04

I used to only get them once in a while. When it started, I would only get them in neon-lit places like supermarkets, malls, or schools. (I used to think it had to do with the high-frequency fliker of the fluorescents)
Now I get them almost every single time I smoke chronic. Dizzy spells, faintness, and an overwhelming terror (of nothing in particular,) that screams in my brain "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE AND GO OUTSIDE FOR A WALK AROUND THE BLOCK RIGHT FUCKING NOW OR SOME GHASTLY SHIT IS GONNA GO DOWN!!!!!!!"
I actually have fainted twice smoking bud, one time I went into what could only be described as a seisure on my buddy's kitchen floor. Tested negative for epilepsy, though the doctor noted after the EEG and MRI that I have very "disorganized brainwaves".
I'm 23, and have been smoking herbs almost every day for about eight years. This only started happening in the past two or three years.
I'm really puzzled by it, and it makes life really difficult, when you're used to being high 80% of the time. It's scary shit when you're in a supermarket or a bar or whatever and all of a sudden you are certain you're about to lose consciousness.
So my question is this: Does anybody else experience this at all, or know of any ways to get rid of it? Or any idea what causes it?
PS I'm not interested in hearing "try not smoking so much dope" because it's occurred to me already, and I'm none too stoked on the prospect of breaking up with Mary Jane...

23:55 / 13.02.04

did you switch strains at all in the last few years?

I can't remember the name now (but I'm sure someone can jump in), but I think it's the level of sativa that determines the whole paranoia bit... low sativa is a mellow high, high sativa the sometimes nasty opposite?

I had some high sativa stuff a couple of months ago, and walking home from my friends got VERY paranoid. I was sober enough that I realised the feeling so it wasn't that bad and actually sort of entertaining, although everything around me was very very sinister to half my brain...

00:18 / 14.02.04

I went through a phase of smoking an 1/8 to a 1/4 of an ounce most days for about two years and then i started going through the same thing, total paranoia and on a couple of occasions me and my best friend at the time would be walking somewhere and i'd start seeing stars. Positive i was about to faint i'd have to sit on the path for five mins until i felt i could walk again without fainting. Also i could hardly communicate with people at all once i was smashed, but i think it had a lot to do with the fact that i was getting into the occult and it wasn't mixing very well at all.

I stopped smoking so much and chose the hidden instead. Now i hardly smoke the stuff at all. Am not really sure that this is going to help but i thought i'd add it just incase.

r

00:23 / 14.02.04

It's likely that I've been switching strains every few months... I move around quite a bit, (in the past few years I've spent time in Toronto, London, [UK and Ontario] Costa Rica, Vancouver and Victoria.)
and when I AM in one place, my dealers tend to vary.
So to avoid Sativa, would that mean going for the brightest, fluffiest Indica I can lay my hands on? I've often found I get the most comfortable highs with the dirty, all-natural, dark green natural (weak) cess (which I've always assumed was Cannabis Sativa)?
I have never heard of a difference between the two as far as what we're talking about here, but I think if there is, maybe you have them mixed up?
I'm not trying to correct you, because I don't know--which is why I'm asking....
??

r

00:41 / 14.02.04

JACK:
"but i think it had a lot to do with the fact that i was getting into the occult and it wasn't mixing very well at all."

Funny you should mention that. My intro to the occult was through the back door, (science) with Michael Talbot's "Holographic Universe" (which I later found out has been a huge influence on GP Orridge's work).
It illustrated for me clearly at an early age, the way in which matter, information, energy, thought, etc are all the exact same thing.
In light of this (and also a section in P. Russell's Brain Book which compares the brain to a transistor) I was recently sitting in class in one of my paranoid freakouts and it occurred to me that perhaps the combination of weed with all the much more overt occult reading I've been doing lately, was doing something to blow my receivers, making them more open to negative energies or whatever.
For sure, since I have been immersing myself in the occult a little more, I've been interested in weed a little less, albeit not a lot less.

PS in regards to my "read something other than the invisibles" comment on your "Channeling Jack Frost" thread... I didn't mean for it to sound condescending, but I realized it might have right afterward. What I meant was try learning about the same stuff from different sources. It seems to me there's a bit of disinformation about the occult in the Invisibles. Hogwash mixed in with the real shit just to throw off those who would rely entirely on a comic for an occult education.

I don't know if you're familiar with Orridge's "Esoterrorist" but the full text is available here...
http://www.geocities/soho/lofts/4414/esoter.html

I gotta stop typing now, I'm freakin' out (jk)

r

00:42 / 14.02.04

oops

01:30 / 14.02.04

That sounds more or less exactly what happened to me. Don't worry about it it's just a phase i think and it'll pass. Doesn't mean you have to abandon the weed or anything.

I got my own problems sorted out in the magic forum aswell and have worked that problem out now, i didn't take any offence from your post anyway so no probs.

r

01:43 / 14.02.04

dunno, man... i'm pretty sure it's physiological and getting worse...but at the same time i often think it's all in my head 'cause it happens MUCH more often in public than when i'm home.... I'm @ a loss really... thinkimg bout cutting back, but dn't wanna...

(is it apparent from th way this reads that I'm typing w/one hand and crumbling herbs with the other?)

01:44 / 14.02.04

Sorry, i forgot to say thanks for the link but i tried it and it failed lol, i've got a link that's got loads of his stuff connected to The Temple ov Psychic Youth though and am going to read up on it. I read an interview from a Disinfo book with him in it, the same book that i first found out about Grant Morrison and The Invisibles in, and he seems to know a load about magic and have some cool views on it. Reminds me i should have another look through that book anyway.

r

01:46 / 14.02.04

HAHA I found out about the invisibles from the same book... yeah, that link was fucked... I forgot the .com after geocities... cut&paste the url into your browser and add the dot com after the word geocities and it should be good to go

01:50 / 14.02.04

(is it apparent from th way this reads that I'm typing w/one hand and crumbling herbs with the other?)

Haha!

With your problem, if your thinking that it's all in your head and it's getting worse, it sounds like you could be thinking too much. Try meditating or something, maybe that would help.

If i ever freak out on weed now i just stop thinking about it. If that doesn't work i just have a beer or two to ground me and it sorts me out.

01:55 / 14.02.04

Woah thats frikkin freaky! I didn't see your post until i'd just posted my own, we both started with Haha, wierd!

r

01:57 / 14.02.04

You're right. Beer ALWAYS works... but I'm hesitant to follow a pattern that will add "alcoholic" to "pothead"

r

02:02 / 14.02.04

woah...

02:05 / 14.02.04

Yeah i often think about that myself, i see what you mean. Meditating helped me because i stopped thinking about stuff so much. Thanks for the link aswell i put the .com in and it's working now.

04:37 / 14.02.04

When you say chronic, do you mean skunk ? Because if so, a lot of that these days is way too strong, to the point where even leaving the house is a major challenge. And isn't at least some of it genetically modified ? And grown in government labs, to silence the voice of the yout' an' shit ? Whatever, it's not you, it's the drugs. I can totally relate to being reluctant to cut down, but if you are on skunk, you might want to think about switching to ordinary grass, ( like switching from Special Brew to ordinary lager - you won't get wasted quite so quickly, but you'll be able to finish your sentences, mostly,) or if it's ordinary grass that's causing the problem, you might wanna try hash ? There's some good stuff out there, you just have to look.
Anyway, whatever you do, don't lay off. I did that a while ago, and all that happens is you lose you're tolerance, and then look like a fool when you're inevitably back with your dope buddies later, but you can't really handle the pace anymore.

04:40 / 14.02.04

onem1nd the same thing happened to me 2 years ago..... i always figured it was a febrile seizure. Funny thing was i became severely ill for 4 months after that night and no doctor could ever figure out what was wrong. Needless to say i became intensely introduced to my mortality and it put me off of smoking for a long while. Although i don't know for sure what happened i do know i didnt treat myself very good back then. So i changed my life. I started excersising everyday, i rarely smoke anymore, i began getting more sleep taking supplements, and eating a lot better. I have not had any problems since then and i feel better about myself in general. I still have mild anxiety occasionally but it is rare and extremely manageable. I hope my experiences help, you are in my thoughts

11:09 / 14.02.04

Oddly enough, the same things have been happening to me recently, even though my weed comsumption is extremely low level most of the time..

I've been getting the most appalling nausea and world-spinning-round syndrome after only a few puffs, when by rights I shouldn't be feeling anything much at all yet.. rather embarrassing when in company, as you can imagine. It's dead annoying.

And even worse, last week I was just sitting at home reading, listening to music one evening.. decided to smoke a quick joint - and it completely knocked me out..! It was just like *sleepy time*, and I woke up four hours later lying on my bed fully clothed. One joint! I mean, that's the equivalent of going nuts and throwing up after one bottle of beer.. what's going on here??

11:55 / 14.02.04

Now I get them almost every single time I smoke chronic. Dizzy spells, faintness, and an overwhelming terror (of nothing in particular,) that screams in my brain

and

I went through a phase of smoking an 1/8 to a 1/4 of an ounce most days for about two years and then i started going through the same thing, total paranoia

and

onem1nd the same thing happened to me 2 years ago.....

and

Oddly enough, the same things have been happening to me recently, even though my weed comsumption is extremely low level most of the time..

So the best paranoid reasons for this you can all come up with is switching strains and febrile seizure? Nonsense. I think you'll find that I've been the cause of all of this. Over the last few years I've conspired to ensure that all of your supplies have been cut with my liquid nano-ganja.

You've all been unwittingly smoking my hypno-drug for most of your adult lives, that paranoia you keep getting is one of the telltale signs that my science people were unable to iron out before the stuff was scheduled to hit the streets. Soon enough, the software will be fully installed in your heads and then it'll be too late for you to do anything about it. I'll have myself a small army of collie-crazed zombi assassins ready to spend the rest of their lives executing whatever mad schemes happen to cross my mind.

So yeah, you've all been a bit fucked over if you don't mind me saying. Quite funny though. Maybe after a couple of decades I might take pity and de-commission you in a special televised "I'm a Manchurian Candidate, get me out of here" TV event, broadcast live from Marden Quarry, Cullercoats.

12:28 / 14.02.04

Heh, glad to see that's been Barbiequoted almost immediately. Me, i never had faintings but i quit regular smoking when i heard voices in my head. Very loud ones. While answering a 999 call, arrrggh! Trying to sort someone out with an ambulance with one's parents yelling in one's ears even though they were miles away proved quite a challenge, though I'm relieved to say I managed it. (Reassuring, innit, to think that next time you call 999 or 911, the operator could be hallucinating?

I would like to clarify here: I had not smoked that day. The effect was from smoking the previous evening. I'd never have smoked at or before work.) Anyway, bottom line: that stuff is just too damn strong, like Alex says. Like any psychedelic (skunk is a psychedelic), one simply shouldn't do it all the time. The way the UK Gvt is loosening the dope laws as the stuff is getting stronger is probably more a product of expediency or ignorance rather than conspiracy, but it's certainly stoopid. I honestly wonder whether a lot of depression and anxiety is related to chronic weed-smoking, not to mention more serious mental illness. IMHO onorthocrasi seems to have the right idea. Sorry to be such a 'just say no' guy onem1nd, and sound like your Dad, but that's my ten cents worth. Good luck with it, and take care o' yerself.

Tryphena Absent

12:41 / 14.02.04

Onem1nd no offence but you're being a complete idiot about this. If you can't handle the results of taking a drug than you fucking stop taking it. These are the results of you taking this drug. You freak, you pass out, you're generally screwed over by it. So live with it and make a decision. This isn't going to go away, if it's been going on this long it's never going. Cutting down will only increase the effects. So you can stop taking it or become a blathering sealbaby every time you smoke.

13:04 / 14.02.04

You've all been unwittingly smoking my hypno-drug for most of your adult lives, that paranoia you keep getting is one of the telltale signs that my science people were unable to iron out before the stuff was scheduled to hit the streets. Soon enough, the software will be fully installed in your heads and then it'll be too late for you to do anything about it. I'll have myself a small army of collie-crazed zombi assassins ready to spend the rest of their lives executing whatever mad schemes happen to cross my mind.

Shit. I thought something dark was goin on.

Can you install GTA Vice City with my software please?

whothehell@where?

13:11 / 14.02.04

i'm a physician, and i see these symptoms frequently, especially among regular marijuana users. i'll tell you what i tell my patients: drink 12 - 18 beers a day. and never smoke weed unless you've consumed at least 2 pints of beer. unless it's the wake and bake

and quit whining

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

14:30 / 14.02.04

Hello..??? Re...Re...Reality?

Is that you?

No, but is that..really you?

You seem so far away, it's like...I can hardly even see you over there..

Help me reality, I'm suffering peculiar consequences of my decision to change my central nervous system with complex psychoactive chemicals...

...

Jessie Bob Holy Christ in a fucking cess pit, is this thread for real?

Potheads fucking crack me up, just prior to being really terminally boring. Statements like "I smoke[d] an 1/8-1/4 a day" (not judging, dude, I've been there) just would never wash with any other drug on earth, not even coffee or sugar for crying out loud.

"Woah!", people would say, "Isn't this my twenty-fifth double espresso today?"

"Perhaps, and I know I'm really stretching the metaphors to breaking point here, but just maybe that might have something to do with the pounding sensation behind my eyes and the curiously erratic arhythmia of my usually steady as a clock heartbeat...hmmm...whadya think, doc??"

onem1nd, get a firmer grip or let go of the balloon, before you become m4nym1nds...It's no fun when it gets crowded in there you know, and the stragglers can take an awful lot of persuading to leave.

whothehell@where?

14:58 / 14.02.04

that guy needs a bowl hit stat!

16:03 / 14.02.04

Potheads fucking crack me up, just prior to being really terminally boring. Statements like "I smoke[d] an 1/8-1/4 a day" (not judging, dude, I've been there) just would never wash with any other drug on earth, not even coffee or sugar for crying out loud.

Yeah, i know. I was just trying to relate to his problem, i think i can see where he's coming from but i still haven't smoked anywhere near much as him judging by the length of time he said he's been smoking it for.

It's a fucking pearl for blasting consensus reality in the left brain though, i still have fond memories............

16:40 / 14.02.04

You know what I hate?

When people corelate smoking weed/taking acid/etc.. with having an odd imagination. I fucking hate it when people come out with that sort of shit. It's usually, though by no means exclusively, reeled out by people who've never actually taken these drugs and have this bizarre misconception about what those experiences actually involve.

People will look at something like this:

And immediatly say "what drugs were you on when you drew that". Drives me fucking nuts. When I smoke weed I tend to just become fairly dull, and just sit about listening to music and eating bad food. I quite like a smoke every now and again, but the state of mind I get from that experience is worlds away from the place I go to when I'm doing creative stuff. I come up with weird drawings and stories by using my fucking imagination - maybe you've heard of it? Am I the only person who thinks this drugs=imagination thing is a bit of a myth?

19:50 / 14.02.04

What is skunk exactly? I've never heard of it outside the UK...

r

22:22 / 14.02.04

Brits just call anything that's bright green skunk. In reality, skunk is a rare + expensive strain that actually smells a whole lot like a skunk. I never encountered any in the time I was there although my "flatmates" kept insisting we were smoking skunk, and I thought they were fucking retards.

In response to all the people who have completely missed the point of this thread, (and who obviously can't relate though they claim to) weed is too much a part of my life. My parents introduced me to it when I was fourteen. My dilemma really lies in the choice between paranoia etc when I do smoke, and irritability and depression when I don't.

This thread was started in the hopes of someone who has been through the same shit just saying: "oh, simple, do this..."

I was fully expecting a lot of judgemental kooks to get on my case, but it's not what I was hoping for.

"Boo hoo, I have a big jagged stick up my ass, I better get on Barbelith and try to make someone else feel really bad about himself"

00:56 / 15.02.04

i'm sure you will take me the wrong way, hence my staying clear of this topic so far, but i have to weigh in a little here...

weed is too much a part of my life

i know what you meant, but that 'too' is telling you something.

i also smoked a power of weed for a long time(relating, yah?), and the only reason i was able to snap the feck out of it was because i was abroad and was not willing to risk deportation.(that, and i was with a nine year old relative much of the time.) i still smoked, but i cut the hell back.

the truth of the matter is, the skunk these days is of a fucking INSANE strength, and people are tweaking strains all the time to get it stronger and more fucked up. as was said before, such powerful psychadelics are not a good daily bread(unless you really want sectioned).

try smoking without any tobacco for a while, and see if you get the depression and the crankiness.(hell, you might already do this.. most folks dont smoke it pure over here though)
a lot of the time for people who smoke dope, this is the only time they smoke tobacco, and are unused to the pangs of nicotine withdrawal. i can imagine that connection being missed and the weed withdrawal being blamed for the headaches and irritability.

seriously, though...
people are not trying to make you feel bad, they are just pointing out what appears to be obvious yet missed; the drug is causing the problems, and its removal ends them. if you see that as an attack, or as a moral high horse being mounted, maybe you should wonder a little about why.

you wanted us to say "oh simple just do this..."

well,then.
oh, its simple. cut the cause of your panic attakcs out of your life, and they will stop. if you are unwilling to quit, examine thoroughly for yourself why not, and be hard on your excuses. there are a million reasons to continue with a chronic drug dependency(sorry, that sounds harsh i know), and they are almost all bullshit.

"looks like i picked the wrong week to stop smoking/drinking/sniffing glue/taking amphetamines..."

over to you, bro.

01:42 / 15.02.04

I try not to get into these threads, because I *AM* a judgmental kook. but I think you have to accept that when you ask for advice or input in a thread, it's not uncommon that you will get viewpoints that do not agree or perhaps even sympathize with your POV.

I, for example, judgmental kook that I am, feel that if something is interrupting your life to the point where you're worried about "ghastly shit" happening, it's time to stop. reassess your priorities (pot vs your long term well being), and if nothing else, see a doctor immediately. if you were talking about your relationship or job or gambling or something else making you feel this way, we'd all be telling you to dump that shit quick. but it seems that you're saying that people are uptight assholes for telling you the same thing about your drug of choice?

I also have to say this: of course you'll be depressed when you stop using - for fucking christ, you've made it into a daily life ritual! give it a chance, and like any bad relationship, you'll get over it

13:53 / 15.02.04

My dilemma really lies in the choice between paranoia etc when I do smoke, and irritability and depression when I don't.

There are other things that can help with irritability and depression, y'know. You seem oddly unwilling to try alcohol, even though I know many a doctor (like the guy above) who say you'd be better off with it. If you insist on not switching to beer, there are these things called anti-depressants, remember? There's also lifestyle changes. There's even therapy; the cognitive and behavioural kind is recommended by many people here though I've not done it myself. Oh and so fucking what if your parents introduced it to you at 14?! Duuuude, I bet they didn't tell you to smoke it every day and if they did, some might say they're a pair of total and utter shitwits.

I understand however that it's your call. If it's too much a part of your life, we'll, so be it. I'm just saying that I was just like you, many of us were, and in a way I still am. I understand about depression and irritability, just look at my history of foul-mouthed, quasi-lunatic posts on this board if you want proof of that. I just think there are more paths than the one with Mary Jane growing along it, and they may take you further, s'all.

17:35 / 15.02.04

I have found that having an inquisitive, analytical approach to your paranoia, if you're cold-minded enough, can help. Baz Auckland just mentioned he has this more sober approach. In "Infinite Jest" there's a line about Hal Incandenza trying to concentrate on his toothach without judging it as "bad" or "good". I know it sounds loopy, but it makes sense.

Try to get something out of it. Weed paranoia is a system triggered, it comes out fully worked in its intent to chew your mind - and this system can be analyzed. The real difficulty comes because weed changes you phisically, your acts, your speech pattern, so if you1re out it's normal to feel exposed, a feeling that weed can easily extrapolated into "they're coming to get me" type of thing.

Before everything else, RELAX, TAKE DEEP BREATHS.

a)Start with the ever-helping mantra "it's just the drugs". This alone can prove to be of immediate, if not complete, relief;

b)Start working to defuse the bomb. "why am i worried about this and that? what's in the bottom of this" and so on. You'll notice that this exercize is in itself helpful because it takes your mind out of the paranoia loop; I'm the type of smoker whose mind starts hoping associatively from branch to branch in the thought-tree without need of much incentive, so it's always good exercize.

c)Intently distract your mind. This is the "Look! A Bunnyrabbit!" Technique. Colored patterns, bright lights, beautiful music. If you have a walkman, load it with your favorite tunes when going out and fire it up when you feel Lady P. coming in.

Also... for real, when sober, maybe you should give more thought to the role of weed in your life as in, "why is it there for?". Interesting answers might crop up, which can give you better tools to deal better with it (whether by cutting down on it, smoking only in certain types of environments, or even giving up on it entirely)

Hope it helps you

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11:05 / 16.02.04

This is great. I love this.

So my question is this: Does anybody else experience this at all, or know of any ways to get rid of it? Or any idea what causes it?
PS I'm not interested in hearing "try not smoking so much dope" because it's occurred to me already, and I'm none too stoked on the prospect of breaking up with Mary Jane...

So my question is this: What is it actually like, phenomenologically and experientially, to be such a deliberately blinkered, self-deluded child?

Brits just call anything that's bright green skunk. In reality, skunk is a rare + expensive strain that actually smells a whole lot like a skunk

What spectacular and sweeping bollocks. Do you have some sort of doctorate qualification in assholery?

In response to all the people who have completely missed the point of this thread, (and who obviously can't relate though they claim to) weed is too much a part of my life. My parents introduced me to it when I was fourteen.

Ah, blame the parents. They are the assholes responsible for your problems, you're just an innocent bystander caught in their twisted maelstrom of missed opportunity, and they are clearly living out their failed aspirations through poor little you. They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

Are you sure The government aren't somehow responsible as well? How about The patriarchy?. Or the Catholics? Shit, if you roll up a fatty and really think about it, The International Zionist Conspiracy and The Bavarian Illumaniti have probably been tweaking your dials since you were born as well. So many neg-heads!! Man, what's with that?

If only other people understood. Being unique can be so hard. I fonly more people smoked weed and had experienced what you are experiencing, perhaps you could get some advice worth listening to from someone you could rlate to. *sigh*

This thread was started in the hopes of someone who has been through the same shit just saying: "oh, simple, do this..."

Hmmmm. Are we reading the same thread?

20:04 / 16.02.04

it's funny, i just had this discussion with an old friend of mine. we spent our late teen to early twenties doing copious amounts of drugs with one another. i started having panic attacks after smoking about 5 years ago. it was triggered, i believe, by a bad acid experience. to get rid of these attacks i did what most of the other posters have suggested and stopped smoking. it worked. i may smoke three of four times in a year at this point.

my friend on the other hand just took a break. it was kind of strange sitting there with him, catching up with one another, without partaking in what was once an everyday ritual.

either way you may want to take a break. your body may be trying to tell you something. you could also try taking acid a few times a day. the panic attacks you would get on acid would make the thc panic seem rather mellow.

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