I think as sitters, facilitators..maybe some of you are actual therapists etc, the best thing we can do is nothing.

Unless a person is actually violent, or hurting themselves physically, just do nothing. No one can really say what process is good or bad for another when simply observed from the outside. In the end, none of us know, period.

Find the least intrusive way to minimize actual harm being done physically, aside from that, let it happen. You don't know, I don't know, but perhaps they do.

I agree with that.

The sitter should keep the atmosphere smooth and accepting to keep the experience flowing. The mysterium regulates itself. Like in a rollersoaster, it can go up and down and up again, important is that the trip "fades out" in a balanced and trusty feeling and not in a peak of fear and weirdness because the sitter fears her/himself and pulls the tripping person out of the rollercoaster car.

Things that support me as a sitter and tripper:
+Breathing: the ultimate mechanism, it is the elementary regulation system, breath is like god, flow of energy
+Chanting/Oming: it regulates the breath and brings vibrations and other sensations, f.e.sound and a change of the atmosphere, to the experience
+Bodycontact: ask before, f.e. gently touch the tripping person on the shoulder, back, hands, feet, head,.. and stay in contact
+Offering sip of fruitjuice: Liquid and sugar act grounding and reenergizing
+An open and accepting attitude, trust in yourself, in your own power, the other person and the mysterium that everything is just perfect as it is.

tseuq

I read you and agree with some exceptions in mind:

* if the freaking out person(s) is dragging so much attention that people on a distance (neighbors?) start getting alarmed and come to interfere or making calls to unwanted "services";

* if it involves multiple participants it is not nice for a one person to overcast the experience of the others.

I've been in groups where just a moderate amount of personal-freak is allowed for this reason after which the sitter(s) come in and point to the possibility to exit the looping behavior which it often is, even up to ego based.

If it's healing, okay, but it's not always like that, especially in groups I've seen clear attention dragging with possibly the person not realizing him/her self.
It often starts as a healing expression but can become a looping trap, then I see valuable reason for sitter to calm down, beak the loop.

what steps would you take for a known bad tripper.

I dislike doing this kind of thing in groups, or in places where a person cannot scream. It's hard to find that venue, and I am not into shamanism, as people I have met seem to take a lot of unnecessary baggage away from those experiences at times and a dynamic of hierarchy is set up. No one knows, there is no shaman.

Therapist Andrew Feldmar has even cautioned against trying to control aspects like the type of music that will played during various stages of the experience.

We could probly all gain a little in learning to just play with chaos.

What ever that "chaos" is. OM

tseuq

Good thread. In my experience, I tend to agree with jamie: less is more.

My goal when sitting for others is to provide enough information to reduce preflight anxiety and specifically invoke a safe space. I talk about why I do things the way I do to remove unnecessary opaque mysticism while retaining a sacred vibe. We usually have tea and discuss past psychedelic experiences and the reasons for thier interest in DMT.

I state that I will not touch them during their journey for any reason other than to facillitate their taking of the substance or to prevent them from injury. This mostly has never been an issue beyond an errant lighter or candle interaction, but I've had a few more ambulatory psychonauts that I've kept an eye on as they tumbled about. Pillows are great.

I do play music without intelligable lyrics, but have left things silent upon request more than once. As a rule, I do not engage the person in conversation until they have found their words. At that point I usually offer water and we have a conversation.

In one of my older posts, I wrote about a friend who had only negative (actually self-harming) past experiences with indole alkaloids. Knowing that was helpful and we managed to completely avoid any troublesome behavior. I've also had experience sitting for one person with rather major bipolar disorder and more than a few people in the midst of personal crises and major depressive episodes. In such cases, I find a lot of communication and preparation (breathing, relaxation, etc.) to be especially helpful. All have been 100% positive, healing experiences. I do not take credit for these experiences, because it is their own bravery and willingness to be open that facillitates positive outcomes.

I recently had my 7th n 8th trips where the trip was fine, but my sitters said I screamed at the top of my lungs during the trip. My first reaction was that was all the screams I’ve never screamed after the first time. That sitter refused to sit again. Fair enough. Took me 6 months for another sitter to be willing to work with me because I felt this was a release I had needed, and this time the sitter said I screamed 7 or 8 times and threw up. I had no unpleasantness inside my trip other than towards the end I felt yes this is wonderful and beautiful but I’m really exhausted and was almost asking to leave out of pure exhaustion. When I came back into myself and the room my sitter told me what happened, helped me remove my shirt, but it took me two hours to summon the energy to go shower, and it felt as tho I cleared any hesitation about speaking my truth. As if all the times I wanted to scream when someone was unburdening themselves by sharing some horrible secret was released, and I knew I would never stay silent or be unsure of what needed saying again. Seemed to clear out a throat chakra possibly? I can’t find any stories from the screamers point of view but know of one other woman who had no negative feelings about her trip but on the outside she seemed terrified. Am looking for similar experiences but not finding any. It’s like all my fear n doubt has been shed, only five days ago, but seems like 20 years of therapy worth in progress.

Hi Meleesha, welcome to the forum.

Oral and vocal sounds of many kinds are very common to many psychedelics. I have sat and guided for individuals who have hummed, sang, moaned, screamed (nothing terribly loud though), chanted, rolled their tongues, etc. It can be an energetic release of sorts helping reset the mind and body and regulating overall energetic structure. It sounds like doing so was very therapeutic for you.

In the future, I'd say to give your guide fair warning that this may occur when sitting or guiding for you.

One love

I had a friend freak out and start getting a little violent once. I wrote about it in the experiences thread a few months ago. All was good in the end... and we both learned some important lessons that night.
But honestly I have no damn clue how to calm someone down when they're in the heat of it... all I could do was be firm, but gentle, in telling my friend to calm down. No way you can physically restrain someone who's gone ape s*** unless you're a hulk yourself.

I agree with some above who say less is more. I wouldn't say or do much of anything until their behaviour is causing you (the sitter) serious problems.

Personally I don't know if I will be offering people large doses of anything anymore. Too stressful to do that for anyone, even a very close friend.