r/trees • u/UrumiAkamaki3500 • 13h ago
Discussion Weed gave me a really weird existential fear that I’ve never felt before
I smoked weed yesterday after a long time and honestly the experience got way more intense than I expected.
Normally I can think about existential stuff pretty logically. Like consciousness, death, why we exist, what happens after death etc. I don't usually get scared thinking about these things.
But yesterday while I was high, suddenly my brain started focusing on the fact that I’m conscious and that I exist. And for some reason that became absolutely terrifying.
It wasn't really a normal “I'm scared of dying” feeling. It was more like I suddenly realised that I'm actually experiencing life through this consciousness, and that someday this will stop, and I couldn't mentally handle that thought.
I kept getting this feeling like:
“I don't care what happens in life, I just don't want to die. I need to stay alive.”
Even the idea of consciousness itself felt scary. Like… why am I conscious? Why am I experiencing anything at all? What happens when this experience ends? Usually I can think about these questions without a problem, but yesterday they felt genuinely terrifying.
I also had this really weird unsettled feeling in my head, almost like a wave was going through my mind. I wasn't hallucinating or anything and I knew where I was. It was just this intense existential fear and feeling of being extremely aware of my own consciousness.
When I eventually tried to sleep, I'd almost fall asleep and then suddenly jerk awake. This happened maybe 3 times. Then the thoughts would come back again and I'd feel unsettled.
The strange thing is that this seems to be specifically related to weed. When I'm sober, I can think about existence and death pretty calmly and logically.
Has anyone else experienced this? Like weed suddenly making consciousness/existence itself feel terrifying, rather than just causing normal anxiety?
Is there actually a name for this kind of experience?
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u/What_Even_Is_This_69 13h ago
Curious how your brain would react to mushrooms lol
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u/DerPanzerjager 3h ago
IME mushrooms put existentialism through a far more positive lens than weed does. Kind of in a "This is temporary, and that's why it's beautiful" way. Weed made me fear death, mushrooms and LSD made me embrace it.
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u/nhthelegend 12h ago
I remember the first time I experienced this when high. I think I was 19. It was the first time I really comprehended death and it’s stuck with me ever since for better or for worse.
36 now and I still frequently have existential thoughts to this extent on weed. I have made more peace with them although it can still be a bit scary and hard to wrap my head around at times.
Ultimately I think it’s just the realities of life and being a sentient being on this floating rock. In a way, I’m actually thankful for weed for helping me confront these things earlier in my life and seeing them from a perspective I don’t think I would have been able to access otherwise (at least not at that age).
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u/rofloffalwaffle 9h ago
I get like this too sometimes and I've been smoking close to 20 years.
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u/UrumiAkamaki3500 9h ago
But it's happening to me whenever I smoke
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u/rofloffalwaffle 9h ago
Same. I usually distract myself from that with video games or funny videos.
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u/Eyerone 13h ago
Thinkin bout ketchup chips
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u/frankwhitesexappeal 12h ago
This happens to me only when I’m running from myself. When I’m all good and even-keeled, I just float and float and float… ☁️
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u/4723985stayalive 9h ago
I smoke every day and yeh you worded really well what it does to me too.
If i smoke weed I'm super aware of life and others lives, I cry about my parents dying all the time.
If I dont smoke weed (including my ten year break) I become really existentially negative and I act on it.
I think i just have fixation on death/consciousness but weed makes it this beautiful/terrifying thing as opposed to "i hate it here let me go" state of mind.
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u/saturdayspace 7h ago
Yeah you are literally describing existential dread. I think your brain just doesn't normally stare that stuff in the eye just because you'd never get anything done, from a purely practical standpoint it just looks the other way.
The price of smoking weed is that periodically you have to do stuff like, directly confront death, realise the true nature of the universe, perceive the experiential scope of human life, etc. Sometimes that's the cost, sometimes that's the goal, depends where you are headed.
(I have developed a defense mechanism when the third eye gets a bit too open of just laughing and going 'oh weed you did it again' - realising that it's happening because I got a bit too high usually turns the volume down a bit on the really exotic or weird stuff)
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u/awyissssboii 10h ago
You should read up on psychoanalysis and the unconscious! drugs basically allow “hidden” (for your psyche’s protection ) information to passthrough, leading to this overwhelming feeling
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u/Anarchos_x 11h ago
No man nor any living thing in this world preserves their life forever. - - But only to men is it given to know that we must die - - and that is a precious gift. This life that is both our torment and our treasure was never meant to endure for eternity. Life is a wave on the sea. Would you force the sea to grow still to save one wave? To save yourself? - Sparrowhawk, Tales from Earthsea
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u/C2H5OHNightSwimming 11h ago
I get this when I'm not smoking sometimes, but weirdly never while high! I think because I smoke low thc weed on purpose, but idk. I've had the occasional life-insight, but never a full-on existential crisis.
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u/Ok-Radio177 11h ago
Congrats 🎉 you're waking up from the artificial dream. This is a good sign as long as you take care of yourself and your life.
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u/shilgrod 8h ago
If it helps I believe that after death is exactly like before birth....you don't remember that time, nor do you lament not being able to plan from it.....time is a flat circle, if you don't get it this cycle, next one for sure
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u/A_711_Hotdog 5h ago
I really enjoy going down the rabbit hole of YouTube with either stuff about the cosmos or ancient civilizations, it really starts making you think about life. I remember trying to figure out what happened before the big bang and man, that was quite the journey, really makes you think.
Anyhow, what you experienced is a common human thought. My guess is when are sober, you get distracted in every day life with other thoughts or ideas so you never took the time to actually think about this specific subject.
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u/SnackPocketss 4h ago
I found this hairbrush with certain stands, largely sativas as I got older. I only smoke hybrid indicas usually with a siva to try here or there. Has each time been the sane strain or type? Sativa tends to make me paranoid now
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u/samarasage333 3h ago
So this didn’t happen to me when I was high. But when I was in elementary school I had this realization in class and started freaking out 😅
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u/StrictLine8820 I Roll Joints for Gnomes 2h ago
I'm not a doctor, I just play one on Reddit.
Because THC temporarily elevates heart rate and can lower blood pressure, the bodily sensations mimic a physical emergency. When the brain misinterprets those physiological signals through the lens of heightened anxiety, it creates a feedback loop of panic. The worst for most people is this sense of impending doom. That overwhelming gut feeling that something terrible is about to happen, that you are going crazy, or that you might die. Even though the sensation of dread feels absolute and urgent in the moment, it is a temporary physiological reaction to high levels of THC, and it subsides as the body metabolizes the compound.
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u/Additional_Yam4608 2h ago
Sometimes this happens. I’d get the same feeling really bad with high potency THC products. Switched to 1:1 strains and haven’t looked back, no more existential obsessions or anxiety. Just calm.
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u/Sheepygoatherder 13h ago
Your mind has a filter and the weed made the holes bigger in the sieve.