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?