Existing studies report that possible adverse reactions include anxiety, panic, depersonalization, ego dissolution, paranoia, as well as physiological symptoms such as dizziness and heart palpitations.
[4] In most cases in which anxiety arises during a supervised psychedelic experience, reassurance from the session monitor is adequate to resolve it; however, if distress becomes intense it can be treated pharmacologically, for example with the benzodiazepine diazepam.
[3] The psychiatrist Stanislav Grof wrote that unpleasant psychedelic experiences are not necessarily unhealthy or undesirable, arguing that they may have the potential for psychological healing and lead to breakthrough and resolution of unresolved psychic issues.
[2][page needed] Drawing on narrative theory, the authors of a 2021 study of 50 users of psychedelics found that many described bad trips as having been sources of insight or even turning points in life.
[6] They manifest as a range of feelings, such as anxiety, paranoia, the unshakeable sense of one's inevitable and imminent personal demise or states of unrelieved terror that they believe will persist after the substance's effects have worn off.
From this perspective, Grof suggests that interrupting a bad trip, while initially seen as beneficial, could potentially trap the tripper in unresolved psychological states.