A lot of people worry about having a "bad trips" going into a psychedelic experience, but in my opinion, "bad trips" are the best trips. They force you to spend a lot of time self-analyzing and breaking down yourself and your problems. Some of the best decisions of my life have come out of "bad trips". People who just dip their toes and avoid the stressful experience in favor of some pretty colors are missing out.

Yes, I was really wondering about this. I read Hell and Back by Kira Salak (apparently a National Geographic classic) and became quite nervous about the loss of control. However, what surprised me in the narrative was that Salak was determined to "go back" after a "bad trip" and wanted to revisit what she was experiencing. She wasn't necessarily scared of it, just a little embarrassed around strangers.

What have you learned from your "bad trips"?

Here is an excerpt from the Nixon review re: "bad trips":

Unlike with LSD, there are said to be no ʻbad tripsʼ with Ayahuasca. Shanon admits he interviewed no one who drank the turbid brew but once, which would surely be the result if anyone ʻfreaked outʼ or was just turned off by the whole experience. The nausea, gastritis, and vomiting, emphasized in other first person accounts, may be enough to cause one to avoid the substance next time, but actual ʻmind-blowingʼ has not been reported, to my knowledge. Shanon makes it clear that when faced with a personal crisis under the intoxication one must soldier on, dealing with fear and related negative emotions in as grounded and unperturbed manner as possible. Still, crises occur: ʻQuite commonly,ʼ he states matter-of-factly, ʻpeople feel that they are about to dieʼ (p. 57). Elsewhere he notes that a mental breakdown is real possibility. Yet not in Antipodes or anything else I have read to do with Ayahuasca experiences is such a breakdown recorded. Is it bad-trip free?