Bridgebrain

Doing a bit of a longer reply, in case people come across and want the list.

Shpongle. Its me and my friends emergency recovery band if the vibe turns weird. It's just entrancing enough to catch all your runaway thoughts, and other than one or two albums (skip Codex and Flux, they're vaguely about existential dread), very chill, weird, happy and upbeat.

Fruit helps, nothing heavy or greasy. Same with drinks, go for light soft flavors, not rich intense ones. Drink water. Like a LOT of water. We made it into a party game where everytime someone drinks water, we all drink a full cup.

I suggest taking potassium, magnesium and ibuprofen before you start. The potassium helps prevent vasoconstriction (that light "can't breathe" sensation), and the other two help reduce muscle pain and tightness, which helps trip quality.

Personally, I recommend just skipping any kind of tv or movie unless it's vibe approved (Spiderverse is, as is Doctor Strange, or Everything Everywhere All at Once). There's lots of stuff out there that's wonderful when you're sober, but if you try watching while tripping it'll set you off (Monty python and the holy grail for instance, involves sudden violence and satirical yet realistic depictions of poverty conditions, and it wasn't fun while tripping).

Avoid heavy or dark themed music, books, or video. As you discovered, it only takes one thing to set it off.

Switching environments often helps. Walk into a different room. Walk outside. Turn off the lights, or on the lights. Take a shower in the pitch dark if available (I recommend space ambient music while you do this).

If all else fails, lean in. Sometimes your trip will just hit something that needs dealing with, and avoiding it doesn't work. Set a timer for 15 minutes, find somewhere very comfortable, and do a breathing meditation while focusing on the source of your discomfort. Try not to let your mind loop, just think through the thing, feel whatever needs feeling, let out the weird twitches and sounds it demands. Often, just stopping avoiding the thing makes it have less power over you, and then after your timers up you can walk outside and be on to the next vibe.

For mushrooms, it takes between 2 weeks and a month for tolerance to go away (depending on your biochemistry). The rule of thumb is 2x dose for the same effect while you're in the tolerance zone. Like OP said, don't take huge doses to overcome tolerance, it's not a good time, only double down if you went pretty light the first dose.

Second'd. Its one of the few audiobooks that I've listened to over and over again

Anecdotally, it knocks your emotional state off its normal axis. For some people, it bumps it into a more normal space (since 2020, whenever I take them it just disables the anxiety fog, nothing else), for others it pushes the axis off further.

Depends on what you're taking of course, but the most popular ones (at light to moderate doses) can give you a sense of detachment, but usually don't make you lose control. More like you and your body have to have a small conversation about what you're doing, or the two parts of your brain that want to do different things have to hash it out first. On high doses, you can zone out pretty hard, and if your body decides it's doing something while your brain is staring at the pretty patterns, you can end up with some weirdness. I ate a clove cigar once, for instance, and one guy I knew walked through the house quickly, circled around outside, and walked back through on a loop for an hour. You're usually in better control than media puts it, so the likelihood of trying to fly by jumping off the roof or something is pretty low. (It CAN happen, but usually at that point people have mixed in harder drugs, or taken a VERY high dose of something. Always have your trip sitter know what you've taken, and how much, so they know how much to watch you)

The primary reason you want a trip sitter, is that you want someone competent making decisions so that you don't have to. Often, I find myself plenty competent to, say, chop fruit with a knife, but because I'm tripping I worry that I only think I'm competent. Having someone on hand who can either make that call or just do it is much less stressful, and low stress = better trip. They also can help draw you out of your head, if you get stuck in a mental space.