a mentally or physically horrifying drug-taking experience, as one accompanied by nightmarish hallucinations or by physical pain.
2.
a dismayingly unpleasant experience:
He was so ill-prepared that college was a bad trip for him.
Origin
1965-70
Slang definitions & phrases for bad trip
bad trip
noun phrase
A frightening or depressing drug experience, esp a nightmarish time with LSD (1960s+ Narcotics)
Any unpleasant occasion or experience; bummer, downer: The party was a real bad trip(1960s+ Counterculture)
Idioms and Phrases with bad trip
bad trip
A frightening or otherwise very unpleasant experience, as in Given the poor turnout, her book tour was a bad trip. The term comes from drug slang of the mid-1900s, where it meant experiencing hallucinations, pain, or other terrible effects from taking a drug, especially LSD. It was then extended to any extremely unpleasant experience.