Questions to Ask Someone High
Playful questions for a relaxed evening with friends who are stoned, plus notes on which ones land, which ones fall flat, and when to stop asking and put a film on. The list includes check-in questions for looking after someone who is high when they go quiet, seem anxious or feel unwell.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
What's the last thing you noticed in this room that you'd never noticed before?
Why ask it
Works because the answer is right there and needs no memory. Someone struggling to hold a thought can still point at a lampshade, which is why this is a good first question.
What are you hearing right now that I'm not?
Why ask it
Redirects to sound, which usually feels much closer than usual. Answers are often the fridge, traffic, or somebody's breathing, and everyone in the room goes quiet to check.
Does this song sound different from usual, and how?
Why ask it
Concrete and shared, so the group can argue about it. Vaguer versions like "what does music feel like" tend to get a long pause and then nothing.
What food would be objectively perfect right now?
Why ask it
Reliable for getting a whole room talking, and it usually ends with someone actually cooking. The specificity of the answers is the funny part.
What's the stupidest thing you've ever laughed at for too long?
Why ask it
Lands well because it invites a story rather than an insight. It also gives everyone permission to be unserious, which the deeper questions rely on.
What's a word that's always sounded wrong to you?
Why ask it
Easy, silly, and endlessly extendable, since someone always tries to defend the word. Better than asking people to invent a new word, which mostly produces a stalled silence.
How long do you think we've been sitting here?
Why ask it
Getting the group to guess before checking a clock is more fun than discussing time in the abstract. The spread between guesses is usually the joke.
What's something everyone does that would look completely insane to an alien?
Why ask it
Sturdy premise that works whatever state anyone is in. Expect handshakes, birthdays, or ties, and expect it to run for twenty minutes.
What's a thing you believed as a kid that you didn't question for way too long?
Why ask it
Gets funny stories and a bit of genuine self-revelation without any pressure to be profound. Good bridge between the silly questions and the reflective ones.
If your house could talk, what would it complain about first?
Why ask it
Playful and concrete, unlike asking someone to converse with an object generally. It works because the answer is a small domestic grievance everyone recognises.
What's a totally useless skill you're weirdly good at?
Why ask it
Often produces a demonstration, which is better than an answer. It also draws out the quieter person in the room, who usually has the best one.
What's the worst possible way to open a wedding speech?
Why ask it
Prompts a competition rather than a confession, so nobody has to be interesting alone. Constraint-based questions like this hold up when attention is short.
What conspiracy theory do you think is genuinely plausible?
Why ask it
Fun until it is not. Watch for whether the room is joking or someone is actually committed, and change the subject if it starts to sound sincere and anxious.
What's something you'd do differently if nobody could remember it tomorrow?
Why ask it
Hypothetical enough to be safe and honest enough to be interesting. Do not press if the answer arrives with an edge to it.
What did you think you'd be doing by now, when you were sixteen?
Why ask it
Reflective without being heavy, and everybody has an answer. Read the room first, though, because for some people this question goes somewhere sad quickly.
What's something you've changed your mind about in the last few years?
Why ask it
One of the few genuinely searching questions that survives this setting, because it asks for a story rather than an argument.
What's the best thing that's happened to you this year that you haven't told anyone about?
Why ask it
The unshared part is what makes it work. It tends to get small, private, real answers rather than headline news.
Who do you owe a phone call to?
Why ask it
Simple and quietly effective, and it lands differently late at night. Occasionally somebody makes the call, which is more than most conversation questions achieve.
What would you want someone to say to you if you were having a bad time in this state?
Why ask it
Worth asking early in an evening rather than late, because it is genuinely useful information about your friends. Answers are usually specific: sit with me, take me outside, do not make it a thing.
Are you good, or do you want to stop talking for a bit?
Why ask it
The most important one on the list. Silence, a film, water, or fresh air is often what someone wants and will not volunteer, and asking gives them the exit.
How are you feeling, physically?
Why ask it
Separating physical from mental gets you a more usable answer. Racing heart, chest pain, being unable to stop vomiting, and difficulty breathing are the ones that mean help rather than reassurance.
Is anything frightening you right now?
Why ask it
Naming fear out loud reduces it, and it tells you whether this is discomfort or panic. Answers about the room, the people present, or losing their mind are common and worth taking at face value.
Is the music or the light bothering you?
Why ask it
Overstimulation is one of the easiest things to fix and one of the last things anyone checks. Turning things down often settles someone within minutes.
Do you want water?
Why ask it
Small, useful, and easy to say yes to. Sipping water gives someone something to do with their hands and attention, which helps more than it sounds like it should.
Are you safe to get home, and how were you planning to get there?
Why ask it
Ask well before they try to leave. Driving is the answer to watch for, and it is the point at which you stop asking and start arranging something else.
What's the most random thought you've had in the last ten minutes?
Why ask it
Whatever comes out is unfiltered by definition, which is the point. It also sets the register for the rest of the evening, since silly answers invite silly answers back.
What song would you put on right now if it were entirely up to you?
Why ask it
A low-stakes way in, and the choice reveals more than a question about taste ever would. Expect the next ten minutes to become a negotiation about what plays after it.
What's the best thing you've ever eaten at two in the morning?
Why ask it
Late-night food answers are always specific and slightly embarrassing, which makes them useful in a group where people do not know each other well yet.
Which animal would be worst at using a phone?
Why ask it
A silly premise that people take surprisingly seriously. The good part is the arguing about paws and beaks, and it asks no vulnerability from anyone in the room.
Do you think your pet knows your name, or just the sound of it?
Why ask it
An unanswerable question that people take completely seriously in this state, and it usually turns into evidence for and against based on one particular animal. Better than asking what they would say to an animal, which nobody has a real answer to.
How would you explain what a cloud is to someone who had never seen one?
Why ask it
Explaining something obvious out loud is much harder than it sounds, and it produces genuine comedy without anyone having to be clever on purpose.
If your life had a laugh track, when would it go off?
Why ask it
Better than asking about someone's sense of humour, because it forces them to point at real moments in their own life rather than describe a preference.
What's a film you've never actually watched but have strong opinions about?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone has one, and admitting it is a small confession that makes bigger ones easier later. Expect at least one person to be genuinely offended on the film's behalf.
What's a film you loved as a kid that you suspect is strange?
Why ask it
The comedy is in the retelling: plots that made sense at six turn out to be genuinely unhinged. It also gives quieter people an easy way in, because describing a film is less exposing than describing yourself.
What's the strangest job you can think of that someone genuinely does?
Why ask it
Sends the conversation outward instead of inward, which is a relief after a run of personal questions. It often turns into a shared attempt to work out how a whole industry functions, which can carry twenty minutes on its own.
What idea have you had recently that seemed brilliant and then fell apart?
Why ask it
Invites self-mockery without any sting, and it is a familiar experience to anyone who has been high before. Answers range from business plans to a theory about a television show that survived about four minutes.
Where did you most like being when you were eight?
Why ask it
A specific age produces a specific place, where asking about childhood in general produces nothing. People describe a stairwell, a tree, a corner of a shop, and the detail that comes with it is usually the good part.
If you could be somewhere else for the next hour and then come straight back, where would you go?
Why ask it
The time limit is what makes this work. Without it people name a country. With it they name a specific bench, a friend's flat, or a beach at a particular hour, which tells you much more.
What do you find beautiful that you'd feel a bit silly admitting sober?
Why ask it
Ask this once the group has settled. It is a sincere question wearing a light coat, and the answers, a bus at night, a particular tree, are usually offered without any irony at all.
What are you grateful for that you don't say out loud much?
Why ask it
A good closing question. Gratitude spoken aloud in a relaxed room tends to be specific and unperformed, which is why it works far better here than in any formal setting.
How to use these questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What actually lands
- Questions about the room beat questions about the universe. Attention is short, and a visible object gives the answer somewhere to start.
- Prompts with a constraint work better than open invitations to be deep. "The worst possible wedding speech" gets answers; "what is consciousness" gets a long pause.
- Anything requiring a timeline, a name, or a number is hard. Do not turn it into a memory test.
- Let a tangent run. The tangent is usually better than the question you asked.
- Follow-ups should be short. "Why?" and "like what?" carry a conversation further than a second full question.
Reading the room
Anxiety looks like withdrawal
Someone going quiet, checking their phone, or repeating that they are fine is often not fine. Switch to water, food, and something to watch, and drop the playful questions. The check-in questions in the list, beginning with "Are you good, or do you want to stop talking for a bit?", are for this moment.
Do not film people
Recording someone for a group chat is the fastest way to make an evening something they regret. Ask first, and accept a no.
Skip the interrogation topics
Exes, money, work performance, and anything they have been avoiding sober will land harder now and be remembered tomorrow.
Match the level
If you are sober and they are not, the imbalance is real. Asking searching questions in that setting can feel like an advantage being used.