Mass-selected ion dip experiments were performed to study ground-state vibrational frequencies of benzene clusters. It is shown here that vibrationally excited states are accessible which are well above the dissociation limit of the cluster. In the benzene trimer also van der Waals modes in the electronic state could be observed by stimulated emission pumping; however, only transitions with DELTAupsilon = 0, -1 in the van der Waals modes were found.