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4 Journaling Methods to Boost Beneficial Psychedelic Processes

When it comes to learning and growing from our psychedelic experiences, we need to do more than simply take the substances and expect all the magic to happen.

We need to utilise other methods in our preparation and our integration for these experiences.

Different methods can help set us up for insightful experiences, and then maximise benefits and keep us on a path of learning and growth. There are many, and some popular ones include: mindfulness, yoga, breathwork, and nature immersion.

Another one of the big boys is journaling. 

This is because journaling can help with self-reflection, emotional processing, and integrating insights.

As such, journaling is one of the best things one can do to support their psychedelic-assisted growth. 

So, how does it work? What are the benefits? And how can you get started today?

In this blog post, I will be talking about the benefits of journaling and how they work synergistically with psychedelic processes. Then I will be offering you a few different journaling methods to support your psychedelic-assisted growth. I will also add a few tips on each so that you can start journaling today.

My intention with this blog post is to highlight the benefits of journaling in the hopes that you might be inspired to try it yourself and to give you some concrete examples of things that you can do so you can get started today.

Let’s dive in.

psychedelic integration preparation best activities journal write

Benefits of Journaling and Psychedelic Processes

Writing pen to paper forces us to slow down. Simply by taking the time to write out our thoughts and feelings, journaling offers us the chance to be aware of what makes up our inner world. We can see things from inside ourselves, quite literally, on the paper in front of us, giving us an increased awareness of them. And with that, we also have an opportunity to reflect on them. 

By allowing us to see what is on our minds and gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, journaling might even be considered psychedelic — if we are going by the literal meaning of the word: mind-revealing. 

As such, it is an excellent tool to synergise with our actual psychedelic experiences. 

Journaling can be a way to integrate a more reflective and aware way of being in our days—what we might call a psychedelic way of life. It also helps clear the mind—like mental decluttering—and has been shown to have emotional effects such as reducing anxiety. Both of these effects are also going to be beneficial when we are in the preparation stage of our psychedelic experiences.

After our experiences, journaling can help us in our integration as well. Beyond documenting them, writing about our experiences gives us a chance to further unpack them, dig out insights,  and solidify them. With insights unpacked, we also have an opportunity to make plans and move forward in the integration process.

To summarise, some of the benefits of journaling related to psychedelic use include:

  • Promotes self-awareness
  • Enhances awareness of thoughts and feelings
  • Provides opportunities for reflection
  • Aids in clearing the mind and reducing anxiety
  • Helps in planning sessions and logistical details
  • Assists in documenting experiences and unpacking insights
  • Facilitates integration of insights
  • Facilitates further reflection and planning for integration

Journaling Methods to Support Psychedelic Processes

Ready to start journaling?

Here are a few different styles of journaling that you can try today.

1. Free Writing (Basic Journaling)

This is the most basic. In the simplest terms; put pen to paper and start writing.

To gain a better understanding of yourself and your emotions, try not to focus only on things that you have done or things that you see, but write about your thoughts and your feelings.

Write about what is on your mind and use that as a starting point to write further reflections and observations.

Write about your feelings. You can write about your feelings in the moment or in different situations or significant moments in your day or life. You can write about any instances where certain feelings were triggered. 

And it is as simple as that. It does not matter if what you write is petty. It does not matter if it seems boring or nothing special. Just the process of writing will help get things out and that process will help you to reflect and introspect.

One way of incorporating this method is the morning pages. The morning pages, as originally described in The Artist’s Way—Julia Cameron’s classic book on creativity— are three full A4 pages of longhand journaling each morning. Again, about anything. Just get pen to paper and write until you fill the pages.

I have found this three full pages method to be an extremely useful practice. If I have something niggling away at me or I feel like I have too many things on my mind, I find that taking time to sit down and write my thoughts out is extremely clarifying, improves my emotional state, and gives me some actionable items to move forward.

Tips for starting a free writing journaling practice: 

  • Get a nice pen and journal or pad that feels nice to write with. This will help make the process more enjoyable.
  • Keep the journal private so that you know that it is a safe space for you to be able to fully express yourself without fear of judgement or any kind of repercussion from anyone else.
  • Remember to write your thoughts and feelings, not just objective facts.
  • It can be helpful to ask yourself questions. Think about questions that a coach or therapist would ask you. Or use them to direct them back to your values.

2. Writing Letters

Often, the difficulties or problems we have in our lives come from our relationships. As social creatures who have evolved with the need to successfully socially engage to survive, it is no surprise that relationships can be the source of difficult emotions.

Sometimes in our psychedelic experiences, insights may come to us about our relationships with others. Or it might be the case that our intention for an experience is a relational issue that we are looking to process emotions around and resolve.

Writing letters to other people can be hugely helpful in supporting these processes.

The beauty of the exercise of writing letters to other people is that you have a safe space to express your emotions without necessarily having to send those letters to the people you are writing them to. 

Just the process of writing letters can help us to become more aware of our feelings and offer a lot of therapeutic value. This can be done both in preparation and integration of an experience, depending on where it is most relevant for each person. In both cases, it can again help to process emotions and gain mental clarity. 

Tips for Writing Letters to Others

  • It is usually most useful to focus on people you have some difficult emotions around.
  • Be completely uncensored. If there is anger, if there is pain, if there is frustration, allow yourself to feel it, and express it in the letter. Remember, you do not need to send it to them. Just let it out, and put it down on paper. 
  • If you decide that it would be good to send the letter or message you have written, you might like to make some revisions. Go back once the heat is off and think about your wording and how you would like to communicate. You might consider something like non-violent communication.
  • Consider using the following questions as prompts for your letter: What would you really like to say to them? What would you like them to know? If you were going to die next week, what should not be left unsaid?
  • If you want to share anything from your letter in person, you can use a bulleted version of your letter for reference.

3. Writing Letters to Self

Writing letters to yourself can also be a very useful exercise.

By somewhat externalising ourselves and seeing ourselves as another person, we can get a different perspective on our problems and a new level of awareness around them.

Often it is hard for us to have perspective on our own problems because we are too close to them. It can be the case that if somebody else were to come to us with our problems  —the exact same ones—we could easily dole out the perfect advice and tell them what to do.

As the quote goes:
“Wisdom is the ability to take your own advice.”

Letters to self can also be a means of exploring your inner dialogue by writing letters to different aspects of yourself—for example, the inner child, the inner critic and your higher self. This way of seeing ourselves as made up of many separate selves or parts, and communicating with them, is fundamentally the same as popular and effective psychological techniques used in parts work and Internal Family Systems. 

Letters can also be written to our past and future selves. This can give you a chance to reflect on your journey and to look forward. 

Tips for Writing Letters To Yourself

  • When writing a letter to your present self, try imagining it is a good friend. Consider: What do they (you) need to hear right now? What advice, encouragement or support would you offer to someone in your situation at this moment? 
  • If writing a letter to your future self, express your hopes, dreams and intentions.
  • When writing to different parts of yourself, such as your inner critic, consider making the letter a dialogue. Ask the part what it wants and write responses from it. 

Trip Reports

Writing trip reports is, I would argue, an essential aspect of integrating psychedelic experiences. I would not say that everyone needs to do it, but I will say that most people would likely benefit from doing it.

Firstly, trip reports are great for documenting your experiences and your journey over time. Beyond that, the process of writing them offers a chance to revisit and remember the experience, refresh the memory, and consolidate it further, along with any insights and lessons. 

Writing reports also offers a chance for further emotional processing. It is not uncommon that I will be brought back to tears when I am re-listening to the playlist and writing up my report.

Tips for Writing Trip Reports

  • Start with basic objective details: setting, dosage, people present, time of the session, etc. 
  • Write an open-ended report about your subjective experiences. Write about thoughts, feelings and perceptions.
  • Allow yourself the freedom to further reflect and riff on anything that comes up.
  • If you listened to music during your experience, try listening to the same music again when you are writing your report. It can be extremely effective in taking you back to the experience.

Final Notes and Tips

I hope this gives you some ideas and concrete examples of ways that you use journaling. However, it is not always easy to get started. Common barriers to journaling include perfectionism, self-censorship, or lack of time. To combat these, I will finish with some final tips:

  • Allow your journaling to be imperfect. Allow it to be rubbish.
  • You do not need to read your entries back. Remember that by putting pen to paper, you are doing it. The process itself will be helpful. 
  • Allow yourself freedom of expression. When you are writing, do not think about sharing your deepest feelings or forbidden thoughts with anyone else. Keep your journal a free space where you can say absolutely anything
  • Start small. Try to find the time in your daily, weekly, or monthly routine when you can do it. 

Final Thoughts

Journaling can increase self-awareness, improve emotional states, and facilitate introspection and reflection. For these reasons, it can be a great synergistic practice to pair with intentional and growth-oriented psychedelic exploration.

I have found journaling to be one of the most transformational and supportive practices to use alongside psychedelics, helping to bring about more valuable and beneficial experiences and also aiding in their integration. 

I hope this post has inspired you to try journaling and given you some useful prompts to get started today.

Stay safe. Keep journaling.

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When Should You Pick Up The Phone Again? Factors to Consider the Right Moment for Reengaging Psychedelic Exploration

The great British philosopher Alan Watts once famously said:

“When you get the message, hang up the phone.”

He was not referring to literal phones, but the use of psychedelics as a tool for spiritual exploration. 

Watts went on:

“For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope; he goes away and works on what he has seen”.

Watts’s point was that although psychedelic drugs can be a helpful way to open up the mind and experience new ways of thinking, they should not be used as a crutch or a substitute for true spiritual growth. Once you have learned something from the drug experience, it is important to be able to let go of the drug and integrate the insights into your everyday life.

Watt’ phrase is commonly quoted in conversations about the frequency of psychedelic use, and generally means ‘don’t trip too often’. Put the phone down, and focus on the message you’ve received.

Overuse of psychedelics is possible. It is possible to become psychologically addicted, use psychedelics as an escape, to spiritual bypass, and otherwise harm oneself from overuse. It can be good to consider taking a break, and Sam Woolfe wrote an excellent article exploring this topic: When Should You Take a Break From Psychedelics?

But on the other side of the coin, when is it a good time to pick up the phone again?

In this article, I’ll be exploring when you might consider tripping again. I’ll look at some factors we can consider to make an informed and conscious choice about when, and how you might do that. I’ll look at the integration of previous experiences, refresher journeys, lower doses, growth through discomfort, and honestly looking at our motivations.

My intention with this article is to offer an alternative viewpoint, not encourage you or anyone to take psychedelics. I hope to keep the conversation around psychedelics broad, as I believe a multitude of perspectives helps us to arrive at a more balanced perspective. 

Please don’t ever be pressured into taking psychedelics, and proceed with care and caution.

With that said, let’s dive in…

Integration of Past Experiences

The first thing to consider is your integration, or lack thereof, of any previous experiences.

Integration is a bridge that connects insights gleaned from your past encounters with your present self. It’s a process of assimilating, digesting, and applying wisdom gained during your inner voyages.

If you imagine integration as the process of tending to a garden. Just as you wouldn’t plant new seeds without nurturing the existing blooms, it’s best to nurture your psychedelic insights before inviting new ones.

Properly integrating past experiences is key. Don’t rush to pick up the phone again until you’ve processed your previous experiences and made efforts to integrate them. Try to resolve any significant things which have come up, or at least make some significant progress on them.

If there is a theme that keeps coming up during your psychedelic journeys, and you don’t seem to be making any progress on it, then it should be an indicator that continually picking up the phone isn’t helping with this. You might want to change your strategy for how to integrate this. 

Consider seeking further education, support, a coach, or some type of accountability, on this.

For example, if you keep getting insights into the importance of your physical health, yet fail to integrate and make relevant changes to your diet or go for your intended regular runs, then you might make further efforts before journeying again. You might try something new; signing up for a class instead of doing solo workouts, trying meal prep plans, asking for help from a friend, or hiring a coach.

If, however, between psychedelic sessions, you notice progress, and each one helps to further cement the learnings and offer new insights, then it’s a sign that the continued sessions are supporting you in your growth.

Some of our most profound experiences can take a lifetime to fully integrate, but that doesn’t mean we must wait a whole lifetime to re-engage with psychedelics.

Even if you haven’t 100% integrated a previous experience, have you made progress with any learnings or lessons? Then you may well be ready to embark on another journey.

Refresher Journeys: Rekindling Fading Wisdom

Just as the embers of fire require a gentle nudge to reignite their brilliance, sometimes the insights from your past journeys can benefit from a refresher journey.

This is where the concept of refresher journeys comes into play. 

Life moves pretty fast, and any wisdom gained from your psychedelic experiences can fade surprisingly, and sometimes disappointingly, quickly.

A refresher journey can help you touch base again. It’s like rekindling the fading embers of insight.

You can think of these journeys as revisiting a cherished book—one that you’ve read before, but each time you pick it up, you uncover new layers of meaning. Similarly, by reconnecting with the psychedelic experience, you rekindle the wisdom that may have faded into the background of everyday life.

Refresher journeys, or revisits to the psychedelic realm, can be a way of deepening your understanding. They can breathe new life into insights that may have grown faint.

I often receive useful reminders, bringing me back to old lessons that are helpful to remember: the importance of relationships, my family, following my heart, and living with honesty and integrity. They pull me back to my centre, and my values, and help me to relocate my North Star. It’s a continual process.

If you choose to embark on a journey again, you can honour the progress you’ve made while still allowing yourself the chance to touch upon old truths and delve deeper into the realms of consciousness.

The act of revisiting is not necessarily a step backwards. It can be a step forward and a reawakening of the insights that have the power to help light your path forward.

Lower Doses: Gentle Reconnection with Insight

When we talk about revisiting psychedelic experiences, it’s also important to remember that experiences can vary widely, and a key consideration is dose. 

Picking up the phone again need not be a high-dose affair. A refresher journey, or a revisit to psychedelic realms, might be on a lower dose. 

Lower doses can act as gentle reminders, guiding you to revisit the realms you’ve previously explored. 

Some people think that ‘bigger is better’ when it comes to psychedelic dosages. But dialling back the dosage isn’t necessarily a downgrade. Sometimes it’s a strategic move. Using lower doses to reconnect with past insights is a gentle nudge rather than a full-on conversation.

Lower doses can also help to continue processing higher dose journeys, and ‘finish thought processes’ – as one friend put it – that began in recent experiences.

It can be like a dialogue with your own wisdom, a conversation that echoes the lessons you’ve learned while inviting you to deepen your understanding. By choosing a lower dose, you’re not stepping away from the journey; you’re opening yourself to other ways of engaging with psychedelics.

You may also wish to try different styles of sessions, seeing if the experience has something different to offer you when you change your activity and setting.

For instance, mini doses can become your companions during activities that typically wouldn’t involve altered states—running, journaling, nature walks. These micro-experiences can infuse ordinary moments with extraordinary insights.

Also, if you’ve become fearful of psychedelic experiences, perhaps due to a difficult experience or otherwise, lower doses can help to reconnect to psychedelic realms with a greater feeling of safety.

This can help to re-establish trust and build a healthier relationship with psychedelics. This can be a good stepping point if you’d still like to explore higher doses of psychedelics again in the future.

Growth Occurs Outside The Comfort Zone

It’s common to hear that you shouldn’t journey with psychedelics when you’re not feeling good.

It is common to hear messages of caution and restraint, and for good reason. 

On the other side of this, there is an alternative viewpoint. A perspective that encourages you to consider journeying when you might be feeling resistance to it.

Consider this our deepest growth often stems from confronting the shadows we’d rather keep hidden.

Those uncomfortable truths or emotions, the ones we tend to run from, often hold the key to healing and transformation. When you dare to venture into territories that cause unease, you embark on a journey of self-discovery. These are moments that can catalyze monumental personal growth.

Uncomfortable truths serve as mirrors reflecting back the shadows of ourselves we’ve yet to acknowledge. They guide us to areas of our psyche that require attention, care, and understanding. By journeying into these shadows, we not only learn about ourselves, but we also embrace a path of healing and self-evolution. It’s a process of peeling back layers, revealing the raw core of who you are, and giving yourself the chance to rebuild stronger and wiser.

It can be more comfortable to avoid psychedelic journeys when there is something uncomfortable lurking in our unconscious. Yet, consider that growth comes from confronting them.

Sometimes tackling a problem head-on, even if it’s more challenging in the short term, can yield greater long-term benefits. Just as an uncomfortable conversation can lead to resolution, facing your hesitations around psychedelics may unearth insights that transform your life.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek”
– Joseph Campbell

Now am I saying that if you’re scared to journey, then you should do it?
Absolutely not.

I am saying it is wise to look at your resistance…

Look at Your Why: Confronting Fear with Honesty

Fear can be a powerful deterrent. It can also be overblown. It’s easy to let apprehension drive decisions, steering you away from the unknown territory of the psychedelic experience. But what if your fear is a smokescreen, an avoidance mechanism keeping you from confronting deeper, unresolved issues?

If you are feeling resistance, consider why.

Is it because you genuinely think you could be doing yourself some harm? That you don’t have a sufficiently safe setting?
Or is it because you are afraid to face something uncomfortable about yourself?

Do you know that it will actually serve you, but you’re avoiding it because you know there might be a few bumps on the road? 

Being honest with yourself is essential in this process.

When it comes to examining your reasons for avoiding a trip, take a close look.

Is any reluctance stemming from a genuine awareness that you wouldn’t benefit, or is it your own resistance to confronting your reality?

Asking these questions, as well as considering the other points in this article, can help bring about clarity on whether it is a good idea to plan a session, or if you’re better off waiting a while.

Final Thoughts

Of course, deciding to take psychedelics again is a complex topic. There are no simple criteria to judge when you should or shouldn’t. 

When you think about when you might want to pick up the phone again, take into careful consideration your approach and your why.

Take a look at your integration of previous experiences, consider if you’d benefit from a refresher on your wisdom, and what dose would be appropriate. Look at your reasons why, or why not, and consider if they serve and benefit you. And of course, consider that you may well still need a break from psychedelics.

Stay safe, journey well.

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psychedelic integration best practice remember memory

The Power of Remembering: Enhancing Psychedelic Integration

Remembering is one of the unmissable parts of psychedelic integration that every psychonaut should be doing.

When it comes to integration—the part of the psychedelic process after our experience where we try to consolidate any perceived benefits—remembering our psychedelic experiences can be a crucial part of the puzzle. Remembering helps us to reconnect to the experience and make it a part of our being. It helps to reconnect us with insights, impressions and important truths we may have encountered.

In this blog post, I will explore remembering as a part of integration. I will look at the benefits of remembering, its role in processing, and how it can help reconnect us to our experience more deeply. I will also look at a few different methods for remembering and recalling the experience so that by the end of the article you will already be able to begin this practice.

My intention with this post is to highlight the importance of remembrance and recall in the psychedelic integration process, and to give you ideas and tools on how to do this so that you may maximise the benefits from your experiences.

Let’s dive in.

Reconnecting with the Experience

When we remember an experience, psychedelic or otherwise, we reconnect with the thoughts, feelings and perceptions that arose during that experience. This is true whether remembering is through spontaneous or active recall.

In the context of psychedelic integration, this is relevant when we consider psychedelic integration as being able to carry over some of the wisdom and insight from our psychedelic experiences into our day-to-day lives outside of the experience.

Deep personal truths can become crystal clear to us in the psychedelic state. And those realisations about what is true and deep and important to us are not things we want to forget easily. Most likely, we want to hold onto them and carry them with us as we re-enter our normal lives. The act of remembering is a way to bring parts of them back into our psyche and our being.

Processing Experiences

Reconnecting with aspects of the experience through remembering can also help with processing. This can be especially important and helpful when we have had very dense psychedelic experiences that have contained huge amounts of content and information. Experiences may have had a high amount of emotional arousal or even crept over into being overwhelming. Those experiences, if left unprocessed, can result in other problems if they continue to exist unresolved in our psyches. Unresolved issues can lead to a manifestation of problems in other areas; mentally, behaviourally and physically.

By being with our memories in a state of remembering or recalling, we can touch the experience again and allow further opportunities for processing.

When experiences are fully processed, there is less ambiguity and more clarity around them. This is where we want to be when moving into action with our integration: beyond processing and ready to move into the deliberate and active part of the integration process.

Keeping The Experience Alive

There is a saying that says the moment someone dies is not when their heart stops beating or their body physically ceases to exist, but that it is the last time anyone ever thought of them. As long as people keep thinking of a person, some part of them is kept alive.

This is relevant in the context of psychedelic integration because, for deeply meaningful experiences, we want to keep them alive. Even though an experience may have finished, it can be seen to continue to live on in spirit, if it continues to influence us through our memory of it. 

Although our psychedelic experience may have ended and the pharmacological effects have worn off, we can keep it alive by recalling it, revisiting it, and remembering it. This helps to keep the experience as part of our being—rather than some thrilling experience we once had and then forgot about and that had no meaningful influence on the rest of our lives.

If there is some truth that has been revealed to us, some knowledge that has been transferred—some revelation or realization—we want to remember that and we want it to inform how we live. When we are living in full alignment with that, then in terms of psychedelic integration, we can consider that a success.

Integration Begins Immediately

This remembering process can begin even before a session is finished. It can begin after the peak, on the end of the downslide, when you are into calmer waters. Here you may already begin recalling and reflecting about what has happened at the peak of the experience. In what is often a calm, quiet, and meditative state, this is a good time to stay with your experience and begin integration by processing and reflecting on the content of the experience.

In this regard, the integration process can be seen as starting as soon as somebody begins coming down from their peak. At this time, it is highly important to stay with the experience as best as possible, and not be in a rush to leave psychedelic states or for the session to end. This means not rushing to go back to mundane things, but staying with yourself and the waves of experience that are still coming. Allowing whatever you have experienced to fully sink in. By allowing it to sink in, it can more easily become part of our mind and our being.

Methods of Remembering and Recall

There are many different ways of remembering and recalling to aid psychedelic integration. Here I will share a few.

Recalling Through The Senses Meditation

One means of aiding recall is a type of guided visualization exercise. This works by systematically going through each of the five senses, and recalling what you can. 

If you have an experience that you would like to remember, psychedelic or not, you can practice this now as you read. Begin by taking a breath and calming your mind. Then, move through the five senses.

Sight

Remember what you saw; the environment, things in the room, people that you were with, any visions or visuals that you may have experienced. These might have occurred in dreamlike psychedelic states, deep recesses of the mind, or the depths of inner or outer space.

Smell

Remember what you smelt. Were there any scents or smells in the space? Can you recall the smell of the mushrooms or the ayahuasca brew? Call all smells back to mind. 

Taste

Are there any tastes you remember? This is not usually a prominent source of memories, but maybe you can recall the taste of the mushrooms or the ayahuasca brew. Recall any tastes that you can.

Touch

Remember what you touched. Was there something that you were lying on? Were there any materials around? Recall as many details as you can and hold them in your mind.

Sound

Remember what you heard. Bring to mind any music that was playing and hear it in your head. Were there any sounds from nature or the environment around you?

When you have gone through the five senses, some of the experience should be back with you and you can move on to a final step.

Feelings 

Finally, can you remember how you felt? What were the most prominent emotions?

Sit with any emotions that come up and allow them to go wherever they may go. Allow them to enter into your being, and notice how you feel physically—the somatic sensation in your body.

This is an important step because meaning is usually accompanied by some kind of emotional content. Emotions can be a doorway through which we reconnect to key moments.

Expressing the Experience Creatively

Expressing the experience creatively via art or music can also be a great way to reconnect with it. A simple way can just be doing doodles with pen and paper. You may bust out some colours or crayons, or you might try a poem. Whatever method, just try to somehow capture and express some essence of your experience.

Revisiting Recordings

Another method of triggering recall is by revisiting any recordings that were made during the session. This can include audio recordings, photos and videos. Listening or watching back can work wonders to reconnect with the version of you that was having that experience. Preparing necessary recording equipment in advance can be useful for these means. 

More simply, you might revisit any notes that you have made with a pen and paper. Reading back over these notes can be a very simple and effective way to reconnect with the experience.

The Role of Journaling

Journaling can be an especially effective and impactful way to integrate an experience.

As part of many of the groundbreaking psilocybin studies done at Johns Hopkins, participants were required to write up a trip report in the form of an open-ended narrative. They were required to do this the same day of their experience, in the evening, and to bring it for discussion the next day. After learning about this and trying it myself, I was surprised by how beneficial it was and made this an unmissable part of my integration process. I do not write it on the same day but always schedule it for the day after.

The process of journaling about an experience after it has happened is helpful because it can help to unpack dense or content-rich experiences. In the act of journaling, we may find little nooks, crannies and crevices of the experience that we had completely forgotten about. This unpacking of the experience can help to facilitate and deepen any understandings that may have arisen. It is generally good practice to capture the experience whilst it is still fresh, either that evening or the day after.

Recreating The Context

Another thing to consider when it comes to memory recall is context-dependent memory. Context-dependent memory refers to the phenomenon whereby it is easier to recall memories when the context of the original experience is replicated somewhat.

In terms of psychedelic experiences, this could include, for example, parts of the setting. This might be done by listening to the same music or revisiting smells. It could also be the clothes you wear or how the space is decorated.

If you had any type of pre-session ritual, you might also revisit that. If you went for a run and meditated before, then to re-create that you might go for a run and meditate, and then simply smell some mushrooms. In some cases, you might even take a low dose to help connect with the psychedelic state and any associated insights.

If you are proactive in setting up your experience for easier recall, you might prepare a specific incense or blend of essential oils to be smelled during the experience. You will then be able to use them to help trigger memories in the future. 

Proactive Integration

Remember to Remember

We know the truth and the insights; we have learned something profound. Remembering to remember can be the tricky bit. Sometimes we just forget to remember our lessons.

Proactive ways to help retain a memory include scheduling periodic sessions to revisit or reflect upon an experience. This could be, for example, one month later, or on a monthly or yearly interval. You might create routines or rituals to support this. This could be a moment of recall at the end of a daily meditation session, or spending a day out in nature once a year, potentially assisted by a mini dose. It can be useful to put these events in calendars or set reminders so that we remember to remember. This type of proactive integration can be hugely valuable in maintaining a connection with a psychedelic experience and its insights over time.

Visual Reminders

Another way of supporting memory is by having associated visual reminders in your environment. For example, if you made a piece of artwork or drew a mandala based on your experience, you might hang it up somewhere in your home where you will see it often. It could also be an item that you find in nature which represents the experience in some way, or a house plant or a piece of art that was prominent or significant during the experience. 

You Can Not Remember Everything

After a deeply impactful or meaningful experience, it can be natural to want to remember every last detail. In reality, that is unrealistic. Although it is helpful to make an effort to remember the experience, it is important to accept that some aspects of it may be lost. Realistically, you are not going to be able to remember the entirety of the experience in perfect detail for the rest of your life. 

Accept that some details may be lost over time and that that is okay. That said, if you are actively recalling and revisiting meaningful experiences, fewer details will be lost, recall will be better, and this will reinforce the integration of those experiences. 

Final Thoughts

“Remember, remember” is not just for the 5th of November. It goes for our psychedelic experiences too.

Remembering can help to facilitate the processing of dense or overwhelming experiences and maintain a connection with the transformative aspects of a psychedelic experience over time. It can help to integrate profound insights and perspectives into daily life and it can allow for a deeper reflection on any lessons gained.

I invite you to try recalling your experience after your next psychedelic session. Try taking some time, even if it is just a couple of hours, to write up a report of your experience the day after. See for yourself what comes of it and if or how it deepens your process. If you already have an experience you would like to recall, try it today!

Do you practice remembering important experiences? Which of the techniques do you find most effective for recall and integration? Is there anything you read here that you would like to try? Leave your comments below. We look forward to hearing from you.

Stay safe, remember well.

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lsd shrooms psychedelics activities things to do
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6 Activities to Try on Micro to Low Doses of Psychedelics

High doses are often seen as the ‘end goal’ of psychedelics.

Some psychonauts even have some level of pride around taking big doses. And while I certainly appreciate the benefits of a high-dose session, they are not the be-all and end-all of psychedelics.

Micro, mini and low doses-tiny to small amounts of psychedelics-can also bring a lot of value and benefit to our lives. It’s an area of psychedelics I’ve come to appreciate more over the last couple of years as I’ve expanded my repertoire beyond classic high-dose journeys.

Whilst high doses plunge us into deep journeys where it’s best to just lay back and take the ride, mini doses offer us the chance to explore activities and have other types of experiences.

Whether it’s psilocybin shrooms or LSD, in this mode, psychedelics can act as an enhancer, enriching and deepening our experience of other activities.

What type of activities? I’m glad you asked.

In this blog post, I will offer 6 types of activities that you may like to try with microdoses or mini-doses. We’ll look at nature connections, creative experiments, mindfulness, physical activities, learning, and social experiments. I’ll dive into each and offer you some ideas to help you get started. Then I’ll end with a couple of key considerations for your explorations.

And yes, I’ve tried them all!

As ever, I hope that this will help you to have more fruitful and beneficial psychedelic experiences.

Let’s get started…

1. Nature Connection

Time in nature has been shown to have many benefits on mental and emotional well-being. Adding a pinch of psychedelic to nature time is a classic combination for good reason: the benefits and enjoyment can be increased with a small dose.

The expanded awareness from a small dose can help us tune in more fully to our natural surroundings and deepen our appreciation of them. Connecting with fresh air and greenery can be rejuvenating and restorative. And something about nature can help us tune into the majesty of the natural world, the wonder of the universe, and the mystery of life. That sense of awe can be a key catalyst in positive psychedelic experiences.

The grandness and scale of nature can also help us to get a perspective on things. And, if we’re struggling with something about ourselves, in its unwavering presence, we can always rely on nature to fully accept us as we are.

You might explore parks, nature trails, national parks, or botanical gardens. If you’re heading out for the day, be sure to take the basic necessary precautions.

2. Creative Experiments

Engaging in creative endeavours or experiments can be an enjoyable activity whilst in a different state of awareness.

If you’re painting or working with crayons, you might have a deeper appreciation or joy at seeing how the colors fall onto the page, or how they mix together. I have loved seeing the ink spill from a pen and onto paper, seeing the lines appear before my eyes, like magic, to form an image.

If you’re a musician, you might like to experiment with your instrument.

Lower doses can be great for ideation, too. You might have new perspectives and insights bubbling up for your creative work. If you have a topic or project you’d like to expand your thinking or ideas on, take a pad and paper, and invite in any and all ideas. I’d recommend not to put a limit in this ideation stage: don’t judge your ideas, or put limits on them with voices like ‘that’s unrealistic’. Just allow your mind to explore.

You might try brainstorming under these loose topics:

Way to improve your social life/finances/health
Ideas for your next – song/poem/performance/drawing/piece of art/birthday gift

Your level of dose will affect the level of your ability to use specific tools, so take this into account. If writing is hard, you might dictate or speak directly to ChatGPT and ask it to summarize your thoughts for you.

If using paints or colours, just remember to take care of your setting so you don’t make too much of a mess.

3. Mindfulness Meditation

Why not combine psychedelics with another consciousness-expanding technology? I’m talking about meditation or breathwork.

A mini-dose can help us start at a slightly more expanded state to begin our meditation and may help to experience something deeper in our sit.

One study done in Switzerland, and documented in the great film Descending The Mountain, had long-term meditators take a dose of psilocybin and meditate in their monastery in the mountains. Their rates for peak experience were higher than in any other study! Though this study was done with high doses, I think it illustrates the potential of combining psychedelics with meditation.

Lower doses can also help us go deeper into other meditative practices like loving-kindness, tonglen, RAIN, or self-inquiry.

Breathwork can be used to intensify an experience, and has the added safety measure that you stop doing it if it’s getting too intense for you, and allow your experience to calm down again.

Take into account that it may be difficult to retain your focus whilst on a dose, so don’t be hard on yourself if you find it extremely hard and your mind keeps walking off.

4. Physical Activities

Of course, this comes with the usual caveat of being careful. But some physical activity with psychedelics can be a wonderful combo.

Yoga, much like meditation, is traditionally a spiritual discipline that can be paired with psychedelics. I once went to a yoga class on a mini-dose of LSD and it was a truly beautiful experience. I was incredibly present throughout the class with a great awareness of all my movements and breath. Even a few sun salutations can help to ground and become present.

You might also try tai chi. The wonderful flowing movements can help to loosen up, move energy, and find a greater sense of ease and peace. They can also help to tune into our bodies and breathing and enter a greater state of presence.

Depending on the person and the dose, psychedelics can also bring about increased levels of energy. Last year, I got quite into mini-dose runs. I take the dose and after 30-60 minutes, when I feel that surge of energy as it’s coming on, I lace up, put my headphones on, and head out. I’ve done 10-mile runs on LSD, feeling very present with running movements and flow of my breath. After a post-run bath and a lie-down, I’ve felt blissful in my body.

A mini-dose can increase awareness of the body and breath, and this can be utilized when considering any physical activity. Just remember that more complex movements may bring their own set of coordination challenges!

5. Learning and Study

Beyond using our bodies, what about our minds?

Reading philosophical or thought-provoking literature can be a great exercise on mild journeys. When exploring intellectual ideas, we may get new perspectives, a deeper understanding, or an enhanced contemplation of them. We may be open to a wider range of interpretations, seeing many ways to read the words. We might consider meanings on different levels; macro-micro, global-local, and societal-personal.

You might not read a whole treatise on ethics or society but just start with some great quotes. You can find some from your favourite philosophers or schools of thought. For example, the Buddha, Kierkegaard, or any intellectual you like.

You can also revisit some of your old favourite quotes. Reading and saying them out loud in an altered state of consciousness can help them enter your psyche more deeply.

Another way of taking in intellectual information is listening to podcasts. I sometimes like to combine a few of the ideas from this article and go for a long walk in a park with a good podcast. Podcasts you may enjoy could be around any topic. They could be dharma talks or interviews with spiritual teachers, conversations on creativity, personal growth, or any topic you’d like to explore more deeply.

6. Social Interaction

As humans, we are social creatures. Social interactions then, can also be worthy of experimentation.

Micro and mini-doses can help us to feel more connected to the people around us. This deepened connection can then act as something of a bridge to other people’s islands, enhancing our perspective-taking abilities, and helping us to see things from their vantage point.

You might try engaging in meaningful conversations with friends or loved ones. Conversations can become more than words. With the right dose and setting, they can even evolve into what feels more like a dance of souls, words penetrating a deeper level of interaction.

The psychedelic effects can help to heighten empathy and understanding during interactions. It can help to tune into and speak from the heart. This can help to deepen understanding and acceptance, and ultimately strengthen relationships and deepen bonds.

If you feel like trying something different and your company is into it, you might also try role-playing. You can play out imagined scenarios of certain interactions that one of you is nervous about, like a job interview or a difficult conversation that needs to be had. You might even try taking on the role of the person who will be opposite to you, to get insight into their headspace. I’ve done this a few times with a friend, and it’s been an enlightening (and fun!) experience every time.

Remember that when doing exploring social interactions on psychedelics, finding your own personalized and appropriate dose is important. As for some people, certain low doses may make them feel more agitated or irritated. Clearly, this won’t help to have an empathetic conversation!

If exploring this option in a one-sided format – with one person on a psychedelic and the other not – I’d suggest not doing it on the sly, but letting the other person know that you are on a psychedelic! That can help to keep a space open for understanding if the conversation becomes more challenging than anticipated, and the allowance of stepping away and taking a break.

With this in mind, it’s important to remember to be mindful of people’s boundaries and allow space when needed. Having a quiet room, or some agreements around the session can be helpful to create a safe space.

Considerations for Micro and Low-Dose Experiments

When considering your adventures in small doses, remember the importance of a safe and comfortable setting for you and any company you may have. This will vary for different people, so be honest with yourself and your company about what you are comfortable with and capable of. Some people may feel fine in public parks, for example, whereas others may find this setting to be uncomfortable. Some people may find talking to be easy, whereas others may find it very challenging.

If at home, create a conducive space for your experience. Try to create a clean environment and have any supplies you may need ready, like pens, colours, or instruments,

After your experiences, taking some time to reflect on them can be useful. You can highlight for yourself any key lessons or insights and make a plan to incorporate them into your daily life moving forward.

Final Thoughts

Exploring the realm of micro and mini doses of psychedelics can truly enrich our lives. Compared to higher doses, these smaller amounts have their own unique benefits. When used in this mode, they can enhance and enrich our experiences.

They can take our ordinary activities to new heights, deepening the connection we feel and intensifying the overall experience. They can help deepen our appreciation of nature, increase mindfulness, improve our relationships, and enhance our efforts to learn, create, and be present in our bodies.

Working with lower doses can also help to develop a healthy relationship with psychedelics, building the confidence to work with progressively higher doses – if that’s something you wish to explore.

Overall, I think it’s good to balance micro, mini, and larger doses. Working with psychedelics at the levels and in a rhythm that best suits you. If exploring psychedelics at the lower levels, then why not consider combining your dose with one of these activities?

If you already dose in this range, what are your favourite activities to explore with psychedelics? How do you spend those lightly bathed experiences? Did I miss something? Let me know.

Wishing you safe and wonderful experiences!

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mushrooms microdosing protocol psilocybin
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One Month Microdosing Psilocybin: My Report

Can microdosing change your life?

Many people will tell you that it can. And not only that, but that it has already changed theirs.

Most people who know me know that I typically expound the benefits of larger doses, but I always like an experiment, and if that experiment includes psychedelics, even better. So I thought I’d give it a fresh go, and I recently finished a month of microdosing psilocybin.

In this post, I’m going to share a report of my experience. I’ll also share my protocol, how I incorporated it into my routine, and overall what I experienced during the month, including positives and negatives.

Let’s dive in.

My Motivation and Previous Microdosing Experience

Honestly, I didn’t have a specific intention for the microdosing month. The experiment came about because I wanted to incorporate taking Lion’s Mane mushrooms into my routine (a mushroom touted for a whole host of health benefits). Lion’s mane are regularly taken with psilocybin as part of the now fairly well known ‘Stamets Stack’. So I thought ‘why not give it a go’?

I’ve done microdosing experiments before with LSD to positive results. I’ve also experimented before with micro and low doses of psilocybin, but never consistently or on any kind of regimen.

As the results of microdosing are subtle, it’s hard to pinpoint what’s working exactly. And so far, there is no solid science that tells us that microdosing is more than a placebo.

That said, there is a whole, whole lot of anecdotal evidence that reports on the positives.

The best way to find out if something works for you is to try it yourself.

So, that’s what I did.

My Protocol

Here’s a high-level look at how I conducted the microdosing experiment. I’ll go into more detail on each below.

  • 5 days on, 2 days off
  • Taken in the mornings with mushroom coffee (including lion’s mane, chaga, and cordyceps)
  • Part of my morning routine
  • Kept a log

5 days on, 2 days off

stamets microdose schedule psilocybin lions mane

I dosed Monday – Friday and took weekends off. This is the pattern of famed mycologist Paul Stamets’ microdosing protocol I mentioned before. The main difference is that I didn’t take niacin, where Stamets’ recommends this. I typically work Mon-Fri so this fit in with my working schedule.

Served With Morning Mushroom Coffee

I incorporated my microdosing into my morning routine. Y’all know I love a good morning routine.

My morning routine for this period was:
– 3-5km run
– Shower
– 10 minutes Box Breathing
– Smoothie
– Microdose Mushroom Coffee whilst reading
– Start work

I would weigh out my dried and ground mushroom dose the night before and put it in a mug with a teaspoon of mushroom coffee. I’d cover the mug and leave it on my sideboard so it would be waiting for me the next day.

I used Mushies mushroom coffee. On weekends when I wasn’t microdosing psilocybin, I still took lion’s mane by way of their capsules and extract tincture.

mushroom psilocybin lions mane coffee microdosing

Keeping a Log

I kept a log during the period. Y’all also know I like to keep drug logs.

I made a makeshift table in my bullet journal with columns for:

  • Day and date
  • Dose
  • Strain
  • Time taken
  • Notes on the experience (with timestamps where relevant).

Notes on the experience included anything that seemed notable, and if nothing, just a few words about how I felt the day went. This included things like ‘good mood’, ‘productive day’, ‘tingling sensations’ etc. I included timestamps where they seemed relevant, like ‘tingling sensations’, so I could see how long after taking the dose I felt them.

Days 1-4: Finding The Dose

I generally have a higher-than-average tolerance for psilocybin, so I started with a decent dose of 0.3 grams of JMF psilocybin mushrooms.

I planned my first microdose day on a day when I had flexibility regarding my work schedule, just in case it was a bit high.

It was a good idea. I felt a slight tingling even before I had finished my coffee and thought ‘hmmm’. I then noticed the floor moving on a bathroom break not long after.

I knew that I’d taken more than a microdose and wouldn’t get much of the work I’d planned done, so I got comfortable, lay down, and put some music on my headphones. I did find it annoying as I had work I wanted to do, but there was nothing for it.

It wasn’t a real trip (basically level 1.5), so nothing major to report on. I just lay there listening to music. It was light enough that once it worn off, I was able to work in the afternoon.

The next day I scaled right down to 0.03g. I didn’t want to have to skip work again! It was a productive day.

On the third day I went up to 0.04g and reached a threshold experience. I was surprised that I could feel something from so low a dose, but it was unmistakable.  I could feel tingling sensations through my body, a slight sense of discomfort, and I needed to pee more often (which I’d experienced on threshold doses of LSD).

On day four I went down to 0.03g and had a good day, so I settled on this for the rest of the month.

My Experience

Positives: Good mood, positive, productive, focused

Overall, I had a good month. Most days I have notes which read ‘good mood’, ‘productive’, ‘positive’ and ‘good focus’, or some combination of those words.

To sum it up I would say I experienced good focus, good mood, general feeling of being upbeat and positive, and forward flowing with motion.

Microdosing by its very nature is very subtle, so it’s hard to say if I would’ve felt like this anyway, but regardless, those are the results. In general, I’d say these are typical of my days, but maybe not quite as noticeably. A friend of mine says he notices his microdose days more towards the end of the day when he reflects back and thinks ‘that was a good day’. So it could be something like that.

This fits in with a lot of the anecdotal reports and the general gist of Ayelet Waldman’s microdosing memoir: ‘A Really Good Day’, if not as radical.

On a smaller note, I also found it easier to make good decisions on a small level, such as making healthy food choices when shopping in the supermarket. That connecting-to-the-big-picture psychedelic effect.

Negatives: Anxiety

I did experience some unwelcome anxiety on two of the days.

One was on a travel day at the end of the month when my train was delayed multiple times as I was heading to the airport. I got fidgety and worried I might miss my flight.

Whilst this is understandable, I would say that I don’t usually feel this level of anxiety in this situation. I would guess that without any dose, I would’ve been more composed. This time, I did some box breathing via a guided audio on my phone which helped cool me down, if only a little.

There was another morning when I read an email that a payment processor was closing my account because of the nature of my business. I don’t normally go into my inbox in the mornings but I needed to get something out of there and the email caught my attention.

As I already had money sitting in that processor’s account, I found this stressful and worrying as I wasn’t sure if this would cause complications with getting said money out. It derailed my morning a bit and put me a bit out of whack.

Again, this would normally be stressful but I think the microdose intensified this. I was actually sweating! I’m not uber cool but I don’t think that would be my reaction on a normal day. It was only a few hundred bucks, not a huge sum.

Aside from my first days when finding my dose, these were my only two negative experiences in the month.

Final Thoughts

My conclusion from this month is that microdoses of psilocybin can intensify my present mood.

If I’m focused and positive, more so. If I’m anxious or worried, more so.

This fits in with psychedelics’ effect of state amplification, though I do find it surprising this happened on so low of a dose. It might have been due to a build-up of subtle effects over the month.

Overall it was a positive month. Even if it was nothing I would personally call groundbreaking, I have continued to microdose on carefully selected days in the meantime.

I would like to add that people experience microdosing very differently. A lot of people report that it lowers anxiety, or helps with depression. Or any other host of effects. This is just one man’s report.

If you’re curious, I would say, try it for yourself!

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If you’re looking for a good source of mushrooms, I can recommend Mushies. I really enjoy their mushroom coffee!
Use code MAPS for 10% off!

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