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how to make psychedelic music playlists
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Crafting Psychedelic Playlists: Music, Silence & the Flow of the Trip

Music can make or break a psychedelic experience.

It can soften the come-up, deepen the peak, or gently guide the return. In some sessions, music is performed live. In others, it’s pre-recorded playlists that shape the inner landscape.

If you’re using playlists, you’ve got two options:
1. Use a pre-made playlist.
2. Build your own.

Pre-made is easy and convenient. Crafting your own lets you have more control over the shape the mood, the message, and the medicine. In this post, I’ll break down the essential knowledge for building psychedelic playlists: how to map music to the different phases of a trip, why silence is just as powerful as sound, how to use the “pendulum effect,” and a playlist hack that saves you hours.

This is the first in a series on music and psychedelics—designed to help you create powerful soundscapes for meaningful experiences.

Let’s dive in.

how to make psychedelic music playlists

The Arc and Phases

Before beginning to build a playlist for a session the first thing to know is the arc of a psychedelic experience. That is, the different phases of an experience, such as: ‘the come up’, ‘the peak’, and ‘the downslide’.

Understanding the different sections of an experience can help you to make the best musical choices for each section, supporting the trajectory and unfolding of the experience.

There have been various ways of categorizing the different sections so here I’ll share a couple.

6 phases for LSD – Bonny and Pahnke 

In The Use of Music in Psychedelic (LSD) Psychotherapy, Helen Bonny and Walter Pahnke outlined 6 phases for an LSD trip.

These were:

  • Phase 1: Pre-onset (0 to ½ hour)
  • Phase 2: Onset to (½ to 1½ hours)
  • Phase 3: Building Toward Peak Intensity (1½, to 3½ hours)
  • Phase 4: Peak Intensity of Drug Action (3 to 4½ hours)
  • Phase 5: Re-entry (4½ to 7 hours)
  • Phase 6: Return to Normal Consciousness (7 to 12 hours)

In my experience, the peak comes on a bit sooner than this, more like in the one – two hour range, but this gives you an idea. 

For psilocybin, I’d put the timings are shorter:

  • Phase 1: Pre-onset (0 to 15 mins)
  • Phase 2: Onset to (15 to 45 mins)
  • Phase 3: Building Toward Peak Intensity (45 mins to 1 hours)
  • Phase 4: Peak Intensity of Drug Action (1 to 3 hours)
  • Phase 5: Re-entry (3 to 5 hours)
  • Phase 6: Return to Normal Consciousness (5 to 6 hours)

As a general rule of thumb, calming music is to be played mainly during the onset, ascent, and return phases and more emotive music was deemed as better reserved for late in the building towards the peak phase and during the peak phase:

“Music with strong evocative emotional sentiments was only played during peak, on the assumption that an important pre-requisite is for the individual to first feel calm and safe and that more evocative music would enable an activation of autobiographical and therapeutically significant when played at peak.”
– Bonny and Pahnke – referenced in The Hidden Therapist


The Phases of a Psychedelic Trip: Come Up, Peak, Come Down

When it comes to planning a playlist for a session, the simplest way of breaking it down is into 3 sections following ingestion of a substance.

For example, with psilocybin:

  • Phase 1: Come Up (0 to 1 hour)
  • Phase 2: Peak (1 to 3 hours)
  • Phase 3: Come Down (3 to 5 hours)

Following these basic phases, musical choices would be:

  • Come Up: Calming music
  • Peak: Emotive music (or “sentimental” or “cinematic” music)
  • Come Down: Calming music

As before, this is designed to promote feelings of calm and relaxation at the beginning of the trip, and to establish a sense of safety to launch from. The emotive music intensifies emotions at the peak. Finally, calming music returns once more to smooth the return to normality.

Silence 

When building a playlist, we can start by boiling the session down into three phases for overall simplicity. This helps us to get started and build the high-level trajectory. We can then add nuance by employing other techniques to enhance the overall flow of an experience.

The Power of Silence

Silence can be used strategically in a playlist for psychedelic sessions. 

Seconds or minutes of silence in the middle of a playlist can offer a needed pause. The absence of music can lower the intensity and offer a moment of peace. It can give a sense of space, and act as a reminder to reconnect with the breath and body.

I see them almost as ‘pit stops’ on the way.

The therapeutic impact of the absence of music is significant; the choice not to play music can serve as a potent intervention. Silence, in this context, is more than just an absence of sound—it can act as a pause in stimulation, influencing the subjective experience. Moreover, silence sets the stage for a desensitizing contrast when music resumes, enhancing the freshness of the new musical experiences. 

In some cases, in a private or 1-1 session, silence may even be used for extended periods of the session, up to 30 minutes, or even hours. This may be just what the journeyer needs and wishes for. These intervals of quietness may also create an opportunity for meaningful interaction between the facilitator or tripsitter and the journeyer.

When incorporating silent intervals into your sessions, it’s crucial to inform all journeyers beforehand about the planned periods of silence. This pre-session briefing is essential to prevent potential confusion, as silence may otherwise be interpreted as something being amiss or a technical glitch.

It’s also important to note that, as with music, not everyone responds to silence in the same way. I’ve known a couple of people who found that it didn’t help or have the intended effect. In those cases, it dropped them out of their journey or reduced their overall experience in a way that they didn’t much care for.

Gongs and Bells

An alternate method to silence, that may also be used with silence is the use of bells and gongs in a playlist. These may also be used as a reminder to return to the breath and to recentre in a journey, or to recall an intention or inner resource to mind. 

The Pendulum Effect

I first learned the ‘pendulum effect’ from psychedelic musicologist and Wavepaths founder Mendel Kaelen. They were utilized in his playlists for the groundbreaking psychedelic studies on treatment-resistant depression.

The idea of the pendulum effect is that music will move between different levels of intensity within the peak phase of a psychedelic experience.

So for example, the peak of a psilocybin experience lasts approximately two hours. Using the pendulum effect, music will not be at high intensity, or highly emotive, for the full two-hour period of this phase. Rather, music will go between some high-intensity and lower-intensity music in this period. 

The high-intensity tracks may help to bring about deeper emotions, and autobiographical content, which can provide the necessary material and experience for catharsis.

The lower-intensity tracks, which might be calmer or a little more mellow, can offer respite from the intense emotional work that is being carried by the more emotional music. They can act similarly to silence and offer somewhat of a break.

I once heard someone use the analogy of burning coals to describe this process.  They stated that after a significant release or an energetic series of songs, the downshift in intensity can be particularly useful. The intense tracks are like blowing on a fire to make it hot and get the flames roaring, and then silence or calmer tracks serve as a time for the embers to burn slowly.

The Template Approach

If you’ve ever tried making a psychedelic playlist from scratch, you will know that it takes a lot of time.

There is, however, a way to have the customized aspect of a self-created playlist with the convenience of a pre-made playlist. This is to use a pre-made playlist as a template.

Most pre-made playlists will follow the phases of a psychedelic trip so the basic structure is already in place.

You can then swap out tracks with your personal choices as you see fit. So if you would really like to include just a few specific pieces of music in your playlist, you needn’t build a whole playlist from scratch. You can start with a pre-made playlist and then simply swap your choices into the sections of the playlist where you think they will best fit. You can put them in the place of tracks that have a similar intensity so that the overall flow of the playlist will remain intact.

Conversely, if you find a playlist that looks good overall but has one or two tracks that you would rather not listen to during your session, you can swap them out for your own choices.

If you want to find tracks of a similar vibe you can do this by using the ‘suggested tracks’ feature on a playlist on music platforms such as Spotify. The algorithm will look at a playlist and offer suggestions for similar tracks based on the music it contains.

Final Thoughts on Playlist Creation

Crafting the ideal playlist for a psychedelic journey is an art that hinges on understanding the nuances of the experience. Whether live or recorded, music plays a pivotal role in shaping these journeys. When creating playlists, it’s important to bear in mind the three key phases of a journey: Come Up, Peak, and Come Down, and to accompany each with specific musical choices. Calming tunes bookend the journey, while emotive music enhances the peak.

Silence, strategically integrated, emerges as a powerful tool, offering breaks, reducing intensity, and creating space for reconnection. Alternative approaches, like bells and the Pendulum Effect, provide additional layers to the experience. If you’re seeking efficiency, the template approach allows personalization within a pre-made structure. 

When creating your playlists, it’s important to remember that it can be a process of refinement over time. I would recommend that you don’t over-obsess over having the ‘perfect’ playlist the first time. Allow yourself to try musical choices, learn from experience what works well and what doesn’t, and use those to inform and adjust musical choices going forward.

It’s also important to consider the journeyer’s musical preferences in terms of genre and instrumentation. This is something I’ll explore in the next blog post, so be sure to check back soon.

Stay safe, journey well.

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create psychedelic setting space place station

Creating Your Own Psychedelic Settings – Stations, Spaces, and Places

Welcome to day 28, PSYJuly 🙂 Sorry today’s post comes late, this one took longer to edit than I anticipated. Today we’re talking psychedelic setting…

Set and setting, yada yada. You’ve heard it. But what to do about setting? How to craft it?

Beyond ambience, one thing is to make the space as practical as possible.

Careful preparation of the setting for a psychedelic session can help to make the experience more seamless and smooth. By removing friction before the start of a session, you can make the most of your trip and the time available. Setting up the space is a way of being a kind and considerate sitter for yourself ahead of time. It’s giving a gift to your future self and building a friendly relationship with your shamanic persona.  

To illustrate, I’d like to introduce three terms to the world of psychedelic setting. These are: stations, spaces, and places.

Stations

  1. A station is a designated and prepared place for doing a specific action that requires tools.

“I just got an idea! I’m heading to the writing station”
“Hey man, can you set up the dosing station whilst I prepare the food? Nice one.”

Some examples:

  • Dosing station
  • Writing station
  • Music station
  • Painting station
  • Tea station
  • Rolling station

A station, by its nature, has equipment. It should be practical and comfortable. All the tools needed for the task assigned to that station should be located there. It should suit the purpose of its existence.

Each station should be:

  • Sufficiently lit
  • Prepared for action
  • Laid out for optimised used (see places, below)
  • Considered (it suits the area)

The station should be sufficiently lit for the action that is to be performed there. For example, if you are writing, you need to be able to clearly see the pad or paper you are using. So, lamps or candles are set up or nearby. 

The station should be prepared for action. For example, at a tea station: mugs and a thermos of prepared tea. If it’s a music station, the guitar should be tuned, the picks laid out. If using digital equipment, all audio cables are connected, headphones readied and sound levels set. At a dosing station you should have all the tools needed to prepare and consume doses and boosters. If using ketamine for example, this would include: the substance, a set of scales, an item to crush the substance, a steady hard flat smooth surface to crush it on, a thin item to create lines, and straws for ingestion. It also makes sense for a dosing station to include a logging station. This would include: a log book, a pen, and a watch.

Each station should be laid out and optimised for use. This is covered in places, below.

The location of each station should be considered. What are the possible areas it could be? It should be considered within the entire space and the larger geography in mind. That includes what happens in each station, the implications of that, and its neighbouring stations and spaces.

When placing a station, ask: what’s the upshot of it being here?

If the action is a noisy one, such as singing, or loading up a gas, consider if it is adjacent to neighbours. On a recent weekend in an airbnb, I went to work on a music track where I would be recording vocals (loud ones!). I put the vocal station in the kitchen, as it was a room in the middle of the apartment and only neighboured the bathroom and the living room. It was distanced from neighbours so I could let rip.

If you might be dancing or walking around, consider if there are people on the floor below. You might make an extra padding on the floor by laying down an extra yoga mat or blanket. If you’re using paints, they might get messy. Consider where doors are and where people will be coming in and out of rooms. If you’re gonna be smoking joints, note the smell and smoke. Overall, aim for harmony with the surrounding environment. Take spaces into account.

Spaces

  1. A space is an area of a session setting.

Spaces are more about the ambience of a region, rather than its practicality for a specific action. Setting space can be thought of as set design. It takes into account the intended atmosphere. A space might be decorated or lit in a certain way.

The benefit of spaces beyond practicality is more opaque. It is more about eliciting certain feelings in certain spaces. Our brains make associations with certain areas. This is why it’s nice to have a room for work and a room for sleep as separate spaces. One is a work space, one is a sleep space, and we set them up to be conducive to their purpose.

In terms of psychedelic setting, examples might be a journey space, or a chill out space.

An example of this would be the quiet room, which when I’ve used it, acts as a chill out space. It would be prepared to be cosy and calm, setting the appropriate tone. If you’re wanting some level of sensory stimulation, you might have some fairy lights blinking, pieces of art hanging up, or engaging music playing.

I was once on a long weekend with friends in the Dutch countryside, where the hosts set up an insanity room for our session. There was a shrine to deity The Hord Lord, and some questions hung up on pieces of paper around the room to challenge visitors. If someone wanted a bit of madness, they just headed to the insanity room. It was pretty funny.

When setting up a space, take into account are the intended atmosphere of the space. What feelings do you want to promote in each space? Relaxation? Stimulation? Fun?

Places

“A place for everything, everything in its place.”

  1. A place is a designated location for a specific tool or instrument.

Having places for things brings systems thinking to the level of psychedelic setting. It makes tools easy to locate and actions easier to perform. 

Firstly, this saves confusion and avoids wasting time looking for things. 

You know the situation where you walk into a room to get something, then your mind goes blank and you think ‘what did I come in here for?’. Well when you’re high, this type of misdirection can be heightened and you might even forget that you were even looking for anything at all. This can turn into aimless wandering, which can lead to disorientation, feelings of ungroundedness, confusion and anxiety. You may even come round to the point of asking, ‘what am I doing?’. The answer to which, you may or may not remember.

Another benefit to having set places is that it streamlines actions. For example, imagine the scenario:

A great idea comes to you on that project you’ve been working on for a while. Naturally, you want to note it down. Because you were rushed, you haven’t set up, and because of your altered state, you can’t easily locate your pen. So you begin your search for it, wandering from room to room. You finally locate your pen, which was on the counter in the kitchen, but by then, ten long time-dilated minutes later, you’ve not only lost that precious session time, but even worse, you’ve forgotten the idea you had in the first place.

Let’s contrast that with a prepared station with items in their places:

A great idea comes to you. You walk over to the writing station. You pick up one of your pens from the pile laid beside your open pad of paper, and jot the idea down. Seeing it written down causes other ideas to begin sprouting from it and you see it beginning to grow. You want to see where this goes, so you pick up a larger piece of paper from the pile on the shelf beside you, and place it down to begin a brainstorm. As you get into it, you decide to add images and drawings. You reach over to your left, to the pot of coloured pens, and add some different colours to connect ideas by theme. You run with the ideas until the train loses steam, and then head to the chill space to smoke a joint and wind down.

When choosing places for tools, be like a surgeon laying out their tools on their tray. Consider how and when they will be used. If it’s part of a multi step process, what other tools will you need to use? In what order will you need to use them?

Final thoughts

How you set up and utilise stations, spaces and places will depend on the intention and type of the session. 

The concept of stations and places might seem more relevant for sessions where you will be actively doing things which require using tools or instruments, like a creative session, as opposed to a typical psychedelic therapy style session. However, being precise and mindful in preparation shows respect for the session and can help to focus the mind. It’s taking drugs like a nerd. The sense of ‘everything in its right place’, and being fully prepared can help to promote feelings of relaxation. It’s also useful when you come out of journey space to hydrate or go to the bathroom. 

This level of preparation is also especially useful for journeys without a sitter, be they solo or with others. It shows love, caring and consideration to your future tripping selves, and in some way it is pro-actively tripsitting for your future self. Your tripping self should appreciate that in your heightened state.

By utilising stations, spaces and places into your setting design, you set up to make the most of your session. You optimise your session and increase flow. You allow your mind to focus on what’s important, the content of your mind, rather than logistical considerations.

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Setting: The Environment for a Psychedelic Experience

Set and setting are two of the biggest contributors in how a psychedelic experience turns out. They are arguably as important as the dose and substance itself and together form the context for the experience.

Set refers to mindset; the persons inner state when they take the drug; their frame of mind, attitude and mood.

Setting refers to the physical environment of the experience. This includes for example; the location or room, the company or trip sitter, and the music.

Setting: The Environment for a Psychedelic Experience

This post will look at setting and why it should be considered carefully when planning a psychedelic experience.

Setting is part of the experience

The environment for any experience is the vehicle in which it is received and can actually be considered a part of the experience itself.  As such, it should not be underestimated in terms of how much influence it can have.

Consider how a frame is used to change the experience of viewing a piece of art. Does it change the piece of art itself? Whether it has a frame around it or not, it is the same piece of visual information hanging on the wall. However, it changes how it is viewed and received. It is part of the experience.

Consider some other experiences and how much the environment or method of delivery influences the experience as a whole:

  • The experience of being in a fancy fine dining restaurant vs. eating in as fast food joint. Consider how the experience is different before you’ve even eaten any food.
  • Seeing a band play at a huge festival with thousands of people singing along, dancing and enjoying themselves vs. seeing a band play in a small half-empty room with a handful of disinterested people
  • Taking a drink from a nice glass vs. from a cheap plastic bottle

Setting changes set

Setting can also influence the internal state of someone and their ability to do certain things. Imagine you have some work to do that requires your full focus and concentration.

Now imagine trying to do that work in a hot, noisy and crowded environment. Imagine trying to do it outside on a busy street on a hot day with direct sunlight pounding down on you.

Now imagine doing that work in a cool, quiet, and distraction-free room. Imagine being at home with an air fan to keep you cool, some noise-cancelling headphones playing brain.fm, and an accountability partner to check in with at the end of an hour of work.

Do you think you would have the same level of focus in each scenario? Would the results of the work be the same?

In the scenario of a psychedelic session, the setting can be considered to help one navigate their journey more successfully. It is like the difference between trying to steer a ship alone and being heavily distracted vs. trying to navigate a ship in peace with someone by your side to support you. Which is more likely to get you to your destination?

Setting & Mood

Setting can have a big influence on how one feels. Taking a psychedelic in a club surrounded by many strangers with loud music and flashing lights is going to be a very different experience to being in a room with soft soothing music, low lighting, a comfortable place to lay down, and a trusted friend. The second one will promote feelings of relaxation. In the context of a high-dose psychedelic experience, this can be very beneficial to help someone let go more fully.

Creating the setting can be considered as creating the atmosphere or the ambience for a session.

Factors to consider when creating a setting

  • Sound
  • Music
  • Lighting
  • Art
  • Items/Decoration
  • Altar
  • Clothes
  • Comfort
  • Heat
  • Airflow
  • Smell
  • Company
  • Tripsitter

Themes to consider

  • Comfort
  • Privacy
  • Peace
  • Security
  • Safety
  • Simplicity
  • Space

Cultural Context

The setting can also include the city or country in which you have your psychedelic experience. Factors include the legal status; could you go to prison or worse for taking a psychedelic substance, or is it totally legal? Also, what is the cultural context; the public opinion and media representation of psychedelics? An experience in New York will be very different to that of one in Peru and again likewise different to that of one in Amsterdam.

When planning a psychedelic experience consider not just the substance and dose but also think carefully about the setting. It is possible to have a meaningful experience on a lower dose if the set and setting are prepared accordingly and the experience infused with a kind of meaning. The effect of setting on an experience is magnified on psychedelics, and as such is worth careful consideration.

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