Before any great adventure, the hero needs to prepare for the journey that lies ahead. This journey will be unlike any you have embarked on before, and I hope you give it the respect and honor it deserves. The words you’re reading right now might very well be words that you will never forget, simply because they gave you the answers that changed your life.
I know, because I have been where you are (looking for answers, that is. I mean, why else would you be reading this?)
Let’s jump straight into the first part of getting ready for what is to come.
Establishing a supportive mindset
Before we start talking about the experience itself, we need to talk about a few important guidelines. Just like a driver’s license, there’s the theoretical part, and there’s the practical part. Before you take your driver’s exam, you need to know the traffic rules. In my opinion, the same goes for psychedelics, so let’s dive into it.
SET
Your mental state, or Mindset (Set), will affect the overall experience in a big way. Psychedelics can strengthen your emotions and make them more focused and intense. Don’t worry if you’re going into this because you feel worse than you’d like. You can still turn negative into positive and dark into light, but know that if your intention is “off”, it might not turn out how you’d like. So let’s talk a little about how to ensure a good “Set” before going into an experience.
Intention
You might have heard people talking about intention in terms of psychedelic experiences. This varies greatly. Psychedelics, if used intentionally, can cause change and growth in ways one cannot even imagine. We’ll go way deeper into this as we learn more.
Examples of intentions:
- Be inspired by new perspectives and inputs
- Healing trauma or negative thought patterns
- Recreational
- Physical exercise
- A creative outlet and artistic expression
- Manifestation (visualizing goals and plans)
- Increasing Awareness/Consciousness
- Being a better parent/partner/human
- … and so on. The list is only limited by creativity and individual needs and/or desires
If you view psychedelics as a “magic pill” that will fix all problems, you might get very disappointed and possibly scared to the degree where you’ll never want to try them again.
The reason is simple. Not knowing how your intention impacts the experience could cause an experience that has no other “blueprint” than what you currently feel and think. If you expect it to fix everything without putting in the work, you might get disappointed when the experience sets in. If this happens and causes any negative emotions as a direct result, you might get pulled into a “bad trip” with little to no chance of stopping it.
So let’s talk about how to ensure a good mind(Set)
Helpful Practices
MEDITATION
Meditation is a very powerful tool in the psychedelic journey. If you have some experience with meditating, you can more easily navigate the experience. If you don’t have any experience, knowing about it is often enough to give you a “safe line”.
You see, a psychedelic experience has the tendency to “ground” you similar to meditation, only much stronger. You are forced into “meditation” and being present. This is a good thing because then you just need to know a little bit about what’s possible in meditation. We’ll go more into the details of this later.
JOURNALING
Journaling is another great tool for psychedelic experiences. This is more applicable for those who use it specifically to grow and develop, but it can be helpful for recreational travelers as well. The reason is that you get more aware of what’s on your mind. By simply being aware, your brain will work with the medicine and show you what you need to see.
POSITIVE VIBES
Being Inspired & Motivated about what’s possible will put you into a more “high-vibing” state, and that is a great way to stay in a good mindset. Talk to experienced practitioners, and dream about what you want to receive in life. Listen to good music before going into the experience, etc.
RITUAL
Being Respectful of this ancient medicine. If you treat it with respect and approach it in a “ritualistic” way, you might feel like this is a very special and important event (which it most definitely is) that demands you be in a state where you’re ready to receive important insights and lessons.
GOOD FOOD
Eating Good Food in the time leading into the day of the experience. Personally, I like to eat fresh salads and other foods that are not dead before it enters my mouth. My stomach won’t have to work as much, and my energy levels are a lot higher. Whether or not you eat on the same day of the experience is up to you, but I recommend clean and fresh food that doesn’t require your body to work overtime going into the experience.
SETTING
When you have reached a good mindset, or Set, it’s time to think about the Setting for the experience. This means the location, the environment, and the people around you – where you are and who you’re with, more or less.
A Setting can be a truly powerful inspiration for the journey. If it’æ’s set up correctly, you can more or less design the experience from the intention you set.
Let’s go through a few examples of Settings and how they impact the experience:
EXPANDING AWARENESS
Your intention is to go within. To travel into the deepest depths of your being, or to travel to the outer reaches of the Universe, it’s all up to you. The main point of this is that there are minimal disturbances and inputs that can interfere with the experience.
You’re lying in a comfortable bed in a dark room. On a table next to you, there is fruit and water, everything you’d need during your experience. There’s calm music playing in the background, guiding your mind as you explore. The room might be dark, or you might be wearing a blindfold for sensory deprivation.
AWAKEN THE GOD WITHIN
Maybe you’ve heard; Entheogens means “God Within”. A common insight from my ceremonies – specifically with psilocybin mushrooms – is that the participant will feel like being the energy of love, unity, or simply know that they are part of everything, and everything is a part of them. We are made of the same components as everything else, even the stars, and thus, we can more or less scientifically explain how we are gods.
To awaken the god within, however, is an interesting exercise.
You might be sitting by a fire. Around you are different elements that bring about the mystical and ethereal. As you go into your journey, you are affected by the scene around you. There might be natural tribal music playing in the background, or a guide is using instruments to create a more powerful experience.
With the right guidance, you will feel the power as it fuels you. You will understand the epic stories of old, and you will know that you are capable of anything you put your mind to.
PHYSICAL EXERCISE
This is not something I have done personally, but after I first heard about it, I learned about several situations where it had been done. Some might use it for a normal day at the gym. Others might use it for diving. What struck me most was the story of how a man ran for 30 miles while on a big dose of psilocybin mushrooms. He sat the intention, and he put on the running shoes.
He was not fit, he did not work out regularly. Yet he ran, and he could’ve kept running. When he finally stopped, he felt renewed! But that’s not the most interesting thing about it. We have often heard that a psychedelic experience can be compared to 100s if not 1000s of hours of therapy. He said – shockingly – that his run was like 1000 psychedelic trips, where each one was like 100s or 1000s of therapy sessions. Can you imagine? He was running and processing insights ahead of real-time, which is also a common thing within psychedelics.
The point of this Setting is to put yourself in the situation to perform. He put on his running shoes and ran. It’s that “simple”, although timing definitely plays a part. I would much rather feel the effects come on while I’m running, instead of feeling it before I get ready.
CREATIVE OUTLET
This is almost like the others. You prepare the space around you with whatever you’d need during the experience, then make sure that everything you want to experiment with is ready to go. When you start the journey, you simply let the brush fly and let it take you where it wants.
THE PRINCIPLE
As you see, all of the Settings have similarities. They all require preparations, where you think through what you want to achieve or experience, and then create a scene that will allow you to live it out. Your creativity is the only limit.
Having water and snacks, like fruit, is a great addition to any experience. I usually think “It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.”
You should also consider who you allow being around you during an experience like this because you will pick up the energy of others. If other people have a bad mindset, act negatively, or simply share toxic energy, that will affect you. Have a trip sitter or make sure that you really vibe with the people you’re with.
As you go into this, you will also gain experience that will help you understand how you interact with the medicine, which will allow you to find your unique way of exploring this fascinating topic.
IN SUMMARY FOR STEP 1
Cultivate a Safe Environment:
- Set and Setting: Choose a comfortable and familiar location for your psychedelic experience.
- Remove Distractions: Minimize external disturbances like phones or loud noises.
- Choose Companions Wisely: Surround yourself with people you trust who can provide support and guidance.
With all of this said, I hope you’ve gained a little more insight into what to prepare for when you’re about to head into this adventure. It’s your adventure, and the more you know about it, the better it will be.
Look forward to the next post, where we go a little into the psychedelic mushroom itself.
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