LEVELING UP WITH ANY PSYCHEDELIC TRIP: ENHANCE YOUR SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE WITH LEARNING AND REFLECTION

A psychedelic or spiritual trip can be quite an experience. All kinds of thoughts can enter your mind. About how the world works, for instance, but also about how you yourself work. As with a sober impressive experience, you can learn a lot from a trip. But you probably know that you quickly forget such lessons and ideas. After which you do nothing with them. A shame, of course. Therefore, in this article we focus on the ways in which you can really learn from your trips to become a better person. Both in terms of personal growth and mental well-being. Reflection is the magic word here. Read here how to do that, reflect and learn from your psychedelic trip.

1. Intention: the starting point of learning from a psychedelic trip

Learning from a psychedelic trip is actually the same as trying to cram successfully for a test: you need to know what the learning goals are. Before you start tripping on psychedelic truffles or magic mushrooms, it is important to make your intention clear. In other words: what do you want to learn or achieve in the hours to come?

That intention will give you focus during tripping.

Examples of intentions you can use for self-improvement:

more insight into your own behaviour to improve it, such as exercising more or taking better care of yourself in another way
improving the dynamics with your partner, family member or within a friendship
deal with trauma
finding a new hobby or passion
overcoming fears
getting more in touch with the spiritual
explore or broaden your view on a particular matter.

Put your intention on paper. Also write down why you have this intention. For example: “I want to be less manipulative within my relationship. This is because I find that it hurts my partner, puts pressure on my relationship, and I find myself a less fun person when I exhibit manipulative behaviour.” Make sure you are as specific as possible in what you want to learn and why. Also determine which aspects are important players within this. In this example, these are your partner, but also previous partner, your educators, yourself, your beliefs and values and certain characteristics of the relationship. Put these on paper as well, so you can reflect on each of these while tripping.

Involve your trip mates or go on a solo vision quest

Another tip: discuss your intention with those you are tripping with, in case you are not going on an inner journey by yourself. Your trip sitter or trip mates can undoubtedly provide you with additional insights and support.

Are you tripping on your own? Then read our article on the so-called vision quest: a personal search for answers and insights.

2. The lessons during your trip

During a psychedelic trip, you can get all kinds of ideas and insights to learn from. This can be anything: flat jokes, absurd associations or completely revolutionary new insights about yourself, your relationships and the universe. Sometimes you get very clear insights, sometimes they are vague. And it also happens that your brain or the universe doesn't actually come up with anything concrete. The outcome cannot always be guided, but with your intention in your mind, you are already well on your way to getting something valuable out of the trip.

Trip journal: how to do it

During your trip, you can keep a so-called trip journal as a structure and log. This starts with the intention you set earlier. Now look for ways to incorporate your intention as a thread through the trip.

A trip journal roughly contains the following elements:

description of the setting of the trip: who, what, where, when
description of your experience, feelings, thoughts
a first interpretation of your experience and insights

If possible, write in your journal during your psychedelic trip, so you can already learn from it during the trip. Immediately afterwards is also possible, when the trip fully engages you. You can also ask if your trip-mate can help you journal. Or speak voice memos when writing takes too much effort.

Your intention as a thread

Suppose you had the intention to be less manipulative within your relationship and gave this a lot of thought during the trip. If so, you will undoubtedly have something to say about it afterwards. Think of painful memories that come to mind of moments when you caught yourself being manipulative. These were moments when you would have preferred different behaviour. And during your trip, you had certain feelings when you thought about your partner, your relationship, the dynamics, your communication style, your thoughts and beliefs or your upbringing. During a trip, your emotions often become more intense and you can feel things that you don't feel so strongly sober. Thus, during your trip, you can learn from the emotions that bubble up inside you with all those factors at play.

Look at your trip journal in a sober and clear moment. Put your intention next to it. Can you already draw a conclusion?

3. Integrate after your psychedelic trip

The last step in learning from a psychedelic trip is perhaps the most difficult: integrating what you have learned. Ideally, you now know what your leads are. To use again the example of wanting to unlearn manipulative behaviour within your relationship: which factors did you experience the most emotions with? The conclusions to such a question can be very different, from bad examples from your upbringing to trauma from previous relationships, or simply concluding that the cake is ready.

Do you really want to work on this? Then expect a process that could take some time. You can enlist the help of friends or a therapist. Be open to new ideas and be patient. Also be kind to yourself, because it is always worth a pat on the back when you work on yourself!