How to prepare for a psilocybin journey: A complete guide

Both Camila and I have studied the field of psychedelic therapy and harm reduction for years, we have done hundreds of journeys and we have worked in private practice and psychiatric settings with clients for many years. As licensed clinical social workers and trauma therapists, we have spent a lot of time translating our expertise into psychedelic preparation tools, to create safe and positive healing experiences for our clients. We have developed psychedelic preparation courses that give a lot of information in very digestible, short video formats and we are giving free access to them, to protect all journeyers on their travels.

Having a framework for your experience offers guidance and structure - when we are working with psilocybin, we're working with a very potent substance. It's incredibly deep what mushrooms can open up in our psyche. And what we learned as therapists, and from other traditions that have worked with psychedelics for hundreds of years, or millennia, is that there are safe and efficient ways of preparing ourselves to go through the experience, safely. Psychedelic medicines are too big and too important to be used casually, but if they're used respectfully and with awareness, they can be very helpful, for many goals or intentions. Psychedelics are not just a “last-resort” for people who are very, very ill. They are wonderful teachers, for anyone. They can heal us. They can guide us in life. And they can also scare us. They can be emotionally and physically challenging. Psychedelic medicines are something that we want to respect, understand, and enter into with knowledge and clarity, with the guidance of someone who's experienced, with mental and physical preparation, and with support from a community - or any other sources of support available. That is why at OUR HOUSE, our approach is to always allow for extended preparation time before dosing day.

Psychedelics have a very long history of being used in communal contexts. We know that there is magic in doing this work together, in being supported, in being vulnerable together, in all sharing the same objectives…we don’t get the opportunity very often to truly be ourselves in these ways, with the help of psychedelics, and with the loving presence of others. We talk about the increased benefits of psychedelics in community a lot, and you can read up on it in other articles on our website, but for now, let us help you understand the key areas for getting the most out your psilocybin journey, safely.

1) Understanding Trauma

How do we heal with psilocybin experiences? Psychedelics teach us interesting things about our perceptions and thoughts. Events and interactions become painful for us because of the meanings and interpretations our minds attach to them. In other words, the way we interpreted our pains and childhood wounds shaped how we see and experience the world - now. What we believe is reality is only an interpretation of the past. Under the impact of mushrooms, we gain access to our beliefs, and we can look beyond them. We begin to see that what we hold on to as reality is not really so. The mind loosens its attachment to fearful interpretations, and it can experience peace underneath it. In other words, memories remain, but our interpretations change.  In this view, healing trauma with psychedelics is a process of opening the mind to question fearful interpretations and open to a different way of seeing, which gradually reduces emotional distress. From a preparation point of view, this means that it is important to understand what fearful assumptions we are bringing into our journeys. Many journeyers are looking for positivity, healing, mystical experiences, but we must be prepared to see what we believe about ourselves, because most likely, it will show up, and it may scare us. In order to access the beauty, mysticism or compassion deep within us, we must be prepared to look at what we believe is holding us back. It’s a belief we created, so we must understand why, to let it go. As the buddhists say, the only way out is through. Don’t push your fears away, always invite them in and have an intention to look at your fears with curiosity on your journey.

2) Set And Setting
Your experience with psilocybin mushrooms will be heavily infuenced by your state of mind and the enironment you are in - set and setting impact psychedelic outcomes. All of the points in this article will help you prepare your mindset for a safe and succesful journey: Knowing your nervous system tools, your fears and blocking beliefs.

It it also very important to have a trusting relationship with your facilitator. Always make time to meet ahead of your journey to establish trust, ask questions, establish touch contracts and discuss your needs around set and setting. Your facilitator needs to know if you have allergies, whether you are sensitive to scents, certain sounds or instruments. Building a safe, comfortable environment is all part of your preparation process and helps you create a grounding, positive experience. It is not necessary to feel like we need to grab on to our seats or handle bars, like we are on a scary roller coaster, when taking psilocybin.

3) Understanding Your Nervous System During Psilocybin

How do psilocybin experiences show up in the body and how do we regulate ourselves when trauma and fear show up? Most people expect psychedelic work to be mostly psychological or visual.
But very often the experience is primarily somatic. This means the body becomes a place where emotions, memories, and nervous system patterns can emerge.

Understanding this ahead of time can help you meet the experience with curiosity rather than fear. When people don’t understand bodily sensations during a journey, they sometimes interpret them as something going wrong. In reality, the body may simply be processing and releasing stored energy. The body keeps the score, remember that book?

Our nervous system generally moves through three states:

Ventral vagal — SAFETY and connection. You may feel: relaxed, curious, open and socially connected

Sympathetic activation — FIGHT/ FLIGHT. You may feel: anxiety, energy, restlessness, heat or agitation

Dorsal vagal SHUTDOWN — collapse. You may feel: numb, heavy, distant or foggy

Psilocybin can temporarily increase sensitivity to these states. That means sensations that normally stay subtle can become more noticeable. This is not the medicine “creating” something new. It is often revealing what was already happening in the nervous system.

Common body sensations during psilocybin can include changes in breathing, temperature changes, nausea, shaking or muscle trembling, pressure or expansion in the chest. and more. Slow breathing often supports regulation. Gentle curiosity and allowing the body movements helps. Observing sensations in the body with curiosity rather than immediately reacting to them is a key tool. For example, if you feel pressure in the chest, instead of thinking: “Something is wrong.” You might say internally: “I notice pressure in my chest.” Then ask: Is it moving or still? Warm or cool? Soft or sharp? Does it change as I breathe?

With somatic experiencing expertise, our preparation and journey work always guides people through their somatic experiences. We find it helpful to teach different forms of breathing exercises for regulation and every journeyer should try some of them to find one that feels easy and that works for them. You want to make sure you feel the breath practice is working for you ahead of your journey. Otherwise, how can you find comfort in it? Notice in real life, when you are feeling slightly dysregulated, is the breathing technique helping you calm down? If yes, you will have trust in it on dosing day. Many breathing exercises can be found on YouTube or in our resource section (or in the psilocybin preparation course), such as box-breathing, lateral breathing or wave breathing. Practice before you take mushrooms, your breath will guide you safely through your fears. And please know we are talking about simple things here, we are not talking about breath practices that take long, daily practices or years to learn. Your breath is already available to you, you just need to try it, to notice how to best use it, for you.

Remember, psilocybin experiences are not just journeys of the mind. They are journeys through the body. The more curious and compassionate you can be toward your physical sensations, the easier it becomes to navigate your experience.

4) IFS Parts And Protectors
One of the frameworks that can help us understand inner experiences during psychedelic journeys is called Internal Family Systems, or IFS. Blocking beliefs —especially protective parts—may appear during a psilocybin experience, but you can work with them skillfully. We all have parts, it is not a bad thing. It is just important to get to know them ahead of dosing day. We know from experience that any journeyer is able to do some preparation work in this area, even without reading books about it - or being in IFS therapy. We have created guided IFS meditations that help you identify beliefs, or parts within you that need acknowledgment.

IFS proposes that we all contain different parts or sub-personalities that hold different emotions, beliefs, and strategies for coping with life. If you reflect for a moment, you will notice that you are naturally using this concept already; we often say things like “part of me feels worried about…”, we naturally know that we can feel different things at the same time. So you know how to do this!

As you are preparing for your journey, and with the help of our guided tools, you might recognize e.g.:

• a part that is ambitious

• a part that worries or

• a part that avoids conflict

None of these parts are problems. They are adaptations that developed to help you survive and navigate your life. When they appear, it often means something inside you is ready to be witnessed. Understanding this ahead of time can make those moments much easier to navigate. During the journey, your goal is not to eliminate these parts. Your goal is to meet them with curiosity and compassion.

The IFS section in our course gives you an brief, but in-depth understanding of different parts and how to work with them. It is worth listening to!

5) Setting Intentions
We rarely travel anywhere without a destination, correct? The same applies in psilocybin journeys. Even if you plan on taking psilocybin recreationally, you can have an intention to guide you, such as “show me joy” or “show me connection”. Intentions are very short sentences, goals or directions for your journey. We cannot will destinations such as “give me peace” or “take me to heaven” on our journeys - intentions reflect learning objectives.

Psilocybin, and other psychedelics connect us deeply to our psyche. We are looking inward, beyond our blocking trauma beliefs and protective parts. So, once we are here, deep down in our psyche, what do we want to learn, what do we want to let go of? Most people get a journey that answers their intentions. You can have more than one intention. 10 may be too many to remember while journeying, but it is completely fine to have multiple intentions. (Psilocybin is a long journey, for a ketamine journey you will want to keep your list much shorter.) Again, because nobody tends to come without an expectation for a destination, it is key to understand that intentions are not a wishes for outcomes but a wish to step into something within us more clearly. For example, if I wanted to find more peace or connection in life, I would not be able to take mushrooms and say “make me more loving”. The mushrooms are not doing anything to us. They are not magic pills. Instead I would say “show me what is in the way of connecting with others (or feeling more peaceful), and now the mushrooms will show me what blocking beliefs or projections I am holding on to. Or they may show me positive aspects of myself that I haven’t been able to see.

Sometimes psychedelics will guide you to something you didn’t expect. Know that there are no errors on our journeys, Just like a broken arm knows how to heal, our souls know how to guide our healing on our journeys. We can always trust that each journey is exactly what we need.

6) Identifying Blocking Beliefs Before The Journey

One helpful preparation practice is identifying negative beliefs that might arise during the journey.

These are often statements that feel rigid or absolute.

Some common examples include:

“I am not safe.”

“I am too much.”

“I am not worthy of love.”

“I will lose control.”

These beliefs often originate from parts that developed during earlier experiences.

The beliefs are not facts. They are protective strategies.

Before your journey, you might take a few moments to ask yourself:

What beliefs tend to appear when I feel vulnerable? What inner voices criticize or control me? What part of me tries to stay in charge at all times?

Noticing these ahead of time can help you recognize them more easily during a psychedelic experience and you can also invite them in as an intention. Often times, these negative beliefs that are what brings people to psilocybin therapy and to our programs. They are the main intention.

“I am not worthy of love” becomes “teach me about my self-worth” or “heal my self-worth”. And then during the journey we can hopefully step into connecting to who we really are, underneath, love, compassion and more.

7) Know Your Journey Tools

If we haven’t emphasized this enough already, we will do it again! Difficult moments on a journey are not a sign that something has gone wrong.

Some of the most meaningful and transformative insights people have during psychedelic experiences come from moving through exactly these kinds of moments — not around them. The goal isn't to control what's happening. The goal is to learn how to be present with it.

Four simple tools you can use anytime during your journey are:

• Breathing

• Curiosity

• Body awareness

• Grounding

We talked about breath, curiosity and tracking your body experiences already. Grounding means that you have the ability to bring yourself back to the present moment even while under the influence of psilocybin — to the room, your body, and the ground beneath you. And that is immensely calming.

You might try:

• Feeling your feet on the floor

• Noticing the weight and support of the surface beneath you

• Listening to the music playing in the room

You can also slowly open your eyes and let yourself take in the space around you — colors, shapes, light. And you can remind yourself, gently: "I am safe. I am here. This will pass."

A Reminder: A psychedelic journey moves in waves. Moments of intensity are almost always temporary.

These are simple practices — but in the right moment, they can make all the difference. As you are preparing, practice what feels grounding to you, and maybe prepare or come up with a mantra that feels safe and soothing to you.

8) Preparing For Dosing Day
Your journey begins when you are making the decision to take a psychedelic. This might be weeks or months before the actual day of your journey. There are many ways one can mentally and physically prepare for a journey; there are no right or wrong ways, we get to choose and decide how we want to meet the medicine. This decision is part of the “set” - the intentional mindset we are approaching our journey with.

Here are some guidelines we like to share:

• Leading up to your experience it is recommended that you incorporate mindfulness and/or other wellbeing tools or activities. Spending time in nature, journaling, yoga, dance or other mindful movement, creative endeavors etc., are all good examples of preparing your mind and body for a journey. It is also a good support for your body to eat light and healthy meals leading up to an experience.  

• Reflect on intentions, goals and desires for participating in medicine journey.

• Suggested diet and practice prior to dosing day, for as long as possible (ideally 2 weeks)

a.      Drink plenty of fresh pure water  

,b.     Plenty of organic fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds, organic juice

c.      No Alcohol, sugar, heavy red meat, no processed foods, no junk food, no or minimal highly spiced food

d.     Minimal caffeinated beverages or substances 

e.      No psychoactive substances or alcohol.

f.      Moderate exercise, walking, yoga, dancing, chi gung,

g.      Sexual abstinence (at least no “happy endings”)

h.     Simple meditation with conscious breathing 

i.       Journaling

j.       No cable news (or “mainstream media”), or gratuitous lower-vibrational entertainment (violent gory movies, excessive profanity, etc.) for a clean mind and open heart and soul leading up to your journey.

Our free course os available to you, use it. All these concepts and tools are explained in depth for you. You can always reach out with questions and we are wishing you a beautiful, safe and productive journey!