Psychedelics Meet Mindfulness: How Psychedelics Can Support Your Mindfulness Practice

Discovering Mindfulness

If you are reading this, my guess is that you are not in a retreat, nunnery, or monastery. Perhaps you’re one of the hundreds of millions of people worldwide that might have a mindfulness practices or meditate for several minutes a day or maybe even up to an hour. Being very honest, maybe you skip a day here and there, or maybe even try your hardest to fit it in, but get too busy. That is why  most people who “meditate,” do “mindfulness practices,” or consistently use techniques like breath awareness, kundalini, or other current practices may find that the mindful and reverent use of psychedelics can cement a deeper meditation experience and one that lasts longer over time.

That’s right! It only makes sense: if you are able to embody deep peace, love, and other experiences reported by long-term meditators through a psychedelic experience in just a few hours, that may otherwise take years to reach through dedicated mindfulness practice, meditation, or other complementary techniques, you then have a compass, like a reference point, almost instantaneously. At least that is a potential benefit of ingesting a macrodose when done in a safe set and setting with respected, well-trained guides (e.g., elders, CIIS, Naropa University, MAPS): whether in a ceremony in the Amazon basin, in a clinical setting, or a local venue.

Microdosing: The Path to Mindfulness

Likewise, when accessing a safe container provided by well-trained microdosing facilitators and coaches (e.g.,The Microdosing Institute, Third Wave), mindful microdosing reaps so many of the same benefits of a higher dose, albeit on a micro scale. Some commonly reported microdosing benefits are greater well-being, greater connection, more openness, and an overall feeling of being more grounded and at ease. In the words of transpersonal psychologist and scholar, Dr. Jorge N. Ferrer, “Bringing together mindfulness and microdosing makes perfect synergic sense.” After a mindful microdosing cycle of two months, a person may look back and reflect how much more these benefits have become a part of their very self. Perhaps the embodied experience didn’t go as deep as in a macrodose, but the integrated experience may seem more tangible. 

Irregardless of whether it is a macro or micro experience, in both cases, the mindful use of psychedelics offers a portal to enhance an unfolding daily practice. To have a lived experience of being connected to all, a deep grounding in peace, feeling loving-kindness towards all sentient beings; as well as other reported benefits, then your psychedelic experience has the opportunity to be the wellspring of your mindfulness practices. 

Psychedelics and Mindfulness Synergies

Furthermore, benefits of psychedelic experiences report the dissolution of ego - a prime goal of any meditation practice. The self-referential “I” of the ego is known to be lower when the default network in the brain is reduced, now proved to happen time and again in clinical labs studying the effects fo psychedelics. We can see comparisons on fMRIs of the brain (as shown in Michael Pollan’s popular book, How To Change Your Mind,), the reduction of the default mode network and other biological changes that scientifically validate this. We are already seeing studies looking at the cross section of meditation and psychedelics, notably from Dr. Carhart-Harris lab at Imperial College in London. An entire body of research is yet to emerge in the coming years. Simply put, we know that there is a strong synergy between psychedelics and mindfulness practices.

So if you are dedicated to a wisdom tradition that may involve mindfulness, meditation, kundalini, kriyas, breath practices, or other techniques, you can approach the mindful use of psychedelics specifically for the benefit of your chosen practice. You would be part of a rapidly growing community in which psychedelics meets mindfulness for greater spaciousness of mind and expansiveness of heart.