Elastic Minutes and Eternal Moments: How Psychedelics Alter the Perception of Time

Time distortion is one of the classic effects of psychedelics (although I rarely see this mentioned as an expected effect of psychedelics on educational, retreat, and therapy sites). I think that time distortion needs to be discussed more from a harm reduction point of view: many challenging experiences are related to alterations to one’s perception…

View Post

The Promise and Perils of Darkness Retreats

Darkness retreats involve spending a period of time in complete isolation and darkness. People do this for different reasons – to achieve an introspective state, a digital detox, a period of rest, or a spiritual experience. Participants in these retreats stay in rooms equipped with beds, toilets, and showers, which can be tricky to use…

View Post

Processing Climate Anxiety and Eco-Grief Through Psychedelics

The climate crisis has seen, in response to it, a worsening of many people’s mental health. Climate anxiety (distress related to climate change and its effects) and eco-grief (mourning the damage and loss seen in the natural world) are on the rise, and mental health professionals are noticing that more clients are experiencing these forms…

View Post

Psychedelics and the Rogansphere

The Rogansphere – consisting of Joe Rogan and like-minded comedians orbiting around him – faces steady and consistent criticism from YouTubers (whose focus and most popular content is criticising the Rogansphere). Popular critiques of the Rogansphere began with Mike David/Redbar (at redbarradio.net), and he (and fans) uploaded clips of these to YouTube. Today, the most impressive…

View Post

Addressing the Gaps in Participant Care in Psychedelic Therapy and Retreats

Things don’t always go smoothly in psychedelic-assisted therapy or during a psychedelic retreat. In an ideal world, a psychedelic experience would unfold as one hopes. Perhaps there are difficult moments, but they are easily worked through. More generally, people hope the experience will result in catharsis, resolution, and transformation. However, the reality is that psychedelic…

View Post