An NLP Based Guide to Supporting People in Altered States

(c) Richard Bolstad

(Sample track on Apple Music and Spotify; part of a 2 hour album of relaxing music)

My Goal in this Article

In a previous article (read here: Bolstad, 2023) I put the case that Psychedelic Assisted Therapy is likely to increase in popularity and availability, and it would be helpful to have an NLP model of how to assist people engaging in it, rather than a purely medical model or a traditional dynamic psychotherapy model.

One of the most important reasons why such events are likely to be more popular is because Psychedelics are not merely a therapeutic tool, in the traditional sense, but a tool that can possibly be used in a number of positive ways to enhance life experience. Indeed, that is the way they have been used throughout history. Cicero attributed the rising of humanity from barbarism to the initiation ceremonies of the Eleusinian mysteries, where psychedelic drugs revealed what he called “the principles of life, and the basis not only for living with joy but for dying with a better hope.” (Cicero, De Legibus, 2.36). Research Chemist Dr Albert Hoffman, who first synthesized both Psilocybin and LSD said of his first (accidental) ingestion of LSD “I had the feeling, when I came back from this strange world, that our normal world, which ordinarily we don’t think is wonderful, was a wonderful world. I saw it in a new light. It was a rebirth.” (quoted in Fadiman, 2011, p. 48). In this sense, guiding people as they have psychedelic experiences is life coaching in the positive and transformative sense, rather than “therapy”. This article has recommendations from my own experiences and from the work of many others involved whether as either “journeyers” or “guides” or “sitters”, and from the recommendations of medical experts using the drugs clinically.

Currently, in most countries in the world, the use or possession of “entheogens” or “psychedelics” is illegal, and this article in no way intends to encourage illegal activities. Firstly, please use this advice within the law of the state you are residing in.  Secondly, by helping give some NLP-based guidelines for safe legal work with Psychedelic experiences, I hope this advice will also be useful to provide a benchmark to compare non-legal events against, and to enable responsible harm reduction even in such cases. And thirdly, I see this as part of preparing the NLP community for the expected future legalization of psychedelics, when the more NLP coaches who feel comfortable, the more helpful for humanity we can be. That said, it is also important to emphasize that the majority of experiences of psychedelic “journeys” are reported as positive experiences where neither psychological nor physical harm occurs (van Amsterdam and Opperhuizen, 2011). The same is true of most camping holidays, and yet there too, first aid preparations are always sensible. This article is not offering or attempting to replace medical advice, any more than a camping guide replaces emergency services. Consider this an introduction to the process of guiding or sitting with someone, rather than a replacement for having a trained professional support person.

For more extensive information, visit:

• https://zendoproject.org/ A psychedelic peer support network that provides professional comprehensive harm reduction education and support for communities to help inform and transform difficult psychedelic experiences.
• https://maps.org/ The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies has dedicated the last 36 years to changing the way people think of, talk about, and consume psychedelics through research, education, and advocacy of decriminalization.
• https://psychedelic.support/ provides both free open training and accredited training for health professionals in psychedelic therapy, integration and harm reduction, as well as linking people to trained therapists and supporting research.
• https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic-Journeys/dp/1594774021  Also read The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys a book by by James Fadiman, available in Paperback, Kindle eBook, and Audiobook.
• https://www.entheoguide.net/ James Fadiman’s site has a wide range of information resources including a detailed instruction guide for sitters.
• https://fantasticfungi.com/film/ The movie Fantastic Fungi, directed by Louis Schwartzberg and featuring Paul Stamets, is an excellent introduction to the modern non-denominational spirituality of entheogens. It’s available for hire here for US$4 or through streaming sites such as Netflix.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_legends_about_illegal_drugs A summary of refutation of the propaganda stories from the 1970s that people may have heard. For example, someone under the influense of LSD stared at the sun until they were blind? Featured on the TV show Dragnet long ago, this story was created by Norman M. Yoder, commissioner of the Office of the Blind in the Pennsylvania State Welfare Department, who admitted that he had completely made up the story because of his “concern over illegal LSD use by children”. But the story about Donald Trump staring at the sun during an eclipse… yeah, that one is true, sorry.
• https://transformations.org.nz/entheogens/ our previous article overviewing the resurgence of interest in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy.
• https://www.psychedelicpassage.com/psychedelic-guides-share-the-best-music-for-psychedelic-therapy/ Links to a wide variety of music tracks for background in psychedelic therapy, categorized by different outcomes.

Why Have a Guide or a Sitter?

Even if your experience of mind altering drugs extends only to caffeine and alcohol, you have some idea why there needs to be a designated driver in a group going out drinking. That person’s job is to make sure that everyone has a good time and gets home safely, even if they need to insist that the other people stop drinking at some point, or insist that they do not try to drive. That person is not a guru, however, and it’s not part of their job to moralize about the correct way to drink.

Taking a psychedelic or entheogenic drug is unlike almost any other experience a person is likely to have had. The classical psychedelics such as psilocybin, DMT and LSD interrupt the functioning of the brain’s Default Mode Network: the pattern of thinking and interpreting experiences that a person reverts to when not focused on any particular task (Gattuso et alia, 2023). That means that the person starts to experience the world much like an innocent child might, as a place of wonder. That may cause perceptual changes (seeing richer colours and patterns especially with eyes closed, hearing sounds differently, feeling tingling sensations throughout the body, and even cross-sense synesthesias), alterations of the sense of time (both in terms of the felt duration of events as they occur, and in terms of the person’s sense of where they are in the story of their life or of humanity), and even, at high enough doses and with sensory input reduced, actual hallucinations (feeling as if one is in another world, communicating with beings from another reality etc.). But the most profound changes that this results in are a sense of awareness or consciousness that expands beyond the usual sense of self, often bringing a feeling of joy or love for all that is. All this is so different to normal reality that the experience can also be frightening to some people, or can remind them of strong emotions, such as grief, that they have used the Default Mode Network to avoid experiencing. The experience is generally so profoundly positive that the person will remember it as one of the most, if not the most, important positive experience/s they have ever had (Griffiths et alia, 2008).

Since a person without an active Default Mode Network is not using their normal way of explaining to themselves what is happening, they are more than usually open to suggestions from the environment, and from the comments of those who are with them (Gukasyan and Nayak, 2022). This means that a person who sits with the experiencer needs to have both an experiential awareness of what the psychedelic journey is like, and a skill with setting the scene physically as well as psychologically, and positively reframing the significance of both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. To do this effectively, they need to have an above average ability to put aside their own beliefs, values, and preconceptions about what “should or could” happen, and be with this unique person in this unique moment. For most of the experience, this precludes doing anything like traditional coaching or psychotherapy, but it emphasizes the skills of empathic listening and reframing. As far as first aid goes, since a person is “in the care” of their guides or sitters, those people are best to have first aid training for events unrelated to the ingestion of the drug; especially CPR training (offered by the Red Cross online, for example: www.redcross.org/take-a-class/cpr/cpr-training/cpr-online). Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert found in early research that the factor most associated with the experiencer having an unpleasant time was the guide becoming worried. The following recommendations are summarized not only from my own experience, but also from the sources above which come from the combined experience of thousands of others. This is an introduction.

Guides for the Guide: Before

Preparation for the experience is best to begin quite some days before, and the day of the event plus the day before and after are best set aside for relaxing and reflecting on the session. Beforehand, this preparation may include dispelling some of the fake news about psychedelics (see Wikipedia source above), and explaining the recent resurgence of research about Psychedelic drugs and their effects in the brain (see my recent article listed above). It may also involve watching movies such as “Fantastic Fungi” (see site listed above) to get an understanding of what the experience is like and to start clarifying the prospective journeyer’s beliefs about the nature of consciousness, reality and spirituality. It is important to ensure that the person is not conflicted about whether to take the drug, and in fact has clear positive outcomes or “intentions” in mind. These may include supporting healing from anxiety or from physical challenges, enjoying life more fully, creating a sense of acceptance about the current life situation they find themselves in, recreating a sense of connection with other human beings, or experiencing the underlying oneness of life and creating a wider sense of meaning and purpose in life. Just to be clear, exploring the nature of evil, or finding what is “wrong inside” are not well-formed intentions and the guide needs to check for and support the person to change these kinds of negatively phrased outcomes.

An entheogenic experience can deepen people’s sense of spirituality whatever their background religion or skepticism (Griffiths et alia, 2008). On the other hand, this is not a time for the guide to impose their model of spirituality, or to present themselves as a priest, a shaman, or a guru. It certainly helps for a guide to know several frameworks for understanding spiritual experience, so they can support the person making sense of things in the best way for their unique understandings, but being an emotional support person is task enough without pretending to be a “teacher of the infinite” (Johnson, 2021). Another part of preparation is advising people who usually contact the experiencer, that they will be “offline” for at least one day, and all is OK. Apart from finding out about the person’s own spiritual beliefs, it is also useful to find out what relaxing music they enjoy (i.e. not heavy rock music, and not songs with lyrics in a language the person understands). The site Psychedelic Passage (listed above) has links to many tracks. A sample track is posted above the article. Music can be played through speakers in the room where the session occurs, and is a significant shaper of the experience (Kaelen et alis, 2018). The person may want to change the music at some time during their experience, and otherwise, it is best to be guided by their earlier stated preferences.

Albert Hoffman, who identified both Psilocybin and LSD, always held that a place in nature was the best place to experience psychedelics, and yet most modern research is done in a clinic setting. Perhaps the ideal compromise is a home setting where you have guaranteed uninterrupted quiet around (which may mean posting a note asking couriers to just leave things, and turning off phones), where there is a toilet easily reachable on the same floor as the room, , and where you can go outside later in the event to experience plants and life in the backyard. Most people will feel rather physically overwhelmed by the experience at some point and prefer to semi-recline (e.g. on a couch), with eye pads or an eye-mask, with comfortable, warm clothes, and with a warm blanket and cushions or pillows. It is likely that the person will not feel like eating during the experience, and water or herb tea can be prepared in the room. The guide, of course, will want to stock up on finger food and water for the day, and also needs a comfortable seat. Many experiencers like to have art materials, journals, and other creative tools, family photographs, a mirror, artistic objects, flowers, and other beautiful natural or man-made objects available, including spiritual symbols that they have chosen.

There are some clear ethical guidelines that are best established before the event, including an agreement that there will be no sexual contact with the guide, that the guide will ask permission before touching the experiencer each time, that the person will take care of their own drugs (especially important if they are medically prescribed). In best practice medically, it is recommended to have two guides (one male and one female) and to have a video recording of the session. These plans prevent the person being left alone at any time, and ensure that there is no confusion about what actually happened vs what the experiencer imagined happening.

Guides for the Guide: During

Having said so much about preparation, it is useful to remember that the internal experience of the session is unpredictable and the best response is always to stay with what actually is happening and trust the person’s internal awareness to find the best way forwards. Having set intentions before, it is important to accept that whatever happens is OK, and especially to let go of expectations about what “should” happen, and concerns about what “could” happen. The most useful focuses of attention that the experiencer can be reminded to use are listening to the music, and paying attention to and relaxing their breathing. Discomforts will pass, especially as the person is encouraged to “allow the feeling to be and discover what happens next”. Think of this as talking the person “through” rather than talking the person “down” from distress. This is essentially a gentle, non-directive trance session, and one of the most useful skills you bring as an NLP Practitioner is the ability to choose clean positive language that presupposes that everything has a useful intention, and that the person you are with will find new ways of understanding their experience that are profoundly life-affirming and valuable. If the person you are guiding also has some NLP familiarity, from your previous discussions, you can even invite them to investigate “what positive learning they are discovering” or even just reassure them that at the deepest level there is always a positive intention to discomfort: that it has a loving message for them. Of course, your own theories, about what it all means, are less than useful to the other person.

Usually in the first 20-60 minutes, the person is just gradually noticing that their perception is changing (or waiting for it to do so), and the person can be reassured that it is early and there is plenty of time. Then for some 3-4 hours there is likely to be a time when the guide just stays there and assures the person that they are doing great, and that everything is good. If the experiencer needs to stand up during this time (e.g. to use the toilet) be aware they may need assistance with balance and body coordination. Often there is a peak time of 1-2 hours of profound experience, and then there is a time of 3 hours or so gliding “down”. During the most profound experiences, time distortion can occur, and the person may experience a guide leaving the room as having lasted for hours, or for thousands of years, so you may find yourself reassuring them that you have just been away for a very short time.

The gliding down time is a great time to go for a short walk outside, and the person may be more able to talk about what they have experienced. It may be a time to really enjoy favorite foods or non-alcoholic drinks, and to listen to favourite music etc. The person may want to record their thoughts at this time, either in an auditory record or on paper or computer. They may ask the guide to write down thoughts for them. They may want to see photographs they have brought, or other symbolic items they have bought to the session. They may want to experience contact with a plant outside. At this time, as before, the guide’s main role is to listen, affirm, and accept, demonstrating the approach that the experiencer is encouraged to use. It is not uncommon for a guide to be in such rapport that they get a “contact high” from being with the experiencer. It is quite common for the person’s experience gradually to merge into rest and sleep, but be aware that the person may come in and out of the altered state for a couple of hours.

Guides for the Guide: After

Physically, the experiencer will benefit from a light meal and a restful night after this day. Plan to have both ready. After such a profound experience, it is normal for the experiencer to want to “tell the world about it” and to “go back to that experience as soon as possible”. Neither is entirely wise. The experience does not make sense to those who were not there, at least in the same way it does to the experiencer. Research suggests that insights and personal changes will continue happening for many months after the event, including physical and psychological healing (up to a year, according to research by the  International Foundation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park, California). Each event is unique, so this experience cannot be “recreated”. Some experiencers will want to arrange to talk over their learnings the next day, and some will prefer to just spend time by themselves integrating it all: it is useful to arrange a check-in time in either case to make sure things are good. It is best practice not to leave the person alone for the night, but to have someone (a partner, friend or another “sitter”) to stay in the same building as them. It is also important to tell the person to wait before making any significant life decisions after this experience: there will be plenty of time to check in a few days how these new insights fit with daily life.

Ritual: a “Modern” Perspective

Since entheogens have been in use for tens of thousands of years, there are a great many different models for guiding a person in their use. These often include a ritual or ceremonial “container” which provides a predetermined sequence of symbolic and practical acts, conveying a pre-agreed on meaning for the experience (“dying and being born again”, “cleansing the body and accepting the god/goddess into one’s being”, “remembering God’s love” etc.) Very commonly, these containers personify the entheogen as a sacred being, and it is no surprise that many fully atheistic modern experiencers talk about their session using similar terms (e.g. “I felt that the mushrooms were welcoming me”: hence my hopefully amusing choice of image at the start of this article).

Such rituals are constantly evolving and are integrated into the entire cultural context of the peoples who develop them, so that they have different meaning to visitors from western cultures, of course. “Ayahuasca has diverse uses among Amazonian cultures, such as in rites of passage from childhood to adulthood, to strengthen community bonds in interethnic festivals, as a sacrament (for example, in Brazilian ayahuasca religions), and even as a spiritual tool to resist neocolonial extractivism. However, ayahuasca is used in Amazonian cultures mainly as a tool for healing, which has been widely documented in the ethnographic literature.” (Bouso and Constanza, 2020, p. 148). “Marc Aixalà of the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service, a group that’s trying to help societies navigate their newfound contacts with ayahuasca and other psychoactive plants, points out that the framing of and practices in traditional shaman-led ayahuasca rituals in the West, and at tourist-focused lodges in the Amazon, increasingly diverge from those of ceremonies for insiders in order to meet Westerners’ needs and demands. Broadly, he says, they’ve flattened out or eliminated rituals connected to abstract Amazonian spiritualism or magic, reducing anything that doesn’t directly speak to the quest for internal psychological healing and transformation. That change notably often involves ditching icaros for more general soothing and supposedly grounding background music. They’ve also expanded the scale and duration of pre-ritual dietary restrictions, matching wellness discourses in the West, and added rituals to the end of the ceremonies to help people process their experiences.” (Hay, 2020; Labate and Cavnar, 2018) The word icaros, by the way, refers to traditional music used in these ceremonies, and is believed to derive from the Quechua verb ikaray, which means “to blow smoke in order to heal” – a common ceremonial act. Like it or not, culture evolves, and what we have available is not (nor should it be) the same ritual context that traditional peoples used a century ago. Mark Hay (2020) urges us to develop our own ritual containers, and even researchers in the US and UK Psilocybin studies use decorative bowls to give experiencers their psilocybin capsules, and employ other symbolic acts to emphasise the significance of the experience. If you are doing this on your own, then of course you will be looking for symbols that make sense in a current western context, and in a sense that development of new symbols is itself part of an ancient tradition.

In 2010, in Singapore, Xiuping Li and colleagues had 80 students write about a recent decision they regretted and felt emotionally distressed thinking about. Half of them were then told to seal their written recollection in an envelope, and all the students were then interviewed to check how they felt about their decision. They thought that what was being studied was their response to writing down their story. Actually, what was being studied was their response to placing that story in an envelope. Although students who had sealed the envelopes did not know that other students had not, those students (the envelope group) consistently felt less negative about the event than the control students who just handed in their recollections without an envelope. In follow up research, the change did not occur with students who sealed an empty paper in the envelope, and nor did it occur with those who simply paper-clipped the pages with the problem on – so it’s not just the mere act of doing something to a written recollection, or sealing anything in an envelope: it is specifically enclosing the emotionally laden material in the envelope that was beneficial.

Li, Wei and Soman conclude “Our results show that the process of alleviating negative emotions can be facilitated by physically sealing emotionally laden materials. The experiments demonstrate that abstract mental states, such as psychological closure over a negative event, appear to rely on the sensorimotor experiences brought about by the simple act of enclosing. Moreover, we have shown that the metaphorical act of enclosing and sealing influences the memory, in the sense that the recollection of the emotional details of an event becomes weaker. This seems to suggest that physical experiences interfere with cognitive entities such as memory and retrieval. Finally, the experiments provide scientific evidence of the effectiveness of metaphor therapy for emotional healing.” (Li, Wei and Soman, 2010). This is the essence of ritual, as shamans have known for tens of thousands of years. Anthropologist Michael Winkelman suggests that the rituals of “Shamanic” cultures, including group trance experiences, and ceremonies surrounding individual “shamanic journeys” trigger real changes in the brains of the experiencers, as Li, Wei and Soman’s research suggests (Winkelman, 2010, p. 219).

If we want to bring entheogenic experiences back to society, we also need to consider how to utilize these metaphors, because our current medical visit “Default Network” is not adequate for the task. Our task is to create rituals that honour the scientific reality of our world, and also honour our human heritage, including the heritage of the indigenous peoples who kept these medicines even through the craziness of the 20th century prohibition era (Gates, 2023). As NLP Practitioners, we can contribute much to this project, which is very much aligned with what Milton Erickson explored in his own life work. Stay safe, happy and legal. Change is coming.

Be patient with the sponsor adverts in this two hour discussion on Stanford Medical School neuroscientist Dr Andrew Huberman’s YouTube channel. His interviewee Dr Robin Carhart-Harris (Imperial College London faculty of Medicine) is one of the key researchers I’ve been referring to, and he covers the entire field very thoroughly here. Then, for the final article in this series, read here (Bolstad 2023).

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