Dear All,

My friend Rosalind is doing important research about meditation as preparation for psychedelics at Univeristy College London in collaboration with Mass General and Harvard Medical School. This is a topic about which I know this community has some expertise.

Please, if you do, consider filling out this survey: http://www.psychedelicunit.com/preparation-meditation

Thanks for your help!

Daniel

   I'd be interested in a study of how psychedelics have prepared people for meditation. Seems the more common scenario. Perhaps the cart is being put before the horse.

   I don't think a good meditator has much use for psychedelics. They don't do much for me, from recent experience. I suppose the insight is yes, of course, naturally, thus, so. But I do think the hundreds of doses I've taken prior to meditation helped condition my mind to accept the fruits of meditation. So to speak.

   I'm sure there are plenty of folks who engaged in successful meditation before taking psychedelics who could be surveyed, though.

actually, I see meditation as an end in itself, and not as a preparation for anything...

my 2c

For me, and I'm sure plenty others,  psychedelics came first and in a few different ways, acted as encouragement to meditate. One of those ways was forceful and frantic in that I had to figure out how to manage (or transcend) the chaotic rollercoaster ride, in real time, or else I might really lose my head. Or so I thought. 

Absolutely not graceful, possibly unhealthy, and definitely unreliable. But it made sense at the time. Glad those days are over, but glad they happened.  Equally, there were lots of pleasant and healthy ways psychedelics encouraged meditation. 

After all that, I can say with zero hesitation that one of the most valuable things for anyone considering working with  psychedelics, would be to establish some degree of meditative stability beforehand. Might be a bit tantric in nature, in that you're taking an incredibly potent experience and attempting to see past it into some degree of emptiness, either while the experience is taking place, or as part of the integration process after the event is over. Probably a little of each. 

​​​​​​​There are dangers in this which should not be ignored, but neither should fear take over. It's tricky and I am not qualified or comfortable in suggesting any safeguards or whatever. I only stumbled upon it all. A more calculated way of navigating it would of course be better, which apparently is what this research is for. 

Ultimately, though, I've come to feel that the whole reason to take psychedelics is to no longer require them.

I wonder if MDMA counts as a psychedelic...

The survey says:

"Please exclude any instances of using substances such as MDMA or ketamine from your response, as these substances, although sometimes categorised as psychedelics, are not being considered for this particular inquiry."

Oh, thank you -- I guess I didn't click all the way through into the survey.