Psychedelic therapy Netherlands

Truffle ceremony or psilocybin therapy?

In trip therapy we use individual truffle ceremonies as psilocybin therapy. It has a lot to do with each other. The biggest difference between therapy under the influence of psilocybin containing truffles and a truffle ceremony alone is the personal preparation and that the truffle ceremony resembles talk therapy in the beginning. The goal of the customer plays a major role in the approach.

The goal of customer Stijn

With the approval of Stijn, we can share his information without a last name. After booking a psiloflora ceremony at the Psychedelic Loft location in Schiedam, I asked Stijn what his goal was.

I want to do it as a spirituality: self-development. 

From this answer I concluded that the main goal was not therapy by definition and I suggested that I explore what spirituality meant. I had asked if Samadhi fits his idea.

Thanks for the movie link, I just watched the first part with great interest!

The day of the ceremony

On the day of the ceremony, before we started, we had a good conversation about spirituality, reality and perception, among other things. After Stijn was ready to take the psychedelics (psiloflora), we kept talking until the effects of the psilocybin peaked. After this, a long time of introspection ensued. During landing we started talking again about the experiences and about wanting to understand everything about people.

Still therapy?

Although the approach seemed to be mainly spiritual and experiencing, you will read further that this session actually worked for a greater part therapeutically. This happens more often and often makes a truffle ceremony even more valuable.

After the ceremony

The days after the ceremony we had email contact about the effect of the session and these are the beautifully worded answers.

Ask: How was your sleep and what were you able to write down about the session?

I did sleep well, not much (only about four hours), but it was enough and it was nice to leave Schiedam at dawn.

I haven't noted anything yet, but wanted to do so here 🙂

So in the beginning there were the typical hallucinations, the beginning of the trip! When I then lay down on the couch with my eyes closed it became very intense, mentally and emotionally very deep (heavy) and also physically. My body often had small shocks, I was sometimes very hot and had to sweat a lot, and had a lot of pain in my stomach (puke tendencies) and my heart. It was also a tough rollercoaster mentally and emotionally. But in between there were also moments of insight and acceptance of a whole lot of things. So although during the experience there was an overwhelming feeling that I couldn't let go, afterwards it turned out that a lot had been released 🙂

The conversations with you afterwards were also very enlightening, I learned a lot and left behind illusions. 

Immediately after you left I had to find my way. But after half an hour it went and I found my peace and contentment (serotonin, aaah). It took a long time to fall asleep, but afterwards it turned out that I actually didn't need much sleep. 

Now I feel more settled in myself, quiet and calm with more self-acceptance. As far as I'm concerned, mission accomplished!

So thank you very much for guiding the ceremony. I will definitely tell some friends about it. Perhaps there will be a sequel. Maybe not. I don't know, but it's probably written somewhere what it will be 😉

The day after the previous post, there was a follow-up comment:

I remembered some more details and have described them below. It nevertheless provides important nuances and other accents.

This morning I woke up very early again. I feel my body, mind and emotions more deeply and everything feels more relaxed. So today I am even more satisfied with the result!

The new version of the story:

When I lay down on the couch with my eyes closed, the hallucinations I first saw on the external visual level now continued on the internal level. I saw all kinds of shapes and colors that often changed at a very fast pace and sometimes moved very slowly or disappeared. So there weren't really the classic thoughts anymore, I wasn't thinking about sentences and words anymore, but just watching a huge indescribable visual spectacle. At one point you asked me if I understood what was happening, to which I said no. I wasn't thinking about that either: I was just contemplating it all, like a spectator in the theater. It was fun, but also very intense. The music also played a part in this. At a certain point the music became very abstract (at least I think so) and it almost became just some tones, pulsations, vibrations. That also continued on the visual level: once – and I think the music stopped for a while – there were no visual stimuli and I just looked into a black void. When the pulsations of the music started, so did visual sensations, such as Lego blocks moving through space. So here there was a feeling that what I heard was very much in agreement with what I saw, auditory and visual stimuli flowed into each other.

At one point my body started to react very strongly. It felt like a strong purge was happening, like my body was trying to get rid of a lot of stress. I could feel a lot of fatigue being expelled and sometimes my body would shake a little as if the tensions in my muscles were being pushed out. I was also sweating a lot, like I was in a sweat lodge. But that also felt like toxins were being expelled. I also felt a lot of pain in my stomach and often had nausea. (I've been having a lot of stomach aches lately too, with acid regurgitation. So now probably just a lot of it clearing out.) And a lot of pain in my heart, sometimes it was so bad I feared I was going to have a heart attack. get and die. In addition, I thought that would be very bad for Marcel, so I hoped it wouldn't happen. That may have also made me feel like I couldn't let go properly. Although a lot was let go in this whole process. It was also very intense on the mental and emotional level and it was a real rollercoaster and a lot was let go. There were moments of insight and acceptance of who I am in between. The latter was also accompanied by strong feelings for my father and mother, who also accepted me more as I am. Here too, the music played a role, and at the end, for example, there was a piece of music in which a woman sang, more classical music. It felt very comforting, like being placed in the warm arms of my friends who loved and cared for me.

At the beginning of that intense period you had told me that it was good to go inside and so I continued to do so, although it was very intense. But I still had the feeling that something good was happening and it was clear afterwards as I felt how calm and relaxed I had become.

There was also the occasional sense of dying and being born again, although that was more of a feeling than really a visual or sensory experience. Something of that also lingered afterwards: the feeling of being able to (have to) start my life again. Everything could take a new turn and it all depends on my choices. Making decisions is not really my strong point, so at one point I was struggling with that: what should I do now? Also about simple things like which bed should I lie in, should I eat now, should I make dinner now, should I take a shower? But after a while it became clear to me that something always happens: at a certain moment I am lying in a certain bed, there is food and time to take a shower. Things happen the way they should and it's easier now to just deal with them. 

Conclusion

Stijn surrendered completely to the experience and it is precisely that surrender that ensures the best results. Letting life happen as it should happen can bring us so much. I would like to thank Stijn enormously for the trust and for the willingness to share his story.