If you’ve controlled variables, aren’t on any medications, and still don’t feel any psychedelic effects from a decent dose, then you might need to consider a few other options to open yourself up or work with dissociation.
Opening Techniques
Before deciding the dose was too low, or it’s just not working, it is worth trying some practices that might make you more sensitive to psychedelics. These work by increasing your openness and receptivity, which connects back to that absorption trait we covered in Part 1.
Breathwork can be highly helpful here, as breathing directly affects our nervous system. Slow, deep breaths regulate and calm the nervous system and can help open you up to whatever the medicine is doing. Try long, deep breaths, especially within the first hour after dosing. Sit down or lie back, close your eyes, and invite the experience in through controlled breathing.
Movement can also help. Yoga, gentle stretching, or just moving however feels right can shift something internally. Somatic awareness can also help. This means paying careful attention to sensations in your body. This can help to notice subtle effects that would otherwise be missed by tuning in a little more carefully.
If there is a facilitator present, you can tell them what you’re experiencing or not experiencing, and they can guide you through these practices. If you’re solo, you can try these yourself, but give them a decent chance and aim for a minimum of at least 10 minutes before writing them off. Using audio recordings of guided exercises can help with this.
Recognising and Working With Dissociation
Sometimes, feeling nothing can actually be a result of dissociation. This is the nervous system’s automatic numbing response. This can feel like being completely sober, bored, sleepy, or like nothing’s happening.
If this happens, don’t fight it or try to fix it. Saj Razvi, Director of Education at the Psychedelic Somatic Institute, who has worked in hundreds of MDMA therapy sessions, says the seeming non-response can actually work as an access point to go deeper. Just like with any strong sensations that may arise in a psychedelic session, the navigation guideline is the same: sit with whatever is there. In this case, that means sitting with the nada effect, staying with the nothingness. Although you may want to dismiss it as boring or write off the session, don’t. Razvi gives this advice in the context of MDMA sessions, but it applies equally to classic psychedelics like psilocybin or LSD.
This takes patience, and the support of a facilitator can help too. The blankness might need sitting with for 30 minutes, an hour, or even two hours before something gets through. But when it does, the overwhelming material held in dissociation can finally start emerging. Grief, fear, abandonment, and other emotions that may have been hiding under the response can finally be processed.
If you do have a facilitator, communicate what’s happening to them. They can help you stay present with the nothingness and work through it. If you’re solo, the same principles apply: stay present, keep breathing, and journal what you notice.
Tuning into Subtleties
A useful reframe you can use is that you’re always feeling something. Many of us have been so disconnected from our bodies that we may not notice subtle sensations that are present. Sometimes slowing down and tuning in makes it possible to notice subtleties that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Instead of dismissing a quiet experience, try to approach it with curiosity. What’s actually present? What’s in your body? Are there any faint emotions? This doesn’t mean you should pretend an underwhelming experience was profound. It is more about honouring whatever is there. Any disappointment or confusion about ‘nothing happening’ is worth sitting with. That’s material too. Sometimes we are so fixated on a particular experience that we miss what is offered. Remember that a psychedelic experience doesn’t have to come with fireworks to be valuable.
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