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I first notice that the effect begins. The piece by Brian Eno, which ripples from the speakers distributed in the room, mixes with the noise of the other participants. Breathing deeply, giggles, even a quiet whimper turns into the rhythm of the actually rhythmless ambient composition. In the dark of my sleep mask, the sounds into a kaleidoscope made of pattern. What sound is and what color will soon be no longer able to endure: The synesthetic magic of the mushroom paints my inner rooms in fascinating frescoes. We are in a chapel converted into a holiday home in Zeeveld in Dutch, not far from the sea. As part of a psychedelic retreat, I took 25 grams of ground truffles that contain the psychoactive active ingredient psilocybin. Magic Mushrooms are legal in Holland. Nobody has to push Paranoia that the police are right away. Basic prerequisite for a relaxed “set & setting”-that is the name of the retreat provider. On his website, he advertises with the “promotion of profound insights” and “mystical experiences”.
“The beauty of music is the beauty in you”
I spend four days here with six other participants and experienced tripsers, we speak, paint and meditate to “integrate” the things that have come up during experience. In the end, we should write a letter to ourselves, which later remind us of what we have experienced and learned. In mine it says: “The beauty of music is the beauty in you.” Even months later, the handpicked playlist of our trip reminds me of how true it felt at that moment, and how sublime sounded some pieces that I had actually thought to know.
But why does music and magic mushroom go so well? From a chemical point of view, psilocybin in the body changes into psilocin, which simulates the brain docking, which react to the messenger serotonin, the so -called “happiness hormone”. Our serotonerges system is again sensitive to tones, which is why music plays an important role in many psychotherapy practices. “Music helps people to get involved in the psychedelic experience,” explains Professor Uwe Herwig, medical director at the Center for Psychiatry Reichenau and Chairman of the German Society for Psychedelic Research and Therapy EV “The only question is: How can we use it actively, for example, to promote therapeutic processes?” The specialist society from doctor from Herwig co -founded in 2021: inside and psychologically: Inside tries to pursue such questions in the psychotherapeutic framework. It is surprisingly little researched what role sounds play. There are few comparative studies that document the effects for sustainable applications. Music and psychedelics have been going hand in hand since the 1960s at the latest. The galactic sound landscapes of bands such as Pink Floyd or Hawkwind promised the listener to catapult him to a universe beyond everyday mind – the more high.
“Music can give security and structure as a kind of railing in the psychedelic journey”
Probably also because of the pictures of tight hippies, LSD and psilocybin were quickly screamed as a devil drugs on which you certainly slide into the psychosis. “Upsktfully, according to today’s scientific knowledge,” says Herwig. From the end of the 60s, clinical research was banned with the substances. A good 40 years later, the doctors and therapists can now again connect to the findings with psychedelics, which are promising, especially in the case of diseases such as depression. Music remains an integral part. The American Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, one of the most important research institutions in the field, has maintained a playlist with the little scientific title “Sacred Knowledge” since 1967, which is intended to enrich the expansion of consciousness with pieces by Vivaldi, Louis Armstrong or Beatles. “Music can give security and structure in the psychedelic journey as a kind of railing, but can also be perceived as flooding,” says Helena Aicher. The psychologist and psychotherapist conducts group therapies with MDMA, psilocybin and LSD at the University Clinic Zurich and in a psychiatric-psychotherapeutic practice. Musically, she beats a wide arc, which can lead from meditative sounds to the use of singing bowls to pieces of portishead. “The silence is my Baseline, which I deliberately put on individual pieces of music. Without music, such an experience can quickly appear on the shore and generate disorientation, especially for inexperienced, ”explains Aicher. “On the one hand, there is neurophysiological knowledge of what certain harmonies and rhythms do with the brain. Ultimately, we talk to a psychedelic experience as well as the experience of music of things for which there are only insufficient words. ” Herwig agrees: “Some things are still trial and error. In fact, we always tell the patients beforehand that there is little plan and controllable. “
Those who put together the playlist are of great responsibility. A too intensive song can send the traveler into a feverish hell-a candidate for this would be the nervous piece “ego, The Living Planet” of the Stoner rocker Monster Magnet. But also well-intentioned or supposedly neutral things sometimes culminate in soul tumbles, as the journalist Michael Pollan in his standard work “change your awareness: what the new psychedelic research on addiction, depression, death and transcendence teaches”, reports. When his tripser plays a meditative piece by the New Age composer Thierry David, he suddenly feels as if he had been blocked in a dystopic computer game. “The sound (…) conjured up a dumped futuristic city, in which each tone forms a further soft stalagm with or stalactite, which together resembled the high-relief sound insulation in recording studios.” Pollan writes that he felt like he was sitting, removing any sense of time, forever in a world shaped out of dead sounds: “No plants, no people, no sunlight.”
About “immaculate” music
The “DJ” and guide of our trip to Holland therefore demands a large portion of humility from every psychedelic music curator. “You have to accept that music is always something individual,” says Patrick Liebl, who has been in use for retreat providers such as “Set & Setting” or “Evolute” for years. The 39-year-old recommends music that is as “immaculate” as possible, that is not going up and down on the radio and quickly arouses associations or certain childhood memories. The cultural context should also be right. From the traditional context of torn tribal streams, it feels set up. “Ideally, the participant does not know the pieces, at least at the beginning of experience.” Only towards the end, if the trip runs after five or six hours, can a well -known song give the last push back to reality. In the Johns Hopkins Center, speak of “Welcome Back to Earth Music” and recommend, for example, “Here Comes The Sun” for George Harrison. Madonna’s “Frozen” is used in our round: “How Can Life Be What You Want It To Be, When your Heart’s Not Open?” Asks the Queen of Pop Suggestive in the chorus. It is a “conscious break,” explains Liebl. The pop song is like the credits after a long, intensive film, which focuses on.
Despite such a proven formulas, music in connection with psychedelic substances is still puzzling our concept of holistic medicine. In the meantime there are also numerous tech startups that want to decipher them. Companies like Mindcure or Lucid promise personalized trip music created in real time. To do this, they track the body functions with forehead and bracelets and generate music using biodates that calm and sometimes activated. The AI-based soundtrack tools are also aimed at therapists who do not want to take any risks in connection with music. “I think there will be many therapists in the future: inside who have not dealt with music for years and gain their own experience,” believes Aicher. “Tools and apps or prefabricated playlists may then be normal. It hurts my heart a bit. “