What to Expect on Your Psilocybin Journey Day: A Warm, Honest Walk-Through

I get asked this question more than almost any other, and I love it every time. It tells me that someone is taking this seriously, that they're not just curious in the abstract sense, and they are actually considering having a thoughtful journey with mushrooms. I also love the idea that they want to understand what they're walking into well before they arrive.

I wanted to offer an honest, unhurried description of what a journey day at The Clearing tends to look and feel like from my side of things and, as best as I can describe it, from yours.

You're arriving into something that's already been prepared for you

By the time you show up, I've already been here for a while.

I arrive around 6am on journey days. I knock out the practical things first, like ensure the state-required paperwork is fully completed and updated. I re-read your intake notes, refreshing myself on our preparation session notes, and take some time thinking about what you’ve shared with me about your life. I revisit your integration plan, just to get ahead of that process just a little bit. After that, then I can reorient myself to the present day a little more fully.

In your journey room, I burn sage and palo santo, I tend to the plants in the space, and I try to hold the medicine with care and intention. I set up the music, get organic food and drinks ready, and I arrange the room for your arrival. And, I do something that might sound a little unconventional but is genuinely important to me and to this work… I take time to pay reverence to the peoples and cultures who preserved this medicine across centuries before any of us were here to work with it. That's not a performance or a ritual for appearances, but rather it's a practice that was taught to me by my mentors as an important part of the lineage of guardians who “sit” for people. I really try to honor this practice and I return to it for every single journey day, because it really feels like it sets the tone for everything that follows.

By the time you arrive (typically around 7:50am, but the time is determined based on each client’s preferences and needs), the space is already warm, ready, and “held.” For everyone who journeys and/or facilitates journeys here, I sincerely hope that people walk into a nurturing, healing space that actually feels like it has been prepared specifically for you.

The opening of the day

Before there is any medicine, there is ceremony and connection. We check in with each other about how we are feeling that day. You’d likely hear us ask questions like “How did you sleep?” and, “What's particularly alive for you so far, today?” and, “What are you starting to notice in your body and your mind as you arrive here?” We revisit the intentions you brought into our preparation work together, and we acknowledge, as a shared and sincere practice, the ancestral lineage of what we're about to do. We take our time with all of it. There is genuinely no rush here, but rather, you ‘start’ your journey process when you are feeling ready.

This part of the morning tends to surprise people. In a good way.

Taking the medicine

We prepare your mushrooms according to what we worked out together during our preparation sessions. We revisit important mantras, breathwork and bodywork practices you want to employ, and we engage with the mushrooms, often discussing your chosen strain, dose, and method. I favor lemon and orange ‘tekking,’ which is a traditional preparation method that also aligns with the protocols in leading clinical research. (The convergence of those two things is not a coincidence… every now and then, traditional wisdom and good science often end up pointing at the same things.)

How the medicine is prepared is a very important part of the ceremony. It matters.

You take the medicine when you feel ready. There's no countdown. No pressure. Just readiness, however that arrives for you.

The journey itself

Most people settle into a lying-down position with eye shades, though that is always your choice. We love our playlists, but I have also welcomed pre-established playlists that clients bring into the room, as well. The music carries the experience in ways that are genuinely difficult to describe before you've moved through it yourself. Our clients consistently tell us the playlists are one of the most meaningful parts of their entire day, which honestly still moves me every time I hear them.

Depending on your dose and strain, the most active part of your experience typically lasts 4 to 8 hours, with the full journey running somewhere around 6 to 8 hours from ingestion. We hold the full day, from your arrival to departure, as 8 to 10 hours. No one is watching a clock. No one is thinking about the next thing. No one is checking emails or trying to get something done from their ‘to-do’ list. All of our facilitators here, myself included, are attuned to you every minute of your day.

Your facilitator is completely present with you for all of it. What might look from the outside like someone meditating quietly nearby is actually something much more active for us… we are engaging in moment-to-moment attunement to your breathing, your movement, your expressions, even your silences. When you need something, like when you need to stand up, to move through the room, to cry, to make art, to work through something that's surfacing, even just getting to the restroom safely, we're right there with you. We respond to what's needed, not to what's scheduled.

The range of what people experience in this space is wide and genuinely beautiful in its diversity. Profound peace is common, but not guaranteed, of course. Sometimes people get called to do some pretty big emotional work. We witness deep grief for those who need to engage with that aspect of their lives. Its common to watch someone relax into joy, often unexpectedly. It is also common to hear people describe spiritual encounters that would otherwise be difficult to describe. On that note: difficult passages very commonly open into something meaningful on the other side with mushroom… this experience also occurs here.

Most journeys include more than one of these scenarios, sometimes within the same hour. All of it is welcome here. For real.

I like to tell people, quite affectionately, that mushrooms seem to love teaching us lessons in a roundabout way. They seem to invite us to engage with them, at first, and when we are receptive to them, they tend to help us experience that which we need before that which we want. I find when we are patient with them, and we embrace the uncertainty they promise, we tend to more fully receive all that they want to teach us. We love these little tricksters here, acknowledge their weirdness (ha!), and trust their process.

The close of the day

As things naturally wind down, often called ‘the landing period’ of the day, we close gently together. We collectively try to eat something nourishing, and we talk softly about whatever feels ready to share.

This is an important thing to note: during your landing, there is absolutely no expectation that you need to share with me or us about what just happened for you during the journey day. Truly! The way we see this, you get to spend a full day engaging with a divine energy, a sentient being, and what you experienced with your mushrooms is sacred for you. If you’d like to include us in a recap, of sorts, we are all ears and all heart for you, but knowing the details of your journey is not why we do this work. We do this to help you feel prepared to engage with something bigger than us, something more ancient than us, something truly wise and loving. That is it.

So, when you are landing, we try to make sure you feel grounded, nourished, and genuinely held before you leave. We revisit your safe transport plan, which is something we arranged together during preparation, and we do what we can to make sure that when you get home, you feel safe being home again.

The next morning, usually, we try to meet again in the same room. That's where integration begins.