What Preparation Actually Looks Like

I've done psilocybin eleven times. This is a report on my most recent session — but more specifically, it's a report on the preparation process, because after eleven experiences I'm convinced that the session is almost always a reflection of what you bring to it.

Three weeks before: I started a journal specifically for this session. Not daily — just when something felt worth noting. Questions I was carrying. Things that felt unresolved. The act of writing clarified something: I wasn't entering the session with a specific intention, I was entering with an honest question. What am I avoiding?

One week before: Dietary adjustment. Reduced processed food, alcohol, cannabis. More sleep. Not from any strict protocol — from experience. The session reflects your baseline, and I wanted a clear baseline. Also assembled my space: a room I use only for intentional work, with objects that are meaningful, nothing functional or stressful visible.

Day before: The playlist. I've spent years learning what works for me musically during different phases of a session — building during onset, open and unstructured for the peak, gradually warmer and more grounded for the descent. The music isn't background. It's a vehicle.

Session day: No food after 8am. Three grams lemon tek at noon. Set a four-hour window. Told one trusted person where I was and that I would text them at hour five.

What the session showed me: The thing I was avoiding was ordinary. It was a conversation I needed to have with a close friend that I had been postponing for six months. The session didn't give me new information — it removed my ability to pretend the information wasn't there.

I had the conversation the following week. It went well. This is what integration looks like in practice — not mystical, not dramatic. Just acting on what you already knew.