Truffle-assisted Session.
The session is where you will take the psychedelic truffles. Before that, you will already have discussed your goals and intentions with your guide. During the session you will be in a cosy and safe environment. You will spend most of the time laying down on a couch with a blindfold on and classical music playing. That creates the perfect environment for you to experience the benefits of the experience.
In your body psilocybin is quickly converted to psilocin, which has mind-altering effects similar, in some aspects, to those of LSD, mescaline, and DMT. In general, the effects include euphoria, visual and mental hallucinations, changes in perception, a distorted sense of time, spiritual experiences, and can include possible adverse reactions such as nausea and panic attacks.
The toxicity of psilocybin is so low that you would need to eat about 1.7kg of dried (or 17kg fresh) mushrooms to possibly die. You will also not become dependant on them, there is no such mechanism (unlike with alcohol), and the experience is so intense that most take a year between sessions. In research-settings there have been no long-term negative effects reported with the use of psilocybin (after more than 2000 conducted sessions since the year 2000).
In your brain new connections are made... Sections that don't normally talk to each other appear to communicate more, and parts of the brain that normally do talk to each other communicate less. The part that worries, plans, narrates (the Default Mode Network, DMN) quiets down. Connections between other parts of the brain are made.
Recent research (Carhart-Harris & Friston, 2019) had brought together most of what we now know about your brain on psychedelics. In it they integrate the free-energy principle and entropic brain hypothesis. The resulting framework is called the relaxed beliefs under psychedelics (REBUS).
The main take-away is that psychedelics work to relax the precision of prior beliefs (priors, top-down). This relaxation allows bottom-up information to gain more prominence. This then allows a potential revision and deweighting of overweighted priors.
Or in other words, you cling less to old beliefs and patterns and you're more open to new ideas and experiences. If you've always hated going to the gym because of a bad experience, you might be more open to trying it out now.
This framework has many more applications outside of self-development. Many problems of mental-health are related to having rigid patterns (OCD, depression, trauma) that need to be broken. Currently much research is being done and we're optimistic that the use of psilocybin in clinical/therapheutic settings is only a few years away.
An analogy of the brain... Imagine living in a city where you suddenly stop talking to your neighbors, and start talking to people way across town you don't normally talk to. That can lead to novel ways of looking at oneself, thinking about the world in a different way, having insightful experiences. When the DMN quiets down, others areas connect.
The perceptual changes during a session... These include a distorted sense of time, feelings of euphoria, connections to others and nature, feelings of awe. With their eyes closed, most people see geometric shapes, in all colors of the rainbow. There can also be anxious moments, and your guide will know how to support you.
Your brain is a pattern recognition machine... The session allows you to make new connections and think creatively about your goals. By getting your brain into an altered state, you will be more open to finding novel ways of looking at the world.
Bringing it all together... After looking through this creative lens, you will write down your experience. A week later you will again sit with your guide for an integration meeting. Here you will be given tips and feedback on how to apply new behaviours in your daily life.
Schedule a call
Experienced Guide.
Your guide is the person who helps you discover new insights... He or she is experienced with guiding others and knows what to do in every situation. During the intake meeting you will learn more about your guide's background. If the session becomes overwhelming, your guide will know how to get you back on track.
Who helps you clarify and work through your questions... Your guide doesn't have all the answers, but will know how to help you discover some yourself. See yourself as going down a canoe on a river. During the ride your guide can help you identify where you're going, help prevent you from hitting the banks, and get you home safely.
Blossom's guides are psychologists, therapists, and experienced coaches... In this new industry of truffle-assisted self-development there aren't yet certificates or courses to follow. You can be assured that each guide does have experience with coaching, psychedelics, and has received internal training.
During a session your guide doesn't use anything... This isn't necesarry to 'level' with a participant. Once or twice a year some of the guides do a personal session (under the guidance of another team member) for their own self-development.
Blossom the Company.
"Advance self-development through the use of mind-altering substances." Our mission is to make the use of mind-altering substances, or psychedelics, more accessible with the explicit goal of self-development. Though there are many ways to work on self-development (e.g. meditation, talk-therapy, coaching, sports, etc), we believe that psychedelics are an unique opportunity to 'open the doors of perception' and gain new insights.
Less spiritual, more scientific... Much like with meditation being practiced by Buddist monks and C-level executives, the use of psychedelics is also widely varied. Truffles have its links to ancient tradition in South America, psychedelics more generally have been documented from ancient Greece to Sanskrit texts. In many cases there are myths and rituals connected to this use. Spirits, ancestors, gods, and even alien beings are commonly mentioned phenomena.
We believe that psychedelics can have a great impact, but that you don't need any myths to explain why. Neuroscience is revealing what changes happen in your brain during a session (just like it did with meditation) and afterwards. It's our strong conviction that you will be able to have a peak experience, that you can gain new insights, without 'woeha'.
Advancing on two fronts... Blossom Guides is here to let openminded people experience the positive and transformative effects of psychedelics. We are doing this with our own practice(s) in The Netherlands (where truffles are legal). With Blossom Analysis we hope to make information more easily available for researchers, guides and other practicioners.
Schedule a call