Psychotherapist Marc Aixalà of ICEERS explains what psychedelic integration is, and what it isn't.

Mark offers some metaphors to help psychedelic integration, his seven dimensions of integration, and outlines why each of these has to be custom tailored to the needs of the individual person.

Marc also offers us his perspective as to why integration is not psychotherapy, and why it should end once the person no longer needs a practitioner. Finally, he makes the case that preparation matters even more than integration, because psychedelic healing is a process, not an event.

• (00:00) What is psychedelic integration?
• (01:46) Metaphors, dimensions, and needs
• (04:47) The seven dimensions of integration
• (05:49) Why integration isn't psychotherapy
• (08:17) Why integration should have an end
• (10:43) Preparation matters more
• (12:54) Healing is a process, not an event
• (16:49) Outro

This is a clip from 'An In-Depth Exploration Of Psychedelic Integration | Marc Aixalà', Adventures Through The Mind 202.

👀 Full episode here

Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts, or watch it on YouTube

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Related episodes

• Integrating Ayahuasca Experiences (and psychedelics in general) | Mijal Schmidt ~ ATTMind 183
• A Jungian Approach To Psychedelic Integration | Maria Papaspyrou ~ ATTMind 104

Connect with Marc

• Psychedelic Integration: Psychotherapy for Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness (Marc's book)
• ICEERS | Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Services

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What is it actually like to take ibogaine? Jonathan Dickinson, CEO of Ambio Life Sciences and author of Ibogaine and the Bicameral Mind, takes us inside the flood dose: why you can't stand up for hours, why it's closer to a waking dream than a psychedelic trip, and what the people he's treated say they saw.

We also get into the book's big ideas (Lacan's "the Real" and Julian Jaynes's bicameral mind), why the benefits can arrive even when nothing seems to happen, and the real medical risk, including deaths.

🌀 Show notes and links

📚 Jonathan's book and work: jonathandickinson.ca · Ambio Life Sciences: ambio.life

🍄 Sponsored by Amentara, lab-tested Amanita muscaria and other herbal extracts. Use code ATTM22 for 22% off your first order.

🥰 Support the show and join the community: Patreon · other ways to support · newsletter

Huge thanks to my $23+ patrons: Ian C, Eliz C, Dan G & Andreas D

Episode Breakdown

• (0:00) Opening
• (0:52) Ad
• (1:34) Interview Begins
• (4:11) What ibogaine is, and where it comes from
• (7:12) An oneirogen, not a psychedelic
• (14:03) Inside a flood dose
• (20:22) Visions, hallucinations, and false memories
• (26:35) Nobody says ibogaine is easy
• (35:19) Lacan, the Real, and why discomfort heals
• (44:33) The bicameral mind
• (56:04) Ad
• (57:14) No, I think it gets weirder
• (1:06:46) What to believe about what you saw
• (1:15:22) Ancestors and the realm of the dead
• (1:19:52) Leo Zeff, the Secret Chief
• (1:26:06) Patreon Thanks
• (1:28:04) When nothing happens, and it works anyway
• (1:38:28) The medical risk, and people have died
• (1:40:25) Leaving the country, and what it costs
• (1:48:49) Follow up links
• (1:52:05) Outro

Justin Townsend of MycoMeditations explains the "golden shadow" and why psychedelic facilitators need to be well-trained to hand that projection back rather than take it on.

The dark shadow is the unsavory stuff we don't want to admit to: the shame, the disgust, the fear. The golden shadow, however, is the beautiful stuff about ourselves: our strengths, our creativity and our capacities for success. However, the golden shadow can get buried and projected just as much as the dark shadow.

The way it shows up is as a kind of intense admiration for someone else. Putting them up on a pedestal, viewing them with all these beautiful qualities of ourselves that we're unable to see in ourselves. This could be a retreat leader, a therapist, a celebrity, or a guru.

In this clip from episode 170, Justin walks us through how projection of the golden shadow can happen in psychedelic therapy and the problems that his can cause for both the participant and the facilitator when that facilitator is not ready and willing to refuse that projection and instead help their participant integrate it.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00) What the shadow and the golden shadow are
• (01:39) Spotting the projection, in retreats and in public
• (02:14) The facilitator's job, and how followers build a guru
• (04:31) Slow boil: how good people become the villain
• (6:54) Outro

***This is a clip from 'The Business and Practice of Psilocybin Therapy in Jamaica | Justin Townsend ~ ATTMind 170', Adventures Through The Mind Podcast, episode 170***

FULL INTERVIEW

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• Read the show notes

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

🥰 Support ATTMind and join the community on Patreon

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• Buy some merchandise: https://www.jameswjesso.com/shop/
• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support

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• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jameswjesso.bsky.social
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In this Adventures Through The Mind micro, I explain what MDMA is and why it makes us feel love.

I explain why MDMA is an entactogen rather than a classic psychedelic, and how it floods the brain with serotonin. I also discuss how it raises our sense of safety, lowers our sense of danger, and drops the emotional boundaries we normally hold, which is what made it work in couples therapy. Finally, I cover the PTSD research, and why MDMA with someone new can leave you holding an intimacy you have not earned.

• (00:00) What MDMA is, and how it works in the brain
• (06:25) Love with a capital L
• (11:02) Safety, danger, and the boundaries that drop
• (14:36) Why MDMA worked in couples therapy
• (18:14) The intimacy trap, and MDMA for PTSD
• (21:41) Outro

This is a clip from 'Psychedelics in Research & Practice | James W. Jesso', Adventures Through The Mind 200.

👀 Full episode here

🙏 Support the podcast

Related episodes

• Entactogens, MDMA, and Bringing New Love Drugs To Market | Matthew Baggott ~ ATTMind 177
• MDMA for Couples | The Love Doctor, Charley Wininger ~ ATTMind 138

Is your attention being trained the same way an algorithm is trained?

In this micro, Carl Hayden Smith joins me to unpack what he calls the attention war: how algorithms and short-form media shape the brain toward ADHD-like patterns, whether you have ADHD or not. We also talk about what surfaces in the mind after a few phone-free days, and why Carl believes AI's real danger isn't sentience, but a mass hallucination of it: one that's already changing how we see ourselves.

Watch this MICRO on YouTube

This is a clip from 'Hyperhumanism: Reclaiming Our Humanity in the Age of AI | Carl Hayden Smith', Adventures Through The Mind Podcast, episode 198.

FULL EPISODE

• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Watch/Listen on Spotify
• Listen on Overcast
• Watch on YouTube
• Read the show notes

MORE AI & TECHNOLOGY EPISODES

• The Future of Visionary Art in an Era of AI ~ Psychedelic Café 11
• How Psychedelics Can Help Us Make Sense of the Meta-Crisis | Alexander Beiner ~ ATTMind 185

Connect with Carl

• Noonautics
• The Museum of Consciousness
• Cyberdelic Nexus

Support the Podcast

• Become a Patreon member
• Donate via PayPal
• All support options

Stay in Touch

• Newsletter
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EPISODE TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) Cold open: are screens training our brains toward ADHD?
• (00:45) McLuhan's "the medium is the message"
• (01:28) Is technology leading us, or are we leading it?
• (02:54) Losing wifi in Egypt, and realizing how addicted we are to data
• (03:37) "It is an attention war": algorithms harvesting consciousness
• (03:53) Gen Alpha, dumbphones, and phone-free tree apps
• (04:51) Will AI's fake-everything problem make us abandon screens?
• (05:56) Outsourcing cognition to AI, reclaiming the felt experience
• (06:31) Attention seeds consciousness: seeing the world through memes
• (07:45) "Designed to be like gambling machines"
• (08:10) A phone-free hike, and what surfaced in the mind that night
• (08:56) TV as "the opium of the masses," and a life review
• (10:50) Jaron Lanier: "AI won't destroy us, it will make us insane"
• (11:34) Machine learning vs. sentience: AI's "mass hallucination"
• (12:43) Should the machine be the artist, or should we keep that role?
• (13:21) Outro: about this clip and the full episode with Carl Hayden Smith

Leonardo Mercado, known as The Peyote Lorax, joins me for Episode 209 to talk about the ecological and legal crisis threatening peyote, the sacred cactus at the center of Native American Church ceremonies.

We get into peyote's collapse in its only natural range, the contradictions inside the federal exemption that governs who can legally possess and cultivate it, and the Seed to Ceremony conservation project Leo is building through Morningstar Conservancy in Arizona.

🌀 Episode Show Notes and other Relevant Links

• 🏜️The Morningstar Conservancy: https://morningstarconservancy.org/
• The Peyote Lorax's website: https://thepeyotelorax.com/
• Check Out Leo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepeyotelorax/
• Buy some art from Leo: https://morningstarconservancy.org/shop

FULL TOPICS BREAKDOWN BELOW

...

🤩 EPISODE SPONSOR

AMENTARA is a credible source of legal psychoactive plants and extracts, most notably, Amanita Muscaria mushrooms—the red mushroom with white spots that shows up in folklore, Christmas imagery, and old shamanic traditions.

Check them out at: https://www.jameswjesso.com/amentara

Use the promo code ATTM22 for 22% off your first order

...

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

🥰 Support ATTMind and join the community on Patreon

*** Huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon!
In particular, my $23+ patrons; Andreas D, Ian C, Dan G, and Eliz C

With a special thanks to Paul S. for their generous one-time donation

Other options

• Toss me a tip on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=383635S3BKJVS
• Toss me a tip on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/jameswjesso
• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support

Connect with Me: https://linktr.ee/jameswjesso

...

Episode Breakdown

• (00:00) Opening
• (03:45) Interview begins
• (04:51) Peyote as a desert food, not a psychedelic
• (11:02) The teepee ceremony and the fire chief
• (15:08) Leo's early vision quest and the capsule story
• (26:20) Where peyote grows and why that matters
• (29:40) How peyote's wild population collapsed
• (34:08) The Native American Church and the legal exemption
• (38:34) Why peyote still isn't listed as endangered
• (46:35) The peyote carve-out in decrim bills and why it backfires
• (52:13) Ad Break: Amentara
• (54:57) The federal exemption as an exertion of dominance
• (1:02:51) The 25% Indian blood rule and who gets left out
• (1:09:28) Patreon Thanks
• (1:11:36) Would full decriminalization help or hurt wild populations?
• (1:15:42) What realistic legislative change would look like
• (1:23:39) The Peyote Lorax: how Morningstar Conservancy began
• (1:29:49) The Seed to Ceremony program
• (1:33:21) How you can support peyote conservation
• (1:44:41) Outro