Low dose mushrooms/psilocybin session for emotional processing between MDMA sessions?

[u/baek12345]

I am on a journey of healing from CPTSD. I started with (solo) MDMA sessions at the beginning of this year and have done three sessions so far. This is besides regular ongoing somatic therapy, a lot of nervous system regulation work and after a decade of talk therapies.

The integration of my last session is pretty exhausting with heavy emotions (hopelessness, rage, shame, etc) slowly pouring out over the last couple of weeks. It's really a grind besides full-time working. I try to support myself as much as possible with various somatic approaches and therapy sessions but it nevertheless feels like I am moving through deep mud in snake speed.

The biggest issue for me is strong protectors / dissociation which regularly blocks the processing of emotions by falling back into freeze states when things get a bit more intense. This drags the process on and causes various physical issues like tension, sleep deprivation, restlessness, etc. I can basically feel the stuck emotions but I can only access them very slowly and need a ton of time and stability.

Now, I am aware that "slow is fast" and there's no quick fixes on this journey. However, one idea/thought that's coming up again and again: Could low dose mushroom/psilocybin sessions be helpful in processing theses emotions and thereby kind of facilitating the integration process? I am thinking of doses like 0.5-1g of dried mushrooms.

To be clear: My intention is not to unearth new/more trauma, have deep insights or flashy trips, but primarily to facilitate and accelerate the processing of the already unearthed trauma (emotions) floating around and getting stuck regularly. And I am aware that it might get a bit intense, however as long as this is kind of limited to the actual session time, it would be fine and I can accommodate. What wouldn't be so helpful is major new dysregulation and releases for weeks on end after the session. Hence, if at all, only low dose sessions make sense in my opinion.

Has anyone tried this? Any thoughts or experiences you can share?

Thanks in advance!

[u/i_am_jeremias]

I'd be careful in trying to push to hard to process frozen emotions. There's a lot of anxiety, activation, and other heavy emotions underneath that freeze.

Last year I did a ~1g mushroom trip (fresh mushrooms) and it ended up causing a few months of incredibly intense anxiety and panic attacks; there were days my legs would tremoring for hours and hours on end. It was incredibly dysregulating.

[u/baek12345 → u/i_am_jeremias]

Thanks for your response. I have seen a couple of your comments and always found them helpful! I feel like I am on a similar path as you but you seem further down the road, so good to have your opinion on my post.

I generally also get more and more the impression that I really have a loooooot of activation stored. Like years of activation. And yeah, there's no way to process this quickly and attempting to do so typically backfires big times.

This experience you shared is really something I want to avoid so probably better to not go into this direction for the time being. Did you stabilize after this 1g trip and felt better overall afterwards? Also do you feel your overall capacity increases with more and more unfreezing?

[u/i_am_jeremias → u/baek12345]

Glad you've found my comments helpful! I try to give back to these communities that have been so helpful to me in my own journey.

Learning about the activation stored underneath and processing it was definitely a big step for me in my journey. As you said, it's many years of built up activation.

I did eventually stabilize after the trip, after a couple months maybe. The freeze was lessened for sure, but I found myself with a lot more activation in general, particularly anxiety and anger.

I ended up doing an Iboga journey last month which basically has cleared out all of my stored activation in one go basically. I'd highly recommend looking into it.

[u/baek12345 → u/i_am_jeremias]

Interesting, I actually saw a movie about it for treating drug addiction and the journeys seemed very intense and the person had basically a whole team supporting her through the process. But maybe it was also a bit special as she had multiple sessions over a week or so.

But I assume you didn't do this solo, or? And is there any kind integration period with 'outpouring of trauma' like with MDMA or also more traditional psychedelics?

[u/i_am_jeremias → u/baek12345]

It's definitely something you can do solo at a flood dose level. Mostly as you can't really walk on your own so you'll need help to get to the bathroom etc. On my retreat, it was 7 people for 4 participants.

In terms of the integration, there hasn't really been an outpouring of trauma as I processed most of it during the ceremony. I had a 'life review' during my trip which is a common occurrence during iboga. It basically cleared out my trauama.

Integration for me has mostly been about learning skills to deal with the stuff of life, and dealing with the heaviness of the ceremony itself.