Integration
The experience ends. The process begins.
What happens after the psychedelic journey matters just as much — if not more — than what happens during it. This is where transformation becomes sustainable. Where insights become lived. Where the spark becomes design, ritual, language, or practice.
Integration is not a checklist. It’s an unfolding — a slow reveal of what the experience meant and how it wants to move through your life.
Why Integration Matters
A powerful journey without integration can become disorienting — even destabilizing.
A confusing or chaotic trip, when integrated well, can still offer deep growth.
Even subtle sessions may plant seeds that sprout over time — through dreams, art, conflict, or sudden clarity.
Psychedelics open the door. Integration is learning how to live in the new room.
Tools for Integration
Journaling
Write about the experience — not to make sense of it all at once, but to give it a home. Try prompts like:
What surprised me?
What felt real or useful?
What still feels unresolved?
Creative Expression
Art, sound, movement, collage — often what can’t be put into words can be felt through form. Your integration might look more like sketching than speaking.
Talking it Through
Conversations with a friend, therapist, or peer group can help you frame the experience, explore your emotions, or just say it out loud.
Fireside Project offers free, post-journey support.
The Global Psychedelic Society lists integration circles worldwide.
Somatic Practice
Movement, bodywork, breathwork — these help release lingering tension, emotion, or “energetic residue” that the experience may have stirred.
Slowness
You don’t have to integrate fast. Sometimes integration happens weeks or months later — in the middle of a conversation, a dream, a design sprint, or a walk in nature. Stay open.
Common Pitfalls
Overanalyzing: Trying to force insight too early can dilute the emotional resonance.
Spiritual bypassing: Using psychedelics to avoid trauma, grief, or accountability.
Jumping back in too fast: Integration is a process, not a pause between trips.
Isolation: Trying to do it all alone. Don’t.
A Synthesized Model of Integration
Integration is widely recognized as a vital part of the psychedelic experience — not just an afterthought, but a continuation of the journey itself. While definitions vary across traditions, disciplines, and cultures.
To bring clarity to the many interpretations of integration, researchers Bathje, Majeski, & Kudowor (2022) created the Synthesized Model of Integration — a unified framework drawn from dozens of definitions and models across the psychedelic field. Their work offers a way to hold complexity without losing coherence — a useful lens for therapists, practitioners, and journeyers alike.
Integration Toolkit
MAPS — the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies — created a downloadable resource with our top tools, supplements, rituals, and reflections to support your post-journey process. You can access this through their Integration Station.
Not every insight needs to be acted on. Some need to be carried for a while.
Integration isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about returning more fully to yourself — but with new data, a wider lens, and deeper awareness.
