A Playlist for Psilocybin
Psychedelic work almost universally makes use of music as a means to shape and guide the experience of those participating in it. The more I come to understand psychedelic psychotherapy and its potential, the more I tend to think of it as a type of music therapy. Nowadays, this music often takes the form of digital music playlists, especially in research settings.
I am posting this Spotify playlist here as a way to announce the start of my regular contribution to Chacruna on the topic of music and how it can be used in psychedelic therapy. At five hours and twenty-four minutes in length, it is timed for use with psilocybin and emphasizes organic (instead of sequenced electronic) types of music. It contains a variety of styles and gives a fairly good introduction to my taste in music. In order to avoid hermeneutic contamination, it does not contain any songs with lyrics in English.
So far, I have created playlists for a variety of applications and have begun to gather all of the information I can find about working with music and psychedelics. Besides being a therapist, I think of myself primarily as a musician – which, so far, has included lots of time spent in the studio and playing live. My work with Chacruna will include regularly posted playlists designed by therapists and musicians, interviews with practitioners and researchers, features on audio technology, and developments in the field of psychedelic music therapy in general. To start, have a look at the article I wrote for Chacruna back in April, titled, An Audio Harm Reduction Guide to Psychedelic Psychotherapy.
