The Highly Sensitive Person: The Psychedelic Human

If you’re a highly sensitive person, you process information and sensory input strongly and deeply. Your environment has a large impact on your level of comfort, and you often notice details and how things feel to each of your senses. You are more likely to pick up on, or even absorb the moods and energies of others. It can be wonderful to be this tapped in to life; but it can also be overwhelming, intense, extremely uncomfortable; or, at its worst, unbearably painful and traumatic. Like many highly sensitive people, you may have pushed yourself beyond your limits to fit into a harsh world that devalues and pathologizes your gifts; leading to burnout, depression, anxiety and chronic pain.

When it comes to substance use, some highly sensitive people gravitate toward substances that dampen their sensory sensitivity and allow them to be in situations they may otherwise find overwhelming or overstimulating (such as consuming alcohol at crowded bars or concerts). Cannabis can also sometimes be used to numb or check out of emotional states, and this is complex and nuanced when it comes to navigating its benefits and potential harms. Other highly sensitive people stay away from cannabis or other substances that might exacerbate symptoms of fear and anxiety (stimulants like caffeine), or from substances that overwhelm their sense of smell or taste (tobacco, alcohol, cannabis smoke).

Highly sensitive systems can be more impacted by both the pleasant and unpleasant effects of mind-altering substances, leading to challenges when it comes to dose, frequency of use, and/or overall tolerance. Sometimes the unpleasant effects or side effects are so prominent that substances (or certain substances) are best avoided.

What about when it comes to the highly sensitive person and the unique qualities of cannabis and psychedelics as healing agents?

Cannabis has been legalized for recreational use in CA and has been legal for medicinal use for some time now. If you’re an HSP that has suffered from depression, insomnia, anxiety, chronic pain or other ailments, perhaps you’ve sought out cannabis to help medicate your symptoms when psychiatric drugs or pharmaceuticals didn’t feel like an okay option knowing what you know about your body. Or, if you’re a sensation-seeking HSP, perhaps you’re more likely to have already sought out cannabis for recreational use.

Psychedelic therapy is also making a comeback in recent years, and many people struggling with PTSD, anxiety, depression, chronic illness and death anxiety are seeking it out in the hopes of having a breakthrough. HSP’s might be curious, especially if you’re one that suffers in your daily life. Psychedelic plant medicines such as psilocybin (mushrooms) and ayahuasca have been decriminalized in Oakland, perhaps making these substances more accessible and leading many people to want to explore their potential benefits.

Harm Reduction for HSPs Using Cannabis or Psychedelics

When it comes to using cannabis or psychedelics as a highly sensitive person, I have some thoughts and words of advice. Based on my professional experience and opinion, highly sensitive people need to proceed with great caution and awareness when it comes to using these powerful substances. I believe there to be greater risk of adverse effects and unwanted outcomes, potentially even trauma, when HSPs engage in cannabis or psychedelic use without education, preparation and careful attention to safety.

HSPs Are The Canaries of Humanity

Do you know about the canary in the coal mine? Coal miners would carry caged canaries into the coal mines with them as a way to alert themselves to potential toxic gases. If the canary showed signed of illness or death, the miners would know there was a dangerous gas present and get out immediately to save their lives. Highly sensitive people are like the canaries of the human race. First to sense when something is off, wrong, toxic, or negative, HSPs have incredible superpowers worth listening to.

Both cannabis and psychedelics act as amplifiers of sensation and can deepen processing. They can break down defenses, heighten awareness of our inner and external world, dissolve boundaries between ourselves and everything else, help us access unconscious or repressed material, create intense sensory experiences, and catalyze mystical experiences.

When you’re already highly sensitive to sensory stimuli and prone to processing deeply, adding cannabis or psychedelics to your experience is like turning up the volume even higher on your already existing superpower. Depending on the dose ingested, the environment you’re in, and how safe and prepared you are; thoughts, feelings and sensations can become exquisitely blissful and healing to incredibly overwhelming, painful, terrifying or traumatic.

Using Cannabis and Psychedelics Comes With Risk

Although cannabis and psychedelics are relatively physically safe, they aren’t always, and they aren’t always energetically, psychically, or emotionally safe. Be sure to check with your medical provider to see if there might be any counterindications for you before trying any new substance. If you are taking other medications or supplements, be sure there are no potential interactions before trying cannabis or other psychedelics. Always carefully and thoroughly consider the environment you are going to be in and your level of physical, energetic, psychic and emotional safety and comfort before consuming cannabis or psychedelics.

Psychedelic and Cannabis Harm Reduction Tips for HSPs

If you’re a highly sensitive person and you are intent on trying cannabis or psychedelics, the best advice I can offer is to start out with the smallest dose possible and wait and see how you feel. Thoroughly research your source and how to measure a microdose of whatever substance you are using. Don’t try to double up on the dose in the same day. Practice patience and caution. Choose a day where you can be safe and comfortable in your environment, without any pressures or demands. It might be best to have the opportunity for solitude as well as the company of someone you feel close to (pets are great too). If you feel an edge of anxiety creeping in, breathe deeply and allow whatever you are feeling to move through you, shaking your body or making any sounds that feel natural or intuitive. Be open to listening deeply to yourself. Music, movement and nature are wonderful companions in this space. Trust that you are already skilled in picking up on subtleties, and don’t get caught up in wanting to turn up the volume too quickly or too high.

I would discourage any highly sensitive person from taking larger doses of cannabis or psychedelics without assistance from an experienced guide, or outside the context of a ceremonial community you already belong to or a psychedelic-assisted therapy session. Breaking down your boundaries and turning up the volume on your sensitivity without all proper safeguards in place can open you up to all kinds of unwanted experiences and outcomes. I have seen many HSPs (and non-HSPs) who ended up feeling traumatized after having a terrifying experience using cannabis or psychedelics in settings or in doses that were “too much.” There really is a danger when it comes to your energetic, sensory and psychic boundaries being overwhelmed, exposed and potentially violated. Practicing caution and respect when it comes to your innate superpower in combination with powerful amplifying substances will best protect you and maximize healing potential. However, there is no way to eliminate risk when ingesting these substances.

Psychedelic Therapy for HSPs

If you are adamant about working with a guide, engaging in some kind of psychedelic-assisted therapy or attending a ceremony as an HSP; I strongly encourage you to spend some time interviewing, asking questions, and getting to know who you’re working with. When you alter your consciousness with these substances, you are putting yourself into a very vulnerable and impressionable state (much like an infant or child). I encourage both HSP and non-HSP folks to wait until you have thoroughly vetted who you’re working with, and trust you will be safe in mind body and spirit without hesitation before engaging in this kind of work.

Although psychedelics do hold some promise for their healing potential, their risks have not been properly addressed by the media (or thoroughly researched). This unfortunate imbalance of information is part of why I wrote this article. Psychedelics do come with risk of adverse effects, even in highly controlled and legal research settings.

Cannabis and Psychedelic Use: Self-Care for Highly Sensitive People

No matter what, I believe self-care to be the number one priority for all highly sensitive people. You need you, and the world needs you now more than ever. It’s crucial to cleanse, heal and restore yourself. If you want to deepen your healing journey, practice yoga, dance, hike, meditate, journal, see a therapist, pray, garden, cook, make music or art. Do what you love. Do what moves you and makes you feel. Honor your sensitivity and protect your boundaries. Be gentle with yourself. This might mean not using these amplifying substances - as a highly sensitive person, you probably don’t need them.

If you are determined to try gaining the benefits of what cannabis and psychedelics have to offer you as a highly sensitive person, respect and protect your superpower:

Check with your medical provider to make sure it’s safe for you to try cannabis or psychedelics and there aren’t any counterindications with medications or supplements you’re already taking.
Use discernment and discretion when it comes to putting yourself in extremely vulnerable states.
Make sure you are physically, energetically, psychically, emotionally and spiritually safe.
Start out slow and tiny. I can’t emphasize this enough.
Make your environment as safe, beautiful and as peaceful as possible. Minimize stimulation.
Then do what you love most. Feel your senses through your body. Feel your feelings and let them move through you however they want to express themselves. Allow whatever arises and then let it go using movement, voice or breath. Pay attention to new insights and listen to the wisdom, making it a part of you.