Like any other psychedelic, cannabis has both benefits and risks.
As with any substance, there is always risk of harm or adverse effects when ingesting cannabis. This blog is only intended for people over the age of 21 already familiar with using cannabis, and residing in the state of California where cannabis is legal. Please check with your medical provider before consuming cannabis to be sure it is safe for you. It is always best to start out with the smallest possible dose to assess your unique response. Please do not drive or engage in any activity where you might cause yourself or another harm while under the influence of cannabis.
It’s common to use a substance to escape pain, and cannabis’s euphoric effect can be rather seductive for this reason. However, when used with careful intention, cannabis can be a wonderful tool for insight and personal growth. This owes to its ability to amplify and clarify sensations, emotions, and thoughts while simultaneously softening defenses. Sometimes, cannabis can cause unwanted or unpleasant feelings and sensations. If you become overwhelmed after taking cannabis, you can use a fast-acting CBD only product to curb the effects of THC. You can also call or text 62-FIRESIDE for free psychedelic peer support.
Cannabis as Psychedelic: Manifesting the Psyche
Humanity’s relationship with cannabis is thousands of years old. It is one of the most ancient and universal entheogens known to man. People all over the world have continually and consistently been drawn to the sacred states of mind that cannabis can produce. With current developments in research and legalization, cannabis is being recognized once again for its medicinal value. Here in Oakland, CA, where cannabis is legal, recreational and medicinal use are much more widely accepted. However, cannabis’s role as a holy sacrament has been largely lost, and therefore so has its potential as a transformational tool. By changing our relationship to this plant into one that respects its power, we can begin to achieve greater self-awareness, insight, and liberation from painful emotional patterns.
Cannabis as a Healing Ally
As both a depressant and a stimulant, cannabis has a balancing effect on the nervous system. It amplifies, enhances, softens and opens as breathing deepens and the mind and body become relaxed yet alert. Cannabis melds the fight or flight response with the relaxation response and a sense of unity, wholeness, or oneness ensues. The senses become more acute with the oxygenated blood in the organs as the body releases and expands. Intimately connected to the body is the mind, which responds with a loosening of defenses and heightened awareness. There is greater access to repressed fears and unconscious thoughts, memories, and beliefs. The narratives woven into our psyches that typically operate outside of our awareness become available for closer examination and transmutation.
Cannabis’s effect on the mind and body can have quite a range of possibilities. This can depend on strain, dose, individual differences, mindset, and setting. Levels of enhancement can vary from mild to shamanic and ego dissolving. For the purposes of using cannabis as a psychedelic, finding a strain and a proper dose may take a bit of trial and error prior to the session. The aim is to achieve a state of heightened awareness and presence without excessive anxiety or sleepiness. It’s always a good idea to have a quick-acting CBD only product on hand. This can be used to curb the effects of too much THC or an adverse reaction to THC.
Method of ingestion is also important. Edibles can be tricky to use because it can be challenging to time the onset and monitor the intensity of the experience. Cannabis smoke is pungent and may contain irritants and gases or particles that potentially cause harm to the body. Vape cartridges can have extremely high amounts of THC and might also leave traces of heavy metals in the lungs. If you are going to use cannabis, I recommend micro dosing edibles, tinctures, or vaping flower. The most important thing is to find what works best for you.
Cannabis As Part of a Psychotherapy Process
When a client comes to me who wants to discuss their use of cannabis, I spend time assessing the client’s relationship to the plant. What is the level of familiarity with cannabis’s effects? What is the length of use, frequency, and experience with various dosages over time? Perhaps most importantly, what were the person’s previous intentions with using cannabis? Clarifying the intentions for cannabis use is an integral part of the process. Often, this isn’t something people consciously and carefully consider when engaging with the plant. Setting clear intentions is a way of aligning with the plant’s energy and power even before ingesting it. Focusing on what wants to be uncovered, learned, experienced, felt or known sets the stage for allowing these things to happen.
Suggestions for Using Cannabis As a Psychedelic Outside of Therapy
Setting Up the Space:
Create a serene, peaceful, cozy little space for your cannabis session. You might want to bring some significant objects, a journal, and have a little ritual to begin the session (such as lighting a candle). You might want a cushion to sit on, or a comfortable place to lie down on the floor. This is a time to disconnect from your phone or other electronic gadgets.
For psychedelic sessions, music can often be a powerful and useful guide. I highly recommend putting together a playlist ahead of time that calls to you or is meaningful to you. If you sing or play an instrument yourself, this could also be a lovely time to tap into that space. I find drumming to be particularly powerful with cannabis, but everyone is different.
Since cannabis can create dry mouth, please remember to have some water next to you or herbal tea. If you’d like to prepare a light, healthy snack for after your session, it might be nice to have that waiting for you.
At the beginning of the cannabis session, upon ingestion, I suggest that people pause and recall their intentions. I might offer to teach some breathing techniques and visualizations ahead of time to encourage mindfulness, presence, and emotional release when the desired level of enhancement has been achieved. The goal is to achieve a level of receptivity to one’s inner wisdom. Diaphragmatic and alternating nostril breathing while sitting with the back straight enhances the relaxed yet alert effect that works with the plant’s balancing properties. Openness to spontaneous visions is encouraged but I may offer suggested visualizations based on the client’s set intentions as part of preparation. Deep breathing, mindfulness practices, and visualizations are valuable techniques for managing emotion. Continuing these practices is one way to integrate the session into daily life to continue to reap the benefits.
Cannabis as Truth Serum
Cannabis is a wonderful tool for experiencing subtler bodily sensations. Muscles, the nervous system and even DNA can hold trauma. Carefully tuning into the body can lead to profound insights as well as energetic release and emotional catharsis. Reverie and openness to whatever experience may arise in the moment is also an effective method for connecting with one’s bodily wisdom. Sometimes the body, or the voice, want to do some movements or make some sounds that seem strange. I encourage allowing this to happen. Shaking, writhing, moaning, laughing, crying, sighing are all natural and okay. This could be an important release of stored trauma or energy.
The experiences and understanding gained in the cannabis session are often lurking underneath the surface, outside of normal awareness. As emotions, thoughts, memories, and sensations become known, released and expressed, they can then be integrated after the session in therapy. Integration is about taking the lessons and changes obtained in the cannabis session and applying them to everyday life. My clients and I work together to integrate their cannabis experiences by incorporating, processing, holding on to, and implementing the acquired insights and wisdom in an ongoing way.
By working with cannabis in this very intentional way, we learn to enter liminal space where perception shifts and we experience our observing self. Observation leads to awareness, and awareness leads to insight, catharsis, and empowerment. Cannabis friendly psychotherapy is about changing one’s relationship to cannabis and one’s self. Defensiveness, fear, avoidance, fragmentation, disembodiment, and shame can transform. When transformed, they turn into reverence, receptivity, tolerance, energetic and emotional release, self-compassion, and connection.
I offer cannabis-friendly therapy in Oakland, CA, and virtually throughout California.