Your journey moves through four phases. Intake is initial screening, intentions, and the safety floor. Preparation covers set, setting, and practices in the days before. Session is the day of, with tools and the experience itself. Integration is reflection and practices after. Each phase unlocks the next.
Substance type changes timing, dose, interactions, and what to expect. A reagent test is the most reliable way to confirm. The Companion's prep guidance is most useful once you know.
Route of administration. How you take a substance affects how fast it comes on, how strong it feels, and how long it lasts. The same dose taken differently can feel very different.
These questions can feel heavy. They're here to help you make an informed choice, not to judge you. Answer honestly, just for yourself.
Conditions where psychedelics carry serious risk of harm. If anything here applies, the safest path is to consult a mental health professional before going further.
- Personal history of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder
- Personal history of psychosis
- Family history (parent/sibling) of schizophrenia or psychosis
- Personal history of Bipolar I disorder
- Current active suicidal plans or intent
- Current active psychotic symptoms
- Under 18 years old
- None of these apply to me
Conditions that don't rule psychedelics out but raise the stakes. If anything applies, the strong recommendation is to work with a psychedelic-informed therapist rather than journeying solo.
- Bipolar II or cyclothymia
- Severe or unmanaged anxiety disorder
- Panic disorder
- Complex PTSD or recent trauma (within 6 months)
- Borderline personality disorder
- Severe depression with suicidal thoughts (no plan)
- Dissociative disorders
- Active substance abuse or addiction recovery
- None of these apply to me
Psychedelics can raise heart rate and blood pressure. The conditions listed here mean the physical risks are higher and a physician should weigh in before your journey.
- Heart disease, history of heart attack, or arrhythmias
- Uncontrolled high blood pressure
- History of stroke
- Epilepsy or seizure disorder
- Pregnant, trying to conceive, or breastfeeding
- Liver or kidney disease
- None of these apply to me
Major life stress in the past three months can intensify a psychedelic experience and make integration harder. This section helps you check whether now is the right time.
- Major loss (death, breakup, pet)
- Job loss or major career change
- Major move or housing instability
- Serious illness or injury (you or close family)
- Legal troubles or major conflicts
- Major financial crisis
- None of these apply to me
Some prescription medications and supplements interact dangerously with psychedelics. Even if you think you're clear, the Sanctuary checker at sanctuary.pada.place is worth a look.
If you take prescription medications, speak with your doctor before your journey. The Sanctuary interaction checker can help you understand specific risks.
Lithium with classic psychedelics carries a serious seizure risk that isn't widely known outside clinical literature. We flag it specifically.
This is the Psychedelic Preparedness Scale, a 20-item self-report developed by researchers at University College London. Pada uses it to surface guides and practices that match what you've told us, not to gate access. There's no minimum score to continue.
Based on the Psychedelic Preparedness Scale (McAlpine, Blackburne & Kamboj, 2024), openly available for non-commercial use.
The fuller guidance, including which foods and medications to avoid in the days before, is in your prep tab dietary step.
Where your profile lives
Your data is in this browser, on this device. Pada never sees it. If you clear your browser data, your profile resets. The backup below is your way around that.
Back up your profile
Saves a single JSON file with your intake answers, progress, path, and preferences. The file stays on your device unless you choose to move it. Pada never sees it.
Restore from backup
Pick a backup file. Your current profile will be replaced with what's in the file. Use this to move your profile to another browser, or to recover after clearing browser data.
Walkthrough
A short reminder of how the Companion is structured.
If something is hard, here's where to look. Each card opens in a new tab so you can keep your place.
If you're in immediate danger or having active thoughts of harming yourself.
988 is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Free, confidential, in English and Spanish. They support people of any age, 24 hours a day.
Peer support, on the phone or in chat.
Fireside Project is a free peer support line staffed by trained volunteers. Call or text 623-473-7433, daily 11am–10pm PT.
For the hours Fireside is closed, TripSit runs a 24/7 volunteer chat. Their live chat is the right entry point in difficulty; their main site has wiki resources too.
Therapists and integration practitioners.
Two directories that vet practitioners for psychedelic experience. Useful if your screening surfaced something to work on with a professional, or if you want help integrating after a journey.
Talk to your own physician.
If your screening surfaced a physical-health flag (heart, blood pressure, seizures, pregnancy, liver or kidney issues), the right person to ask is the doctor who already knows your history. We don't recommend a directory here — a stranger from a list doesn't have your chart.
If it helps to bring research to that conversation, the Sanctuary interaction checker covers psychedelic-specific risks.
Know what's in it before you take it.
Adulteration is the largest preventable risk in unregulated psychedelic use. Reagent kits and fentanyl strips give you a real answer in a few minutes.
If your last journey was hard, or one is still with you.
Around 4 in 10 people who use psychedelics report at least one genuinely difficult experience. Recovery is normal and ongoing.
Onset in seconds, peak inside ten minutes. There's no time to consult the app mid-session. Your preparation is the whole experience.
It's okay to take this at your own pace. You don't have to do everything in one sitting, and any step is here when you come back to it.
An intention gives the experience something to orient around when it turns unfamiliar. It isn't a goal to achieve, more a direction to lean toward. Writing it down means you can return to it afterward and see what shifted.
Most difficult experiences trace back to things you can prepare for: the wrong dose, the wrong setting, or not knowing what to do when fear shows up. Reading the essentials once means you're not learning them in the moment.
Research your substance before you go in. Drugs and Me has plain-language harm reduction guides.
You can't tell what's in a substance by looking at it. Powders and pressed pills are often cut with something else, sometimes something as dangerous as fentanyl. A reagent test takes about a minute and is the clearest way to know what you're actually working with before you commit to taking it.
Some everyday medications turn a psychedelic from difficult into dangerous. SSRIs, MAOIs, lithium, and tramadol are the common ones, and supplements count too. Checking now, with your doctor, rules out the risks you can't feel coming.
Haven't checked your medication interactions yet? Do it now before you go further.
Plain-language interaction guides for common medication and substance combinations.
Not in the US? Drugbot is a free, anonymous AI chatbot by Substancy and Cranstoun for harm reduction guidance.
For at least two weeks before your ceremony, avoid tyramine-rich foods (aged cheeses, cured meats, fermented foods, soy sauce, sauerkraut), SSRIs and similar serotonergic medications, and stimulants. Combining MAOIs with these can cause serotonin syndrome or a hypertensive crisis.
Check interactions in The SanctuaryWhat you eat in the days before shapes how your body feels during the journey. A lighter diet can mean less nausea and a steadier headspace, especially with substances that unsettle the stomach. It's also a gentle way to begin treating this as something you're preparing for, not just something you're about to do.
The room you're in becomes most of your world for a few hours. A space that feels safe and uncluttered, with soft light and your grounding items in reach, gives your nervous system fewer things to brace against.
What can surface
What comes up varies and there's no way to predict yours. Some examples:
- Intense or frightening emotions, sometimes far stronger than usual.
- Old memories or experiences resurfacing, including ones you'd forgotten.
- Physical discomfort: nausea, body heaviness, temperature shifts.
- The sense that your self is dissolving, which can feel like dying.
Each of these passes. None of them, on their own, mean something is going wrong. Knowing they can happen makes them less destabilizing if they do.
What helps when it gets hard
- Turn toward, don't fight. Surrender, Accept, Investigate, Let go. James Fadiman calls this SAIL. Resistance amplifies difficulty; meeting it usually quiets it.
- Slow your breath. A 4·7·8 cycle in difficult moments is one of the fastest paths back to steady. You'll practice this in the breathwork step below.
- You're not alone. If a sitter is with you, lean on them. If not, Fireside Project is a free peer support line (daily 11am–10pm PT, 623-473-7433). The Support tab has the full resource list.
People who feel blindsided by a difficult moment have a harder time with it than people who knew it could happen. Not because the difficulty is smaller — the same intensity can land as "this is part of what I came for" or "something has gone catastrophically wrong" depending entirely on whether the journeyer was prepared for the possibility. Five minutes of honest preparation now is one of the highest-leverage things you can do.
Slow breathing is the quickest way back to steady when a moment turns intense. If you've practiced it beforehand, your body already knows the pattern and you don't have to think your way through it.
Much of a journey is noticing what comes up without grabbing onto it. Even a few minutes of daily practice builds that capacity, so sitting with a strong feeling later feels less like being swept away.
Music carries the experience more than almost anything else in the room. A playlist that rises and falls with the arc can soften the hard moments and give shape to the hours, so you're not reaching for your phone mid-journey.
A sitter who knows what you're taking, what you hope for, and when to simply be present is a steadier kind of support than one who's guessing. Briefing them ahead of time means they can help without you having to explain in the moment.
Knowing a trained voice will reach out at a specific moment can take some weight off the unknown, especially if you're solo. The point isn't to plan what to talk about. It's to know someone steady is on the way.
Free. Run by Fireside Project. Available 7 days a week, 11am–10pm Pacific.
If something feels wrong, you don't want to be searching for a number. Fireside saved in your phone and your emergency card somewhere visible means help is one tap away, for you or for whoever is with you.
Your experience is the focus. The app is just a tool.
Whatever rises during your journey will pass. You've prepared for this, and you're allowed to simply let it unfold.
Based on your intake, pick a style preference for your session. We'll surface the playlist that fits best.
If things get heavy, talk to someone. Free and confidential.
The opening ceremony is a few steps to ground yourself, give gratitude, state your intention, and affirm safety. Take your time. You can come back to this when you're ready.
Ground yourself
Try ten rounds of box breathing. Inhale for four counts, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four.
Let your body settle into the space. There's no rush.
Give gratitude
Hold your substance. Take a moment of gratitude. For this medicine, for those who came before, for yourself for showing up.
State your intention
Speak this intention out loud, or hold it in mind. Let it settle.
Affirm safety
I am safe, supported, and guided.
Begin
When you're ready, tap Begin to start your journey. The screen will simplify so you can focus on the experience.
What you're feeling is the experience doing what it does. A rush of images, thoughts, or sensations coming faster than you can process is a sign you're about to shift to a deeper level. It is not a sign something is wrong.
The move that helps: stop trying to direct it. Lie back, close your eyes, put on your eyeshade if you have one. Let the current carry you rather than swimming against it. As you let go, the intensity tends to pass on its own. Breathe from your belly. Slow the exhale.
You are not disappearing. What's dissolving is a familiar layer of who you think you are, not you. This is sometimes called ego dissolution. It can feel like dying, like going crazy, or like falling into something vast. These feelings are normal at certain depths of the experience. The "I" that feels like it's fading comes back. It always does.
The way through is the same as with everything else: let it happen. Resistance makes it harder. Curiosity (even just "I wonder what this is") tends to open things up rather than lock them down.
Difficult emotional content during a journey usually means the experience is working. Fear, grief, shame, sadness. These aren't interruptions to the journey. They're often the material the journey is there to move.
The most useful thing is to turn toward it rather than away. You don't have to fix it or understand it. Just let it be present. Say to yourself: "This is welcome here." If it helps, put a hand on your chest or belly. Keep breathing. The feeling will move if you don't lock it in place by fighting it.
Your body is fine. You are safe. What you're experiencing is your mind, not reality breaking down. The feeling of unreality or strangeness is a known, temporary effect of the substance. It passes.
Grounding helps: feel the surface underneath you. Notice the weight of your body. Open your eyes briefly if they're closed and look at something simple (your hands, the ceiling, a familiar object). Name what you see. Then close your eyes again when you're ready. The experience is not permanent. You will return to ordinary awareness.
You can't fast-forward through this, but you can change your relationship to it. The urge to escape usually peaks and then passes. Trying to force it to end tends to make the feeling of being trapped worse. The counterintuitive move is to stop fighting. Not because the experience is fine, but because surrender tends to move things more than resistance does.
Try this: take three slow breaths. On each exhale, say to yourself: "I can let this be here." You don't have to like it. You just have to stop trying to eject from it. If you have a sitter, reach out to them now. If not, Fireside is below.
Trust that instinct. There is no shame in reaching out. Difficult experiences during psychedelic journeys are common and almost always resolve. But you do not have to ride them out alone.
Fireside Project is a free, trained peer support line. They understand what you're going through. Call or text: 623-473-7433. Available daily 11am–10pm PT. You don't have to share your name or explain anything. Just say you need support.
Call 623-473-7433 Text 623-473-7433Give gratitude for the experience
Thank yourself for showing up. Thank the experience for what it offered, even if it was difficult.
Set one integration intention
What is one thing from this experience you want to carry forward into the coming days?
Return gently
Take a few slow breaths. Notice your body. Note one thing you want to remember.
Session complete
Your session is marked complete. Integration is the next phase of the work.
Capture it now
While it's still fresh, try writing a little of it down. The memories fade faster than you'd expect, so soon matters more than complete: tonight or first thing tomorrow, in your own words. It doesn't have to make sense. Even a few lines become a kind of souvenir, something that often still means something to you years from now. Notes on your phone, a voice memo, your guided journal, or the space below. Whatever's easiest.
Integration is normal and ongoing, not a sign anything went wrong. Take what's useful, leave the rest, and move at a pace that feels kind.
Integration unfolds over time. Here's a gentle map. There's no schedule to keep.
Today is for rest, not analysis. Hydrate, eat simply, and get outside if you can. Hold off on big decisions and intense conversations. Your nervous system is still settling, and reaching for meaning too soon can muddy what you actually felt. Let the experience sit. The understanding tends to come later, on its own.
The memories are still fresh, so this is the time to get them down. Write loosely, without forcing it to make sense yet.
- What came up that you didn't expect?
- What surprised you, about yourself or the experience?
- One moment or image you want to remember?
- What felt difficult, and what felt like relief?
Some of it has settled enough now to look at more closely. Notice the threads that keep returning.
- What patterns or themes show up across your notes?
- Does anything from the journey connect to something in your daily life?
- What feels like it's asking to change?
If something feels heavy or stuck, this is a good week to talk it through with a trusted friend, your sitter, or a psychedelic-informed therapist.
Insight fades if it stays on the page. The work now is small, repeatable choices that line up with what you saw.
- Pick one change that feels right and make it concrete this week.
- Notice old habits creeping back. That's normal, not failure.
- Keep the practices that helped: journaling, breathwork, time outside, honest conversation.
Watch for the afterglow fading into a slump. If your mood drops and stays low, reach out for support.
Integration doesn't really end. The journey becomes a reference point you return to as life keeps moving.
- Revisit your notes and intention every so often. They often read differently with time.
- If another journey calls, let this one fully settle first, not to chase or escape it. More space between experiences usually serves you better than less, and there's no race.
- If you notice persistent low mood, anxiety, intrusive memories, or trouble functioning, that's a sign to reach out to a professional. Fireside is there any time you want to talk.
A small library to return to. Open any card to read more. Nothing here is required.
You've done this before, so here are tools that go further than the basics below.
The journey often surfaces parts of yourself you usually keep out of view. Shadow work is turning toward them on purpose.
- What did you see in yourself that you tend to look away from? Stay with it without fixing it.
- Was there a moment you wanted to escape? What was it protecting you from?
- Name a trait you judge harshly in others. Where does it live in you?
- What did the experience show you that you haven't been ready to admit?
Some of what you're integrating is held in the body, not the mind. These work below the level of words.
- Body scan: lying down, move your attention slowly from feet to head. Notice where the experience still lives. Don't change it, just let it be seen.
- Shaking or free movement for a few minutes to let held energy discharge. Let the body lead, no choreography.
- Rest a hand where a feeling sits. Breathe into it and let it soften on its own timeline.
- Notice your posture when a journey memory returns. The body often remembers before the mind does.
Some material is bigger than solo reflection. A psychedelic-informed therapist can help you work with it. These are the advanced prompts to bring once you've found one.
For directories of psychedelic-informed therapists, see Talk to someone in the practices above.
Bring these to a session:
- Which insight feels important but hard to hold onto alone?
- What pattern did the journey reveal that keeps repeating in your life?
- Was there something that felt too big to process by yourself? Name it out loud.
