Why write about your experiences?

You’ve probably heard the cliche that the pen is mightier than the sword, but when it comes to many aspects of our mental and neurological health, the pen is also far mightier than the device.

Writing down the experience of traumatic events has been shown to help speed the emotional and even physical processing that result from those events. This is relevant to this guide because following psychedelic experiences, many people report a changed or better understanding of traumatic events. This new lens with which the traumatic episode is viewed, when paired with the act of writing it down, helps you process the impact of a trauma upon your life and change your outlook for the future. And there is ample science to confirm this. James Pennebaker, the famed researcher and psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, has led hundreds of studies over thirty years that have found that the act of writing about your feelings, emotions, and thoughts on paper can:

• Trigger neural activity in the brain, similar to meditation.

• Reduce stress.

• Improve mood, over both the short term and long term.

• Improve performance at school and work.

• Improve almost all measurable markers of social life and happiness.

• Improve immune system function.

• Lower blood pressure.

• Improve sleep.

• Improve markers of chronic illness.

• Increase white blood cell counts in AIDS patients.

• Improve markers of health in cancer patients.

• And dozens more similar results.

This is research only on writing and journaling about thoughts and feelings. For purposes of this guide, the act of writing something down, particularly a psychedelic experience, has two additional key benefits:

First, it helps encode an idea or thought into your brain. Encoding is the process by which the things we perceive travel to our brain’s hippocampus, where they are analyzed and ultimately stored in long-term memory. It invites the possibility for changing habitual thinking patterns of the default mode network (DMN). By writing down the details of your psychedelic experience and the insights that you want to take into your future, you greatly improve the potential for those changes to be sustained and integrate into your life.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, keeping a record of trip details such as location, time, and amount helps you calibrate for future journeys. Psychedelic experiences are generally safe and positive, but challenging feelings and emotions may arise, so it is recommended to keep a clear record of what you are experiencing, when, and what factors surround it so you can best calibrate future sessions.