*Note: This page contains important preparation details for your upcoming psychedelic retreat. We suggest you plan approximately 30 minutes to review the information in its entirety and bookmark this page so you can refer back to it as often as necessary.
Our retreats provide a safe, legal, and professionally-guided setting so you can focus on your intentions for the journey.
Our team is here to support and assist you throughout your three-day Synthesis experience and provide both pre-session assistance and post-session support.
We invite you to reach out with any concerns and/or questions you have about your upcoming Synthesis experience at support@synthesisretreat.com.
You likely have clear reasons for attending a Synthesis Retreat. It could be to clarify your life purpose, make sense of a challenging past experience, work through stuck emotions, or to explore the vast reaches of your consciousness. Setting meaningful, clear intentions can help guide the outcome you hope to achieve from your experience.
We suggest you identify three intentions for your retreat. These can be intentions related to your personal or professional life, such as working through your past, gaining a new perspective on meaningful matters, or taking steps towards your own personal and spiritual growth and actualization.
To achieve the outcomes you desire, we suggest you choose and aim carefully.
The depth of your intentions can determine the degree of transformation you undergo. Meek and mild intentions can lead to superficial changes. Whereas clear, concrete, and meaningful intentions can powerfully guide your psychedelic experience and give you a focus capable of causing deep transformation in your life.
Note: The effort and focus you put into setting clear intentions is what best prepares you for your retreat. It’s not about creating ‘perfect’ intentions. It’s about tuning into your inner-wisdom and clearly defining what you’d like to gain.
Kindly allow yourself the time to bring into focus the ideas that have brought you to the doorstep of change. Take some time alone to just be - with an open, curious, and compassionate mind – with the belief that all forms of change are possible. Freewriting in a journal can help you to unravel and then refine your intentions. Give yourself permission to allow this process of dreaming and imagining to unfold and use these questions to prompt a playful investigation:
Tips: Think about a change you want to create in the next six months. Try not to relate it to a specific feeling, or make it about changing someone else. Rather than ‘fixing’, try to focus on what’s attainable in a constructive and aspirational frame.
Examples:
My intention is to love my body.
My intention is for clarity on my life purpose.
My intention is to learn how to accept and let go of old, limiting stories about myself.
Setting high-resolution intentions takes time. We strongly suggest you start preparing your intentions for the retreat as soon as you can. There is a richness to the maturation of this process. To aid you in clarifying your intentions we have set a deadline: We need to receive your intentions at least one week before your retreat begins. This will allow our facilitators enough time to prepare themselves to support you personally throughout the Synthesis retreat.
To explore your intentions further we invite you to deepen your answers with the following set of questions. Please go through each one per intention.
Once you’re ready, you need to complete your first preparatory task. Submit your intentions in the ‘Prepare for your Inner Journey’ Form.
Once you’ve identified your intentions, please submit them on the “Preparing For Your Inner Journey” form using the link below.
The retreat runs from early afternoon on Day One until 4pm on Day Three.
Food and drinks will be provided throughout the weekend and will be vegetarian. Special consideration will be taken for your dietary needs and preferences and the context of a psychedelic session.
Please note: This is an example itinerary of the Core program and the itinerary may differ.
On the afternoon of Day One, we hold a welcome lunch and workshop where one of the session facilitators will explain the retreat program. After the group meeting you will have a private conversation with one of the facilitators who will guide you through your retreat.
On the morning of Day Two, you have the opportunity to join a transformational breathwork workshop led by a facilitator, or free time to prepare yourself for the psychedelic experience.
The psychedelic session begins midday and lasts until early evening. The facilitators will be present in the retreat area at all times to supervise and support you. We kindly ask that you stay inside the retreat premises during this time.
On the morning of Day Three, you will have another one-to-one session with your guide, followed by an integration workshop designed to explore your newfound insights.
During the retreat you will have enough time to relax, sleep, and use the sauna (if available), or go for a walk in the beautiful natural surroundings of the retreat location.
We carefully curated this reading list to inform you about the personal implications of taking psychedelics and how to use and understand these tools. Please pick two books that resonate the most with you and read the chapters most pertinent to your situation.
Please watch both lectures in full and make notes as you do so. Learning new conceptual tools will help you navigate your psychedelic experience, and enable you to express it to others in an educated manner.
We encourage you to establish a few forms of contemplative practice to optimize your mindset and presence during the retreat, as well as help you with the integration of the psychedelic insights post-retreat. The more time spent preparing with a daily practice, the more raw material that will likely be at your disposal to work with during the retreat. These practices can also teach you how to access emotions and truths you’ve previously avoided. This can be helpful in preparing you for uncomfortable feelings that may arise during the retreat.
Two weeks prior to your retreat we recommend a minimum of:
Truffles containing psilocybin can have a potent effect on your body, including but not limited to affecting: neurotransmitters, hormones, enzymes, and other essential physical health parameters. Although research continues to be done, we do not yet have a complete understanding of how this substance impacts human biology.
Everyone reacts to truffles containing psilocybin differently. The reaction can depend on your health during the experience, how rested and/or stressed you are, and your genetics. There is no guarantee that the truffles containing psilocybin session will benefit you, or that you will have a strong response to the psychedelic. There is currently limited research on factors predicting such response, so please be mentally prepared for various outcomes including but not limited to: a very mild reaction, a high-anxiety response, feeling depressed and tired, and/or being more or less emotional after the experience. While our team strives to ensure the retreat experience is impactful, we cannot control your reaction to the truffles containing psilocybin.
Many cultures believe that a psychedelic experience requires some health preparation in order to increase the chances of the session being effective. Many indigenous tribes that traditionally use psychedelic plants or fungi recommend special diets and discourage the consumption of any food or beverage that can stress and/or dampen the natural body responses before and after the experience. These tend to be food and beverages that are high in salt and sugar content. Additionally, scientific studies indicate that some commonly used substances can interfere with the effect of truffles containing psilocybin. Some of these substances can be dangerous when combined with psilocybin; and might amplify or dampen the effect.
We’re highlighting these items as we highly-suggest you discontinue their use for a specific length of time prior to participating in a retreat.
Alcohol can diminish the positive effects of the truffles containing pscilocybin session.
If our team detected a potential problematic pattern of alcohol use, we'd have already informed you and provided specific instructions as it pertains to alcohol consumption prior to a retreat.
For those with non-problematic use, please abstain from alcohol for 14 days prior to your retreat. We also recommend limiting alcohol consumption for seven days following retreat.
Cannabis is a potent plant that impacts human health systems including: the endocannabinoid system, immune system, metabolism, sleep, and/or neurotransmitters.
People respond differently to inhaled and edible forms of THC and CBD. For some, the effect might be calming, while for others, it might increase anxiety. Some people’s genetics might predispose them to respond with high-levels of anxiety to cannabis, leading to worsening mental or physical health.
Therefore, we recommend you don’t use cannabis for a minimum of 30 days prior to and 14 days following your retreat as cannabis can interfere with the results of the truffles containing psilocybin session.
If the information from your health screening indicated that you are a regular cannabis user, we would have already communicated that to you along with special instructions relating to cannabis use before and after your retreat.
If you are a regular cannabis user who did not disclose this to us during your health screening, please contact us eight weeks prior to your retreat to determine the proper course of action.
Substances like MDMA and amphetamines can have a powerful and long-lasting effect on serotonin and dopamine receptors and, therefore, can potentiate the effect of stimulants and impact your post-retreat experience.
We recommend that you abstain from these substances for a minimum of 45 days prior to your retreat and that you’re cautious with the use of these substances after.
This includes anxiolytics such as benzodiazepines (e.g. Xanax), opioids, strong painkillers (e.g Ketonal and Codeine) and medical sleeping aids.
If you take one of these medications regularly and we issued you an Extra Informed Consent (EIC) waiver, please follow the instructions provided on that document.
If you started any new medication since your health screening approval, please contact us a minimum of eight weeks prior to your retreat to discuss the proper course of action.
Stop taking your medication two to three days prior to your retreat and resume taking your medication two to three days following your retreat. No tapering is required.
If you use a higher dose of ADHD medication than prescribed, please alert us a minimum of eight weeks prior to your retreat so we can determine the proper course of action.
Supplements and Herbs
There is no direct research on the interaction between both categories of supplements listed below and truffles containing psilocybin. Yet, some of the listed substances are psychoactive and may impact brain neurochemistry.
Examples of such supplements:
Please avoid taking the above supplements for a minimum of 14 days prior, during and three days following your retreat as they might impact the outcome of your experience.
We also recommend you abstain from using the following supplements/substances for 14 days prior to your retreat.
In addition, please refrain from using these substances during the retreat:
Please speak to the retreat facilitator if you experience pain, an allergic reaction, or anxiety that is unmanageable and you feel the need to take one of the above mentioned over-the-counter medications.
Regular use of cognition or productivity-enhancing substances can have long-term effects on brain neurochemistry. Research indicates the potential for intensified psychological experience, counterproductive effects, and additive cardiovascular risk, and increased body temperature when such substances are combined with psychedelics.
Please inform us if you take any nootropics, stimulants such as Armodafinil, Nuvigil, Modafinil, Provigil, or other cognitive enhancers regularly (i.e. every day or more than five days per week).
If you occasionally take these substances, please do not use them 48 hours before or following the truffles containing psilocybin session.
Note that the list of medications and substances reflected here is not exhaustive. Please contact us if you have any questions about a substance you are consuming or plan to consume before, during and/or after your retreat and our medical team will consult with you.
We encourage you to treat the preparation for your retreat as an opportunity to improve your overall self-care. In addition to the specific requirements relating to alcohol and drugs, you can also experiment with small, yet effective self-care practices.
Our retreats are a safe, judgement-free and confidential environment. If you’re interested in sharing your retreat experience with others, you may be asked to participate in a short, post-retreat interview. This is completely optional and you’re under no obligation to do so.
If after reviewing the Preparation Guide in its entirety you have additional questions, please email support@synthesisretreat.com.
We look forward to hosting you at your upcoming retreat.
Warmly,
The Synthesis Retreat Support Team
"Amazing experience, people and team."
