Psilocybin Journey Playlist: How Music Guides Your Experience
Music moves you and moves through you. That’s one reason sound is such powerful medicine during a psilocybin journey. Sometimes, when facilitating journeys, I can feel my grandma at the piano—just like when I was a child—her love woven through every note, quietly supporting us.
Music can feel like another facilitator in the room: attuned, responsive, & devoted to your healing.
When I design your journey, I think of your psilocybin playlist as your Hero’s Journey Playlist—the soundtrack of your soul. It’s meant to carry you through an inner adventure that’s challenging, beautiful, and deeply alive, helping you meet yourself with more honesty, tenderness, and courage.
Why Psilocybin Journey Music Matters
Clinical research confirms what many journeyers already feel: music is not background; it is a kind of “hidden therapist.” In psilocybin‑assisted therapy for depression, the way people relate to the music—how supported, guided, and emotionally moved they feel by it—has been shown to predict emotional breakthroughs and symptom improvement.
Studies also suggest that psychedelics heighten the brain’s emotional and sensory response to music, amplifying imagery, memory, and meaning. When the music is carefully chosen and sequenced, it can help create mystical‑type experiences—moments of deep unity, love, and spiritual insight—that are strongly associated with lasting positive change.
Because of this, I treat music as a central part of your therapeutic container.
How I Create Psilocybin Journey Playlists
Every licensed psilocybin journey I facilitate includes a personally curated Spotify playlist. While there are core tracks I return to, I adapt the playlist based on your history, intentions, and our work together.
My sound therapy background shapes how I choose instruments, tempos, emotional arcs, and silence, so it sounds beautiful AND helps get to the root of what you’re working with.
I like to think of your Psilocybin Journey Playlist as your Hero’s Journey Playlist — a scored story with five phases:
Phase 1: Entering the Sacred (~ 30 minutes)
Here I start with an East Forest Guided Meditation to help you drop into your journey. Then, I select gentle, grounding pieces—often ambient, acoustic, and nature‑based—to signal safety to your nervous system and help you arrive. You’re invited to breathe, soften, and set clear intentions as the music quietly opens the doorway into non‑ordinary consciousness.
🎵 Sample: Call Within by Manose
Phase 2: Ascending (~ 60 minutes)
As the medicine comes on, I introduce more textured and dynamic tracks. These pieces often have deeper rhythms or richer layers that help “shake things up,” allowing emotions, memories, and sensations to move. The goal is not to overwhelm, but support whatever surfaces in a held, intentional way.
🎵 Sample: First Steps by Abbott
Phase 3: Peak / Expansive (~ 120 minutes)
At the peak, music becomes spacious, powerful, and archetypal. I work with deep ambient, orchestral, and carefully chosen cinematic pieces that can hold grief, awe, surrender, and revelation. This is the heart of your Hero’s Journey, where you may meet shadow, receive insight, or experience profound love.
🎵 Sample: Journey of a Lifetime by Tom Benscher
Phase 4: Coming Back (~ 60 minutes)
As intensity softens, I shift toward warmer, more melodic and heart‑centered tracks. Gentle piano, strings, and supportive ambient music help you integrate what you’ve touched, come back into your body, and start to understand the story of what just unfolded.
🎵 Sample: Across the Mountains by Omar Raafat
Phase 5: Grounding & Closing (~ 90 minutes)
Closing music is simple, grounding, and nurturing. This is where we land: with tracks that say “you are safe, you did it, you can rest.” Here, I may gradually transition into quieter nature sounds or soft ambience as your attention returns to the room and you prepare to talk, nourish your body, and rest.
🎵 Sample: The Creek & The Rain by Wolfgang Ohmer
Within this structure, I choose specific songs and instrument combinations that support your emotional work—whether that means more strings for heart‑opening, deeper drones for somatic release, or gentler textures for those with trauma histories.
Sound Therapy Support
In addition to recorded music, I may offer sound therapy support through Himalayan singing bowls, crystal bowls, Koshi chimes, or other therapeutic instruments—at the beginning and end of your journey to support grounding and nervous‑system regulation. Any sound work is discussed in advance and used only with clear consent.
Psilocybin Research and Experience
My approach is informed by both research and direct experience. Clinical teams led by Dr. Robin Carhart‑Harris and colleagues have shown that emotionally resonant, phase‑based music can deepen psilocybin‑assisted therapy, with music acting as a key driver of meaningful and mystical‑type experiences.
Music‑therapy work from specialists such as David Gibbons emphasizes calm, safe soundscapes, instrumental pieces, and gradual tempo changes—especially for people working with trauma or anxiety. I draw on these principles when I design each playlist, adapting them to your unique needs and what unfolds during the journey.
Birdsong, Nature Sounds, and the Medicine of Silence
One of my favorite ways to support clients—both during and after the journey—is through birdsong and other nature sounds. Research suggests that listening to birds can reduce anxiety and depression, supporting mood and self‑regulation, likely because birdsong signals “environmental safety” to the nervous system. Forests, ocean waves, and other natural soundscapes have also been linked with stress reduction and improved attention.
In journey work, these natural sounds can:
Ground you when your inner experience becomes intense.
Deepen your sense of connection with the living world.
Create a bridge between the journey and the nature around you in daily life.
I often encourage clients to download bird‑identification apps and continue this connection after the session—listening to birds outside, recognizing who is singing, and letting that rekindle the felt sense of calm, clarity, and belonging you touched in your journey.
Silence is another essential part of the playlist. Thoughtfully placed pauses without music give your system time to digest what has arisen, allowing emotions, images, and insights to settle rather than rushing on to the next song.
Many people discover that in the quiet moments, they finally hear their own inner guidance clearly.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cate Ritter is a Licensed Psilocybin Facilitator and Transformational Wellness Coaching.
Drawing on years of experience in sound therapy, Cate personally curates every client’s psilocybin journey playlist. She carefully selects and sequences music, nature sounds, and silence to support emotional processing, nervous‑system safety, and deep inner transformation.
Her work blends research‑informed structure with intuitive, heart‑centered care, helping clients feel held, seen, and empowered throughout their psychedelic process.
Disclaimer: Psilocybin is not legal everywhere and is not appropriate for everyone. This article is for educational harm‑reduction only and is not medical advice. Always follow local laws and consult qualified health professionals before using psychedelics.