Co-authored by Mark Shelvock and Joelle Adams
It’s an ordinary Monday; you’re buttering toast, answering emails, and negotiating with the dog about when it’s time to go for a walk. Underneath all of it, a question keeps surfacing in your psyche: What happened to me?
Maybe three weeks ago, on a psilocybin retreat, you dissolved into the universe and haven’t entirely come back. Perhaps during surgery, you watched the medical team from somewhere near the ceiling and had a near-death experience. When you finally tell someone, their reaction in those first few seconds may shape how you carry this for years.
If this sounds familiar, you’re in larger company than you might think. Meditation teacher Jack Kornfield named this predicament decades ago; after the ecstasy comes the laundry.1 The experience is over, and the work of figuring out what to do with it has just begun.
The good news is that people have been mapping this terrain for a long time.
Maps for return
Spiritual teachers have identified various pathways that experiencers take following psychedelic and other events such as near-death, out-of-body, spontaneous spiritual awakening, kundalini, alien or UFO, and similar exceptional experiences that alter consciousness and challenge concepts of reality.
Carl Jung, who described his own near-death experience after a heart attack in 1944, saw such moments as encounters with the deeper layers of the psyche.2 In his view, what surfaces in these states, including the shadow and archetypal images shared across cultures, needs to be gradually integrated into conscious life. He called this lifelong process individuation, which means becoming more fully and authentically oneself.
Rhea White and Suzanne Brown mapped five stages experiencers tend to move through following exceptional experiences.3 First, the initiating event itself, during which the experiencers’ ordinary worlds are disrupted by an experience that leaves them questioning the nature of reality. Then the search for reconciliation, during which experiencers try to make sense of what happened to them by seeking out others who have had similar experiences and looking for frameworks that explain the event. In the between two worlds stage, people begin bringing their new understanding of reality into daily life but often feel pulled in two directions: unable to fully embrace this new reality, yet unable to return to the beliefs they held before.
In the experiential paradigm, as the experiencer moves to the next stage, they begin to accept what happened during the initiating event and fully integrate their new perspectives into their daily lives. Finally, the experiencer finds a new way of being in the world, characterized by alignment to one’s purpose and a desire to be of service. Once a psycho-spiritually transformative experience has been woven into this new way of living, White and Brown call it an “exceptional human experience.” Rather than a ladder to climb, these stages are more like landmarks on a winding path; people may begin anywhere, double back, or revisit a stage more than once.
New pathway models
Early findings from a recent preprint study point to more nuanced pathways people may take after a psychedelic or other exceptional experience. One of us (Joelle Adams), along with colleagues Pascal Michael and David Luke, found that experiencers tend to follow one of four pathways: challenging, what goes up, slow flow, or deep surrender.4
On the challenging pathway, people struggle to make sense of what happened and may experience depersonalization, derealization, depression and anxiety, sleep disturbances, and other symptoms that undermine their well-being. Those on the what goes up pathway report an initial “high” following their experience, a period of positive mood, energy, clarity, and alignment with the universe. This is followed by a longer “low” when they face psychological, physical, relational, and spiritual challenges. They may chase the initial high, seeking repeat experiences to recapture those early feelings. Eventually, with professional support and meaningful changes in their lives, they can find a new equilibrium, much like White and Brown’s new way of being in the world stage.
Adams, Michael, and Luke also found that some experiencers follow an iterative pathway: the slow flow. Following the initial experience, they take their time to process what happened and integrate new perspectives and insights into their lives, coming to a place of equilibrium. Only then do they seek out or initiate new events or altered states of consciousness. Finally, those on the deep surrender pathway report integrating their experiences with relative ease, accepting and surrendering to new insights and concepts of reality. They often change their life circumstances, such as jobs and relationships, quite quickly, and report few challenges in returning to homeostasis.
Help along the path
For those who find an experience difficult to integrate, the company of others who have walked this path can be invaluable. Sharing the experience with a trusted friend, or with a therapist who is open to non-ordinary states and approaches them without pathologizing, can provide the steadiness needed to make meaning of a reality-altering event. Reading, podcasts, and workshops can offer both frameworks for understanding and the quiet reassurance that others have travelled similar terrain, though some people find this material overwhelming and benefit from taking it in gradually. Solitude, time in nature, journaling, and creative expression are also frequently described as essential companions to integration.
Discernment matters too. Confiding in someone who dismisses or misunderstands the experience can deepen the isolation it so often brings. Likewise, rushing back into the demands of daily life without pausing to reflect can leave the experience unprocessed and, at times, psychologically destabilizing. Chasing a return to the original high, or clinging rigidly to any single framework for explaining what happened, can also keep people stuck. Meditation and other spiritual practices can sometimes aid integration, though for some they may reactivate difficult emotional states; it’s often wise to proceed gradually and with compassionate support.
In the end, integration doesn’t fully happen on the idealized spiritual mountaintop. More commonly, people learn to let their insights shape how they live, work, and love, becoming, in Jung’s sense, more fully themselves. With support, time, patience, and conscious intentionality, these experiences can lead to greater well-being, deeper empathy, and a quieter fear of death. The toast still needs buttering and the dog still needs walking, but the difference is who is doing it.
This post was co-authored by Mark Shelvock and Joelle Adams. Joelle is a researcher, writer, and teacher with an interest in the psychological effects of psychedelic and other exceptional experiences.
