Is Acupuncture Psychedelic Medicine?

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write this for what seems like forever.

I’ll start at the beginning.

I did mushrooms for the first time over winter break during my Freshman year of college. It wasn’t spontaneous. I was the kind of kid who was curious, but also cautious. I did copious amounts of research and thanks to a few friends and Andrew Weil, a progressive doctor who's written books on the topic, I decided to take the leap.

I did so in a pretty thought out way. I was aware of the importance of set and setting and had an experienced friend facilitate the day for me. It was magical and beautiful and wonderful. And it opened my mind in a particular new way.

I remember having a difficult time focusing the following semester.

I talked about myself in 3rd person and said things like, “I can see 'Noah' thinking these thoughts.”

My friends thought I was a little out of my mind.

I was.

But In a good way.

Something about my experience unlocked the key to witness consciousness, the ability to watch myself think and feel. And that was a significant step on my journey to understand consciousness, mindfulness, and the human experience. It also helped me mature.

There’s a growing trend of using psychedelics for psycho-emotional healing (both formally with therapists and people on their own). And there's a ton of really great research happening as well. I believe this is because psychedelics alter consciousness in a way that allows new experiences and perspectives and thus insights. We even decriminilized psychedelic medicine in Colorado in the recent elections!

But psychedelics are not the only thing with that power.

Acupuncture, like psychedelic medicine, alters our state of conciousness and allows for access of new and different states of being. For many people, acupuncture evokes a state of deep relaxation and calm, a state of peace, a state of ease. People describe themselves as feeling really heavy, or really light, or both somewhow. I've heard people describe themselves as feeling like melting butter, like they're floating, or like they're under water (but in a good way). And those are just a few examples.

These experiences go beyond simple respite and refuge from the barage of stress and anxiety from daily living in 2022 (though respite and refuge are vital and resourcing). They create a new space and remind us of what's possible.

Feeling calm and relaxed and open and blissful on a random Thursday without imbibing anything is pretty remarkable.

Like with psychadelic medicine, these altered states of conciousness create opportunities for new and expanded perspectives which in turn alter our relationships with the events in our lives and give us more freedom in deciding how to respond to a given situation or set of circumstances.

It's for these reasons that I believe acupuncture to be a wonderful option for people who are interested in psychedelics but unable or not ready to engage with them. It's also an amazing option for people who have utilized or are utilizing psychadelics for healing and growth, but would like something to support them in integrating their experiences and to have another tool that doesn't involve some of the complexities assoicated with psychedelics (like setting aside a whole day or even a few days in some cases).

I am sure I would be a different person if I never had experiences with psychedelics.

But for me personally, acupuncture has been a much bigger contributer to my healing and growth. Of course I'm biased, haha.

If you're at all curious, let me know, I love talking about this stuff and more importantly I love being a part of people's lives.

This world we live in radically beautiful and sometimes we lose sight of that. I'm in favor of things that help us see the beauty of the pworld.

Warmly,

Noah