Hi Reader,
Welcome to this edition of the Maps of the Mind newsletter.
Heads up, it’s a longer one than usual, so make yourself comfortable.
🍄 What music does
On Friday I cycled to Aldi to do my food shop with a pop song in my ears.
“I Believe in You” by Heathers. Upbeat, poppy, nothing too deep. But it brought a bit of colour to the ride.
Not a track I’d put on a session playlist. But it was doing a job.
In a session, the music is part of the setting. Often the biggest part. And it’s doing far more than many people give it credit for.
Taste still matters. If you can’t stand classical music, a classical playlist probably won’t carry you. But loving punk rock doesn’t mean you want punk at the peak of a session intended for reflection and introspection.
So the better question isn’t only what you like. It’s what the music is doing.
I’ve been building a map of that for a little while. It’s still a work in progress, but here’s where it’s at: five dimensions, five different ways it works on us.
Mind: the shape and movement of our thoughts
Music can slow racing thoughts, give a scattered mind something to hold, or steer where your thinking goes.
It can stretch and squash your sense of time. In altered states, that gets much stronger.
It’s why people put on study playlists or binaural beats to focus.
Try the opposite. Put on some death metal mathcore and just try your tax return. Good luck with that!
Lyrics pull on the mind too. Words ask to be listened to and understood. It’s part of why most session playlists keep lyrics to a minimum, especially in a language you speak.
In a session: the right music helps you stop steering and let go.
Body: getting somatic
This is the one that surprises people. Music can change how your body is working.
Tempo and rhythm nudge your heart rate and breathing, usually without you noticing. In one study, faster music sped up people’s breathing, heart rate and blood pressure. Slower music brought them down, and a pause in the music brought them lower still.
A review of over a hundred trials found that music lowers stress in the body as well as the mind.
That slowing down matters. Slow down enough and there’s space.
Space to feel, to be with your thoughts, to exhale. To contemplate, or see the bigger picture. Nobody does that running at 100mph.
Music can also bring out tears, trembling or goosebumps, the body processing something before the mind has caught up. And it can invite movement: a sway, a rock, a dance.
In a session: slowing the body down is often what makes room for everything else.
Soul: beyond the personal
Awe. Beauty that undoes you.
The sense of being part of something bigger, or of not being separate at all.
Ceremonial and devotional music can change the whole quality of an experience.
In a session: music and psychedelics seem to share something special here, and they can amplify each other.
Memory: music as time travel
A song can drop you straight back into a moment, with the feeling of it, not just the facts.
And music heard during a big experience gets woven into it. From then on, the song is part of the memory.
In a session: a familiar song can open a door you weren’t expecting. That can be beautiful or destabilising, so choose with care.
Communion: what happens between people
Listening together can put a room into a shared state. People start to breathe, move and feel together.
Think of a club at 3am, a gig, a choir in a church, a circle at a retreat.
Music can hold grief or joy for a group, so no one has to hold it alone.
In group work, it can turn a room of strangers into a circle.
In a session: even one to one, it matters. When I’m sitting for someone, I like to hear the music too, through speakers where I can, even if they’re on headphones. It helps me sync with them, to sense where they’re at and be in it with them. Sometimes I’ll match their breathing for the same reason.
The rest of the setting
Music is one part of the setting. The rest works on the same dimensions. A few things that help:
- The room. Tidy and cleared. A cluttered room makes for a cluttered mind.
- Light. Low and soft, and an eyeshade if you want to go inward.
- Warmth. A blanket within reach. Your temperature can swing.
- Headphones. They close out the world and bring the music right in.
- Your phone. Off, and ideally in another room.
- The people. Who’s in the room shapes it as much as anything.
And setting isn’t only for sessions. It shapes your mindset every day.
What you wake up to. What’s playing. The state of the room you work in. The first thing you look at on your screen.
So next time you choose music, for a session or for the day ahead, don’t just ask what you like. Ask what you need it to do.
That’s the question Session Soundtracks is built on. It’s a library of playlists made for psychedelic sessions, and you can search them by substance, intention and mood, not just genre.
It opens next Sunday, 15 November, at half price for the first week, with some of my courses free alongside it.
If you’d like the link a day early, just reply “send it” and I’ll send it to you on Saturday.
📚 Microdose of Wisdom
“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
🎵Psychedelic Supplements
Here's what I was listening to on my bike ride. For whoever needs to hear this today, I believe in you!
Try doing your tax return to this
More on the rest of the setting in a piece of mine, Setting: The Environment for a Psychedelic Experience
❤️ Love and mettā to you all,
John
John Robertson
Psychedelic Facilitator & Educator
Webdelics' Top 100 Psychedelic Thought Leaders and Content Creators 2025
Maps of the Mind
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