u/_jamesbaxter

I’m currently watching “The Dark Wizard” docuseries on HBO about Dean Potter, who was a famous climber and BASE jumper who died (along with his fellow peer) in his early 40’s while attempting an insanely super risky jump. A huge part of the narrative is about how he was plagued his entire life by a reoccurring dream of falling to his death which became an obsession and inspired his entire life path which (not a spoiler it’s right in the trailer) did come true, but it’s like… he made it come true by chasing it.

He talked and journaled a lot about how he believed the dream was a premonition that he would fall to his death, it was an obsession. In episode 2 however, he describes the dream in great detail, and it was so sad to me. Based on his detailed description I immediately thought “this is not a prophetic death dream, it’s clearly just related to fear of failure” and I felt so sad for him. I’m curious if anyone else has watched it and had similar or alternative interpretations.

It’s wild this guys entire life was ruled by fear and revolved around this reoccurring dream right up to the moment of demise, and from my perspective his dream was misinterpreted the whole time. I also think his misinterpretation is related to mental illness, he was definitely depressed and neurotic with a lot of narcissism, and I believe he likely experienced psychosis. It’s fascinating but also very sad.

I wrote an entire post about my success with trying different things during treatment, but I forgot to mention something I think is important.

I’ve incorporated rocking and swaying side to side (you can do this sitting or lying down, there’s good information about how to do it here) and it feels *really really good* during session. I do it in a seated meditation pose and sway side to side. I like to have my arms outstretched, or with my elbows pointing out and hands on my shoulders, it feels great on my back and I don’t know how to explain it but it just feels calming and great, like how some yoga teachers will call a pose “yummy.” I just intuitively tried it one day and haven’t stopped. Just a few minutes is plenty. The key is intuitively do what feels good and get into a rhythm and go with the rhythm. On the spravato it almost feels involuntary, like my bodies natural rhythm is moving FOR me, or I’m being physically guided.

Anyway, I googled it and there’s a ton of information about how rocking and swaying are calming and good for your nervous system. I have CPTSD and I’ve been feeling better since I started adding these things, my PHQ-9 scores have gone down more, my clinic noticed and told me, and I told them it’s been since I started trying different things like this! Give it a shot!

Hi friends! I've been incorporating somatic movement into my treatment sessions for a few months now and it has had a hugely positive impact on my results, so I wanted to share what's been working for me, because it's definitely unconventional. I haven't seen anyone else write about this, also, so this could be a good resource for people feeling stuck or at a plateau in treatment.

I'll start by giving you some background on my case. I have severe CPTSD as well as OSDD (a dissociative disorder caused by early childhood trauma) and TRD obvs. In the past I was diagnosed with Panic Disorder, GAD, and OCD. I had a bad series of traumatic events and as a result symptoms significantly worsened in 2021 at the tail end of the pandemic. This was when the CPTSD was diagnosed, basically all of my horrible childhood memories came rushing to the forefront after that series of events.

I started Spravato in October 2023. When I first started spravato it felt like a miracle, but then it took a turn in month 3 and suddenly my depression was WORSE than before. I was encouraged to try to push though since it worked so well during the induction phase. However, after those first few months my first entire year was extraordinarily difficult, I was still dealing with ongoing trauma, and I had to go back to twice per week for over a year and it felt like I was exorcising a demon for a good part of that. Crying, screaming, throwing up for about 8 months. Many close calls with SI. Many police wellness checks. It took me another 6 months to slowly wean on a schedule from twice per week to once (this was my idea, I did it on my own volition by strategically "missing" appointments so I wouldn't lose my twice per week authorization) without having another disaster.

When I started Spravato, I tried the music + eye mask thing and it didn't feel good to me. I felt frustrated and bored. I found watching the moving art series on an iPad to be much more enjoyable. My clinic has me marked down "does not dissociate" but that's not the case, it's just on the milder side. I used this as my protocol for almost 2 years.

I'm a former dancer and yoga teacher, currently mainly a yoga student/practitioner these days. I'm also in 12 step, and was having a lot of trouble with the spiritual aspect because I was raised hardcore atheist to the point of being anti-religion. I wanted to find a way to try to have some kind of spiritual experience during my spravato treatments.

I started attending a hot yoga class directly before treatment (just enough time in between to go home, shower, and leave for my appointment) so that I could try to bring that mindset into session and HOLY COW it really improved my treatments. Firstly, the medication felt much stronger, and the yoga mindset really helped me to harness the relaxation aspect. (I also started using breathe right strips while I take the meds, that helped too I think with the medication feeling stronger)

After I had been going to yoga before treatment for a while, I started wondering about actually physically incorporating yoga into the actual treatment session. One day I tried instead of lying down to stay in a seated meditation position. I also started my music during the medication administration instead of waiting until after I'd taken the meds. This time, I felt intuitively compelled to move my body in small and gentle ways. It's changed everything for me.

Now when I go to treatment, I still attend yoga before, but now I sit in a seated meditation position, do gentle breath work, and intuitively and gently move, stretch, rock, sway, tap, self-hug, and incorporate energetic elements like mudras and qi gong while seated. Very prana-oriented like prana yoga. After the peak I then lie on my back and do some gentle restorative yoga poses like happy baby, reclined bound angle, reclined figure 4, legs up the wall, those kinds of things, as well as gentle self massage and a cooling face mask. I follow my intuition and my body when deciding what to do. I've even had some experiences where it feels like I'm being physically "guided" into certain movements, which feels very cool, almost like I'm possessed by a god-like entity who is physically moving my body FOR me. I also stopped with "intention setting" and try to just listen to my intuition or higher power to direct me. It's an entirely body and spirit based practice, I have removed all intellectualizing, analyzing, ruminating, trying to problem solve, thinking about my troubles... I used to have a flurry of thoughts during the first half of treatment and now I approach it more like meditation and that doesn't happen. I also ask the universe to show me what to focus on instead of going in with a rigid intention like "Today I'm going to work on my self esteem" and that is also a huge game changer.

I've had great success with this. I used to have a "bad trip" where I would end up crying for a week about once every 4-5 treatments, now that does not happen. I feel GREAT during and after every treatment now. No more panic or crying spells at all. When I get home, I eat something nourishing and I do some solo ecstatic dance in my living room, as well as more somatic work like rolling around on the ground and trauma release exercises (TRE) which seems to work better with the spravato in my system.

Changing my approach and incorporating seated meditation, movement, and spirituality into my actual treatment sessions has been a complete game changer. I even have beautiful and spiritual closed eye visuals now which I never had before, whereas most people seem to "adjust" and feel the medication less over time. I was on this medication for 2 years before trying any of this, and it's a totally different animal now. My PHQ-9 scores have dropped about another 20%. I am much more calm on a day-to-day basis. I can get out of panic episodes/flashbacks and also recover from them MUCH faster. I sleep more restfully on treatment days. I walk out of treatment feeling floaty and dreamlike. I've even fallen asleep towards the end of sessions which I could NEVR do before. I can also now control my own blood pressure with meditation, which the nurses are wowed by! If my blood pressure is a little high I just tell them give me 30 second and then retake it, then I meditate using paced breath work, and my BP drops 10 points on the top and bottom. I've been told it's quite impressive.

I'm really interested to connect with anyone else who has also tried similar things or found alternative or unconventional ways to approach the actual treatment session. I also really think my approach could help others and I would LOVE to chat with anyone interested in trying it or something like it for a while and hear if it does anything for you. I think if you are a dancer or a yogi like me, or just a very physical person, or have a lot of trauma, or have benefitted from somatic therapy in the past, DEFINITELY try it and I want to hear from you how it went! It took me probably 4-6 sessions to work the kinks out and find what felt good and get into the rhythm of it, so I recommend repeating if the first time isn't particularly exciting.

This path all happened for me by being curious if I could have a more spiritual experience, so I recommend also trying anything that personally supports that for you, like for example if you're a Christian (I'm not but I know plenty are) maybe try listening to hymns and praying or talking to god. Whatever your personal spirituality is or could be, try bringing it to treatment.

I understand some people don't care about the psychedelic element, or don't experience it, and it wasn't really considered in the clinical trials, but for me I feel like I've harnessed it now, and I have results on paper to prove it. I think it's possible this could be the real meat of using psychedelics in a therapeutic way. I wanted to find a way to make spravato DO MORE for me, and that has been a success.