Integration as Integrating Consciousness

When Content of your Journey Could be a Distraction

Not Just What You Saw—But How You Saw: Mapping Consciousness in Psychedelic Integration “Sometimes, the work isn’t about integrating the content of a journey. It’s about learning how to live with the consciousness it revealed.”

Collage by Alexa Iya Soro

When we return from a deep psychedelic or visionary experience, we’re often flooded with symbols, insights, or moments that feel impossible to explain. People frequently try to derive meaning from these images—asking, “What did it mean?” or “What should I do with that vision?” But what if the real invitation isn’t about interpreting the content, but about recognizing the consciousness that held it?

This process can be so helpful because there are many different multicultural ways of translating imagery. For example, a snake means something very specific in the Shipibo tradition, but it might carry a completely different association elsewhere. Sometimes we get caught up in the content of our lives. This is the exact same way of getting caught up in the content of someone’s story. A lot of times I talk about process over content, and the process is trying to hear what is happening underneath the story the person is telling themselves.

In terms of mapping consciousness as psychedelic integration, it’s not so much about the content, but the consciousness. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes, we must listen for the river beneath the river, the Río Abajo Río. It's what flows underneath, allowing us to not get caught up in the physical manifestation of something—while still honoring it—but seeing that there’s something very much alive beyond what is physically expressed. It’s like reading between the lines, but with consciousness.

This kind of awareness is especially helpful when we work with things like 5-MeO-DMT or ketamine. There isn’t always a visual memory because the chakruna in ayahuasca is what paints the visions. But sometimes we don’t have literal visions. So what is it that we choose to bring home? What if we can’t manifest a vision of us living our life at the beach, but we cultivated—and continue to cultivate—the consciousness that blossomed that memory in our ceremony?

🌀 States of Consciousness Through Time

Jean Gebser, a 20th-century German philosopher, proposed that human beings have evolved through multiple structures of consciousness—each representing a different way of experiencing time, space, self, and other. His work, beautifully translated in Seeing Through the World by Jeremy Johnson, offers a map that can be profoundly helpful in psychedelic integration. These structures are not merely historical—they reside within each of us. Psychedelic journeys often bring us into contact with these layers of awareness in unexpected ways:

• Archaic / Unperspectival – The undifferentiated oneness Pure being. No sense of self or other. Often experienced in 5-MeO-DMT states or peak ayahuasca moments where there's just stillness, void, or Source.

• Magical – Everything is alive Time is cyclical, and the world is animated. You might meet fairies, encounter talking animals, or feel the plants communicating with you. The boundaries between self and nature blur.

• Mythical – Symbol, archetype, initiation Visions of gods, ancestors, family lineages, and cosmic battles. Emotions are embodied in images and stories. You may receive a myth that echoes your personal or ancestral path.

• Mental / Perspectival – Rational mind, linear time We return here when we “make sense” of the journey. It’s the analyst, the integrator, the therapist, and the meaning-maker. However, it’s also the layer that often struggles to explain what was never meant to be dissected.

• Integral – All perspectives held at once This is the unfolding edge: the ability to hold magical, mythical, rational, and timeless truths together without collapse. Integration doesn’t mean flattening—it means inhabiting multiplicity with awareness.

🌿 Quoting Lorie Eve Dechar: The Five Spirits & Embodied Consciousness In Kigo: Exploring the Spiritual Essence of Acupuncture, Lorie Eve Dechar writes:

“Perhaps integration is not the organizing of experience into mental coherence, but the activation of a seed consciousness that longs to express itself through form.”

Here, she invites us to listen to the spirit of the experience, not just the storyline. When we work somatically—tracking the breath, pulse, and felt sense—we may not find clarity in words. But we do attune to Shen (spirit), Hun (vision), Po (body-soul), Yi (focus), and Zhi (will). These Five Spirits echo Gebser’s layers in Chinese form: ways consciousness lives in the body.

🧭 A New Integration Map What if integration meant asking:

• What kind of consciousness was this experience asking me to remember?

• Am I living entirely from the mental-rational? Can I invite back the magical? The mythical?

• Can I track the body not just for trauma, but for soul perspective?

Rather than pushing toward coherence, we may need to bow to complexity. Some visions don’t resolve—but they shift our gaze.

🌕 Integration as Consciousness Reclamation Your journey might not make sense from a rational lens. That doesn’t mean it failed—it may have touched a forgotten way of seeing. The real work may be to let that way of seeing slowly infuse your life:

To feel the trees whisper again. To follow dreams as messages. To honor silence as sacred. To let time spiral and symbols breathe.

This is the integration of the myriad expressions of consciousness—not just content. Not just what you saw, but how you saw.

—

🌀 Upcoming Retreat: Jan 15, 2026: Accepting Applications  If you’re curious about exploring these subtle but powerful layers of integration in a safe, relational, and soulful space, we’re accepting a few more seats for our next retreat in January. Learn more and apply at https://www.sacred-counsel.com/ayahuasca-retreat-mexico

If you mention this article: You can receive three Integration Calls as a package for 25% off :)