If you want to know what a psychonaut is, let’s start with the origin of the word. Psychonaut comes from the Greek word psyché, which means spirit, mind, or soul, and the word náutes, which means sailor or navigator.
This way, you can see a psychonaut as a “navigator of the mind”, a person who has studied how to use non-ordinary states of consciousness to find answers to spiritual and all kinds of questions.
Psychonauts believe that there is a hidden world, which can be accessed by transforming the mind. There are famous psychonauts all over the world, always looking to expand their minds and discover new horizons. Want to know more about this type of person and how they can help guide you to a more fulfilling life? What is a psychonaut? Let’s find out together.
What is the definition of a psychonaut?
Psychonauts are people who have found a way to access hidden places in the mind. To do so, psychonauts explore higher states of consciousness through specific techniques such as meditation,breathwork, yoga, lucid dreaming, and the responsible use of psychoactive natural medicines such as Magic Mushrooms or Ayahuasca.
To purposely raise the state of consciousness in order to investigate your mind and seek answers is something that should be taken very seriously and done only in a safe container. If psychonautics is something that interests you, we suggest you do it surrounded by people who have extensive knowledge about both the practices and the medicine used. For that, nothing better than a proper Magic Mushroom retreat in a comfortable, luxurious, and safe place. The Avalon family will guide you from the beginning to the end!
Are all plant medicine users psychonauts?
No. There is a very big difference between people who use psychedelics for recreational or experimental reasons and the use given by a psychonaut. It is also not the frequency in which one uses the medicines that will determine if you are a psychonaut or not. The term psychonaut captures more than just the mere consumption of a psychedelic. In its essence, it refers to taking these compounds with a particular set of intentions.
According to the Psychonaut subreddit, “A psychonaut is a person who experiences intentionally induced non-ordinary states of consciousness and claims to use the experience to investigate his or her mind, and possibly address spiritual questions, through direct experience.”
People use plant medicines to enhance and exponentially increase their learning process. They are usually people that have an innate curiosity about life, the self, God, and nature. This is why ceremonies bring together such a wide variety of curious minds.
What are the most common medicines used by psychonauts?
Like we have previously explained, psychonauts use certain psychoactive substances to raise their state of mind and therefore initiate the process of change or enlightenment. With that in mind, the most common substances used by famous psychonauts are Ayahuasca, Peyote, Psilocybin Mushrooms, and DMT.
With the help of scientific research, we have shifted the focus to the tremendous benefits of the responsible use of plant medicine.
Today we see new treatment possibilities being born for an increasing number of illnesses. The increasingly promising results have also transformed this field of studies into an emerging and disputed business and investment sector. In March of this year, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the United States, announced its first master’s program related to psychedelics in pharmaceutical sciences. At the time, the institution estimated that this business would grow approximately 20% a year over the next decade, moving values around US$ 100 billion by 2030.
Types of Psychonauts
So where do you fit in all this? Are you or do you want to be a psychonaut?
Psychonauts come in many different varieties. Everyone has different reasons to resort to psychonautics, but the common factor for every type of psychonaut is mind exploration. To help you better understand psychonautics, we will list the most common motivations behind people resorting to these methods of healing:
Spirituality
Some psychonauts are interested in raising their consciousness for spiritual reasons. For many, spirituality is the key to learn how to deal with one’s own suffering, by connecting to something larger than oneself.
Spiritual psychonauts develop mindfulness, compassion and, ultimately, inner peace. As a result, they manage to see humanity as whole, with all its life and divinity.
Another very common reasoning for spiritual psychonauts is the search for the ultimate meaning.
Philosophy
Some famous philosophers were also famous psychonauts, such as William James, who regularly raised his consciousness with nitrous oxide, reporting that the psychonautic experiences provided him with philosophical insights.
The philosopher psychonaut will go on a journey with the intention of exploring philosophical topics or analyzing their experiences from a philosophical point of view. Topics such as consciousness, the self and reality are widely questioned and explored.
Today, we know that important philosophical theories or beliefs were born under psychonautics.
Healing
One of the most common types of psychonaut is the healing profile. The ultimate aim here is to seek help in a moment of crisis. People going through a breakup or divorce, depression, past trauma, anxiety or addiction often resort to psychonautics in order to find meaning, purpose and connection.
It is also a powerful tool to reduce self-criticism, low self-worth and overall hopelessness.
For healing psychonauts, Ayahuasca is the mother of all plants. According to pharmacologists and scientists who have been conducting research on the effects of Ayahuasca, the active substances in Ayahuasca act on receptors of the serotonin system, which is related to anxiety, fear, depression, sleep and pain perception.
Join an international like-minded group for an unforgettable Ayahuasca retreat and heal together.
Perhaps you have identified yourself with one of these types of psychonauts in its full description. But it is also very possible that you have identified yourself with bits of each type. We would like to underline that you can be more than one type of psychonaut, a different type of psychonaut at different times and you could also be all types at once.
It is all about your intentions! Sometimes healing is what is called for, other times just curiosity of the human experience.
In conclusion, what ties different psychonauts together is being curious about the mind and a willingness to explore, with the aim of gaining new, valuable insights.
Famous psychonauts and their quotes
“I don’t think psychedelics are the answer to the world’s problems, but they could be a start.” — Sting, Have a Good Trip
“All deities and demons, all heavens and hells are internal.”
― Timothy Leary, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead
“Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.”
― Terence McKenna
Lao Tzu once said, “Nature doesn’t hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
“A single seed planted, eventually becomes a garden in time — when things get tough, tend to the garden in your mind.”
― Jennifer Sodini
“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”
― Terence McKenna
“It reinforced my sense of what was important — creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
— Steve Jobs
How can psychonautics benefit me?
Among the goals pursued by this type of technique are improving the person’s psychological conditions and advancing in other important day-to-day issues. For some people, it can be a religious or spiritual calling and for others psychonautics can be a powerful tool to overcome situations of depression, addiction, or anxiety.
What is a psychonaut? I think we just figured that out together right? If you have felt identified with this article and would like to get working on your psychonautic abilities, take a look at Avalon’s events, where you will find all our plant medicine retreats in Barcelona & Ibiza.
