After a recent conversation in chat I was inspired to create a thread devoted to collecting the resources available for training a competent trip sitter. I'm calling on the community to share the resources and tools they are familiar with and utilize in preparing for and working through psychedelic experiences.To start I gotta practice some shameless self promotion for the nexus and highlight
The Open hyperspace Traveler Handbook. This is a great all around guide to preparing for and getting the most out of a psychedelic experience.
Along similar lines
The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide by James Fadiman is an incredibly helpful resource.
Shout out to the
Tripsit network. This whole website is designed around having 24/7 access to tripsitters on their IRC network. Just go to the home page and click immediate assistance for instant access to qualified sitters online. They also have lots of helpful
guides available. For the simplest, most straight forward, quick and dirty guides around I highly recommend their
How To Tripsit In Real Life and
How To Tripsit Online guides.
MAPS has posted a video of their
Zendo training orientation online which may be a little more accessible for those less inclined to read through the books. It's a bit long, but one of the absolute best resources available for training a competent sitter. They have also posted the
The Zendo Project Harm Reduction Manual online, which is another very useful resource.
Erowid has a
guide/sitter vault.
Now lets highlight a couple of the classic texts.
No list of sitter resources would be complete without
The Psychedelic Experience: A manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The original guide to approaching the psychedelic experience.
Another classic guide that has stood the test of time is
The Handbook for the Therapeutic Use of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25. Which has functioned as one of the premier guidebooks on psychedelic therapy since the 1950's.
Here are several more relevant resources available through MAPS:
Manual: How to Work with Difficult Psychedelic ExperiencesThe Manual of Psychedelic Support This one is more dedicated to onsite/festival support but is still very useful.
MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Treatment ManualRelevant Free BooksPsychedelic Harm Reduction ResourcesThe place of a sitter is to simply be present and available to the tripper if and when needed. This generally breaks down to sitting quietly within shouting distance, which really is a pretty boring job, so giving your sitter access to these resources gives them a relevant interesting and educational way to the pass the time while simultaneously putting all the tools they could need to deal with a crisis within easy reach. Courtesy ProTip: Blood pressure and heart rate monitors not only make fun trip toys to play with during the experience, they also allow you to irrefutably demonstrate that even though it feels like you are dying, you are really fine. 