Curious about the risks of psychedelics? You’re in the right place. This webpage has a variety of resources that walk you through how to assess readiness, spot risks, make informed choices, and stay safer before, during, and after.
PSYCHEDELIC PREPAREDNESS
How prepared are you for a Psychedelic Journey? Here’s a peer-review validated assessment that can help gauge your state for your upcoming experience.
The Psychedelic Preparedness Scale (PPS) is a psychometrically validated assessment developed by a team of researchers at University College London. It’s a scale designed to measure key psychological, emotional, and practical factors that contribute to a safe and meaningful journey.
By using this scale in advance, it’s possible to determine whether a participant has developed the appropriate mental “set” and is therefore more likely to benefit, and less likely to be harmed, from a psychedelic experience.
Self-assessment
Are you prepared for your psychedelic experience?
The Psychedelic Preparedness Scale (PPS) is a validated, 20-item self-report measure of how ready a person feels for an upcoming psychedelic experience — across knowledge, intention, psychophysical readiness, and support (McAlpine et al., 2024) .
Your results
Understanding the four domains
The PPS groups preparedness into four research-validated domains. Here is what each one captures, to help you make sense of the scores above.
How well-informed you are and what your expectations are. This domain is about how well you know the medicine you’re sitting with, and how aware you are about the potential unpredictability of the journey. Higher scores mean you are approaching the experience with grounded, informed expectations rather than assumptions.
The clarity of your intention and depth of engagement with preparation practices. This domain is about the psychological framework set before the experience. Higher scores point to a considered, deliberate approach rather than a spontaneous one.
Your sense of readiness to confront and accept challenging emotional and physical experiences that may arise. This domain is about personal stability, health status, and capacity for altered states. Higher scores suggest physical and mental readiness, as well as a willingness to surrender.
The people and plans that will hold you safely before, during, and after. This domain is about the practical and emotional support structures critical for both the acute experience as well as the post-journey care. Higher scores reflect a solid support structure and thought-through aftercare.
Further reading: Navigating Psychedelic Experiences: Introducing the Psychedelic Preparedness Scale (PPS). an introduction to the scale from the UCL research team that developed it.
Scale source: McAlpine, R. G., Blackburne, G., & Kamboj, S. K. (2024). Development and psychometric validation of a novel scale for measuring ‘psychedelic preparedness’. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 3280. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-53829-z