Practicing with 5 through the lens of the Bardo States

The Architecture of Dissolution, Remembrance, and Rebirth

This writing is not simply an overview of psychedelic theory but a living map of how I work with 5 in the Full Release state as a vehicle for soul liberation, transformation, and remembrance. This is not about micordosing Low Dose Five or gentle introductions. This is about the Full Surrender, when the self dissolves and something eternal steps forward. 

While there is increasing curiosity about 5 in both clinical, therapeutic Low-Dose work and ceremonial spaces, the way we approach the medicine determines everything. This is not about chasing peak states. This is not about bypassing human pain. This is about fully surrendering into the sacred architecture of ego dissolution and allowing the soul to remember itself as Source.

In my practice, I guide clients through a deeply prepared and skillfully supported journey into Full Release, not as a singular event, but as an initiation. The kind that mirrors the ancient maps of consciousness outlined in the Tibetan Bardo teachings.

These teachings were never meant to stay in monasteries or books. They are here for us now, as we learn to die before we die: not in body, but in egoic attachment, in identity, in the illusions of separation that keep us from living fully.

Through the Full Release journey, we traverse each layer of the death and rebirth process as described in the Bardo Thödol, from the loosening of form to the emergence of the Clear Light, and finally into the sacred return. 

Not everyone recognizes the Light immediately. Not everyone integrates the lessons right away. 

But, THIS is where the sacred work begins.

My approach combines years of practice, mystic training, and therapeutic depth. I hold a devotional container rooted in Integral Theory, shadow work, IFS, Yogic and Tibetan cosmologies, and somatic trauma release. This is how I carry and steward the medicine. This is how I work with my clients. With preparation, with presence, with reverence.

This is not just about transcendence.

This is about transformation.

Not just touching the Light, but returning with it and learning how to live from it.

Initiation & Invitation

There are moments in life when, through the sacred mirror of loss, heartbreak, illness, medicine journeys, or spontaneous awakening, that our known world begins to dissolve. These challenges are not breakdowns; they are sacred invitations. Initiations into our greatness and deeper remembrance.

When the soul recognizes the call, it must step forward courageously and with divine trust.

We surrender into what is, so we can be reborn into what might be.

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, these transitions are mapped with astonishing precision and clarity through the Bardo teachings. The Bardo Thödol, or Tibetan Book of the Dead, outlines six distinct states of consciousness: bardos, or realms. Each represents a phase between death and rebirth, sleep and wakefulness, ego and essence.

When we work with sacraments, and especially 5, we don’t just conceptualize these transitions. We activate them. We dissolve into them, we return from them, and we anchor their wisdom back into the tapestry of this very life.

This writing explores how the Bardo teachings illuminate the 5 journey, and how, through conscious practice, we can use this powerful molecule as a tool of transformation rather than just transcendence.

The Six Bardos: Mirrors to the Full Release Path

1. The Bardo of Life (Kyenay Bardo)

This is the realm of daily existence and our waking consciousness, form, identity, memory, and ego.

In psychedelic practice, this is where we begin: with the ego intact, the “I” oriented around past and future, habit and identity.

This is the first veil to thin. This is when the child loses innocence, and life begins to teach through pain and separation. We are shaken by life itself and the experiences we have. The structures we cling to: the identity, the story, the belief, they all begin to loosen.

Contrary to popular spiritual beliefs, the ego doesn’t die. It becomes malleable, permeable. What is revealed is not destruction, but repositioning. The ego takes its rightful place as a tool, not a master.

We don’t kill it, but we reveal its place in the greater whole.

2. The Bardo of Dying (Chikhai Bardo)

This is the elemental unraveling & dissolution. In both Tibetan teachings we witness a sequential dissolution:

Earth into Water: the form weakens and the ground within collapses. 

Water into Fire: emotions ignite into heat and the known self becomes a mirage.

Fire into Air: warmth fades and breath dissolves into stillness.

Air into Space: the last breath trembles and slips away. Effort ceases and body surrenders its last breath. Prana withdraws from the subtle body channels. 

*this is one of the most subtle and profound thresholds before the appearance of Clear Light

Space into Light: the last grasp surrenders and thought, will and form dissolve into the infinite hush of space. This is when Rigpa (The Luminous Mind) is fully realized. 

3. The Luminous Bardo of Dharmata (Chönyi Bardo)

If the surrender is deep, and if the trust is true, then the Clear Light arises.

In yogic language, this is called Nirbhasa, or Clear Light.

In Tibetan terms, it is the Great Luminosity.

In the 5MeO experience: The Full Release:

This is Source without separation. No observer. No perception. No “I.”

Only the radiant truth of Being.

This is the total release of identity. This is not annihilation, but an alchemical transmutation.

A passage into the Great Unknown.

The “I” disappears and if the soul is ready this moment offers liberation. 

This is the Full Release, the moment when even the spacious witness dissolves and what remains is pure formless Being. 

The soul recognizes itself as Source. 

This cannot be understood. It can only be entered.

And when one returns, nothing is ever quite the same.

4. The Karmic Bardo of Becoming (Sidpa Bardo)

If the Light is not fully recognized, or when we are meant to return to complete the lessons, consciousness begins to take shape again. It begins to search for rebirth.

This is the rebuilding of the self, but now with awareness.

The ego reconstitutes itself and the identity rebuilds. But now with choice. With presence. With possibility, fully aware of its Luminous essence and true nature. 

This actualization gives birth to boundless gratitude and a sense of eternal peace.

To re-enter the world with reverence is a holy act.

To bring the Light back into our relationships, our patterns, our purpose: this is the sacred return.

This is the Light of integration.

5. The Bardo of Meditation (Samten Bardo)

Every medicine journey is a micro-death.

So is every deep breath, every sit, every prayer.

Every time we fall asleep.

Meditation becomes the training ground.

It is not an escape, but a rehearsal.

A remembering of how to let go without losing ourselves.

To meditate is to learn how to touch stillness while alive.

6. The Bardo of Dreaming (Milam Bardo)

This is the Night School—the field of lucid dreaming, Yoga Nidra, and symbolic transmissions.

Practicing dream yoga, keeping a dream journal, or simply tracking the soul’s messages through dreams helps us prepare for the subtle veils we will cross: in altered states and in actual death.

Practicing with 5 as a Bardo Path

The medicine is not the destination. It is the doorway. 

And how we walk through that doorway, how we prepare, how we return is what shapes the transformation. 

To practice with 5 is to rehearse liberation.

But only if approached with reverence, devotion, and preparation.

My approach combines:

Handshake doses to soften the ego and build trust.

Submission and surrender doses that illuminate the difference between fear-driven resistance and holy yielding.

Therapeutic tools (IFS, shadow work, somatics) to integrate what arises.

Mystical frameworks (Tibetan Tantra, Yogic Samadhi, Integral Theory) to contextualize the ineffable.

You are not here to “kill the ego.”

You are here to liberate your consciousness from its illusions, and return with more light.

You are not here to chase bliss.

You are here to live it.

You are not here to transcend life.

You are here to embody truth.

You are here to remember.

This isn’t a death map. It’s a map for living a fully awakened, sacred life.

If you feel called to walk this path, to prepare for your own sacred initiation, and to return bearing the medicine of who you truly are, I welcome you to reach out.

May we not just touch the Light, but return with it, and live from it.

With reverence,

Lena