A MINDS Insight Retreat
A 5-day research container in Mexico for changemakers working at the frontiers of AI, ecology, technology, and human flourishing. Leave with a different way of seeing it.
The Impasse
You know the feeling. The work itself matters. The stakes are real. The analysis is largely done, and the answer keeps slipping out of frame. What you need is a different angle on the problem itself.
We built MINDS because the tools available for moving through this kind of impasse — design thinking, executive coaching, strategic offsites — operate where the impasse is not. They work with deliberate thought. The impasse sits upstream of that.
Why conventional methods fall short
Deliberate thought is what produced the impasse. More deliberate thought, better organized, rarely dissolves it. What reorganizes a problem is a change in the cognitive frame that holds it.
The Science
This is the kind of insight we are interested in. Insights with stakes. The structural kind, where a problem rearranges itself, and the next move becomes obvious because the problem you were solving was the wrong one.
Psychedelic neuroscience has begun to characterize the mechanism. Reduced functional rigidity. Increased associative range. Looser priors, and a temporary openness to new conceptual structure.
These are the cognitive properties that frontier work demands and that conventional methods rarely access. This is what we mean when we describe MINDS as a think tank that operates at depth.
Footage from a 5-MeO-DMT neuroimaging study conducted at Tandava Retreats in collaboration with University College London. This was not a MINDS project — we share it as evidence of the research rigor and scientific infrastructure Tandava brings to this work.
The 5-Day Arc
You arrive with a real problem that is professionally embedded and personally salient. Over five days, you move through a structured protocol developed by the Center for MINDS research team in collaboration with the facilitation team at Tandava. Five preparatory modules prepare the ground. Two carefully held 5-MeO-DMT sessions do the structural work. Integration and follow-ups at one, four, and twelve weeks track what changes.
Settling. Orientation. No cognitive work.
Problem representation, impasse construction, incubation.
Higher-dose protocol day. Held container.
Lower-dose session, qualitative review, framework loosening.
Outcome capture, integration plan, twelve-week roadmap.
All data collection follows HIPAA-aligned infrastructure. Participation in the research cohort is opt-in.
The Setting
Founded by Joel Brierre on Mexico's Pacific coast, Tandava has become the benchmark for professionally conducted 5-MeO-DMT retreats. The center operates purpose-built facilities designed around the specific demands of high-dose psychedelic work — private ceremonial spaces, experienced facilitation, medical infrastructure, and an environment calibrated to the depth MINDS requires. More than two thousand participants have moved through its protocols. The MINDS research container is built on that foundation.
Private casitas with natural materials, open-air ceremony pavilions, and dedicated integration spaces designed around the specific demands of 5-MeO-DMT work at therapeutic depth.
Joel Brierre and his team have facilitated thousands of 5-MeO-DMT sessions over more than a decade, refining protocols across diverse populations and settings.
Full pre-screening, on-site clinical monitoring, and post-session support. Safety is structural here — built into the protocol, not added reactively.
Plant-forward, preparation-aligned meals throughout the retreat. Every dietary element is considered for its relationship to the medicine and the protocol.
A Fully Legal Container
5-MeO-DMT is legal in Mexico. Tandava operates under a mature, fully compliant regulatory framework — this is not a grey-area arrangement. Participants have complete legal protection throughout the program. Mexico has become the natural home for this kind of work precisely because the legal infrastructure exists to do it properly: with experienced practitioners, clinical support, and the kind of environmental conditions that depth work requires. You are not navigating around the law. You are operating inside it.
Participant Accounts
The container that Victoria and Joël and the entire crew at Tandava created was the sweetest safest warmest nest to allow me to go deep into my own process and still maintain connection with everyone. This retreat far surpassed any expectations I had.
Therapist
My experience has been life changing — and I firmly believe that is because of the combination of 5-MeO-DMT AND the container established and set by Joel and Victoria at Tandava Retreats. The medicine alone is not the answer. The container is.
Combat Veteran
Their mastery is undeniable, and I firmly believe that their skill and expertise in creating a secure and thoughtful container significantly shaped my experience.
Business Owner
The Team
The MINDS team brings together cognitive neuroscience, clinical psychiatry, and operational rigor. The facilitation team at Tandava brings two decades of work with 5-MeO-DMT in ceremonial and therapeutic settings. Both halves matter.
Founder & Lead Facilitator
Tandava Retreats
Postdoctoral Neuroscientist, UCSF
Co-Executive Director, Center for MINDS
Senior Research Fellow, University of Exeter
Co-Executive Director, Center for MINDS
Head of Operations
Center for MINDS
Advised by
Bruce Damer, PhD · Astrobiologist, Co-founder MINDS
Joseph Barsuglia, PhD · Psychedelic Researcher
Facilitation Partner
Tandava Retreats, Mexico
Two decades of work with 5-MeO-DMT.
The Outcome
We are honest about that. You will leave with a structurally different relationship to it.
The cohort is small (10–12) and selected with care. The relationships formed here tend to outlast the retreat by years.
Eligibility
People working on AI alignment, climate response, ecological regeneration, or technological infrastructure for human flourishing. People with prior psychedelic experience or substantial readiness, who can engage seriously with research data collection and the demands of an embedded protocol.
It is not the right container for first-time psychedelic experiences, for trauma processing, or for participants seeking a vacation, a vision quest, or a retreat in the conventional sense. The protocol works best when applied to a concrete impasse embedded in your current work, not to abstract or aspirational problems.
Ten to twelve seats. A small number are reserved under our Eleusinian Fellowship for high-leverage researchers sponsored by aligned philanthropic partners.
For the Still-Curious
June 2026
Applications close when the cohort is full or April 30, 2026, whichever comes first.
Start your application →Takes about 15 minutes. We respond within 5 business days.
