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 the world and your work within it.
The Impasse
You know the feeling. You're engaged in a high-stakes problem. You know solving it can make a tremendous impact, and you want to make sure you do it exceptionally. You have all of the background knowledge and have thoroughly analyzed it, but the answer remains just out of reach. 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
Focused, linear thinking is what produced the impasse. More of that same kind of thinking rarely dissolves it. What reorganizes a problem is a fundamental change in the cognitive frame that holds it — and, perhaps, in the person who is posing the question in the first place.
The Science
This is the kind of insight we are interested in. The structural kind that emerges when a problem restructures itself, and, in a euphoric "Aha" moment, you are suddenly struck by a radically new solution that you can't believe you had been missing.
Psychedelic neuroscience has begun to characterize what Indigenous cultures have known for centuries, if not millennia. Reduced rigidity of brain dynamics. Increased associative breadth in our semantic networks. Looser priors, less stuckness in the familiar and known, and a temporary openness to new frameworks and perspectives that are received as visionary downloads.
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.
The 5-Day Arc
You arrive with a high-stakes problem critical to your work and close to your heart that you have been grappling with for some time. 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 prime you by thoroughly characterizing your problem and bringing you to the outer edges of what you already know. Two carefully held 5-MeO-DMT sessions alongside a traditional temazcal do the structural work to catalyze the breakthrough you need. 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 in the mountains just over an hour from Mexico City, 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, a spacious, expertly curated ceremony space, 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 and hospitality are paramount and a core part of the center's ethos.
Delicious, home prepared meals with our talented chefs throughout the retreat.
A Fully Legal Container
5-MeO-DMT is unscheduled in Mexico. Tandava operates under a mature, fully compliant regulatory framework. 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.
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
They do not force anything onto you. When I could only take the medicine the first day, they supported me with meditation — I felt completely held throughout.
Retreat Participant
I am deeply appreciative for the individualized care I received from my facilitators. The attention to each person's process set this experience apart from anything I had imagined.
Retreat Participant
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.
Founder & Lead Facilitator
Tandava Retreats
Leading Psychedelic Neuroscientist & Biotech Founder
Previous Postdoctoral Scholar, 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
The work continues after the retreat. Here is what you take with you.
The cohort is small (10–12) and selected with care. The relationships formed here tend to outlast the retreat by years.
Eligibility
Built for
Not the right container for
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
August 2026
Applications close when the cohort is full or July 20, 2026, whichever comes first.
Start your application →Takes about 15 minutes. We respond within 5 business days.
