Start
01
Self-Experience
To start, you take part in a Reality Upgrade retreat of your choice. Afterwards you receive the workbook, a companion book for reference and self-reflection.
FoundationThe in-depth 12-month training for a new generation of Psychedelic Guides & Coaches
Knowledge. Experience. Impact.
People create change
Become a companion for deep transformation. This way you can find fulfillment in your work.
The Foundation training is a hands-on, direct path to fulfillment in your work. We give you depth, space, support and everything you need to accompany other people through their true transformation. Apply now and become a Reality Upgrade Psychedelic Guide & Coach!
4.7 out of 5 stars
Reviews on Trustpilot
Do you feel ready to finally live your calling?
Do these
thoughts sound
familiar?
“I sense that there is more in me than my life so far allows, but I lack a safe and clear path to get there.”
“I long for a true calling and know that I can bring about even more change in people than I have so far.”
“I feel the wish to help others with what has changed me, but I still lack the tools to do it.”
Then rediscover yourself, find real fulfillment in what you do and accompany other people toward true transformation.
What is “Reality Upgrade|Foundation”?
Reality Upgrade|Foundation is the effective, practice-oriented intensive training for the well-founded, professional facilitation of psychedelic processes. Over twelve months, you not only experience yourself in a completely new way but also learn from experienced teachers and practitioners from various fields of
consciousness-expanding work.
As part of a strong community, you will accompany and support others in group settings on their consciousness-expanding journey: for your own path as a companion.
The training is for people who …
- already work in a supporting, advisory or healing profession and want to expand their range of methods professionally
- are looking for a professional new beginning with real impact and a future
- want to help others with what has moved them, but still need the structured tools to do so
- are eager to learn and curious, and want to set out on an intense, well-founded journey to themselves
How your Foundation training year unfolds
Your Foundation journey
In person Cologne 4 days
02
Kick-off Event
You find your bearings and build trust with your learning group. You get to know the core attitude of consciousness-expanding work and dive into the first module content.
Online
03
Live Consolidation
Regular live sessions on the content of the in-person components, with no new material, accompanied by the workbook, Q&A calls and buddy calls.
Centerpiece: Netherlands, 7 days
04
7-Day Retreat
Learning sessions 3 and 4, mutual practice sitting accompanied by a physician, supervision and an intensive exchange about your own process of growth.
Online
05
Live Consolidation
Regular live sessions on the content of the in-person components, with no new material, with a Q&A after each module, accompanied by the workbook and buddy calls.
Practice Netherlands 3 days
06
Volunteer Retreat
You apply your knowledge and, as part of the Reality Upgrade team, accompany real participants on their journey for the first time. Successfully taking part is the prerequisite for admission to the final exam.
Online
07
Live Consolidation
Regular live sessions on the content of the in-person components, with no new material, with a Q&A after each module, accompanied by the workbook and buddy calls.
Completion on site in the Netherlands
08
Exam & Certificate
Your final assessment, with a knowledge test, a practical part and a final interview, takes place on site at the volunteer retreat in the Netherlands. This is followed by the joint closing call and the awarding of your certificate.
We won’t leave you on your own: throughout your entire learning journey, the Reality Upgrade team is personally there for your questions and for exchange. Personal long-term support remains available as an option beyond the twelve months.
Components at a glance
Intensive Live Experiences
Self-experience, the kick-off in Cologne, the 7-day centerpiece and the volunteer retreat are mandatory: that is where you learn and practice the new material
Regular Q&As via Zoom
Live with the instructors, on the content of the in-person components
Online Consolidation
Regular live sessions on the content of the in-person components
High-Quality Workbook
Your companion book for reference and self-reflection
Personal Support
Dedicated contact persons are always there for you
Buddy System
Go through this intense time with a buddy
Final Exam Including Certificate
On site at the volunteer retreat in the Netherlands, with a knowledge test, a practical part and a final interview
Community
Become part of the courageous, strong Reality Upgrade community and benefit from the experiences of others
Our teaching principle: experiential learning
A fixed cycle that repeats once over the course of the year with each of the three in-person events, based on established models of experiential learning (after David Kolb).
Experience
your own intense experience with professional guidance
Understand
well-founded expertise on effects, setting, safety and much more
Deepen
Reflection in the buddy system, Q&As on module content, self-reflection in the workbook
Apply
Practice in a safe setting, real practice at the volunteer retreat
The Land van Yemaya retreat center in the Netherlands
Experts from the Field
On your training journey, you learn live at the in-person events from experienced, leading experts in consciousness-expanding work. In the live online sessions, you consolidate what you have learned.
The Experts in Profile
Dr. Stefan Frädrich
Short Bio
Dr. Stefan Frädrich is a physician, bestselling author and founder of Greator (formerly GEDANKENtanken) and Reality Upgrade. For many years he has been accompanying people in their personal development. Together with Sonja Bödecker he runs Reality Upgrade B.V., which creates space for new perspectives and intense personal experiences through retreats and coachings.
Quote
“Where would we get to if everyone said ‘where would we get to’ and nobody went to see where we would get to if we went.” Kurt Marti
Julius Rössle
Bio
For more than 20 years I have devoted myself to mysticism and to exploring extraordinary states of consciousness, not just in theory but as a lived path of experience. For 12 years I have been accompanying people as a meditation teacher and spiritual coach, and for four years as a psychedelic coach. My pranayama training and my work leading retreats at Reality Upgrade for several years now round out this background. My focus lies at the intersection of mystical traditions, meditation and psychedelic experience.
Quote
“I know of nothing that can change our consciousness for the better as lastingly as meditation, psychedelic experiences and mysticism. For me, this holds the greatest potential for healing, self-knowledge and true wholeness.”
Annette Auch‑Schwelk
Coach Trainer Speaker Author Body Therapist Sex Educator
There are moments in life when we sense: it can’t go on like this. Change is needed, but the courage and the clarity are missing. This is exactly where my work begins.
Since 2004 I have been accompanying people through processes of change. In doing so, I combine my many years of experience as a coach and entrepreneur with my spirituality. It has been shaped, among other things, by my experiences with shamans during my sabbatical (2001 to 2004) in Guatemala and Mexico, and by my 25 years of experience with psychedelic journeys.
I meet life’s big questions with confidence. Accompanying my dying parents at an early age has had a lasting influence on how I see life and opened up a deep love of life for me.
If you are looking for access to a special kind of inner journey, I will gladly accompany you on your path to connection, aliveness, clarity and freedom.
Many people see the business world and spirituality as opposites. I combine modern personal development work with ancient knowledge, opening up spaces beyond the familiar.
Perhaps now is the moment to set out on the journey.
Feedback
“Annette accompanied me on a journey to my innermost core. With her wealth of experience and her loving manner, I felt safe and well cared for at all times. She connects the spiritual and the earthly world in a wonderful way. This allowed me to meet myself in a way I had never experienced before. It was one of the deepest experiences of my life and, after the birth of my son, the most beautiful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!”
Translated from German.
Motto
“You don’t discover new continents without the courage to lose sight of all coasts.” (André Gide)
Marie Bernadette Langer
Short Bio
- I used to be a business graduate, today I hold space for revolution.
- Business graduate (Diplom-Kauffrau). Concerts with international top stars.
- Company manager in musical theater.
- For years I made sure the show went on, and overlooked that inside me, no one had been on stage for a long time.
- Today I work with breath, touch and psychedelic processes.
- Integrative breath therapist, dearmoring expert, Jivamukti yoga teacher, guide for psychedelic journeys: take your pick, no label fits. I don’t work with methods, I work with thresholds.
- Sexual energy is pure life energy. We all carry this fire. The question is not whether it burns, but whether we can hold our torch without burning everything down. I once burned myself down.
- Today I hold space for sacred disorder: letting go of control, daring to connect, remembering who you were before you adapted.
- Body. Cosmos. Chaos.
Quote
“I’m not here to calm you down. I’m here so that you feel again that you are alive.”
Janos Jungbluth
Short Bio
- Trained curative education caregiver (Heilerziehungspfleger) specializing in drug-induced psychoses
- Familiar with psychedelics for a good 20 years
- Years of international experience guiding retreats and individuals
- Area of expertise: general substance science and psychoactive interactions between substances / polysubstance use
- Particular strengths: challenging behavior, dealing with psychoses, de-escalation
Quote
Sunny Samadhi
Short Bio
Body therapist with 22 years of experience in holistic bodywork, tantra, subtle energy work and aromatherapy.
Yoga & Somatic Movement Teacher, practicing yoga since 2006, with 15 years of international teaching and teacher training experience in Dharma Yoga, Yoga Nidra and Psychic Development.
Many years of meditation practice in the Tibetan Bön tradition.
Roots in modern dance theater; developed the Trance & Transformation concept as a path to presence and ecstatic embodiment.
Somatic coaching & breathwork teacher as well as psychedelic coach & co-lead at Reality Upgrade, with a passion for microdosing integration coaching.
Founder of House of Light Berlin for light baths and audiovisual brainwave entrainment.
“When the body relaxes deeply, space opens up and our consciousness expands. In stillness and presence we recognize: the experience itself is empty, and in this awakening, transformation becomes the inherent ecstasy, the lightness of our being.”
YouTube: Life Changing Retreats Music: The Cosmic Catnip / Sasha Hope
Katharina Westphal
Short Bio
She is a certified hypnotherapist, a state-certified midwife and birth attendant, and a trained psychedelic coach.
Even though she no longer attends births today, the essence of this work lives on in her therapeutic approach: guiding people through inner processes of change, mindfully, with presence and with deep trust in what wants to emerge.
For more than 25 years she has been accompanying people through emotional transitions and phases of transformation, with clarity, intuition and genuine presence. Her therapeutic approach is marked by depth, warmth and a holistic understanding of psychological processes. She works on a sound methodological basis while staying open to what arises in the moment: as an equal, with mindfulness and respect.
Her Own Method
Katharina has developed her own method: HYPNOMATRIXCODE by Katharina Westphal.
EXPERIENCE. UNDERSTAND. DISCOVER INNER WISDOM. LIVE CHANGE.
Training
- Multi-year certificate training in solution-focused hypnosis and in medical and psychotherapeutic hypnosis and hypnotherapy (Zentrum für angewandte Hypnose, Mainz)
- Advanced specialist training (Zentrum für angewandte Hypnose, Mainz)
- Certified training as a psychological counselor (Heilpraktikerschule Düsseldorf)
- Certificate training as a psychedelic coach at Reality Upgrade (Dr. Stefan Frädrich, Cologne & the Netherlands)
- Training as a PSYCH-K® coach and Qi coach (Claus Medikus, Munich)
- Midwifery training with state examination
- Regular participation in the Cologne & Essen supervision group (Gesellschaft für Autosystemhypnose e. V.)
- Training in client-centered psychotherapy according to Rogers (Heilpraktikerschule Düsseldorf)
Quote
“For me, integration means understanding what you have experienced, connecting insights with your own inner wisdom and letting lived change grow out of it.”
The modules at a glance
In 8 intensive learning units on site that systematically build on one another, you lay the foundation for your work as a facilitator of consciousness-expanding processes and learn from the best and most experienced experts in the field.
01
Know Your Frame Medicine, Risk & Law
- You understand how psychedelic substances act in the body and brain
- You know dosage, contraindications and medical exclusion criteria
- You know the legal framework in Germany and the Netherlands
02
Attitude Is Key Attitude, Ethics & Self-Positioning
- You have found your own attitude and role as a facilitator
- You know the ethical principles of professional facilitation
- You know when your own biographical work and supervision are called for
03
Move the Energy Body, Energy & Session Practice
- You know how to design set & setting professionally
- You understand microdosing and can assess it professionally
- You can structure and lead a session
04
Power of Breath Breath & Consciousness Work
- You gain knowledge and ideas for using your first breathwork methods
- You understand how Psychedelic Breath works and what influence it can have
- You know altered states of consciousness even without the use of substances
05
Safe Space Screening, Crisis & Nervous System
- You can take a case history and assess suitability
- You know how to de-escalate in challenging moments
- You understand how the nervous system reacts in intense processes
06
Mystic Transpersonal & Spiritual Dimensions
- You understand the nature of mystical experiences: the experience of unity, ego transcendence and crossing the usual boundaries of space and time
- You know the millennia-old tradition in which such experiences have been described and understood
- You know what significance mystical experiences can have in psychedelic experience
07
Make It Real Integration & Coaching
- You know the principles of effective integration
- You master coaching methods for transfer into everyday life
- You know what good aftercare and long-term support look like
08
Build the Container Technology & Setting
- You know how to use equipment, light and music purposefully
- You can design playlists specifically for different phases
- You have your own materials and templates for your own path as a guide
Voices of participants
-
Birgit Course participant, Foundation training
I tried everything, from conventional medicine to alternative medicine to every form of therapy, and along the way I became a therapist myself.
-
Verena Course participant, Foundation training
A year and a half ago I would have said: never in my life. Then it called me after all, and how quickly I got in touch with myself and my feelings, that’s pretty wild.
-
Marcel Participant
I had a real moment of: Oh my God, I have to back out. But the team was by my side the whole time. Going through this fear was one of the biggest things in my life.
-
Mike Training participant
I decided on the training because it truly makes me happy to see other people happy. Growing together enriches me greatly.
-
Reguel Training participant
To people who want to move forward in their lives and have a deeper experience, I recommend giving it a try. It takes a bit of courage and willingness.
Translated from German.
These are participants’ personal experiences. The statements do not represent any medical or therapeutic effect of the training or of psychedelic substances and should not be understood as a typical expected outcome. Although participants report individual learning and reflection experiences, no particular personal, health-related or professional effect of the training can be promised.
We are always by your side
Three companions are personally at your side throughout the entire training.
Julius Rössle
Management, Head of Retreats & Training, Meditation Teacher & Mysticism Expert
Stephie Denner
Management & Psychedelic Coach
Sonja Bödecker
Managing Director & Business Graduate (Dipl.‑Betriebswirtin), Contact for Contracts & Payment
What makes this training different
- No prior experience of your own needed: your first journey can be part of the training
- Maturity over speed: twelve months with three intensive events that leave room to grow and learn
- You gain real practice at the volunteer event, as part of the team of an actual retreat with real participants
- Personal long-term support remains available as an option beyond the twelve months. We won’t leave you on your own
Once you hold the “Reality Upgrade | Foundation” certificate of participation and training, various new paths are open to you:
- Contribute as a co-leader at retreats or facilitate group programs
- For outstanding graduates, the prospect of joining the Reality Upgrade team, including referrals for your own coaching sessions
Are you ready for your Reality Upgrade Foundation?
Right for you if you …
- want to build a solid foundation for psychedelic work
- are aware of the vulnerability of this field and take it seriously
- place great value on practical experience, not just theory
- are ready to let go of your ego a little
- value intuitive work more than a mere checklist
- bring respect and humility toward the work, the people and the process
- are ready to grow beyond yourself
- enjoy teamwork and real connection with people
Not for you if you …
- don’t want to be part of a community
- need to control everything down to the last detail
- act out of a helper syndrome rather than genuine conviction
- have problems with physical processes and forms of expression (e.g. vomiting, crying, trembling)
- think you’re above lending a hand
- are easily triggered or emotionally unstable
Completion & Certificate
Your final assessment, with a knowledge test, a practical part and a final interview, takes place on site at the volunteer retreat in the Netherlands. You are admitted to the exam once you have accompanied real participants for the first time at the volunteer retreat.
If you pass, you receive the Reality Upgrade certificate as a Psychedelic Guide & Coach. And if it doesn’t work out on the first attempt, you can retake the exam.
Upcoming training cohorts
Two cohorts are confirmed: Cohort 1 starts with the kick-off on March 11, 2027, Cohort 2 on September 4, 2027. You choose the dates for self-experience and the volunteer retreat from several options. The hotel stay in Cologne is not included.
Cohort 1 Start March 11, 2027
Dec 2026 to Feb 2027
Online access & self-experience
Participation in a retreat
Mar 11 to 14, 2027
Kick-off
4 days in Cologne, Leonardo Royal Hotel
Jun 14 to 20, 2027
Intensive days
Sep/Oct/Nov 2027
Options for the volunteer retreat
Cohort 2 Start September 4, 2027
Jul/Aug 2027
Online access & self-experience
Participation in a retreat
Sep 4 to 7, 2027
Kick-off
4 days in Cologne, Leonardo Royal Hotel
Nov 29 to Dec 5, 2027
Intensive days
Mar/Apr/May 2028
Options for the volunteer retreat
FAQ
How much does the training cost?
The training is subject to a fee. The total price of the package offered and the services included will be communicated to you in full before you register bindingly. Additional costs, in particular for travel, accommodation, meals, retreats, materials or exam retakes, are shown separately.
Do I need prior experience with psychedelics?
No. Your own first guided experience is itself part of the training.
Do I need a specific professional background?
No, a specific background is not a requirement. Many participants come from helping professions such as coaching, therapy, medicine or education, while others bring their skills from completely different fields. What matters is not your title but your maturity, empathy and willingness to devote yourself seriously to this work.
How does the application process work?
After you apply, we look together with you at whether the training is the right next step for you. This includes a detailed questionnaire about your professional and personal history and a personal conversation with one of our trainers. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about clarity for you and for us.
Are there criteria that rule out participation?
Yes. Psychedelic work carries great responsibility: for you, your future clients and the entire field. That is why we carefully assess your personal maturity, emotional stability and suitability during the application process. Certain pre-existing psychiatric conditions or acute addiction problems may rule out participation. If you have any doubts, raise them openly in the introductory conversation. We will advise you honestly.
How much time do I need to plan for alongside work and family?
You need to set aside time for the in-person components, as they are mandatory: self-experience, the kick-off in Cologne, the 7-day centerpiece and the volunteer retreat in the Netherlands. Between the in-person components, there are regular live sessions for consolidation.
How does the final exam work?
The final assessment, with a knowledge test, a practical part and a final interview, takes place on site at the volunteer retreat in the Netherlands.
What happens if I don’t pass the final exam?
The final assessment, with a knowledge test, a practical part and a final interview, takes place on site at the volunteer retreat in the Netherlands. If you don’t pass on the first attempt, we discuss the next steps together and you have the opportunity to try again.
Empower people to discover themselves and so change their lives in a lasting way.
Apply now, with no obligation, for your place in the Foundation training
Would you like to apply for the training, or are you still unsure whether it’s right for you? Take the chance to have a detailed, no-obligation conversation with us to find out together whether the training is a good fit for you.