The arc of a Holotropic Breathwork set

The key elements of the Holotropic Breathwork experience are:

1. the breath
2. music
3. a focus on the inner experience and the inner healing mechanism
4. support from a sitter and facilitators
5. a non-directive environment where the breather is the expert in their process

Within this framework, music is a fundamental part of the experience. It provides a structured yet non-verbal form of support that allows the breather to open deeply to their process. The set becomes a kind of emotional and energetic holding field — not directing the experience, but reinforcing safety and depth so the inner healing intelligence can unfold.

The arc of a set

The music follows three broad phases across the session: the first hour, the second hour, and the third hour.

Each of these phases contains multiple smaller movements that contribute to an overall wave-like structure. A Holotropic Breathwork set is often described as a wave:

1. The first hour is a build-up phase. The music gathers energy, pace, and intensity, helping many people mobilise, activate, and enter into the process. Importantly the start of the first hour is designed to entrain the brain.
2. The second hour is the peak of the wave. This section typically includes the most emotionally intense music of the set - emotional depth, and strong energetic material to support breakthrough and release.
3. The third hour is the descent after the wave has broken. The music softens into more spacious, devotional, contemplative, and integrative pieces, supporting resolution, emotional landing, and the return toward everyday consciousness. it's like gently riding the whitewater of a wave into the beach.

Although these phases are recognisable, no two sets are identical, and no individual’s experience maps onto the music in a predictable way. The set acts as a container - a supportive structure - rather than a prescription for any particular kind of process. The breather’s inner healing mechanism remains primary, and the music is there to accompany, not direct.

Within these sections we may be able to break the phases up into even smaller discrete sections:

First Hour

1. Call to Adventure (Where the music is curious, mysterious and enticing)
2. Jumpstart (Where the music picks up the pace)
3. Driving (Where the music maintains the pace)
4. Transition (slightly more emotion comes into the music at the end)

Second Hour

1. Tension (Still rhythm but more emotional and fileld with tension)
2. More emotion
3. Tension and emotion (leading to the breakthrough)
4. Breakthrough (Where the music releases tension and there is a sense of release and resolve)
5. Post Breakthrough third hour transition (Still some emotion)

Third Hour

1. Sacred, prayer filled
2. Drift
3. Return (A calling home)

Ultimately, the music in Holotropic Breathwork is not there to tell a story or steer the journey, but to offer a deeply supportive field in which the inner healing intelligence can move in its own way. The wave-like arc, and the many subtle movements within it, create a reliable container without fixing the experience to any particular outcome. Each breather’s process remains unique, and the music simply travels alongside — steady, spacious, and responsive — holding the door open for whatever needs to unfold.