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True Empathy
Ketamine
Citation:   Raggyredz. "True Empathy: An Experience with Ketamine (exp112880)". Erowid.org. Feb 14, 2019. erowid.org/exp/112880

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
1 bump insufflated Ketamine (powder / crystals)
  T+ 0:10 1 bump insufflated Ketamine (powder / crystals)
  T+ 0:00   repeated insufflated Ketamine (powder / crystals)
BODY WEIGHT: 148 lb
I insufflated the ketamine alone. My partner was home, she knows to check on me every five minutes or so with an unobtrusive peek to make sure I'm not choking on my own vomit etc.

I have a scattered history of experience with psychedelics; only during the last few months have I recognised that there is an art to maximising one's fruition.

Initially I bumped ~20mg, then ten mins later a similar bump, then incrementally higher bumps every five mins until I was gone. I always drift off on ket to music, today's choice was the Skyrim OST by Jeremy Soule. This is super relevant.

My consciousness sort of bobs along in the realm between realms as it typically does at the beginning of a k-hole but then I black out.

When I come around I'm aching all over, my head hurts and I'm in a tent being nursed by a short, robed figure whose face was obscured by the shadow of its hood. The medic doesn't talk but rubs the contents of an unguent on my arm alleviating the pain before signalling me to eat what looked like smelling salts in a petri dish. I comply and immediately my memory floods back.

I had been fighting with robbers attempting to upend the carriage me and my family were journeying on. I successfully fended them off though not before taking a few hits that led to concussion at some point along the remainder of our journey. The tent I was being nursed in was my home, I lived here with my daughter and wife. We were a cat-like people, similar to the Khajit from Elder Scrolls, and travelling merchants to boot!

Now this world was heavily influenced by Skyrim, but it wasn't Skyrim. It had a name but the language that "I" spoke in this world doesn't translate too well to text. We had (my race) an intricate flap of skin at the back of our throat roughly analogous to an uvula that modulated our cooing. I can remember my name, imagine the English vowel string oo-ee-ah being cooed by a pigeon and you're almost there.

There was an ongoing war in this world, I had no part in it. There were genderless deities that were more fickle and pathetic than the Gods of Olympus.

I was there for what felt like two or three months, though especially with the elaborate confabulation after the medic's visit it's tough to gauge, we spent all of that time in one of the camps my itinerant people inhabited outside of a walled city.

Sleep was literally video game sleep, you lie on a bed, select (or rather, think of) how many hours rest you'd like and "poof" the allotted time passes instantly and you get back up refreshed.

The days were whiled away hunting, taking turns (me, my wife, my daughter) on the hawker rug, and sitting around a small campfire at dusk, a life that I (the ego typing this trip report) would get bored of real quick, but I never did. I wasn't a hero in this universe or anyone significant, things happened but I was never at the centre of anything exciting bar the attempted robbery. People in the camp knew my name and were always pleasant but I rarely got more than a "hi and bye" from them. In spite of the uneventfulness of the experience I lived purposefully every day in this place and I was happy.

There were rituals everyone in this world (including me) unquestioningly performed lest the deity's exercise their wrath. They were incantations cooed in the pitch equivalent to bass for humans, a pitch reserved specifically for these rituals. (note: phonetically identical coos had different meanings depending on their pitch, and it was believed imperative that one didn't slip up)

The rituals primarily revolved around bodily functions, so you'd hear a deep coo after every visit to the lavatory. Except my last visit. For reasons unknown I felt incredibly strange at this point and I didn't (or couldn't?) perform the ritual. Shortly after reality started falling apart at the seams. I was convinced the Gods were punishing me by driving me insane. I call for my wife and tell her to get the medic before passing out.

I wake up in an alien world, utterly confused and terrified.

I can't move.

All I can think is that I miss my family.

Over what felt like an eternity that meandered via demonic conspiracies and personal inadequacies I slowly started piecing things together, the alien world became less blurry, the anguish of loss gave way to a realisation...

I'd been in a k-hole.

It was by far the most profound experience I've ever had; it blew DMT out of the water.

A few points about the trip that I would like to emphasise on account of integration difficulties:

My memories. I would go out hunting with my daughter and take her on different routes each day, having hunted here many times before I knew how dangerous each route was and pre-selected them so as to gradually raise the difficulty of her hunt. Every scar on my body had a story that I could remember, every ritual served a function that I already knew. Although reticent and illiterate I grokked the language with zero training and could communicate using it fluently.

It was far more coherent than any other ketamine experience I'd ever had.
It was far more coherent than any other ketamine experience I'd ever had.


My whole life had been Oo-ee-ah, I had zero recollection of anything else, I was a simple, itinerant hawker with a simple life, it never crossed my mind to question the politics of the ongoing war, let alone my existence. The paltry descriptions I gave of this world are precisely because Oo-ee-ah was not the type of character to analyse it. In spite of this I was not a passive observer, I exercised agency in accordance with Oo-ee-ah's ego and absolutely accepted that life as my only life.

The confusion and terror upon re-entry into this world having no idea where I was and believing myself to be estranged from my loved ones under the curse of a cruel deity is far beyond anything I'd wish on another sentient being, but the awe that replaced it once the totality of the experience dawned on me made up for it a million times over and sends shockwaves of bliss through my body even now, two weeks after the fact.

[Reported Dose: "150-200 mg"]

Exp Year: 2019ExpID: 112880
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 31
Published: Feb 14, 2019Views: 1,130
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Ketamine (31) : Entities / Beings (37), General (1), Alone (16)

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