DOSE:		oral	Pharms - Lamotrigine	(daily)
	repeated	insufflated	S-Ketamine

BODY WEIGHT:

260 lb

Ketamine is an interesting drug, it is almost like three completely different drugs when used at different dosages in my opinion. At very low doses it can be a fun and social drug, even a club drug. At this dose it can also enhance the sexual experience, it is easy to handle and very euphoric. When I say low I’m talking around 25 milligram bumps (intranasal) every hour or so. But, at medium-sized doses (around 50mg), I may find myself so intoxicated that it’s hard to see properly, or stand, I can easily get confused and have trouble with normal, linear thought. This dose range can be fun in a party-type environment as well, but it is something I may not want to do in a truly public setting (around strangers).

But then you have your high doses (around 100mg), here is where it can start to get VERY psychedelic, even a bit spooky at times. At doses like this I’ve experienced visuals that surpassed ten strips of LSD, breakthroughs on DMT, even some of my IV psychedelic experiences with substances such as psilocybin. I have been sitting in my living room watching a large clear gelatinous bulbous creature animate in front of me as I control its every move and shape with my mind. I’ve watched walls flow like water as I try to hold a conversation, a sniff away from another dimension.

But unlike on LSD or other tryptamines, I will have total control over these visual experiences. And it has been so strong that I questioned whether or not I would truly ever be sane again during the trip, luckily, I always have been. Ironically, for as powerful as ketamine is, just like DMT or LSD, it is extremely physically safe. It seems that the most powerful drugs in this world tend to be physically forgiving, and I’m very lucky that this is the case. But there is another level beyond “high”, a dose range where atheists and christians both become equally confused about the nature of reality, where the line between hallucination and paranormal becomes blurry, where your self and god become one. I’d say this is around 200mg+. At this dose range, I leave this world.

So I had been up all night with my wife and some close friends doing ketamine and talking about life, death, and all the philosophy that always seems to comes up with the intense experience that high dose ketamine brings. I had gotten ahold of something special this time, some s-ketamine, put simply it is a much more potent form (stereoisomer) than the typical racemic ketamine that is usually floating around. I was having extremely robust visual and auditory hallucinations throughout the night. For example, nothing was still, my visual field was alive with movement. Visually it was akin to three or four tabs of good LSD. And when I would hear static sound like the bath fan, or shower, I’d hear voices and music clearly in the static. I confirmed with my wife and friends that in fact there was actually no music playing, nobody speaking, it was all a vivid hallucination that recurred throughout the night. It was truly something so strange. It happens on ketamine regularly now.

I have mixed large amounts of traditional psychedelics such as LSD, DMT and psilocybin with ketamine and had some truly intense experiences, but this night I felt as though I was there without their addition, the ketamine alone was taking me to some amazing places and I was having a great time with my friends. We watched the original Blade Runner movie and even though it was my second time seeing it I was completely blown away once again. Ketamine really makes me appreciate films a lot more than when I’m sober, sometimes the suspension of disbelief becomes so strong it’s as if I am in the movie. And with a masterpiece like Blade Runner, I was just completely floored. Thinking deeply about the nature of humanity as I watch a true dystopian possibility unfold before my eyes, holy shit.

We all had a great night, and as people sobered up and went home, my wife did the same. She kissed me and retired upstairs for the night. It is exactly 2:00am at this point and I found myself very awake, alone and bored, and in a dangerous mindset: bold. I decided I wanted to venture into the k-hole once again, but this time I wanted to go as deep as I could. So it turns out the hole is very deep, I feel as if I reached the bottom. And the place is so strange and so real. And unlike DMT’s breakthrough world, when I'm here, I can sometimes have total control, it is a waking lucid dream of the most vivid nature. It is otherworldly, surreal and more real than any reality I’ve ever experienced, including the one I find myself writing this experience in.

I had come down from the ketamine almost completely at this point so I’d consider this a separate dose from what I had taken previously in the night. This is the dose noted in the report description. I walked into my downstairs bathroom and looked in the mirror to ensure I didn’t spill any ketamine as I administer my record breaking dosage. I took out my gold-plated cocaine spoon and scooped up approximately .15g (150mg) and snorted it up into my left nostril, then I scooped up another 150mg and snorted it up into my right nostril. My nasal cavity was completely stuffed with ketamine crystals and could already feel it coming on. I knew I only had a minute at most to get comfortable so I sprawled out on the couch and laid back, waiting for the inevitable. As I lay there I feel my body moving faster and faster, like a rocket gaining momentum as it approaches the freedom of space outside the confines of our atmospheric pressure and gravitational field. As these physical sensations increased in strength, the room grew brighter and brighter.

I’ve had several ketamine “hole” experiences, I’d define these in a very simple way: I lose my sense of self. Not only am I unable to see, or feel my body, I forget my name, where I am, and usually that I’m even on a drug (but not always). Other holes have had similar themes, I’m always moving through places simply observing strange worlds. I’m having intense physical sensations like I’m moving very very very fast, at speeds which are impossible to experience. I’ve been inside a factory where I’m flying by machines that could be in a Doctor Seuss story, they move and grind their cogs and produce strange materials that defy description, fabric-like metals, or clay-like neon. I’ve been in expansive fields made of light, or oceans made of paint swimming around in a tadpole-like body. I’ve ascended a parking garage I can only describe simply as what purgatory must be, merging in and out of a physical world I cannot describe.

Okay, but back to this one! As the world around me continued to get brighter, I found myself in an expansive, endless white void. This place almost felt like the training program in The Matrix, it felt infinite. As I settled into this landscape I felt a strong boredom, that’s the only way I can describe it. I was not being shown strange machines, I was not traveling strange lands, I was not in the body of strange creatures or flying around outside my own, I was in the void. I found myself lucid though I was totally unable to remember how I got here. I couldn’t remember my name, I couldn’t remember my body, I couldn’t remember my friends or past or life or anything with a morsel of humanity, or sanity. With god-like control and lucidity, fueled by a boredom at a level I didn’t know was possible, I decided I would try “to entertain myself”. I started to build.

For what felt like millions and millions of years I built worlds in front of me, planets, life, I watched creatures grow and evolve, I watched structures rise from earths and fall to the ground. I would destroy these worlds and start again, I was fascinated by the infinite possibilities I witnessed unfold. I spent what felt like a timeless amount of time playing with my reality like a painter with a paintbrush, like a maestro with a baton, like a builder, with visions. As I did this I never once felt “the fear” that I had felt so many times in ego death on LSD or in the hole on ketamine... yet. I continued to create and destroy words for much longer, this went on for an amount of time that truly felt infinite.

At a certain point I experienced a new feeling, one that terrified this being I’d become, I felt: alone. Strangely, even though I couldn’t remember myself I remembered her, I saw my wife, I saw her face flash before me in this void. The world around me flickered in and out of perception. I still couldn’t remember where I was, or what I was, but I felt so scared, I was consumed by the fear, I felt so alone, more alone than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I had to find her. I couldn’t stand (I tried), so I crawled. Our bedroom is upstairs, I crawled up the stairs and finally made it to the landing on top, I couldn’t get to the door knob, I could see it, but I couldn’t pull my body up high enough to reach it. I’m still consumed by the fear, I don’t know where I’m going or if this creature I remember somehow is even on the other side of this door. Then I blacked out again, I was back in the void.

My roommate is in the adjacent room and the following morning he actually did tell me I was right outside his door moaning and making weird sounds. So I know this part actually happened. I was stuck for what felt like eons, so close to her but unable to reach her. I have never felt fear and sadness this strong in my life. This was peak psychedelic fear, Hunter S. Thompson would be proud.

The doors around me flicker back into my vision, I’m able to stand up, stumbling, I open the door to our lit bedroom. My wife is sitting on the bed and looks at me as my heart melts into a puddle, a lot of tears. I sit on the edge of the bed and hold her hand, the loneliness and fear dissipate instantaneously. I ask her what the time is and she replies: 3:00am, exactly. This experience which had lasted in my mind, millions of years, took only one hour of real time (what is real time?). I can barely hear her talking to me, the music is so loud. The music is really clear, it is dancehall-type music, for whatever reason, Shaggy, singing what sounds like “It Wasn’t Me”. What the fuck? I don’t listen to this stuff so I ask my wife to please turn it off, I wanted to talk, I was trying to explain what I just experienced. She told me there was no music, she had the bedside fan on, but no music was playing though I could still hear it so clearly, I laid back and blacked out / passed out immediately.

This experience was paradigm-shifting, I woke up very very very happy, unfortunately I also woke up having a severe manic episode. Though I had a completely different perspective (and still do), I was clearly more manic than I had ever been in my life. I have struggled with severe bipolar 1 since my twenties, but this episode was different, it was very powerful and it lasted around three months. It was so strong that I had to make an emergency appointment with my psychiatrist to temporarily add an antipsychotic (aripiprazole) to my current bipolar medication (lamotrigine). Slowly the mania did subside and I’m lucky I didn’t lose my wife during this time, it was not easy for anyone. Without a doubt the ketamine had triggered a severe manic episode. After it subsided, the feeling still stayed though, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been since I was a child, I feel free from the shackles of sadness that bound me for the last decade of my life. This new perspective is permanent.

Ketamine, like my bipolar disorder, is not only an ally but also an enemy in my life. As much joy as I’ve experienced in the throes of both of them, I’ve also experienced extreme pain, fear, shame and sadness in the mania and k-hole they bring. Both have given me so much but at times almost took everything. I’ve struggled with many addictions in my life including cocaine, MDMA, MXE, and DXM, but none come close to the feeling I have about ketamine. Ketamine is heaven when life is hell, I limit myself because I love life, but the thought that a bump could free me from this hell is always in the back of my mind.

This experience is very important to share because I have to be completely honest with both the world and myself about the two sides of this amazing drug as well as disease. My life will be forever changed from this experience and I’ll never let the memory slip away. But I have a new found respect for this compound that I didn’t before, it is key that opens a door to things that can not be unseen. I did not return the same person: I am forever changed.

Exp Year: 2020	ExpID: 115018
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 32
Published: Dec 18, 2020	Views: 1,424
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S-Ketamine (797) : Alone (16), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Post Trip Problems (8), Depression (15), Mystical Experiences (9), Combinations (3)