DOSE:	0.2 g	smoked	Cannabis
	50 mg	IM	Ketamine

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

From the time I first tried Marijuana at the age of 15 I have had an intense curiosity about my mind and altered states of consciousness in general. I have had many wonderful, and a few terrifying experiences on various substances since that first joint. I like to think I know my mind quite well but I like to augment that knowledge with research on any substance I may be considering trying.

When a trusted friend asked if I would like to try some Ketamine I had read enough to be intensely curious as well as a little fearful. I was assured by my friend the Ketamine was medical grade. As I was to take it via an intra-muscular injection it was important that we had an absolutely sterile needle to work with. This was my first recreational injection of any kind but the purity of the drug, the unquestioned sterility of the needle and the current training my friend was receiving as a medical student convinced me I was in as safe an environment as possible outside of an actual hospital. I am sure this feeling of absolute confidence in the safety of the situtation had a profound influence on the experience.

We decided on 50 mg delivered via an injection into my thigh. I prepared myself with a little meditation and stretching and then smoked a small amount of weed in order to further relax. My friend administered the injection and I sat into his hammock and made myself comfortable. Let me say a little about the hammock itself. It is a South American style hammock and is really more of a large net. It is IMPOSSIBLE to fall out of one of these. They are supremely comfortable and instill and almost floating, sensory deprivation like sensation. As I eased into the hammock I let it tell me which parts of my body were experiencing tension. In a moment I was comfortable and decided to try some relaxation techniques I had found effective as a skier. Soon I was totally, completely relaxed.

At about this time I started to experience the oddest sensation of corporeal dissolution. It was so gradual at first I was not even sure it was happening at all. Within minutes though there was no denying it. My mind was losing its body, simply discarding it and leaving it behind. The sensation I had was that of being in a gigantic slingshot (the hammock) slowly being pulled back from my physical body. I was struggling with the sensation of this increasing distance, fighting it, trying to hang on to the sensations to which I had grown so accustomed. I realized that I was starting to become a little anxious and it was here that I made the decsion to just let go. Just let go... breath... just let go... breath... just let go... and I did just that. I simply let go.

The feeling of being pulled back into the slingshot of the hammock accelerated. Then instead of being shot forward the elastic tether between my mind and body seemed to snap and I lost my body completely. I simply accelerated away, my mind absolutely free to experience the vastness and indescribable richness of reality. There was no panic, no fear, I had left it all behind. I was immediately aware of my place in the fabric of space-time, but because I had left behind all my sensations of this space and time I was able to bend these dimensions to my will. I was able to travel light years instantaneously, in fact it seemed like I was in many different places simultaneously. What an incredibly profound experience, like an intensely lucid dream. The laws of physics simply no longer had any authority over my mind, or so it seemed. I cannot be sure where my journey took me only that it was certainly not where I had started. I can only describe it as an out of body experience (it is after all a disassociative) and it was both profoundly beautiful and intensely psychadelic.

After some time I realized that I was being pulled back into my body, slowly but inexorably. I did not try to fight the reconnection. I just let it happen and progress. Eventually I was able to speak with my friend who had been sitting with me throughout. I managed to convey some very simple feelings, and I let him know I was fine. This reconnection took some time and I found I really had to readjust to actually having a body again. It seemed as if I was without it for so long. Eventually I sat up and managed to walk, with some difficulty, to the Jucuzzi tub on the deck in the back yard, my sitter in tow. Sitting in the tub I fully reconnected with my physical body and I was once again a mind and body functioning, somehow, as a tightly integrated organism. I was so relaxed at this point I was almost gelatinous, but safe and utterly blown away by the experience.

It was an experience without any words to describe it, and unlike so many of my other adventures on mushrooms, LSD, DMT, etc. it was both equally powerful and without description but somehow orthogonally different from any of these previous substances. Ketamine was death while LSD is birth, without attributing any positive or negative qualities to either. With the Ketamine I had either hallucinated intensely or had literally escaped my body, the solar system, our galaxy and then bumped up against the edge of the Universe. It was an undeniably spiritual and positive experience and yet it is not something I am in any rush to experience again. It will take some time to reflect on the first experience.

I really cannot believe that this is a rave/party drug. I have been to some great parties in the past (see my NO2 experience) and have some great memories of getting lost in the sensations and rythms of really hypnotic music. For a rave/party a drug that disassociates you from your senses seems like... well, seems like the wrong tool for the job (my humble opinion). I am sure that the set and setting at the time of my taking the Ketamine was the overwhelming contributing factor to the success of the experience. However, in the wrong environment I am sure that it can quickly become a nightmare. Anyway, use a sitter you trust and find an environment you feel absolutely safe in. As a final word of advice, try to do it in a hammock. It is the sling shot of the soul.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 38360
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 7, 2007	Views: 77,755
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