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My Accidental Adventure into a K-Hole
Ketamine & MDMA (Ecstasy)
Citation:   Buster. "My Accidental Adventure into a K-Hole: An Experience with Ketamine & MDMA (Ecstasy) (exp6460)". Erowid.org. Feb 28, 2002. erowid.org/exp/6460

 
DOSE:
3 tablets oral MDMA  
  2 glasses oral Alcohol (liquid)
  10 bumps insufflated Ketamine (powder / crystals)
      Pharms - Bupropion (daily)
BODY WEIGHT: 290 lb
I had my first K-Hole experience recently.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE AND DOSAGE:

I'm not wildly experienced with X or K. Have done them only 3 or 4 times in the last 16 months. I have previously used K while taking X -- it has previously seemed to me to give a 'bump' to the X - or perhaps it just keeps my sense of having some altered mental state going in between waves of X. This evening I did not intend to use K any differently, but (1) I felt somewhat like my X was not doing a whole lot and (2) I had a new supply of K so I was being less conservative with it. It may also have been stronger than what I had before.

During the course of the evening at a circuit party (from about 10 pm - 3 am?) I had taken about 3 x -- the first two of which at least did not seem to be of major strength. When beginning the evening I had a screwdriver with my first x. At some point later in the evening I had a single beer - but drank water all the rest of time. (In part because I like a 'drug' high better than an alcohol high. In part because I was reminded before I went out not to mix alcohol and K.) It is worth considering that I am a very big guy - weigh about 290, so I find 'regular' doses of some things (like x or g) don't always effect me - also I take SSRIs (wellburtin, serzone) regularly, so I have some stuff going on with my serotonin levels before I start.

The amount of K I took is hard to determine, but I started the evening with a full bullet bottle (is that a gram?) and (though I shared a reasonable amount) it was almost entirely empty the next day. I am guessing something like 8-12 'bumps' from a bullet over 2 to 3 hours, which is probably about 20% more than I've done before - and maybe in a shorter time. I don't recall taking any more K once the khole started.

FALLING INTO THE HOLE:

The hole started about 4+ hours into the party. First I noticed that I was having difficulty orienting myself in the club space. Although the room clearly had a 'front' and a 'back', after taking the K, I was convinced that each view ahead of me as I danced around was the 'front' of the room. I would then turn 15 degrees and be certain that the new view was the 'front'. I made several circles like this and spoke about that state to my friend. I found it kind of amusing. Not frightening at all. However, when my friend suggested I go out of the dance room (to get water? To look for someone? Or just to get me off the floor? I don't remember) I said that, since I found it difficult to figure out the front versus the back, I didn't think I was the right person to be moving around the building and that I'd better stay in one place.

At that point, I was aware of the people around me and was able to move toward and away from them and speak with them with no noticeable (to me) problem.

Not much after that (and after a couple of more hits of K) I did start to feel somewhat sluggish - I noticed the 'typical' feeling that my legs were very heavy.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPERIENCE:

Then, seemingly all of a sudden, the world shifted and took on a VERY linear, graphic kind of look. I find it hard to describe exactly - the best I have come up with so far it that the world looked sort of like the movie 'Tron' -- i.e. it was sort of based on a grid. Designs and shapes lost their detail and seemed to appear more as boxes or lines of light, each a single color. Even when I looked at my arm or felt a glowstick that I was playing with in my hand at the time, they had this pixilated/squared-off quality. I was not very conscious of the thousands of other people around me. Everything was changing all the time, as I continued to move/dance. I felt the 'views' change abruptly as I moved, rather than fluidly as they normally do - like the way slides move (particularly on a computer/Internet slide show, where you 'click' and the next slide appears immediately.) While on some level I suppose this light show was pretty but I wasn't very focused on that aspect, the way others seem to be when in a k-hole. I was more interested/concerned with what was going on internally, as discussed below.

At some point during this process, my friend's face appeared in front of me -- basically checking if I was okay and letting me know that he was planning on leaving. I remember telling him I was okay and that it was okay for him to leave. (Hah!) However, during this period (and thereafter) I started to have the sense that each moment was taking a long time --- very much as if I were in a different temporal state than my friend or the rest of the room --- I remember thinking (vaguely) that it was sort of like some sort of science fiction work - where two beings exist in the same world, but out of phase, so that they perceived that world differently and had difficulty communicating.

I also sort of felt as if someone had flipped a switch, or removed a visor -- so that I was seeing an underlying structure of the world. Sort of like clicking on a picture of a human body to reveal the bones/organs -- or looking through a microscope at a crystal or leaf and seeing the deep repetitive structures that really make up the object -- or scanning in on a digitized photo until are more conscious of the single colors of each pixel than of the photo itself. (Actually, if you can combine those three things in your head at once, I think that's a pretty good summary of how the world looked.)

At the same time, I perceived the world the way I think a computer might 'feel' when it is crashing -- i.e. disjointed and not correct, missing data but not completely wrong or inaccurate either. All accompanied by a sense that things were misfunctioning too quickly to get a handle on it long enough to figure out exactly what was wrong. If you understand the term (and assuming I'm using it properly) I was unable to form and maintain a gestalt of the world.

FEELINGS WHILE IN THE HOLE:

In fact, this was the disturbing thing at this point - - - I was beginning to feel a lack of control over the universe and an awareness of that fact. I felt as if I was perceiving my perceptions. Then that I was perceiving my perception of my perceptions, then that I was perceiving my perception of my perception of my perceptions, etc. etc. etc. I think at some level I had lost whatever part of my consciousness that centers the 'ego', i.e. the part of the mind which kind of sits in the center and grabs hold of what's going on the brain and what's going on in the world and puts them together and gives them some organization and lets the mind feel rooted. I couldn't relate what I wanted/needed/was interested in doing to what was going on in the world outside. My attempts as 'perceiving the perception of the perception of the perception, etc.' felt like my mind trying to grab hold of what was going on around me so that I could settle it down and experience what was going on --- i.e. to put part of my mind above the effects of the drug, so that I would have some part of my mind able to view the experience (and take care of what was going on) independent of the 'trip' itself. I didn't necessarily want to stop what was going on, just get on top of it.

The fact that the 'slides' of reality kept changing every few moments (every 10-30 seconds?) did not help me in this attempt. This is not a feeling I have encountered with other drugs - - - even when I have been fairly drunk or stoned there is a part of my mind kind of 'watching out' -- the part that says 'god I am SO high' or 'I need to get to the bathroom REAL quick' or 'Oh my god, look out for the truck' or 'Ooooo, I better go home now.' I couldn't find a part of my mind to do that to me with the K.

At the same time, however, I was aware that this all was going on as a result of the K (I think I even thought - 'gosh, so this is a k-hole' at some point) and there obviously was some part of my mind that was trying to reboot so I wasn't completely lost - I just couldn't 'get my arms around it', if you will.

This feeling was not really frightening -- just sort of frustrating.

I also began to have the sense that I was aware of things that were about to happen -- and that my thoughts of what was likely to happen actually controlled what subsequently happened. I think I also had some sense that I could sense/'hear'/anticipate what others around were thinking to some extent. This was, at first, interesting. I was also somewhat aware that I was not in the best shape and began to have some concern that I not make a scene/collapse, etc. (Because it would be embarrassing and make me look foolish - - even in this dissociative state, those deepest fears popped up.) This concern began to extend to the idea that I might die. I didn't feel panicked or paranoid. However, I grew concerned that, because my thoughts seemed to be affecting reality, that I had to stop thinking about dying, because it might make it come true. I believe these concerns went on for a while - (5 minutes) and were the most consistent thoughts I was having at the bottom of the hole. I was not afraid to die at that time and felt quite sure that I was dissociated sufficiently from what was going on that it wouldn't hurt or be upsetting if I did die. In fact, I remember thinking that, from a physical point of view, this would be a pretty acceptable way to die (c.f., the crashing computer analogy above.) However, I was, bothered by the possibility since I wasn't really in the mood to die. So I tried to make myself stop thinking about it.

COMING OUT OF THE HOLE:

At some point, I was aware that the party was ending and found myself walking out of the dance room, into the lobby and then to a nearby hotel where the afterparty was to be held. (I had decided earlier in the evening to go to the afterparty, so I suspect I was just following through on this plan, rather than acting on any inspiration from the drugs.) Throughout the experience, I did not feel particularly aware of any serious motor skills issues or other physical discomfort. As I said my legs felt heavy, and I would assume that my state was somewhat obvious to others, but I do not believe that I fell, or lost balance or anything. In fact, I'm almost certain that I was standing and/or walking/dancing the entire time I was in the k-hole and never sat down at all. Walking to the hotel (maybe a 1/4 mile - about a 3 - 5 minute walk at a normal time) didn't seem particularly difficult -- although my legs were somewhat lethargic and the walk did seem to go on and on. However, the entire time, I was VERY aware of my breath --- mostly of the SHAPE of my breath as it came in. The intake of air through my respiratory system felt - not so much labored, but like machinery -- I could hear the sound of my breath very loudly - it sounded and felt very industrial revolution - pipes and bellows. But I didn't think my breathing was actually labored -- just that I was hyperconscious of the mechanics. Felt as if I was some kind of big noisy ventilation system. The oddest thing was feeling the SHAPE of my breath - the shape itself maintained the same sort of digitized/pixilated feeling as the rest of the world - it was a tube of air rounded only in the way an object manufactured from many long square rods would be -- i.e. round to the eye from far away, but, when looked at upclose, from the end, actually a series of smaller squared edges.

I got to the hotel and got in line for the party. Don't have much memory of waiting at first, but sort of 'came to' finding myself talking with this cute boy next to me. We were having a general 'where you from?' kind of conversation -- but I was very unselfconscious about it because (a) I found myself in the midst of it and don't remember starting it and (b) because I still had the feeling that I was directing things by my thoughts and somewhat sensing what he was going to say. My concerns about 'thinking' my way to death had subsided or vanished - possible because I had something else to apply my thinking to (i.e. the cute boy). However, at this point I was also feeling kind of tired/bored with the k-hole experience and was more looking forward to it being over so that I could think about it and regain my sense that the world and I had a reasonably close relationship. I think even then I was sort of looking forward to evaluating the experience in retrospect -- in a way, to writing this out the way I am now. Gradually as we waited and talked I felt my 'self' coming closer to the me who was talking to the boy. By the time we got inside, I felt as if I was out of the k-hole - although I wouldn't say I was completely fully accounted for and present - I wasn't as out of it as I'd been. At some point in the line I felt as if 'I' had finally taken over having the conversation as opposed to just kind of watching it happen. I also became more conscious of the fact that my words were somewhat slurred -- as if I'd been drinking. (I'm pretty sure this was true all along - I just realized it at that point.)

From my reconstructions, I would say the khole lasted at least one hour - if not 90 minutes. It began some time before my friend left (he said later they left at about 4:30.) I know I was there for a while afterward, and I have to think it was at least 10-15 minutes, cause (they supposedly closed at 5) my friend would have taken me out with him if they were closing up. I figure leaving and the walk to the hotel was about 10 minutes+ and standing in line (which was pretty long and not too fast - and for a while was not moving at all.) must have been at least 20 minutes.

I left the afterparty about 7 am I think. Took a cab back to my hotel and went to sleep without any problems. Slept until about 11:30 am - awoke feeling okay (some very slight feeling of concern about whether I had embarrassed myself - this is common with me when I drink, but not after x.) Rested/ate/dozed for another couple of hours. Got up and went out feeling just dandy to another party about 3 that afternoon and stayed out dancing til about 2 am (but didn't do any more k.)

OTHER COMMENTS & THOUGHTS:

Things that I DIDN'T feel that seem reported commonly:

- Out of body experience.
- Sense of wonder or bliss
- Any major spiritual sense.
- Nausea
- Any particular aural effects (except the sound of my breath) even though I was at a circuit party with lots of noise & music.
- Any sense of an ability to control what was happening with the drug reaction.

It may be important to note that I had never read or heard any specific description of a khole experience. (I've read a lot more now.) None of my friends have done enough k to get in a hole. (Afterwards I asked one friend if he had and he said 'maybe.' After my evening I felt pretty confident telling him that if he wasn't sure, then it hadn't happened.) I knew they existed generally, but had NO knowledge or expectations about what they were like. I'm wondering now how different (better?) the experience might have been if I'd had more pre-information - or even if I had intended or expected to put myself into the khole, rather than having it just happen.

All in all I found the experience interesting and not horrible, but not something I would rush to do again. If I do, I will probably want to do it in a very different environment - more peaceful, less complex - without all the dancing and walking. I also think it would be better to have some company. To the extent I got any insight into myself from the experience, I was most interested in the degree to which my personal issues about fear of embarrassment and maintenance of control through the intellect, rather than freedom of my emotions managed to survive into my dissociative state. I think it's pretty clear that they had a major effect upon the way in which I perceived and reacted to what was going on.

Final Later Note: Just finishing this up to send. The only additional information I have to add is that I find the further I get from the k-hole experience, the more disagreeable it seems. It makes me more anxious thinking about it now than it did two or three days after. I have a greater sense that it is something I want to avoid doing in the future -- just cause I don't think overall that I'd like feeling that way again, not because it feels inherently bad or wrong.

Exp Year: 2001ExpID: 6460
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 28, 2002Views: 118,994
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Ketamine (31), MDMA (3) : General (1), Club / Bar (25)

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