DOSE:

125 mg

oral

Ketamine

(powder / crystals)

BODY WEIGHT:

165 lb

Background: First (and last-ever) experience with ketamine. I have a considerable interest in neurology, pharmacology, and the philosophical 'mind-body problem'. Occasionally I have been known to undertake 'psychonautic navigation' trips, using myself as the experimental subject. I had not read any experience reports about this drug, before attempting it, so the observations were objective, and not conditioned by expectations.

Dosage: Vials of injectable ketamine hydrochloride liquid were found by accident, when cleaning out an abandoned pharmacology research laboratory. A vial of ketamine HCl was unsealed, poured into a glass dish, and evaporated slowly on lowest heat on a laboratory hotplate. This yielded one gram of brilliant pure-white crystals. This solid was divided into eight portions of 125 milligrams each and the doses put inside gelatin capsules.

Experience: I swallowed one capsule containing the ketamine crystals, followed by a large glass of water, and lay down in bed in a semi-darkened room. It was during the afternoon, but the window shades of the room had been drawn to provide a more sedate atmosphere. Sequentially, the experiences and thought patterns were as follows:

(1) Entering into a new 'geometric realm' through the opening of a 'tunnel'. It seemed as if geometric space had been collapsed. And I had entered a place in which which white parallel lines on a dark background receded towards infinity, like toward a vanishing point of convergence on the horizon.

I had heard anecdotally that some friends of my sister like to use ketamine recreationally and I had also heard the expression 'K Hole', so I thought to myself 'That must be where I'm headed. I'm excited, this is going to be great'. Initially a very pleasant feeling of fun and anticipation. I began laughing to myself.

(2) Dissociated from my own body. I began to think 'This must be what is called an out-of-body experience'. I was no longer 'in' the physical setting of the bedroom, and I was also no longer 'in' my body. Actually, I had no specific physical existence, at all. My consciousness had been transported to this alternate geometric place. There were no other people or entities present. There were no voices, sounds, or colors. Very monochromatic experience, similar to being in a dark tunnel.

(3) Terror begins to set in. I had lost sense of the passing of time, and had no way to gauge how long it had been since taking the ketamine, nor how long the 'K Hole' experience would last. I began thinking: 'What if this is forever? This doesn't seem to be changing. I am afraid this must be permanent, now. I must have caused irreversible brain damage or something. My social life, family, and career are going to be over - even if I am still able to communicate verbally with other humans somehow, there will still be no way of explaining to them how this happened...

(4) Complete disappearance of the human realm, eternal isolation. I began to think 'Well, all of those people are gone now, anyway. My family, friends, colleagues, they are all just in some other universe now. So perhaps it doesn't matter what they would think about my mistake. I was just trying something for fun and curiosity, I didn't mean to self-obliterate. Is this what is meant by a 'near-death experience'? I have not died, therefore I have not committed suicide. But where am I? Oh, no, no... This must be hell. Somehow I have been eternally punished. I cannot live, but I cannot die. This must be what is called Hell.'

(5) Re-emergence in physical reality, but detached from my body. Suddenly I found my 'self' on the floor of the bathroom of the apartment, vomiting into the toilet. So what had happened was: the oral dose of ketamine crystals had become nauseating, and somehow subconsciously my 'mind' had ordered my 'body' to get up out of bed, rush to the bathroom, and kneel down on the floor so as to contain the vomit in the toilet bowl. That is a complex series of actions, based on a rational decision. But all of that was completely blacked out, I had no control over it. That aspect also was terrifying.

(6) Mixture of sickness and relief. I could not identify with this sickened body, that person on the bathroom floor was still not 'myself'. It was still as if I was a detached consciousness, observing all this from some other vantage point. But the fact I could see the physical locality of the room meant that I was not lost for eternity in the 'K Hole'. I had come back to life. And in reality, vomiting up the contents of my stomach probably reduced the duration of the trip, because a lot of the ketamine was spat out before entering the bloodstream. I could have been 'in there' for a much longer time.

This was a profound experience, but not a good one, I would not choose to use ketamine again, after the terror of total isolation provoked by the dissociative effects of this drug.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 109378
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 26
Published: Feb 17, 2018	Views: 2,958
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