I’m not sure how appropriate the following report
is for ER, given the fact that your primary focus is on botanicals
and their active compounds. I too enjoy a higher degree of comfort when
dealing with plant-based materials; as McKenna
says, when you’re dealing with a plant, you can have some confidence
that you are dealing with a creature of integrity. However, much can be
learned from
judicious experimentation with “synthetics”, although in light of the
work of Ott and Shulgin that term has little meaning anymore. I’ve seen
little about Ketamine reported in the Review, and since I was finally
afforded the opportunity to experience it recently, I thought I’d share
my impressions...
For my first experiment, I administered approximately
100 mg. intramuscularly. There was about a three minute latency period.
My first alert that it was taking effect came as a rising ringing in the
ears. This noise was qualitatively different from the DMT
carrier tone in that it sounded considerably less electronic and it almost
exactly mimicked my natural tinnitus (the musician's curse). This sound
grew in intensity until it obscured all audio information in the environment,
but it was in no way uncomfortable. Then a most remarkable process
commenced. My entire field of awareness, both in terms of my external sensory
perceptions and my internal sense of self, began to contract. Are you familiar
with the film editing technique of fading out from the edge of the screen
inwards until the image is reduced to a tiny dot in the center? This is
essentially what happened to my consciousness over a period of a few minutes.
First my peripheral perceptions
blurred and contracted, then my primary senses, my connection to my
body, and finally my sense of "me". There was absolutely nothing scary
or uncomfortable about this sequence of events; it felt completely natural
and benign. At the end of this process, I was nothing but a single, dense,
tiny point of consciousness in the midst of a vast, multidimensional, seemingly
empty space. Then that vanished, and with it went the last vestige of observer
consciousness and individual identity. At
this point I felt that I had traveled back to the primordial, undifferentiated
oneness of being that preceded the big bang and the creation of the manifest
universe. There was nothing to see or interact with; I had penetrated a
level prior to any sort of subject/object distinctions. The universe was
all one thing, and I was it!
After about thirty minutes on the clock (although subjectively, earth-side time was meaningless to me), I somehow regained a slender thread of individuality, and I noticed that my eyes were open as objects in the room began to slowly come back into focus. This reminded me that I had a body, and I began to feel it once more from my extremities inwards. This re-entry process felt good, like being born anew. Twenty minutes later I was fully incarnate once more. For the next hour and a half I was woozy, shaky on my limbs, thick-headed, and somewhat nauseous if I moved around too much. Cannabis proved to be a valuable ally in tempering the discomfort of the recovery period. I slept well that night and arose the next day feeling slightly light-headed, but handled a full day of activities easily.
For my second experiment I decided to do some combination work, with the goal of trying to bring back more specific information from the peak state. I started by pre-dosing with 100 mcg. of LSD. After waiting two hours for that to stabilize, I then smoked 25 mg. of DMT, resulting in a lengthened, extremely vivid and positive journey. The after-effects of the DMT intensified the remaining acid high and left me in an ecstatic emotional state which I figured would make an ideal launching pad from which to enter the Ketamine domain. I then injected an i.m. dose of 75 mg. and had an experience almost identical to the previous one, except that it took slightly longer for my identity to dissolve, and I felt as though I spent more time in the undifferentiated state. Interestingly, it actually took less time on the clock than before!
The truly remarkable part of this session began,
however, when I took a hit of nitrous
oxide as soon as I had regaine enough physical control to do so.
D.M. Turner's Essential
Psychedelic Guide had warned of an intensified recovery period
in an L/K combo, and I had heard from other sources 8that nitrous could
be useful in mitigating the related discomfort, so I had a few boxes of
cream chargers on hand. Each lungful of N2O sent me rocketing into a unique,
utterly complete reality simulation of truly fantastic proportions! These
virtual realities were so detailed and convincing that once entered, they
were fully accepted as the "base reality" by what remained of my conscious
mind, with all concept of having taken drugs being completely forgotten!
The content of these scenarios ranged from riding around the cosmos like
a bronco-buster on the tail of an ornery comet, moving through alien landscapes
on what were apparently different planets, and
conversations in my room with real people from my life who were not
actually present. These reality simulations seemed to me a staggering experiential
proof of another concept that I'd picked up from Turner's book: that the
manifest universe is a construct of consciousness, not the other way around.
My companions later informed me that it appeared as though the nitrous
blasts sent me back into the depths of the Ketamine state for three to
five minutes each, and that my eyes were
moving about beneath their lids in a manner identical to DMT REM. After
inhaling ten whippets, I arose feeling even better than I had in the after-phase
of the previous experiment. Physical control was much improved and nausea
almost non-existent, although I still felt rather "thick". I spent the
rest of the evening and the following few days enjoying a truly sublime
after-glow of inner peace and deep serenity, feeling absolutely connected
to all that I percieved and profoundly blessed to have been graced with
such a beautiful learning experience.
Upon reflection, I would have to say that nothing short of DMT has yet
had such an immediate, deeply moving effect on me as this compound. In
contrast to the shocking ontological/epistemological challenges that my
journeys with the former represent, these trips have strongly reinforced
many core beliefs about cosmology that I've held for quite a while. The
notion I mentioned earlier about the universe being all one thing - consciousness
- is probably the most gratifying of these ideas to have found validated
via K. I also feel that my experiences in the consciousness-contracting
phase of the onset have given me a profound and highly accurate insight
into the process of dying, although I have nothing but intuition to support
this extremely speculative notion. I strongly believe that the experience
would be of great value to anyone with a serious interest in the diverse
operational modes of consciousness, and it is in that spirit that I submit
this report.