DOSE: T+ 0:00	12 oz	oral	Alcohol - Beer/Wine
T+ 0:10	10 mg	insufflated	Ketamine	(powder / crystals)
T+ 0:18	30 mg	insufflated	Ketamine	(powder / crystals)
T+ 0:50	20 mg	insufflated	Ketamine	(powder / crystals)
T+ 0:57	11 mg	insufflated	S-Ketamine	(powder / crystals)
T+ 1:15	13 mg	insufflated	S-Ketamine	(powder / crystals)
T+ 1:45	14 mg	insufflated	S-Ketamine	(powder / crystals)
T+ 1:49	12 oz	oral	Alcohol - Beer/Wine
T+ 2:00	200 mg	vaporized	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

Background: In the dissociative class of substances I consider myself to be a seasoned warrior. I estimate eight years of on and off experimentation with a multitude of chemicals within this field, covering various routes of administration. Outside of dissociatives, I have experience in the tryptamine, phenethylamine, stimulant & opiate arenas. Tolerance is not an issue. It has been over a month since any substance use, omitting cannabis & alcohol. I do take 5000 IU of vitamin D3 daily along with 2400 mg Asacol HD for a lifelong stomach condition. I do not consider either of these to be a contributor to the experience I document below.

The experience is being approached with the goal of enjoying a relaxing evening with my partner Kai. I want to attempt to accurately document a less intense ketamine experience and thus had no intentions of aiming for a K-Hole [out of body experience] at any point during the night. I am not under any unusual stress or mental strain coming into the evening. My body feels well physically, although slightly tired from spending some time in the sun earlier in the day.

In the writing of this report, I have used a combination of notes written during the actual experience, as well as voice recordings from the experience. I am confident that the timestamps provided are accurate to within + / – 60 seconds. All dosages were prepared on a + - .001 mg scale. The substances consumed were sourced from a reliable vendor with whom I am very comfortable and I trust the compounds were true and pure.

T:00:00 [8:40 PM] I open one light beer (4.2% ABV - 12 oz.) and enjoy the crisp & refreshing taste while I weigh out the first dosage.

T:00:10 [8:50 PM] I tip-toe back into the psychedelic space with an insufflated dose of .010 grams (10 mg) of racemic ketamine. The small line disappears quickly up the straw & I wait, curious, if I will leave baseline on this entry dosage.

T00:14 [8:54 PM] A nasal drip is present, allowing me to taste the chemical towards the back of my throat. Not unpleasant or sweet, just noticeable. At this point I finish the beer I opened earlier.

T00:18 [8:58 PM] Still feeling myself to be on baseline, I insufflate 30 mg of the same racemic ketamine. I note some initial pain in the nostril, which begins about 5 seconds after insufflation. The pain is fairly sharp and pointed but is by no means crippling. A few sniffs and about 15 seconds later, the pain is entirely gone.

T00:22 [9:20 PM] I have not had a particularly difficult week at work and there are no major stresses in my life at the current moment. All the same I feel a weight slowly being lifted from my mind. A weight that I was not previously aware existed; mental tranquilization has begun.

I am aware of a slight warming sensation in my arms, concentrated between my elbows and the tips of my fingers. The warming glow’s sensation is a slow washing back and forth, like a slow lava flow which is folding over itself.

I close my eyes to check for the presence of any closed eyed visuals and find that my eyelids are no longer black. I see similar discolorations to what one might experience sober, looking towards the sky and pressing lightly on their eyelids. Nondescript shapes are morphing and contorting, holding together then driving slowly apart. The shapes are sunset colored (yellow, red and orange) and are not bright or saturated. They are extremely mellow in their movements and are not sharply defined; the edges of them fade to the black background over an extended gradient.

With my eyes open, I note the saturation across my field of vision has increased from my sober standard. There is no distortion, breathing or patterns present at this time. While these obvious effects are not present, I can sense that my vision is intoxicated. There is a tiny lag in my recognition and focus when I move my head quickly in one direction or another. Trails are not occurring with this rapid head movement but it takes roughly half a second for my eyes to refocus once the movement has stopped.

T:00:29 [9:27 PM] As I walk around my home, I can feel the introduction of some dissociation between my mind and body. I take a few minor missteps, not large enough to be described as a stumble, but I can tell my motor skills are lightly diminished and my balance is slightly off center.

As I jot down some notes about the experience, my attention is drawn to the shadows cast by my hand as I write. There is no “visual” occurring, nothing unusual about the shadows themselves, but my mind is focused on them; becoming interested in the interaction between the light and my movements. There are other occurrences throughout the evening where I catch myself noticing and appreciating small details that I would normally pass by without giving a second glance or thought.

T00:35 [9:33 PM] I decide to go through some basic stretches. I typically stretch daily in accompaniment of physical activity. I decide to see how my muscles react in comparison to an average day [one without ketamine usage].

The stretches are satisfying - I have more patience than normal, allowing my body to settle into each position without my mind counting down until I move onto the next position. My balance has deteriorated slightly more than even just a few minutes ago. I am still capable of some yoga / balancing but positions take a bit more concentration than normal.

My energy level feels unaffected at this point. I am neither mentally sedated nor energized, and can still feel the slight lacking of energy from my sun exposure earlier in the day.

T00:41 [9:39 PM] The weariness from being sun soaked all day is melting away. I put on some music and begin some delicate dancing. I enjoy the movements, but I am not experiencing the mechanical, smooth, precise movements I have experienced previously with this substance. I find music to be slightly enhanced at this point - very enjoyable.

With my eyes closed, the shapes I saw earlier are still present. They are moving and changing shape at about twice the rate as they were before. The edges are more distinct now, the colors are brighter and beginning to glow. At this point I am at the low end of proper “closed eyed visuals”. The actual shapes and their movements are not of a unique or interesting nature at this point.

T00:44 [9:42 PM] I shut my eyes; the previously nondescript shapes are no longer nondescript and random. The shapes now mimic my field of vision at the moment my eyes shut. Upon closing my eyes, outlines of whatever I was last looking at appear in my minds eye in a metallic greyscale. The shimmering framework then populates with color. Initially reds, yellows and oranges dominate the scene. After a few moments, blues and greens begin to manifest as well. It takes around ten seconds for the “snapshot” to be colored in completely, at which point the objects slowly shift and melt until they are undistinguishable and abstract.

I find this experience’s phenomenality very pleasant and spend a few minutes opening and closing my eyes to watch the unusual optical effect occur in different rooms of the house.

T00:50 [9:48 PM] I prepare and insufflate another 20 mg of racemic ketamine. I have been using the same nostril all evening and on this administration, I experience no sting or pain upon ingestion [this holds true for the rest of the evening’s re-dosing events].

T00:52 [9:50 PM] Dancing is significantly more enjoyable than in a sober state. Robotic prevision allows my body to match the music perfectly. My movements have no inhibition.

As I navigate my home, my mind is becoming more simplified in its thought patterns. I take my dog outside to allow her to go to the bathroom. During this task I noticed my thoughts forming in punctuated condensed chunks:

open door
step over threshold
turn around and shut the door
watch your step
okay now I’m outside
next task?

This mental function is not extreme or unpleasant. I am not struggling to complete these simple tasks, nor am I losing cognitive ability to any great amount.

While outside I appreciate the cool breeze, which I feel through every hair on my body. The breeze makes me realize that I am slightly flushed and warm. My heart rate measures 78 BPM, increased slightly from my sober resting heart rate of around 60 BPM.

The grass under my bare feet feels cooler and softer than normal. The sensations felt through my feet is the only one my mind is processing. Beyond the breeze and the grass, my body feels like nothingness. There is no psychedelic body load, opioid buzz or stimulant rush. Instead; a nothingness. In function I can walk my unfeeling body about with relative grace.

Back inside, I am not having any issues holding conversation with my significant other Kai. For setting beta; Kai has elected not to participate in the ketamine this evening and instead has ingested a few beers and a touch of cannabis throughout the afternoon. Our topic of conversation drifts from poetry to ideologies regarding social structure, to our plans for the next few days. The topics seem to be unaffected by the ketamine. If conversation had not been initiated I would have been content to simply sit and listen to music. I do not have an enhanced craving for interaction.

T00:55 [9:53 PM] An acidic, yet not unpleasant, scent fills my nose. It dominates my other senses in this moment. I direct my attention to the smell and the question of its source. I determine the origin to be vinaigrette dressing on leftover salad sitting on the dining room table. The table is about twenty feet from my current location yet the strength of the smell suggests it was directly under my nose. Certainly some unusual sensory enhancement occurring.

T00:57 [9:55 PM] I find the scale still navigable; I weigh and insufflate 11 mg of S-isomer ketamine. Please note here, I have switched batches of substance.

I shift my music choice to something more ambient and downtempo and find a comfortable seat. Just before I close my eyes, I note that I can smell my feet’s natural door. While not especially unpleasant, I am taken off guard once again by my intensified sense of smell.

I now find myself distracted from my plan to shut my eyes. The shadow cast on the ceiling and wall in front of me has my full attention. The shadow is in the shape of a square that touches two walls and the ceiling [in the center of the shadow is a corner]. The edges of the shadow are sharply defined, far more perfect than an everyday shadow. Although there are multiple light sources, this shadow appears to be made up of only an umbra. The square shifts into a parallelogram, then back to a square. Each transformation occurs over a time period of perhaps ten seconds. The shadow now becomes three-dimensional. The point in space at the center of the square pulls away from the corner and reaches towards me. The now extended point forms the top of a pyramid. The four walls of the pyramid are clearly visible planes of “shadow material”; a vaporous grey and black swirling that bears resemblance to slow moving smoke. The pyramid begins to flatten out [back towards two dimensions] and after a single blink of my eyes; the shadows have returned to the walls and ceiling in their original square shape.

T01:15 [10:13] I take stock of my current condition and would say I’m toeing the line between + and ++. Wishing to step a bit deeper I insufflate an additional 13 mg of the S-isomer ketamine.

My physical body has become much more sedated at this point. While seated, all feeling has pleasantly been removed from my legs and arms. I am unable to feel the point where my body contacts the couch; I am weightless. This feeling of weightlessness has been slowly building all evening, but seems to have reached a crescendo in the past 15 minutes or so.

I am still cognitive and able to hold conversations with Kai. During conversation I become aware that I am in a different mental space than she is. While we are sharing the conversation and both enjoying it, I am distinctly aware that my recollection of “last night” will be very different from hers tomorrow morning. I am having an “experience”, while she is participating in a much more “standard” evening, less likely to stand out in the future. This stark difference makes me stop and think. I have the sensation of being confused by the inequality of our perception. I am not experiencing a logic block or thought loop, but the idea that our perceptions differ so greatly is difficult to wrap my mind around.

I now sense an increase in empathy and emotional connection. I shift the topic of conversation to our friendships with others and the importance of these relationships to me. I praise Kai on her literary abilities and we speak about the quality of our bond together. This is not a heavy, empathogenic MDMA love gush, I simply feel an increased desire to express my feelings which is followed by elevated pleasure from doing so.

T01:25 [10:23 PM] THE DANCE IS ON. I am fully sending now; off the couch with all limbs in motion. The idea of sleep has been banished from the part of my mind I can currently access. Music is blissful to my ears and my dancing increases in size and intensity. My hands dive, jab & spin at a rapid rate before blending to more extended sweeping circular movements. All movement feels incredibly precise, calculated & mechanized in its execution. Trails behind my hands are not only visible but linger in my field of vision long enough for me to layer more trails on top of them with the next pass of my hands. The main “trail” is the same color as my skin tone, but the edges and the ends of the trails are shimmering & have a blurring effect on the objects behind it. The blurring is comparable to what heat looks like when rising off of a car or pavement on a hot summer day.

I have begun to perspire and decide to break for some water. While filling the glass, I glance at the clock and notice that I was only dancing for several minutes. In my mind it had felt to be around half an hour. Time has certainly slowed down at this point. The time distortion, visuals & mechanical movements place me at a solid ++ rating now.

I notice a rapid shift in my mindset and decide to quit the dance session and settle into a nest of soft blankets and pillows.

I turn inward and contemplate the different uses of ketamine. Should I be dancing? Should I be having fun? Or should I be meditating and bettering myself? Are low doses better for any of these three options? Should I be laid out with my mind blown swimming in visuals? How am I supposed to take this? Is it for fun or for learning?

My physical sedation has continued to increase. I note my teeth have a texture on them when explored with my tongue, similar to what I have experienced when I don’t brush my teeth for a day or so. The interior of my mouth is numb and I can chew on my cheek and barely notice. The numbness is significant but is not to the completely anesthetized extent as when a dentist numbs it for a filling. I do not find myself jawing or grinding my teeth now or at any other point during the experience.

I continue to debate with myself the best use for this substance. I am questioning if I was wrong in the past to enjoy it at festivals and other live music. Was it odd to do it ‘alone to meditate’ or weird to do it ‘just for fun one evening’? Was ketamine ‘meant’ for parties? I am beginning to become confused and turned around within my own thoughts. I feel like I am constantly on the verge of understand the thought I am trying to articulate. Suddenly the thought seems wrong, the logic is flawed and I take the other side of the argument. Rinse & repeat.

I am borderline frustrated with my inability to settle on an opinion. I am starting to not enjoy the experience. I apply some sequenced breathing to try and reconnect with my belief system. I decide: as long as my substance usage is enjoyable, and not harming anyone else, then there is no reason to not do it. None of my self-proposed scenarios are “wrong” to use the substance. It can be versatile, used in all of these ways. I tie this back to a very big picture ideology: So long as no harm is put onto anyone else — I am free to make my own choices and enjoy. My thoughts continue on their high-level ideological trajectory but in a much more positive light.

T01:35 [10:33 PM] I can still use my phone without too much trouble. I am able to navigate the web briefly to sanity check my total dosage through the evening.

The intensity of the visuals ebbs & flows, I am not on a plateau, but rather am feeling waves of increasing then decreasing effects. This up and down in intensity is noticeable in both my visuals and my sedation. Interestingly, as the visuals increase the sedation is less noticeable and vice versa.

The latest wave of strengthening effects brings me to the peak of the evening thus far. With my eyes open, there are no surfaces that are void of movement. I feel the sedation pulling my eyelids shut. I do not fight the sensation and find my closed eyelids to be filling with brightly colored cartoons. The cartoons are animal figures, but are not recognizable from any production. They dance, bounce and pulse in circular patterns of movement, coming and going from my visual field. The complexity of the characters grows rapidly and the background starts to fill with dots and squares. These shapes split and multiply and soon the cartoons figures have been overrun by geometric patterns that smoothly flow and pulse.

My eyes have not opened in what seems a long time now. I don’t want them to. The sensation of forward locomotion strikes me; I am travelling through the visuals that have shifted in nature so that they are lateral and moving directly at me. I can actually feel movement although I am aware that I am sitting very still.

I have had this sensation before on numerous other dissociative substances. This phenomenon usually reserves itself for higher dosages and often marks the beginning of the journey to an out-of-body experience. Knowing I had just reviewed my dosages I was surprised to be experiencing these sensations. This is a stark contrast to the immensely relaxed state I have been in for most of the evening. This surprising level of intoxication triggers a brief moment of panic, worrying that I could have been off by a decimal point somewhere with my dosage measurements. My rational mind quickly puts these concerns to rest.

T01:42 [10:40 PM] I open my eyes to find the latest ‘wave’ has hit the shore and begun to recede.

I jot down the following notes in the format below:
beer
uppers
downers
bouncers
circlearounders
spinayaaroundsters
flipyaupsidedownsters

I reflect on the acute enjoyment I am experiencing due to the fact that my mind is working differently than normal. I find it intriguing that my same brain that functioned in an ABC manner is now functioning in a ZYX manner. I feel mentally creative, free and loose. I did not delve deeply into the analysis of differences of my thought patterns and mental functions.

T01:45 [10:43 PM] I prepare and insufflate 14 mg of S-isomer ketamine.

Thoughts are floating away from me. They are still present, I am thinking, but I experience thoughts as they come into existence and then they disappear soon after their generation. This is not unpleasant, but I decide to let my mind go blank. I find massive enjoyment and comfort in my closed eyed visuals. A tightly woven grid of lines consumes my mind’s eye. I seem to be viewing the grid from a great distance or altitude. The lines are just barely visible as separate entities; they appear as almost a solid plane.

My view zooms in towards the woven fibers. It becomes visible that the fibers are all different colors, in an unimaginable array of shades. Some fibers are shining, glowing or sparkling, others are contrarily muted. My vision reaches the thin lines and they bend to allow my vision to move through the lines. Some of the lines snap, bend and swing erratically, others refuse to move and my vision has to jump, bend and maneuver through the infinitely complex grid.

T01:49 [10:47 PM] I open another light beer, and take a few sips. The taste is not particularly enjoyable but not off-putting either.

T02:00 [10:58 PM] I sense my evening may be nearing its climax. To boost my peak and potentially play nicely with my journey back to baseline I ingest .2 grams of high quality sativa cannabis via a vaporizer.

The goal of the cannabis ingestion is to bring on another heavy wave of effects, this works as planned. I am engaged in a conversation now with Kai about the options she has for marketing and branding of her poetry project. I am struggling to connect thoughts and having even more difficulty articulating them out loud. I know what I want to think, or what I thought I was thinking, but this was confusing in its own right. The tangled thoughts are not frustrating, at least not in an unpleasant manner. I am laughing at my own inability to get my points across and it is an enjoyable challenge to do so. I have the sense that some of my thoughts are important. My thoughts are of ideologies / ways to live life. These thoughts are not revelations [not new to me], but I feel that they are being refreshed, re-realized. I am very happy about this and excited to bring them back into my day to day life.

The emotional stimulation that I am experiencing is fairly profound. My compassion and loving feelings are very authentic. The emotions seem deeper and more legitimate than some ‘rolling’ (euphoric stimulants) materials.

T02:20 [11:18 PM] I feel that I am on the other side of the experience now. The waves of effects are still occurring but the peaks are trending lower and so are the valleys. I have a sense that this level of intoxication is a very productive point in the experience. More analysis and complex thought is possible, taking advantage of my altered brain function.

I reflect on what is important for me to do in my life. I enjoy journaling, and creating art. Most of these works are kept private, seen and experienced only by myself and perhaps a select few others. Does this lack of sharing mean they are not worth creating? Why should one create? I will simply die eventually. Is my creation useful or is it simply a demonstration of self-centeredness? My mind is firing off these heavy questions and seems to be able to answer them rapidly with reasonable and creative solutions. I am seriously enjoying the alone time with my brain.

T03:16 [12:14PM] The comedown is steady now. My open eyed visuals are in a definite decrescendo. The sedation is slightly lessening throughout my body, but I remain comfortable and rested. In quasi-contrast to the downer effects present in my body, I am still mentally very awake and sleep is not even a thought at this point. I have no desire to move around and am very much so enjoying my sporadic contemplations / musings paired with my closed-eyed visuals.

T04:00 [12:58 PM] My visuals are rapidly dying down now and my mind is nearing baseline. The progression to baseline seemed to be very rapid this evening. I use my notes to confirm that it was not solely a perceived quick comedown, but the time stamps showed it actually was faster than what I typically experience. I ponder if the S-isomer compound has anything to do with this. I am still not inclined to sleep and elect to do some reading on the internet. I found myself uninterested and quickly shifted to some Netflix viewing.

T04:45 [1:43 AM +1] I make my way into the bedroom to attempt sleep. Motor skills feel almost back to normal, but certainly dulled. I debate taking 1 mg of Clonazepam to assist in the transition to sleep but elect to pursue dormancy without it. As I lay down in the bed and shut my eyes, I am stunned to see brightly flashing / strobing light patterns. It was shocking enough that I make an audible comment of surprise and opened my eyes. To my surprise, the strobing continued in the exact same manner [as with my eyes closed] in the dark room. The flashing was rapid and blindingly bright. It was not as clean cut as a strobe one might see at a musical event but the pace of the flashes is comparable. The flashing light was almost indescribably white and has complex patterns etched into it. The patterns are not geometric in nature and to even call these irregularities “patterns” may be a misleading choice of words. The blinding white is more of a labyrinth of Swiss cheese-esque holes and pockets changing location and shape with each flash.

I try opening and closing my eyes several times. The effects were the same each time, eyes open or closed, completely unrelenting in the categories of intensity and pace. My initial fright has receded and I am not panicking although I am certainly unsettled. I attribute the phenomenon to the fact that I have been staring into a bright computer screen for an extended period of time while sitting in an otherwise pitch-dark room while on ketamine. While this seems reasonable to me, I still have been experiencing a nearly full overriding of my visual perception for over a minute now. I blindly navigate out of the bedroom and into the hallway. I grope around the wall until I am able to flip the light switch. The strobing dissipates quickly and only a few flashes occur after the lights are on. My eyes adjust to the light environment slower than normal and I note some ‘after image’ type effects occurring.

T05:00 [1:58 AM +1] I turn on a small warm-toned light in the far corner of the living room and set myself up on the couch with some pillows and a sheet to cover myself. I close my eyes, and happily am greeted by subdued, dimly lit, geometric patterns. Simplistic and slow moving, almost barely there at all. The color scheme of these internal visualizations are dark and any oranges or yellows are so muted that they barely stand out from the darkness of my eyelids. Opening my eyes, I find all visuals have ended save a bit of color enhancement.

T05:52 [2:50 AM +1] At this point I am extremely calm and relaxed. The line between sedated and tired is blurred. My body is very comfortable staying in the slightly inclined supine position I have chosen. This is unusual for me, I typically toss and turn while sleeping and almost always end on my side. My mind has a few thoughts drift through it occasionally, but for the most part it is delightfully blank and meditatively relaxed. Closed eyed visuals still are present but are not vibrant enough to keep me from drifting off to sleep.

T12:22 [9:12 AM +1] I awake feeling rested and relaxed both mentally and physically. I have a glass of water and then do a few informal stretches to analyze my physical state a bit more. I find no muscle tightness or soreness, to the contrary I feel more flexible than my norm.

Retrospective commentary:
I believe I came out of this experience bit more centered. I feel re-focused on my personal goals - both big picture [ie. ‘be the person I want to be’ type thinking] and smaller picture [deep breaths, don’t stress so much on minor difficulties]. It was a productive “first step” back into altered headspace of any kind, as it has been a while since I have taken psychedelics. I deeply enjoyed the reminder that low and middle range dosages can be at least as productive as heavy dosages. The future excites me; under the influence of substances and not. I don’t find that I have much more to include here…the details are in the details; see above.

Exp Year: 2017	ExpID: 111195
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 3, 2017	Views: 17,212
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
S-Ketamine (797), Ketamine (31) : Small Group (2-9) (17), General (1)