Let me preface this by saying that I am aware of the potentially soul-crushing addiction that ketamine is capable of inducing. I keep use spread out at least 3 months. It gets a bad rep most of the time, and frankly I understand why. However, I have had experiences with it that were just about as paradigm-shattering as some of my breakthroughs on LSD and DMT.

I trust all of your opinions regarding substances more than anyone else alive. So, if you have had a breakthrough experience ( "k-hole" ), how do you feel it stacks up against the more well known entheogens? Is there anything to be learned or is it just a novel experience? Would love to hear your thoughts.

P.S. I am relatively new to the forum, and saw that this substance is discouraged to talk about, but also saw other posts about it in this section of the nexus. If this thread is inappropriate just let me know and I can remove it.

I think ketamine is in some ways as profound as DMT but not as visually jaw-dropping; Ive used it several times only over a good few years and almost always IM (it was pharmaceutical grade in vials). 1.5mg/kg of bodyweight is sufficient to K hole and like DMT when vaped its not a drawn out long affair.It delivers the goods promptly; within a couple of minutes one is significantly intoxicated but one is ready to go out and about 45-55 minutes later.It is a disscociative par excellence.

Ive never felt the desire to take it often or alot but I do beleive IM is the best ROA if one or ones associates are capable of administering it properly and its purity/sterility allows. The much bigger doses needed by insufflation, for example, seem wasteful and the more you use in terms of weight the larger the risk of bladder issues if done very regularly.

Its powerful stuff which often doesnt get approached by the users with sufficient respect/caution. It always impressed me with its effects and insights gained but my pattern of use was very intermittent.

My first true OOBE was under the influence of ketamine. For the first time in my life I levitated over my bodily form and was able to see myself from an outside perspective. Not just that but I was able to see myself through the eyes of those around me (my sitter). All subsequent doses were more or less an attempt for me to try and recreate that first experience, which were marginally successful. Nothing was quite as spectacular as that first time despite the fact that I upped the dose considerably to the point of it being quite dangerous. I knew prior to my last dose that it would indeed be my last so I attempted to delve as deeply as I could as a sort of final hoorah.


Though I found the experiences under the influence of ketamine to be incredibly compelling, I personally didn't find them to be as enriching as traditional psychedelics seem to be for me.

That being said, I found it to be a fairly useful tool to help taper off the tail end of L trips to make the comedown less hard. Nonetheless I have discontinued my research with ketamine as I feel like I've exhausted all benefits that I can get from it while still maintaining a generally sound state of well-being.

I agree wholeheartedly with both of your guyses sentiments. IM ket is the cleanest and most profound way, in my experience, to consume it. I also think that the first few sessions are the ones you really benefit from. I get the feeling that if you were to abuse it, the benefits would diminish completely. I had a friend who abused K and let it destroy his psyche entirely, he is a shell of a human being now. I think moderation is extremely important here.

But divinity, K goes so great with L! I have found most dissociatives to supplement psychedelics extremely well. Something like yin and yang. Great for inducing OOBE's. I also find that psychedelics (L especially) adds some lucidity to the experience that helps one remember the experience better than with the dissociative alone. However, I have found that if I do the dissociative too early in the trip, the character of the trip changes, and usually not for the better. It gives it a "mechanical" kind of feel, in my experience.

Ketamine has opened doors within me that most typical psyches simply can't reach on their own. I've probably IM'd k well over 40 times by now, and I can tell you from my own personal experience that I was never really addicted to it in the classical sense.. I had a stint where I was doing it pretty frequently, it eventually lost it's novelty so I abandoned the pursuit.

..This was until I learned to mix it with other psychedelics -more specifically- 2-cb..

The sheer beauty and perfection to this synergized experience will leave you in awe. I'd imagine the depth of this particular experience is similar to something like Ibogaine, but in a much shorter and manageable time frame. (mind you I've never done Ibogaine, only heard stories) I personally wouldn't ever do k without mixing it with another psyche (2-cb in particular for me).

Personally I'm not a fan of it. Dissociatives in general don't agree with me. I took ketamine a few times; a couple K-hole doses & a couple lower doses. The first time I did was a K-hole dose, and a very interesting/profound experience. None of my other experiences with it were profound. I know people that love it though…..unfortunately those same people were very much addicted to it, and that was a mess.

It's definitely on my to do list.

I don't have much experience with dissociative's, but the experiences I have had were very enlightening in a clinical kind of way. With ketamine, the short duration and long history of safety make it very desirable for me. Its always been around me, but I've never been tempted to use it with the sort of people that use it.

I'd be interested in using it in a controlled setting with someone who has the right kind of experience and can dose me up properly and make sure I don't go half-cocked and go wondering about or something.

This seems unlikely to me...

Both the desire and the ability to "wander about" are greatly inhibited by ketamine

It's more of a "take a seat for three hours and not move a whole lot" kind of thing... At least in my experience this has been the case.

I've had it a half dozen times or so, all insufflated, mostly larger doses (.75g or thereabouts). This was after a solid several hundred trips on classical psychedelics, and I would definitely say that K has a different character. All my experiences were with very visual psychedelic videos projected large, with a surround sound experience. Under these conditions it's incredible, and would rival a 500-800ug acid trip. Some of the important features are there: the sense of eternity, the universal oneness, interconnectivity, all that good stuff. And on top of that, it can be incredibly warm and fuzzy and seductive, all lovey-dovey without the hard edges that LSD can have. The short duration is kind of nice too- for me, around 90 min to just about baseline.

On the other hand, I don't like how I almost immediately craved an encore. I can easily see how some folks get into the daily habit, and knowing the kind of person I am, I quickly recoiled from it. And it turns out my concerns aren't too off-base at all: two friends of mine who had gotten themselves into a daily pattern like this have ended up broke, careers damaged, friendships ruined, health wrecked... And still using. You don't see this happen with conventional psychedelics- misuse them and they will eventually scare you off. Not so with K.

This is a recognized problem in the psychedelic community, and the reason why we don't encourage talk that might give the wrong impression about the potentially dangerous nature of this substance. But talk of it is not outright barred, if handled in the right context.

I have chosen to not use it, and most likely never will. I respect the history and look up to people like Lilly and find ketamine reports facinating..but I have also met people with screwed up badders a few times at festivals etc who all told me the same thing..it's not worth it..especially with things like salvinorin and DMT available.

I guess I am more into plant alkaloids anyway at this point in my life. I have not taken any synthetic substances in years..other than maybe an advil a few times.

It certainly does happen though. There are millions of witnesses to this highly annoying phenomenon.

Absolutely, not saying it doesn't happen. There is a reason vets use it to put cats down for the count, and that's not because it gives them the urge to suddenly get up and walk off the examination table. Granted cats and humans are a pretty far cry from one another but nonetheless

I can only speak for myself, but my ability to even walk/stand up was greatly diminished any time I've dabbled with it.

Of course it's better to be safe than sorry especially with something that alters the mind as much as ketamine does.

Ahhhh Regretamine....Or Ketamine as those less experienced refer to it. My demon.

I had a short and painful addiction to Ketamine less than one year ago that has left me with organ damage, a scarred psyche, and little headway made in the way of a career.

So this post is biased with that experience in mind. But, I will try to give you all the good and bad from my experience with Ketamine.

I was always a bit of an escapist, reading endless books, playing videogames, working with Legos, and later surfing the internet and doing whatever drugs I could get my hands on. I tried Robotrippin[DXM] in Highschool a few times and remember those experiences as very interesting yet I was unable to fully let go because I experienced alot of stomach discomfort.

Later, in college I picked up a heroin addiction. A baptism by fire with DMT and alot of willpower and exercise got me to the 4 month sobriety point. But I still didn't feel comfortable in my body or brain. I had a chance encounter with MXE and later PCP that gave me a glimmer of a state of mind that was free of bodily discomfort or woes of any kind. This was very seductive. I did MXE a few more times even mixing it with Psilacetin [4-ACO-DMT] for a very profound trip with white noise and a blindfold.

I found I had little of the fear of going further on the disassociates that almost all of my friends and acquaintances. had. I was OK with, and even, aimed to leave this reality for as long as possible. Sometimes I think it was me trying to return to a state on par with my one and only (at that time) high-dose DMT trip but I was still to afraid to return to DMT. This attitude of "further" would be my downfall.

I moved back into a college scene from my parents house where I had recovered from opiate addiction. I smoked alot of pot but still battled with PAWS (a kind of delayed drawn out depression from opiate addiction) and was desperate for something to escape this mindstate.

Ketamine became readily available and on my first use I felt like it was the perfect drug. I had a very insightful and mystical 1st K-hole and upon my return all symptoms of PAWS were gone. I found lots of evidence online about K's anti-depressant properties and I justified my ever-increasing use. I combined it with everything I used: Mushrooms, LSD, MDMA (takes away the hangover IMMEDIATEDLY), pot, DOC. It opened doors that were stranger and more alien than any experience prior. My sole DMT experience was one of Godhead but these Ketamine experiences were bringing me to whole other worlds that seemed completely independent of this one. I'll go into subjective experience of the trips now.

The worlds seemed to posses beings that had their own agendas and schedules, sometimes I showed up and had a part in the world that seemed natural and like I was returning to this "real" world from my false world of Ketamine use. Sometimes I was just an observer in a strange alien world and could not interact. Sometimes the world resembled a hyper-realistic dream of my own that contained pieces of my own life re-arranged in novel and alien ways. Example: I worked serving at a Chinese owned sushi bar at this time and I had one recurring trip where I would work at the sushi bar, learn Chinese, and slowly melt into the wall or floor and serve with just my head and arms coming out of the scenery.

The recurring-ness of trips was one of the most seductive aspects. I had K-holes that seemed EXACTLY the same when I returned to them multiple, sometimes as much as, 5 times. Some of them would start over from the beginning some of them would continue from where I had left off in my last visit there. Returning to a pleasure hole was like going home, returning to a hell-hole was sheer horror, knowing what was coming but being unable to abort. This was incredibly strange and made me begin to question if these K-holes where independent from this reality and if they possessed the same or more substance as this reality. These worlds seemed so real and vibrant and when I spent most of my time in the real world just obtaining and doing K the real world with its little social interaction and variety seemed less real than the worlds of K....

I began using higher and higher doses to the point that I was completely catatonic in the K-holes. Unlike some reports I have heard, I still didn't blackout and I remembered these deep trips. But my roommates began to worry as I would regularly be unable to be roused no matter what for an hour at a time.

I had a few cosmic K-holes at this deep point including witnessing the beginning of the Universe and the formation of stars and galaxies. The subjective experience of time was IMMENSE in that trip, felt like billions of years and when I returned laying on my living room floor with the cereal bowl I was eating still not soggy....It was disconcerting.

Around this time the bladder issues began to occur. Being catatonic and unable to feel my bladder allowed me to hold the acidic K urine in my body for much too long of a time. I found that I had a strange sense of discomfort in my bladder region at this point. I had heard of this problem but like most addicts, "Thought it would never happen to me." All I can say is when you feel any sense of bladder problems please stop. When you begin thinking it is time to stop, it is time.

From here on it deteriorated quickly and I found myself peeing about every hour. I took weeklong breaks but could not stay away from K, every time I used the bladder problems came back with a vengeance. I used MXE in a bid to sideskirt the bladder problems but it had an even moreish quality and I used about a .4 in one night. If you want to read a description of that psychotic trip. Including talking ashtrays and ripping a door off its hinges PCP strength style it is in the middle of this page....MXE Trip

Obviously MXE is only safer than Ketamine but still hurts your bladder. After that experience and not peeing for 24 hours my bladder was in PAIN and I felt like something was stuck in my kidneys. After this I used one last big dose of IM Ketamine (all previous doses were snorted) and had a John C. Lilly-like trip where I met a sort of galactic control that laughed at me and told me I was doing this communing with the spirit world all wrong. I came back and quit cold-turkey. Mentally this was hard I REALLY NEEDED to return to my K-holes. But I knew the physical pain would be great so I didn't return except for a relapse at a festival where I used about .1 over the course of 3 days. I didn't come close to Holing and this made my bladder revert back a few weeks. I knew it was my last time.

Its been 9 months now and my bladder is still messed up. Some days are worse than others but on average I pee about every 2-3 hours. This is horrible and on a bad day it could be every half hour. I have stopped doing all drugs except an occasional use of DMT/harmala as any drug produces an acid-producing reaction that goes through your bladder. (Even weed aggravates me ) I need the DMT for hope and light atleast once every few months. DMT has helped me heal mentally and in that arena I am about 80%. The Ketamine stunted my emotional response and made me quick to anger, something I never did prior. Meditation has helped me combat the mental difficulties. I feel like I lost my self and am slowly remembering who I am.

For the physical recovery I have gone raw vegan and am on an INTENSE alkalizing diet(acidic urine prevents healing) in an effort to heal. I really need to feel better, even sex causes discomfort to the bladder. It seems I will be paying off the karma of my indulgences into K-holes for some time, possibly forever, but I try to have hope. If I do make a good recovery I will post a LENGTHY treatise on Ketamine Recovery on the Nexus.

The most addictive part of Ketamine was that it took you out of your body. No fight-flight, no emotions, no earthly thoughts, no earthly cares. I now believe one must take your body with you to learn from a trip as that is where learning is actualized. I had some amazing journeys, but, after these months of pain and how K experiences slip from memory and pale in comparison to DMT....IT WAS NOT WORTH IT.

Please be careful psychonauts don't learn this lesson the hard way...

No Knowing, thank you so much for sharing that very personal story.

Yes, thank you. Information like that is extremely important to keep in our mix here. And of course, this is why we don't get too enthusiastic about K. I've experienced its seductive promise first- hand, and am extremely grateful to not have been sucked in like that. Thank you for having the courage to share that.

Few more things, that entire addiction beginning to end was 6 months long. Including the one month break and 3 day relapse.

The mental aspects of the addiction are hard to share with people who haven't been there, but, lets just say every single moment begins holding cosmic significance. Synchronicity [or creation of it] is constant and can link together such mundane things as a TV commercial and someone sneezing on the street. This makes one feel like they have some kind of key to reality. But after sobriety I can see this is not like the more subtle synchronicities I experience now but was more of a psychosis centered around some self-centered and created cosmic conspiracy.

The little I can now remember from that mindstate is very STRANGE. I remember thinking the Chinese were controlling my ipod. (Linking my Chinese restaurant job, to the knowledge that most K is made in China, to the fact the the song I was listening to seemed perfect) It was all just so insane in retrospect.

Once you are addicted, the lack of being able to move is also lowered. I sometimes found myself awakening in the front yard after a K-hole or even waking up from crashing on my bike....[the most dangerous idea luckily only ever had scratches and bruises] This is bad for safety and Law enforcement.

I don't wanna put down this drug just because I was irresponsible but it really is just a new level of addiction. I was addicted to the "classic" addiction of heroin and that paled in comparison to this beast.

An addictive trip that leaves all your bodily cares behind and allows you to engage in pleasure worlds that are ongoing. THIS IS SEDUCTIVE...All the famous K-heads went down, look up Marcia Moore, D.M. Turner, and John C. Lilly.

Marcia Moore became psychotic and believed that world was more real than this one. She was found in a tree frozen to death after she injected a MASSIVE DOSE.

D.M. Turner, a VERY experienced psychonaut in DMT, LSD, mushrooms, and various RC's knew Ketamine was hurting his psyche and eventually he could not have a good trip on classical psychedelics as the trips became constant warning against his K use.[I also experienced this] He was using for YEARS and could not quit even though his habit was bi-weekly...He died on K in his bathtub.

John C. Lilly did K all day for a month straight. He became psychotic[some could say it was insights but even his own trips to Galactic Control told him to step back on this] and cared little for his life barely surviving a drowning and bicycle crash incident. What you don't often hear is he engaged in this experiment with 10 other doctor/scientist colleagues....6 of them were killed in accidents or through suicide.

This is playing with fire folks. I am not saying It can't be used responsibly. But it is VERY difficult to do so.

I will not derail this thread with horror stories anymore, I am sorry but I had to put my own experience and spin on Ketamine in the discussion.

I will join the discussion in general K related conversations now that I have said everything I believe I needed to say.

Regretamine....

That was absolutely appropriate for this thread. He asked for honesty, and got it.

Thanks for posting No Knowing - this is exactly what some people need to hear. There is far too much public opinion that Ketamine, though it can be addictive, is safe and harmless even with regular use. I wish you all the best in your endeavor to get back to full health.

^ There's some good posts in this thread! I'm going to echo what others have said, and thank No Knowing for your very honest and vivid descriptions.

I've only done "k-hole" doses a couple times, via insufflation. Certainly the closed-eye visuals were rich and compelling (I've gotten more vivid imagery from DMT or Salvia, but ketamine was pretty close). Also the enhancement and appreciation of music was profound! I found myself lost in the music, under the sea swimming with dolphins (I can see why John Lily was so into it!). There was that sense of having found the key to a new understanding of reality, so in a way it reminded me of other entheogens/psychedelics. Something for me is different about ketamine though - there are some aspects of the experience I am uncomfortable with. It felt like too much of an "escape" rather than a learning experience.

The second time I did a strong dose of ketamine, I did quite a bit: 400 mg or so (with no tolerance) over a couple hours. During the trip I felt like I was understanding some deeper truth, and so of course I kept doing lines until I just poured out the rest and did it all, leaving me well and truly holed. The scary thing about it, was that when I was doing k I didn't care that much about my day-to-day life, and even became reckless with the redosing. I was dissociated to the point that normal concerns and consequences lost any importance to me. I might even have done more, if I had more, or gotten myself into some sort of trouble because I didn't give a s*** about the "real" world anymore.

When I came down, and in the days after as I integrated the experience, I realized I had not brought much back from it. The "insights" didn't stick the way they usually do from something like mushrooms or cactus. Sure, it was fun and I enjoyed it, but it felt like more of a recreational than a healing experience.

I do have friends who have described very spiritual experiences (such as leaving their bodies and seeing the whole chakra/spiritual energy system), and others who swear by it's intermittent use to treat depression, or have gained from using it when coming off of opiates. I've also seen lots of people get too deep into it, I know not everyone finds it addictive, but for some people it is, and I have seen the damage it can cause.

Overall I much prefer the classic psychedelic experience to a dissociative one, for personal insight, healing and as a catalyst for growth.

I wasn't that interested in Ketamine and was of the opinion that I probably won't take it since my natural plant allies teach me more than enough and after reading your posts No Knowing and Ilex I am all the more certain I will not partake. Thank you so much for sharing your stories. It's good to know that everything is okay now.

A.