Journeys into the bright world

At this point it seems doubtful that anyone could find ketamine sexually arousing except to the extent that it removes psychological blockages and increases the general flow of libidinal forces. Essentially, it opens channels of the mind and this in turn produces bodily repercussions. Inasmuch as the drug enhances the capacity to give and receive love it may serve to alleviate conditions of frigidity and impotence. Since love is nature's great aphrodisiac any augmentation of this unitive impulse is bound to percolate down to the glandular level. Nevertheless, the craving for physical closeness seems to be a byproduct rather than a direct result of the ketamine experience.

In order to linger longer at the esthetic level of what appeared to be a multitiered hierarchy of noetic insights Howard and I decided to continue for a while at the relatively small dose level. By this time we were discovering that we could regulate the distance traveled on our "trips" even though the scenery encountered along the way was always a surprise.

The experience of beauty is inherently difficult to convey, while the language of archetypes is bound to veer precariously close to the bombastic. Hopefully, however, the following transcripts will give some of the flavor of our responses to the supersensory wonderland we were still just beginning to explore. The tapes have been only minimally edited in order to reduce some of the repetition, laughter, sighs and nonverbal "ahs" and "ohs." There were many silences. For the most part we have let the words stand even though they can provide but the barest taste of the soul-sweet intimacy of ketamine's border zones of ecstasy.

The following tape was made after a day's fast. I began by sitting in a meditative posture, while Howard remained an observer. Following the injection I noted that it took precisely seventy seconds to register the first effects.

Session 8

December 4, 1977   6:30 pm   Alderwood Manor   25 mg

Marcia. Now I can already hear the beautiful reving up sound of the motor.

Howard. I didn't hear the motor last time.

Marcia. What I'm hearing now is just as real as if someone was running a motor. It's not like a motor in the mind. I actually hear the sound and it's always the same. It makes you think of wings. Winged crickets chirping. The first thing that happens is the wings. And the second thing is the sense of ecstasy. Now I'm in what is called samadhi. And the pitch rises. It's going faster. The tone becomes higher and more beautiful.

Howard. Shall I turn off the music?

Marcia. No, the music is beautiful. There's a reving up. It's like a propeller. We used to produce effects like this with a strobe light and fan. We would synchronize the light and fan to produce lotuses with different numbers of petals. That's exactly what this is like… Oh, this is as deep as I've ever gone.

Howard. Oh come on. Really. You've only had twenty-five milligrams.

Marcia. It feels like a hundred. Its taking me right up out. (Long silence.)

Howard. This is how you can get more mileage out of the ketamine. You can take minute doses on days when you're fasting.

Marcia. Wow, this is deep. (Pause.) It's always the same.

Howard. Are you in the bright world now?

Marcia. Yes, I'm there.

Howard. Did you ever get to this state before without the ketamine?

Marcia. Never.

Howard. When I think of your thirty-five years experience as a metaphysician, and all the yoga you've done, and you're a very spiritual lady and all, that seems very significant. Am I distracting you, talking to you?

Marcia. Yes. (Long pause. At that time I was locked into the music with total concentration and total appreciation. It was a completely different experience from listening to music in the normal state, inasmuch as there was absolute identification with the sounds being played.)

Howard. Do you want to lie down? (No reply.) Are you OK?

Marcia. Uh huh.

Howard. How does the music sound? (No reply. I had no awareness of his asking this question.) You're tilting. Do you want to lie down?

Marcia. Uh. (I have no recollection of Howard helping me to lie down. Long pause.) I can't bring these two worlds together. Oh, I love that music. That's so beautiful, so soft. This experience is so soft, I'm glad you taped it. I'm only now coming back through that portal. That was as deep as I've ever gone. Oh, why can't I get it together! Why can't I get it together! Its so complicated; one shot won't do it. It's got to be more than one. It's just so hard to realize. The music in the background is very good because that gives me the beat-to measure this kind of time against that. God, that was a deep trip. Only twenty-five milligrams? Do I always say, that's the deepest I've ever been?

Howard. No you don't. Its just the fact that you haven't eaten all day. If you'd taken fifty or seventy-five you'd have been on the surgical plane of anesthesia. We could have taken your appendix out.