Sleep apnea and blasting off

[john398]

SWIM has tried almost all major psychedelics and dissociatives in the past 3 years. 2C's, dxm, ketamine, mxe, nbome's, amt, DOM, combos, etc etc...but all only at small or moderate dosages. SWIM thinks he has used as much as he can and learned as much as possible through these dosages and wants to go to the next level, ie blasting off to the other worlds. DMT, Ketamine and Nitrous seems like the winners. Problem is SWIM also has apnea and breathing is already a problem during night and uses CPAP which works only partially well.
How does SWIM leave his body and sleep away on high dose psychedelics or dissociatives and make sure he wont stop breathing for full 10-15 minutes? Without any drugs whatsover SWIM already goes sometimes between 1-2 minutes without breathing at night before feeling the need to wake up. How do people who have sleep apnea on this forum deal with this problem? Or does your body still function perfectly normal when you're off?

 

[kingme]

welcome to the forum!

you will notice there is a lot less "swimming" here than on other forums, which makes for easier reading.

first, i would say that if your health problem is only partially treated, you should get it rechecked and get it 100% back. having apnea for minutes at a time does not mean the condition is under control. i dont have much knowledge of the possibilities you have for treatment but im sure a professional can help.
on the other hand, ime, it is quite hard to sleep on psychedelics, at any dose. i dont think you can sleep through such an experience (for me for instance, even a low dose of 5meo dalt will keep me awake). i dont know about dissasociatives, but considering the medical use for k, i think its much more plausible to sleep through it if you dose too much.

hope others give more useful advice

 

[reformer]

I didn't gather that OP john was talking about "sleep" in the traditional sense, but more like he's seeking a ++++ scenario where typically no self awareness is present for some period of time, no bodily control is possible and a person might hurt themselves if they weren't properly positioned and enveloped in a soft and safe immediate environment. In this case, maybe having sleep apnea would be an additional worry for the safety of the seeker, requiring additional considerations beyond that of ++++ing without having sleep apnea.

So, probably the most basic, boring but relevant advice is to ensure that you have a trusted Trip Sitter who understands the timeline trajectory of the chemical in question. I realize that's not always possible, but if sleep apnea is a factor it might push Trip Sitter into the category of "necessary" rather than "optional/best practice".

From my limited reading, the mechanisms and causes of sleep apnea aren't fully known, but in most cases they seem to be physical/anatomical rather than neurological. Despite this, I'd maybe consider having the condition of sleep apnea as similar to being prescribed a pharmaceutical medication that would warrant the consideration of potential "interactions"- But instead of drug/drug interactions, there might be drug/sleep apnea interactions. So that among the target research chemicals you mentioned, N2O or Ket might be less amenable to going deep than the 5HT agonists like DMT because of potential effects on the respiratory system. Although from most of of what I've seen N2O or Ket don't seem to cause major respiratory depression (ala EtOH, benzos or opiods), for some reason they just seem suspect to me compared to 5HT agonists.

So, yeah, I'd zoom in on a trusted Sitter and shoot for chems that do not have a history of respiratory depression (e.g. entheogens instead of dissociatives).

Another consideration is that if your sitter does indeed have to "wake/startle" you in order to escape the sleep apnea micro-episode and re-initiate regular breathing pattern... That person should understand the nuances of tripping, and know that they shouldn't actually startle you. Suddenly being physically shaken by somebody in the midst of a ++++ could initiate confusion on your part and slant the experience into a negative direction.

 

[john398]

I didn't gather that OP john was talking about "sleep" in the traditional sense, but more like he's seeking a ++++ scenario where typically no self awareness is present for some period of time, no bodily control is possible and a person might hurt themselves if they weren't properly positioned and enveloped in a soft and safe immediate environment. In this case, maybe having sleep apnea would be an additional worry for the safety of the seeker, requiring additional considerations beyond that of ++++ing without having sleep apnea.

So, probably the most basic, boring but relevant advice is to ensure that you have a trusted Trip Sitter who understands the timeline trajectory of the chemical in question. I realize that's not always possible, but if sleep apnea is a factor it might push Trip Sitter into the category of "necessary" rather than "optional/best practice".

From my limited reading, the mechanisms and causes of sleep apnea aren't fully known, but in most cases they seem to be physical/anatomical rather than neurological. Despite this, I'd maybe consider having the condition of sleep apnea as similar to being prescribed a pharmaceutical medication that would warrant the consideration of potential "interactions"- But instead of drug/drug interactions, there might be drug/sleep apnea interactions. So that among the target research chemicals you mentioned, N2O or Ket might be less amenable to going deep than the 5HT agonists like DMT because of potential effects on the respiratory system. Although from most of of what I've seen N2O or Ket don't seem to cause major respiratory depression (ala EtOH, benzos or opiods), for some reason they just seem suspect to me compared to 5HT agonists.

So, yeah, I'd zoom in on a trusted Sitter and shoot for chems that do not have a history of respiratory depression (e.g. entheogens instead of dissociatives).

Another consideration is that if your sitter does indeed have to "wake/startle" you in order to escape the sleep apnea micro-episode and re-initiate regular breathing pattern... That person should understand the nuances of tripping, and know that they shouldn't actually startle you. Suddenly being physically shaken by somebody in the midst of a ++++ could initiate confusion on your part and slant the experience into a negative direction.

Wow thanks a lot! Perfect answer. Appreciate the time. Cleared many doubts. Thanks again!

 

[ewalt]

I didn't gather that OP john was talking about "sleep" in the traditional sense, but more like he's seeking a ++++ scenario where typically no self awareness is present for some period of time, no bodily control is possible and a person might hurt themselves if they weren't properly positioned and enveloped in a soft and safe immediate environment. In this case, maybe having sleep apnea would be an additional worry for the safety of the seeker, requiring additional considerations beyond that of ++++ing without having sleep apnea.

So, probably the most basic, boring but relevant advice is to ensure that you have a trusted Trip Sitter who understands the timeline trajectory of the chemical in question. I realize that's not always possible, but if sleep apnea is a factor it might push Trip Sitter into the category of "necessary" rather than "optional/best practice".

From my limited reading, the mechanisms and causes of sleep apnea aren't fully known, but in most cases they seem to be physical/anatomical rather than neurological. Despite this, I'd maybe consider having the condition of sleep apnea as similar to being prescribed a pharmaceutical medication that would warrant the consideration of potential "interactions"- But instead of drug/drug interactions, there might be drug/sleep apnea interactions. So that among the target research chemicals you mentioned, N2O or Ket might be less amenable to going deep than the 5HT agonists like DMT because of potential effects on the respiratory system. Although from most of of what I've seen N2O or Ket don't seem to cause major respiratory depression (ala EtOH, benzos or opiods), for some reason they just seem suspect to me compared to 5HT agonists.

So, yeah, I'd zoom in on a trusted Sitter and shoot for chems that do not have a history of respiratory depression (e.g. entheogens instead of dissociatives).

Another consideration is that if your sitter does indeed have to "wake/startle" you in order to escape the sleep apnea micro-episode and re-initiate regular breathing pattern... That person should understand the nuances of tripping, and know that they shouldn't actually startle you. Suddenly being physically shaken by somebody in the midst of a ++++ could initiate confusion on your part and slant the experience into a negative direction.

Hi there, I am sorry to say this is not a sound advise. I am an MD, but not obviously not here in that representation. It is so that the cause of apneas can be crudely categorized into two types, namely the obstructive sleep apnea and the central sleep apnea. The obstructive type often occurs in people of heavy stature and is caused by a collaps of the airways and is often explained in mechanical terms. In the central type the brain does not give the message to breath in time leading to a longer pause of breath. These types can occur simultaneously and are actually both treated by CPAP. So it's important to understand what type you have and your machine might actually show this. Another tricky part is that CPAP with high pressure setting actually increased the risk of also having central events. Also, central events are increased by depressant drugs such as alcohol, benzo's and opiates. So at all cost limit the use of these. Finally, when we look at ketamine, the best studied dissociative it becomes evident that it has various effects on breathing including increased airway obstruction / collaps, and respiratory depression. So I would say there is a reasonable risk that dissociative drugs could both increase the amount and the length of central as well as obstructive apneas....

 

[Solipsis]

Hi Ewalt, welcome and thanks for contributing information and it might come in handy for someone someday but know that you are answering a 6 year old thread and users involved haven't been on the forum for years. Again: who knows who might use this as future resource but more certain to be helpful is contribution in threads recent enough that the people involved are still around.

It's true that ketamine tends not to have the respiratory depression many other anaesthetics and also analgesics may have, but apparently these apnea / airway obstruction type matters are side effects that are pretty much unrelated to that - call them exceptions to that rule.

With nitrous oxide, a danger for anyone can be when the pure gas is used and people black out into anaesthesia without a proper oxygen supply. On top of that, indeed nitrous can induce both central and obstructive apneas so I'd agree that this does suggest that a wide array of dissociatives may have that potential.

By the way: outdated or not - correcting medical 'advice' is excellent harm reduction always.

P.S. DMT (and also 5-MeO-DMT iirc) typically causes me to be so stupefied that I can 'forget how to breathe' and bodily sensations can become very warped - inhalation can feel like exhalation and vice versa, etc... This doesn't mean that it counts as apnea in any normal sense or carries similar risks but you can call that some kind of 'respiratory event'... No idea if PAP would help with any of that either, but that thing would probably feel pretty weird to use at such a time.