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How does Ketamine differ from the Psychedelic Experience?

S

suture

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Nov 24, 2013
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I've never done Ketamine but plenty of psychedelics. I've also done MDMA, NOS, Amphetamines, some coke, weed, salvia etc. how does the Ketamine experience differ? I've heard a lot of stuff about Ketamine being a weird, dark experience that can snare you into its own world if you let it. I always avoided it but recently I'm intrigued..

I'm getting some K soon and it will be my first time, I only intend on going for small bumps (apparently 200mg is a large dose? Jesus!) but I'm interested to know what the whole experience is like, some people say that Ketamine is a great anti-depressant that raises their mood and gives them a great afterglow, while others have said it's like a mysterious black and white movie world that feels dirty and weird but somehow appealing. Is it as versatile as a standard psychedelic trip? It seems to be described differently.

Are the long term effects similar to psychedelics (IE: Profound life changing experiences with new insights on reality) or will it slowly turn me into an arsehole until I have to forceably give it up (I do have an addictive personality)?
 
I have a bit of experience with Ketamine, which is extremely sedating, but I have more experience with more stimulating dissociatives such as MXE. They are quite different than psyches like LSD, mushrooms, or phenethylamines.

In general, small doses feel euphoric, and it can be a bit like alcohol/opiates in its intoxication. High doses bring about a trip that can be IMO just as profound as traditional psyches. Moderation is always the key dude. Used properly it can feel very clean, blissful, and liberating. Abuse dissociatives and they certainly can take you to a dark, dirty, lonely place (but so can psychedelics). Start low dosage and work your way up.

I personally love MXE/Ketamine because you dont need to plan a 6-12 hour saga in order to have a solid trip. But beware, the rabbit hole can be extremely addictive, and if you chase it too fervently, it can bite your ass like you can't imagine.

Effects are subjective, and no one can really describe a dissociative trip/hole to you. Gotta try it yourself. I won't promise you will enjoy it as every one has different tastes. But I will say it can be rewarding and highly therapeutic. If you're ready to make peace with mortality/life I'd say take the trip. Personally dissociatives have helped my anxiety/depression more so than psychedelics. LSD makes me a neurotic mess, whereas K relaxes me and gives me peace of mind.

Abuse of dissociatives can eventually cause the same paranoid neurosis I get with LSD. Start with a small dose and try for yourself.

Also long term effects, dissociatives tend to be a little rougher on the body , and abuse of K has been proven to cause bladder problems.

PS. Start with small bumps. 200 mg is a massive dose of K. If you have a scale, weigh out 10-20 mg and sniff that. Wait an hour to see how you feel, and proceed with those small bumps until you learn the substance. Cant stress enough that unlike LSD, you can use Ketamine daily and it can hurt your mind and body with addictive abuse.
 
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It's nothing alike
The body and mental high are completely different and the visuals are much more vivid with ketamine and with less patterning and images like faces or alien writing
 
Aside from the confusion ketamine and psychedelics are not similar for me. I get no visuals from ketamine even in the hole. Ketamine tends to be more relaxing and I feel better after, but I feel good coming down from psychedelics too.

A good K dose for a first timer is anywhere in the 20-50 mg range.

It is waaaaay more addictive than psychedelics, I'm not prone to addiction or redosing of any kind despite having tried almost everything under the sun, but ketamine I will use at least once a week if I have it on hand.
 
I almost exclusively do psychedelics recreationally. I have done K about 5 or 6 times. It would be in the mix a lot more often if I had a connection for it but I do not. I do attend a particular festival in my homeland every year and it's pretty much only there that I've scored it. I must say that I do not like K whatsoever on it's own. The first time I tried it I did a couple of bumps (this was the very first thing I ever snorted - I was always against this ROA but with K it's one of the best ROA's. Instantly my face went numb and I felt my sense of reality kind of turn inward. There was a conversation taking place that wished to be part of but I just could not bring myself to speak no matter how hard I tried. I honestly kept looking at my watch waiting for the whole experience to end. All I thought was this stuff fucking sucks! Then my buddy who gave it to me and really likes it on its own told me to try it with MDMA or any other psychedelic so the on Sunday evening at that festival we dropped some E and as it came on we did some K and holy fuck dude! It was AMAZING! It seriously potentates any other psychedelic or MDMA and just is nothing like doing it on its own. It has none of the qualities I didn't like when you combine it. It's really fantastic stuff!
 
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There are S+ isomer and R- isomers of ketamine, the s isomer tends to be more psychedelic and much more potent by weight.
Since I haven't been able to actually know for sure if my k is s isomer or racemic it's hard to say.
I also have noticed that s-isomer tastes a lot better, it is more tangy/bitter tasting whereas racemic tends to be very salty and strong tasting.
 
I'm the complete opposite, I have done lots of K but no other psychs and I enjoy the experience every single time.
The afterglow is imo reason enough to do k, small doses do have an anti-depressant effect for me anyway, and people I know who do k tell me they feel similar after effects.
And the first time I ever K-holed it changed my perspective on the link between my mind and my body, laying in my bed seeing stars explode and feeling my body twist and turn in unimaginable ways even though I wasn't moving at all is probably the best I can describe it.
And as for the addictive personality I am in the same boat, and whenever I have K it seems like I have to do it.
 
I would describe a full anesthetic dose of ketamine as being similar to undergoing a surgical procedure during which you succumb to a wonderful lucid dream that allows you to travel to the depths of your mental processes. It's an anesthetic and offers a state of mind where you are no longer cognizant of your outer reality as you become enveloped by your mind's inner workings. This is different from 5HT2A agonists (mushrooms, LSD, etc.) which seem to work on both levels and make you hyper aware of your outer reality. Ketamine also never offered me a mystical or spiritual experience as I have had with the serotonin agonists, though the experiences can be extremely humbling and rewarding.
It's also pretty habit forming due to the euphoric and escapist effects it elicits. If you have time to kill and ketamine handy, you will find yourself compelled to combine the two since its durations are so short-lived you can anticipate the time when you will return to baseline. A friend once described recreational doses perfectly to me, and although I can't remember the quote verbatim, I recall an analogy of ketamine being a warm blanket in a cold world.
 
I like your description, Infinite. Though I feel like a fully anesthetic dose is simply a black out, but maybe I just don't remember any of my super high dose experiences... either way, it's interesting stuff. My craziest ketamine experiences are just as indescribable as my most intense psychedelic experiences, though different in key yet hard to describe ways. Some of them are like lucid dreams, usually related to daily activity type-things, but some of them are stranger than that. Massive time dilation or feelings of moving backwards through time, feelings of leaving your body or becoming your surroundings. You can forget who or what you are or ever were in a salvia kind of way, though without the jarring terror. Overall it's definitely a more sedated and less frenetic experience than a psychedelic breakthrough.
 
Why do it (Ketamine) at all?
It's highly addictive and dangerous because of this.
Can't you just use regular psychedelics (LSD, etc) if aiming at increasing the quality of one's life (through psychological break-thrus, interesting insights, greater intelligence and sharper perception and more intense experience)?
 
Dissociatives like ketamine make you lose yourself (better said your sense of self or identity or ego) while psychedelics are more complex: they can loosen boundaries and preconceptions that you use to define your sense of self. Often in the process it feels like you lose yourself just as well - and indeed psychedelics can be dissociating - but ultimately it allows you to find yourself as well because you can see what is self and not-self. Conversely, dissociatives can occasionally also be revelatory and transformative so one person may consider them opposites while another considers them all of the same kind. It all depends on how you look at it, and what personal experiences you happened to gain from them.

Either way it's fucking complicated. Sensory distortion and all that are in a way just side effects as a by-product of the drugs meddling with how you structured your mind and how your mind maps reality and incorporates a sense of self into it.
 
Why do it (Ketamine) at all?
It's highly addictive and dangerous because of this.
Can't you just use regular psychedelics (LSD, etc) if aiming at increasing the quality of one's life (through psychological break-thrus, interesting insights, greater intelligence and sharper perception and more intense experience)?
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Why take any kind of hallucinogen? Can't you just use cigarettes and coffee?
 
babylonboy said:
Why take any kind of hallucinogen? Can't you just use cigarettes and coffee?
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One of the reasons is that cigarretes are highly addictive as well as Ketamine. Hallucinogens are not. They are also not harmful to your body (at least LSD isn't).

Or you mean Ketamine can give you more pleasant state...although it's a kind of an 'escape' state as far as I understand it.
 
Solipsis said:
Dissociatives like ketamine make you lose yourself (better said your sense of self or identity or ego) while psychedelics are more complex: they can loosen boundaries and preconceptions that you use to define your sense of self. Often in the process it feels like you lose yourself just as well - and indeed psychedelics can be dissociating - but ultimately it allows you to find yourself as well because you can see what is self and not-self. Conversely, dissociatives can occasionally also be revelatory and transformative so one person may consider them opposites while another considers them all of the same kind. It all depends on how you look at it, and what personal experiences you happened to gain from them.

Either way it's fucking complicated. Sensory distortion and all that are in a way just side effects as a by-product of the drugs meddling with how you structured your mind and how your mind maps reality and incorporates a sense of self into it.
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Do dissociatives make you lose your ego in a way high doses of LSD can? Is it exactly the same experience...through understanding, not by 'escaping'?
 
I think the point was whether the fascinating effects of dissociatives are really worth the addictive potential, which is not really there with typical psychedelics.
But you do allude to the answer: very similar fascinations are what attract people to the dissociatives similar to what attracts people to psychedelics, so the difference would probably be that not everyone makes the risk/cost:benefit calculation in the same manner.
Also dissociatives have an extra alluring quality of making a person more oblivious, this narcotic-like effect of course can be closely related to escapism.
 
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Solipsis said:
I think the point was whether the fascinating effects of dissociatives are really worth the addictive potential, which is not really there with typical psychedelics.
But you do allude to the answer: very similar fascinations are what attract people to the dissociatives similar to what attracts people to psychedelics, so the difference would probably be that not everyone makes the risk/cost:benefit calculation in the same manner.
Also dissociatives have an extra alluring quality of making a person more oblivious, this narcotic-like effect of course can be closely related to escapism.
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Yes, thank you! These were exactly my points:-)
 
mission780 said:
Do dissociatives make you lose your ego in a way high doses of LSD can? Is it exactly the same experience...through understanding, not by 'escaping'?
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Not in the same way. If we look at the way the effects of dissociatives are different from psychedelics pharmacologically, dissociatives work via NMDA antagonism which means a certain type of system in the brain is blocked that is often associated with cognition, learning, association and memory. As the effects increase, the ability to coherently draw upon this faculty is lost which makes a person feel like they gradually lose grip of what they know and are aware of.

Psychedelics work on serotonin by imitating it, affecting the same receptors serotonin affects but not quite identically. Now, this serotonergic system controls a very wide array of functions such as mood / how we feel about things, how we interpret them emotionally, how they excite us, but also a lot more and this is all very over-simplified. But you can imagine that if something interferes with that we can gradually start having very ambiguous or varied feelings about what we experience and the more what we experience and how we relate to that blurs together the more we lose sight of what the difference is between ourselves and everything else.

While the above is junk science in the sense that it is grossly over-simplified, I think that it is a way to explain how there are different ways we derive our sense of self and that disrupting this through difference aspects may ultimately lead to similar results: feelings of unity or one-ness or the inability to distinguish fantasy from reality and a lot more things like that. In that way, there are aspects dissociatives and psychedelics do have in common and others they do not.

And obviously combining drugs from both categories is exceedingly effective in that it accomplishes dual action in terms of psycholysis.
 
Solipsis said:
Not in the same way. If we look at the way the effects of dissociatives are different from psychedelics pharmacologically, dissociatives work via NMDA antagonism which means a certain type of system in the brain is blocked that is often associated with cognition, learning, association and memory. As the effects increase, the ability to coherently draw upon this faculty is lost which makes a person feel like they gradually lose grip of what they know and are aware of.

Psychedelics work on serotonin by imitating it, affecting the same receptors serotonin affects but not quite identically. Now, this serotonergic system controls a very wide array of functions such as mood / how we feel about things, how we interpret them emotionally, how they excite us, but also a lot more and this is all very over-simplified. But you can imagine that if something interferes with that we can gradually start having very ambiguous or varied feelings about what we experience
While the above is junk science in the sense that it is grossly over-simplified, I think that it is a way to explain how there are different ways we derive our sense of self and that disrupting this through difference aspects may ultimately lead to similar results: feelings of unity or one-ness or the inability to distinguish fantasy from reality and a lot more things like that. In that way, there are aspects dissociatives and psychedelics do have in common and others they do not.

And obviously combining drugs from both categories is exceedingly effective in that it accomplishes dual action in terms of psycholysis.
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I don't have any experience with dissociatives. From your description I understand that dissociatives just make one dull and unaware (something like alcohol, but probably a bit different). This I wouldn't call losing ego in a sense that psychedelics do. Maybe I am mixing terms "ego death" and "ego loss".

"...and the more what we experience and how we relate to that blurs together the more we lose sight of what the difference is between ourselves and everything else."
I don't quite understand this fragment.

What is 'psycholysis'?
 
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