K-hole's like Sleep Paralysis or Lucid Dreams?

[mmhell]

Hello,

So I have a question related to Ketamine, and more generally to dissociatives and psychedelics that induce Out of body experiences. Does anyone know if any of them are like the OBE's that Sleep Paralysis can cause. I have a lot of experience with Wake-Initiated Lucid Dreaming (WILDs) because of the problems I have with sleep paralysis. Too give a brief rundown of the Sleep Paralysis experience, it generally goes like this.

1. You can no longer move your body, although you can still "feel" it in a way.

2. Your body begins to buzz. Random sensations, like tingling, painless "burning", and other generally unexplainable buzzing sorta feelings.

3. Your feel your body start to lift, and wild rushing noises start. It sounds like your in the middle of a tornado but you cannot feel wind.

4. You shoot threw a dark tunnel at speeds one cannot really explain and it goes in a direction ones mind assumes is 'up' but sometimes I feel like im falling.

5. Visuals start, colors and random shapes shoot around my eye lids. form constants and other geometric patterns appear. These are called Hypnagogic imagery if anyone wants to look it up.

6. You see a 'dreamscape' you are heading too. Its like your skydiving towards a platform I can only explain as another world.

6. You land in a dream world, in which you can do pretty much anything and everything.

Some extra information: During this experiences you can still sorta keep track of time. I can still think clearly, enough to even do semi-complex math problems although thinking too much wakes me up. I do not hear voices, just rushing sounds, although some people hear noises. Sometimes the visuals include things you have done that day, for example if you were driving all day you see yourself driving. When the experience ends I do not feel myself return to my body I just wake up. I wouldn't call this experience 'euphoric', in fact to the unsuspected person it can be terribly frightening but it is very interesting.

Okay, so down to some actual questions.

Are k-hole's anything like this experience? I mean generally.

More specifically what about a k-hole is like this experience and what isn't?

Are any other drugs like this experience such as DMT?

And finally, will K even be anything interesting for me? Seeing as I have had over dozens and dozens of OEB experiences will this even match the altered state of mind Lucid Dreaming and Sleep Paralysis can produce?

 

[Solipsis]

Read this thread: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=300726

We will merge yours into it over time.

People disagree on the definition of a K-hole and it is not always easy to categorize ketamine experiences since there are several types of dissociative phenomena that may all deserve their own name. Yes the lucid dreaming type experience is a possibility, where you can do whatever you want and even metaprogram. You could call it a K-hole since by my definition you are in one if you are so dissociated that your experience is entirely internal and you cease to interact with external stimuli. However the extent of depersonalization is not always equal, some people would say that it is not a K-hole until you also lose your sense of identity and basically your grasp to comprehend anything but your sense of presence / generic awareness.

Karl Jansen wrote a wonderful book about ketamine called "Ketamine - Dreams and Realities" which you can read here on the MAPS site (warning - links to somewhat big file).

He mentions:

A “K-hole” is a mental state where users sometimes end up, and refers mainly to the result of taking a dose sufficient to make coherent communication impossible.

and another minor bit:

[...] "He described a K-hole much like many we have experienced since: vivid traveling through a world meticulously created in our minds." [...]

I think that aligns with my definition. But like I said, some think that experiences beyond this are supposed to be called K-holes and that could have something to do with wanting the more extreme states of consciousness to be acknowledged by reserving the term K-hole for them. Perhaps a bit elitist for a semantic matter.
But I do agree that we should realize that ketamine states can be much more than similar to lucid dreaming, they can be like near-death experiences or rebirth experiences and other kinds of mystical states (not so much enlightened though, but certainly spiritual). Granted lucid dreaming can be pretty spiritual, but still.
With sleep paralysis there is a dissonance between the awareness of your body and the paralysis. With ketamine the awareness of your body is usually lost at the same time or even before the motoric inhibition. You can actually start to hole while standing, or walking (usually with a great risk of falling into something), which would be more like the opposite of sleep paralysis where you are mentally turned outwards - waking - and physically immobile:

"Just this evening I took her to her friend’s house and when she came down the stairs she fell down and hit the floor. I knew she was in a 'K-hole.' "

If you lose touch with your surroundings and/or sense of identity in the real world a little earlier than before losing motor movement the above can happen.

DMT is unique though it can share some traits like rushing at extreme pace through multi-colored/multi-dimensional worlds that unfold, and this is often so intense that you physically dissociate... but mentally you are often relatively present and I would compare it a bit more to lucid dreaming but more incredible and overwhelming. With lucid dreaming I feel in a way only limited by my own active imagination. With DMT it feels to me like you tap into passive imagination, where your imagination is pushed to the limits of not what you can come up with yourself, but what it can come up with on its own if you will. IMO that is why many experiences with DMT feel so impossible to me and why people so often feel like there has to be something external to it because we could not possibly invent something like that with our own minds. I think we can, but only if the imagination runs on auto-pilot by a flood of DMT in the brain instead of us governing the imagination. We still set limits on our imagination ourselves because we project the conventions, rules and limits of consensus reality onto it. Even if we push the boundaries, often we borrow breaking some rules by things we saw in movies or heard about in stories - like being able to fly. But those are still rules - albeit revised rules - we derive, instead of truly boundless imagination.
I never read or saw anything about shapes that were both square AND round because it is geometrically impossible and paradoxical yet I am sure I imagined experienced something like that in a DMT trip. That is what makes it unique, but I think people are taking the idea too far, that because it is beyond limits we project from experience of reality, there must be something outside of ourselves, something real on another level - like another dimension - that causes DMT experiences. I think that dimension is just our mindspace and whether it is real or not depends on how you define it or look at it, and it is besides the point.

 

[The Lone Deranger]

I have what i would call " Suffered " sleep paralysis, i find it terrifying tbh, and yes i have that exact same noise when it happens, like a rushing stormy wind, i usually feel im falling at an unbeleivable speed, then the extreme panic sets in, and i try to jump up, but when i notice i cant move i feel like im stuck, and feel ill be there forever, even though i recognise it everytime ! i realy hate this happening, and when i do come round i usually nearly hit the ceiling in a massive jerk, and am soaked in swet !

I only get it every now and then, id say when it is happening and i know it is, it feels like someone or somthing is playing a sick joke on me, and feels very sinister to me, like some dark force is at work, somtimes only happens every few months, but when it does i usually suffer bouts of it, and the more i think about it the more it usually happens, like now typing it up i wouldnt be suprised if it happens tonight ! and somtimes happens multiple times in one night, usually in the first hour of going to bed, just as im dropping off to sleep the first time in the night.

 

[psood0nym]

There was a discussion about this a while back in "So what exactly IS the (dissociative) hole?" I speculated about the relationship to hynagogia, there:

I agree with the comparisons to hypnagogic activity. I’d further speculate that dissociatives chemically allow the user to maintain similar patterns of activation/inhibition in the areas of the brain responsible for producing sober hynagogic states, as perhaps do opiates during “nodding dreams” and perhaps also does sensory deprivation using non-chemical means (as sekio notes.) The similarities between REM atonia (natural cessation of motor neuron stimulation during sleep/hypnagogia), sensory deprivation, NMDA antagonism, and the effects associated with the opiate nod are too many to ignore when considering what a “hole” is.

If the “hole” is a distinct phenomenon, there must also be some threshold crossed to enter it (the edge of the hole if you will). Here, theories on sleep paralysis (another state between sleep and wakefulness) may be revealing.

From wiki:

Another major theory is that the neural bodies that regulate sleep are out of balance in such a way that allows for the different sleep states to overlap [7]. In this case the cholinergic sleep on neural populations are hyper activated and the serotonergic sleep off neural populations are under activated [7]. As a result the cells capable of sending the signals that would allow for complete arousal from the sleep state, the serotonergic neural populations, have difficulty in overcoming the signals sent by the cells that keep the brain in the sleep state

If indeed the dissociative hole and hypnagogic hallucinations share an underlying pattern of brain activity, then the threshold or “edge” of the hole may be the point at which the dissociative chemically allows for this balance of activation between the cholinergic “sleep on” neuropopulations and the serotonergic “sleep off” populations, though in a different way because the dissociative user is not asleep (I'd think this could be tested, too). Still, the point remains the hole may represent a chemically maintained change in the balance of brain activity that allows the user entering a trance state (which is not that dissimilar to attempting to go to sleep) to suspend consciousness between what are essentially sleep and wake states.

The other subjective differences between hypnagogia and a dissociative hole presumably have to do with the other ways NMDA antagonism, PCP receptor activation, etc., are different from patterns of brain activity occurring during the sober sleep paralysis state. EDIT:These other factors may also account for the way dissociative holes differ between different dissociatives while sharing some strong similarities.

 

[stonepie]

astral plane'd.

 

[alantis360]

i have had sleep paralysis once and i would say yes it is similar but much more scary

 

[mmhell]

Read this thread: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=300726

With sleep paralysis there is a dissonance between the awareness of your body and the paralysis. With ketamine the awareness of your body is usually lost at the same time or even before the motoric inhibition. You can actually start to hole while standing, or walking (usually with a great risk of falling into something), which would be more like the opposite of sleep paralysis where you are mentally turned outwards - waking - and physically immobile: If you lose touch with your surroundings and/or sense of identity in the real world a little earlier than before losing motor movement the above can happen.

This answered my question. I hope to experience a khole soon although it will be in the form of Methoxetamine. Thank you for your response it was well put together