As a kid, I was raised Christian, and I developed a a very personal, mystical spirituality around it. I had this experience shortly after I turned 18. At the time, I was not practicing religion and had become thoroughly disenchanted with the Christian institutions I was familiar with, but I still had conversations with the Holy Spirit in my head very regularly. At the same time, I was curious about some new age spirituality and about Buddhism. I was interested in non drug induced altered states of consciousness and had experimented with meditation, sensory deprivation, binaural beats, and so on. I also had a general curiosity toward paranormal and psychic phenomena.
I was at the dentist and needed some fillings done. I opted for the N2O because I'd suffered trauma from previous work in which I had an infected tooth. I don't get along well with dental anesthetic. I seem to be hypersensitive (in my body) to the epiniphrine and while the anesthetic makes my face numb, it doesn't seem to always go where it needs to. As such dental work for me always feels like being on a hair trigger for intense pain.
Some time after I started breathing the gas, I went into a full "hole". I found myself flying through outer space, feeling a profound warmth and love as I flew through stars. My N2O experience was reminiscent of what I imagined traveling to heaven with Jesus would be like. These are about the only tangible things I took away from the experience, but the experience had a profound effect on me. Once I "came to" in the chair, I was surprised to realize how far I'd gone. I asked if the gas was still on and was told I had been on pure O2 for at least 5 minutes. This seems like a long time to come down from N2O, doesn't it?
A few minutes later, I got up, settled my bill, and then went and sat in my car in the parking lot for about half an hour. It's not that I felt slow or discoordinated. I stayed in the parking lot for about half an hour because I very obviously had *zero* survival instinct and feared that I might be tempted to do something that could cause me to die. At this point, I knew nothing about dissociatives and their propensity for mystical experiences. I had no idea N2O could make me feel like that, and it was creepy but fascinating. Fortunately, the feeling faded fairly quickly, and I started the car and drove home.
I thought about the experience constantly over the next few days, weeks, even months. Even though I recalled so little tangible, there was a "feeling" along with a profound sense of importance associated with it that compelled me to seek a deeper understanding of all things spiritual. Up to this point in my life, I had little interest in taking recreational drugs. I didn't like drunkeness in other people and only drank a glass of wine here or there myself. I quit caffeine (except in food) when I was 17 after I realized it was causing me much fatigue and headaches. I didn't even really take OTC drugs for sickness. I followed a fairly general philosophy that drugs were unhealthy except in exceptional cases like antibiotics for serious and confirmed infections. This experience of mine with N2O prompted me to give serious consideration to the use of psychoactive drugs for consciousness alteration and spiritual exploration. It ultimately led me to develop an intense curiosity for DMT, and later on, other serotonergic psychedelics. It was my gateway drug.
Curiously, I never bothered with any other dissociatives again. I had a few balloons of N2O here and there including on some serotonergic psychedelic trips, but while some of these experiences whisked me away from my body, they were otherwise hollow and empty. If I did enough in N2O succession, I did get some more of the creepy "don't care if I die" vibe, but I never experienced anything like I had at the dentist. That seems to have been completely idiosyncratic.
I was at the dentist and needed some fillings done. I opted for the N2O because I'd suffered trauma from previous work in which I had an infected tooth. I don't get along well with dental anesthetic. I seem to be hypersensitive (in my body) to the epiniphrine and while the anesthetic makes my face numb, it doesn't seem to always go where it needs to. As such dental work for me always feels like being on a hair trigger for intense pain.
Some time after I started breathing the gas, I went into a full "hole". I found myself flying through outer space, feeling a profound warmth and love as I flew through stars. My N2O experience was reminiscent of what I imagined traveling to heaven with Jesus would be like. These are about the only tangible things I took away from the experience, but the experience had a profound effect on me. Once I "came to" in the chair, I was surprised to realize how far I'd gone. I asked if the gas was still on and was told I had been on pure O2 for at least 5 minutes. This seems like a long time to come down from N2O, doesn't it?
A few minutes later, I got up, settled my bill, and then went and sat in my car in the parking lot for about half an hour. It's not that I felt slow or discoordinated. I stayed in the parking lot for about half an hour because I very obviously had *zero* survival instinct and feared that I might be tempted to do something that could cause me to die. At this point, I knew nothing about dissociatives and their propensity for mystical experiences. I had no idea N2O could make me feel like that, and it was creepy but fascinating. Fortunately, the feeling faded fairly quickly, and I started the car and drove home.
I thought about the experience constantly over the next few days, weeks, even months. Even though I recalled so little tangible, there was a "feeling" along with a profound sense of importance associated with it that compelled me to seek a deeper understanding of all things spiritual. Up to this point in my life, I had little interest in taking recreational drugs. I didn't like drunkeness in other people and only drank a glass of wine here or there myself. I quit caffeine (except in food) when I was 17 after I realized it was causing me much fatigue and headaches. I didn't even really take OTC drugs for sickness. I followed a fairly general philosophy that drugs were unhealthy except in exceptional cases like antibiotics for serious and confirmed infections. This experience of mine with N2O prompted me to give serious consideration to the use of psychoactive drugs for consciousness alteration and spiritual exploration. It ultimately led me to develop an intense curiosity for DMT, and later on, other serotonergic psychedelics. It was my gateway drug.
Curiously, I never bothered with any other dissociatives again. I had a few balloons of N2O here and there including on some serotonergic psychedelic trips, but while some of these experiences whisked me away from my body, they were otherwise hollow and empty. If I did enough in N2O succession, I did get some more of the creepy "don't care if I die" vibe, but I never experienced anything like I had at the dentist. That seems to have been completely idiosyncratic.
