Pretty much all of the well known psychedelics that you can think of and many of the more obscure ones. A lot of this I did on my own or with a few friends. Some of it I did in ceremonial settings. I attended quite a few ayahuasca ceremonies. Higher doses in safe contained settings, but i also enjoy lower doses out in nature.
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Yes, Leary and Alport (Ram Dass) defined the principles of “set and setting” back in the 60’s. Best to do when you are in a good head space and in a setting that feels safe and beautiful and sacred. That being said, these medicines are being used in treatment of depression and PTSD. Oregon has passed a bill to use psilocybin in the treatment of depression and we are close to having MDMA approved nationally for the treatment of PTSD. There is also talk of legalizing psilocybin in the treatment of depression nationally as there is now so much good research behind this. But if you are depressed or have PTSD or other mental health challenges, it is best to do this with a sitter or therapist. It may also make psychoses worse.
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Psylocybin is the one that I keep coming back to the most. I now only do this a handful of times a year but I used to explore medicines like this at least once or twice a month or more. I went through a couple of decades of very intense exploration.
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Just found this thread after searching the archives/community for “psychedelic”.
I recently connected with a source (legal, supported etc) for home, oral ketamine therapy. I had experienced psilocybin once before in a recreational context, but the purpose and structure around my trying the ketamine is entirely different. I just had my first “trip” a few days ago.
For anyone student of the Vajrayana who has tried ketamine, I feel that it goes without saying that the substance generated a profoundly impactful spiritual experience while I was awake. However, what I want to share and bounce around here is what happened next- my first dream the night after my experience.
I dreamed that I laid down in bed, and fell back into the mind state I had been in while I was under the influence of the ketamine. I recalled everything from earlier. I was surprised that despite the effects having seemingly worn off earlier, all I had to do was lay back down in bed and the experience resumed. I actively believed I was awake.
The following morning, recalling this, I was stunned. I think the best term for what occurred might be a “reverse lucid dream”. Normally in our dreams we recall none of our waking life. There is no continuity from waking life, and we don’t consider what we were doing earlier, how we got from where we were an hour ago to where we are now, etc. And we certainly don’t consider whether our experience is a dream or waking reality. However, in this dream, I not only recalled the events of the day with an immediate and direct continuity, but I did very actively believe I was awake as opposed to being asleep (therefore, I was cognizant of the concepts of sleep/wake/dream). But I got it backwards- I thought I was awake, when I was not.
It occurred to me a couple days later that maybe I actually WAS awake, but the ketamine had played with my perception and memory. But I’m not sure about this either- in the dream, I think it might have been light out, whereas in reality it would be dark outside my window at that time.
I remain utterly fascinated by this “reverse lucid dream”. I plan to have my second journey with the ketamine tomorrow, although at a lower dose than I did last time. We will see what happens.
I am interested to hear experiences from others who have used ketamine specifically and how it may have impacted your dreams.
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Very interesting experience.
Have never tried Ketamine before, but on its on the bucket list.
Your post is my 3rd time hearing about it in the past 2-3 months, so maybe thats a sign from the universe?
What are the side effects? Any nausea?
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I have had some limited experience with ketamine. I did a ketamine lozange a few months ago. I’m not aware that it had any specific effects on my dreams but the ketamine experience itself seemed to be kind of a liminal state between waking and dreaming (it was originally developed as an anaesthetic and it is still used as such - at high doses it will completely knock you out). In my own ketamine experience I was surprised to get a memory from infancy in which I felt abandoned by my mother when left with a babysitter. I was surpirsed that tears came up around this. I know one person who did a series of high dose IV ketamine journeys supervised by a psychiatrist in order to treat very bad social anxiety. He described journeying to higher dimensions of reality where he could look down on his life on earth from a higher perspective and see deeper levels of meaning and purpose for his soul’s journey on earth. It did help his social anxiety tremendously. His social anxiety was such that he was isolating in his room. He is now out in the world with a job, a girlfriend, etc.
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No nausea, but I had terrible dizziness at first. The nausea is apparently common; they sent me some anti-nausea medication (Zofran) which I took about 30 minutes prior. I took less than half the recommended starting dose too. I’m actually meeting with the psychiatrist again tomorrow to discuss the dizziness. If we can get that figured out or under control, it will be a much nicer experience.
At first there definitely was a “rough entry” from an ego perspective, where I could feel my hard grasping onto the reified self dissolving, and my ego railing against that. Once that had passed, I was in a much more enjoyable headspace of insight.
You mentioned this being the 3rd time you’ve heard about Ketamine in the past 2-3 months. I had never heard anyone mention it in conversation. However, once I’d already signed up for this whole thing, had my consult and the medicine was in the mail, someone I work with (I work in healthcare) started talking to me about Ketamine for depression and enthusiastically going on about how promising and impressive of a treatment it is for these certain mental health struggles. Since I had literally never heard someone mention this in conversation, the timely synchronicity really struck me.
I’m going to try it again tonight (trip sitter coming over in a couple hours 
- but using an even smaller dose, to see if that makes for a milder experience sans dizziness.
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I think “liminal state” would be a good descriptor for my experience as well. Perhaps the most productive, or instructive, part was coming out of it, and seeing how “I” reconstitute a sense of the reified “self” out of the ground of being. I could say a lot more, but sometimes it’s best to keep a hot potato in the oven. That is amazing about the person you know who had such a turnaround in his life- in very tangible ways- from his experiences with it.
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Great that you were able to observe how you constituted your sense of reified self out of the Ground of Being! Good observation abilities! I have tried ketamine a handful of times over many years (previously snorted a powder form a few times but seemed to get less out of that). Never got nausea but did feel like the room was spinning and kind of like I was drunk when I got up to walk to the bathroom.
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A freind of mine has servere anorexia, she was hospitalized recently, after a close call with death. She asked me about it when I recommneded she try Weed Edibles (to help stimulate appetite), I also recomended microdosing psilocybin with a experienced sitter or Shaman (becuase shes battled with the disease for 20+ years, and had many close calls with death).
The other time I heard about it was watching this video a few months ago:
In the past I have heard Jim Crammer mention Ketamine as a game changer, and talked to friends in the health care field who said it was legit.
Does insurance cover it where you are at? Legal in my neck of the woods, but last I checked (a few years ago) insurance did not cover it. What is the typical price for a,mailed dosage(s)?
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Ask the sleep doctor about it.
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Insurance will not cover it (no insurance would, I suspect) as taking it orally is “off label”. (ie. the medication is not yet FDA approved to take in this form and for this purpose). I believe it is legal in all 50 states although some may require in-person consultation (not via Zoom / telemedicine) to prescribe it for the first time as it is a controlled substance.
More research is being done on using it in this way (orally, small doses, for a longer period of time.
Judiciously so, there needs to be adequate research to substantiate its use and long term safety before the FDA can give it its stamp of approval. Working in healthcare I have a good sense of how this whole process works and for the most part I am in agreement with it. Hopefully in the future it will get approved and then will be easier to access and get covered. So anyone using it in this way will pay out of pocket. I paid about $500 which includes a number of consultations. It’s supposed to cover “four doses”, with the strength of each dose being determined by your prescribing clinician. However my clinician was generous and gave me enough lozenges to last far more than 4 doses, even if I took the prescribed amount (which I’m not- I’m taking far less). So for one with the means to shell out $500, it could last you quite a while. Some online services cost more than others- I decided on this one both based on cost and how I felt about the service as a whole. If you are already established with one of these companies as a patient and then get refills, the cost is even less.
Getting it done IV through a clinic is MUCH more expensive, rightfully so, given all that is involved. But I didn’t want IV anyways.
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See my reply to NightHawk999.
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The FDA has it classified as schedule III, so that puts it in the same class as tylenol with codeine (oxycodone is schedule II). The lozanges are compounded by the companies that market the ketamine therapy, but there is a pharmaceutical nasal spray available that psychiatrists can prescribe for depression that doesn’t respond to other medications. I believe that the patient is supposed to do the nasal spray in a medical office where it is monitored but I have heard of cases where the patient was able to take it home and do it on their own. Some insurance companies may cover the nasal spray if it’s prescribed but I’m not totally sure about that.
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Thank you for letting me know this, that was really helpful 
I thought it was going to be much more expensive after seeing that Vice video.
Not a route I am interested in taking either. Being in the peace and comfort of your own bed makes it more spiritual in my eyes. Even better would be to try it in a hammock in the woods, but I think thats a much bigger risk, and things could go south very, very fast.
Your advice about taking less than prescibed I think is very smart, especially when doing it the first time.
How was your temperature sensitivity on it? Did you experience fluctuations of heat or cold in any way?
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The nasal spray, esketamine (slightly different than ketamine itself, but very similar), is FDA approved for acute suicidal ideation or behavior, when used in conjunction with an oral antidepressant. It is typically used in ER settings, and would be covered by any insurance.
Of course any licensed prescriber can legally prescribe this nasal spray, it is very unlikely to be covered in any other situation than what I described above. After another appointment with my clinician through the home ketamine service today, she did mention the availability of the nasal spray and offered it as another option (due to the severe dizziness I had when trying the already-low dose of the oral form). However I would be paying out of pocket for that, like everything I’m getting from them- which was initially the compounded lozenges. Yes, aware of the different schedules- but any controlled medication (including schedule III) has different rules around prescribing, state per state, and there is monitoring around it- ex: it will also show up on databases like “CURES” (in California) or PDMP (in the Pacific Northwest) where clinicians can see what other controlled substances a patient has gotten from pharmacies in these states. Schedule 2 through 5 show up on these databases, and I am well aware that I am now in that system Clinicians are supposed to check the databases and document that there are no unexpected findings in them before ordering/refilling schedule 2-5 drugs. If they don’t and it comes out that a patient is getting drugs from multiple sources beyond what is considered safe prescribing, the clinician can get in big trouble.
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Interesting that you asked. While I barely remember this, my sitter reminded me that at one point I complained of feeling really hot and asked him to take some of the blankets off me (I was in the comfort of my own bed). I never felt cold though. Totally agree about being at home and not in a strange place, even if it is an office with ambience comforts.
I met with my clinician again today and she was very surprised at my extreme dizziness with only 1/2 the recommended starting dose. I took a quarter of that (what amounts to 1/16 of a lozenge) last night and only held it in my mouth a few minutes, and didn’t feel much of anything at all- just nicely relaxed. I plan to work up very gradually from this microdose.
For what it’s worth, my clinician seems very committed to helping me out- not at all stuck on providing me with the bare minimum of what they say you’ll get when you first pay in. Normally the program covers only one clinician visit but I’ve already had two. She sent me a generous extra amount of lozenges, and now plans to send me a whole additional batch that are at slightly lower strength so I don’t have to cut the original ones into 1/16ths. She also mentioned the option of the nasal spray, and it was clear that any and all of this extra medicine sent to me wouldn’t necessitate me paying more. So at this point I feel like $500 is an incredible deal for out of pocket psychiatrist appointments PLUS all this compounded medication.
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I try to pay close attention to drugs that affect body temperature, heart rate and breathing rate.
What was the hangover afterward like?
I think that is the smartest path. Your body and mind may have been a bit shocked at the initial dosage, just becuase it was so new to your system.
Yeah I agree with you, that is a huge bargan.
Do you meditate before taking the dosage? Yoga? What is your routine for preparing to do a dosage?
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I have done it three times now (third time was last night) and have done something different each time. Just playing around with it to get a “lay of the land”. The first time I had an hour of quiet, meditative time first- working with some affirmations (which the program seems very focused on). My experience was so “blown open” that after that, the idea of using affirmations was like a joke. What’s the point of saying something like “I am loved by the Universe” (or whatever) when in 20 minutes, “I” will have no meaning??? lol.
The second time I did that microdose, and only prepped a short time. Nothing much happened, so the whole thing was a bit of a non-event.
The third time, last night, I used the same dose strength as #2 but held it in my mouth twice as long (it’s absorbed in the mouth, not so much in the stomach if you were to swallow it). I didn’t meditate at all first- I had an activity filled day and just got settled in bed at the end of the day, read Dreams of Light for a few minutes, and then started. I wanted to try no meditation prep to see how much that affected my experience- since in the case of my first time, reality got so blown open that I kind of felt like whatever head space I’d been in shortly before would quickly cease to matter.
I became extremely disturbed my the whirring of my laptop fan. I had my laptop to listen to rain sounds (which are helpful) with my ear buds. I didn’t have my sitter this time otherwise I could have had him turn off my laptop, but since he wasn’t there, I had to get it together mid-trip to roll over, turn on the light, put everything that was on top of the laptop on the floor, open the laptop and turn it off- all of which really took me out of the experience and felt very disruptive.
Take home: failing to meditate beforehand, disrupting the experience mid-trip, and doing it right before bed all amounted to a poor experience. I slept like I was in a coma, don’t remember any dreams, woke up 12 hours later feeling extremely hung over.
Regardless, I don’t mind playing around a bit in this way just to figure it all out. In the future I will definitely meditate for an hour first, do it earlier in the day (so I’m not falling asleep while still “under”), and I will also take the anti-dizziness medicine first to see how that affects everything. And no computer with its obnoxious fan! The medicine does make you a lot more sensitive to external stimuli.
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Ketamine is supposed to raise blood pressure, and they want people to check their BP before taking it and log it in their portal/app. I am on a couple meds that lower BP (although I’m taking them for other purposes), so my BP runs low- therefore I don’t need to worry about it going up while on the Ketamine. I am not aware of it affecting heart rate or body temperature for the average person. While I was tripping hard in the beginning, having a bad time of it, I was afraid I would stop breathing- although I think that might be due to time dilation and feeling like there was a long time between breaths. My sitter says he didn’t notice any problem with my breathing (or lack thereof).
I didn’t experience anything like a hangover the first two times, but I did on the third time (see my other response). I slept like I was in a coma, don’t remember any dreams, and woke up extremely groggy, uncoordinated when going about my morning activities, and once I started doing more mentally engaging work I felt like my brain was all scrambled up. I set that work aside though and went for a long bike ride, which helped clear the fuzz out of my head.
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