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Ketamine integration

Theendingofhismiddleliving

I have been taking ketamine infusions for some time now; tomorrow is infusion no. 22. I understand that integration is important and am now discussing this topic with my new therapist who I'm basically still getting to know. But the very idea of ketamine integration seems curious to me. As you probably know, ketamine induces a temporary psychotic state and the experience is prima facie mystical. How do I integrate the experience into my life without believing things which are a bit ... shall we say, eccentric? I hope that people have some sense of what I'm getting at. Should I really believe the things which are occurring to me under the influence of this drug? Is this the form that mental health takes today? Aren't we supposed to avoid schizophrenia-spectrum thinking? It seems that today the trend is to embrace it. 

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  • My tendency is to try to interpret the experiences in terms of mystical literature. Ibn Arabi, for example, seems to be describing experiences similar to things I experience from ketamine, e.g. the wall, infinity, dusk, subhuman mentality (which has its place, by the way), the central point, the highest word, the intermediary, my divinity, the impossibility of there being more than one person, my non-existence. Because the similarity is so strong, I am inclined to "integrate" by reading Ibn Arabi. But, on the other hand, isn't Ibn Arabi a bit crazy? The question as to what I'm supposed to believe applies to the literature I use in an attempt to integrate as much as to anything else. Without the literature though, I feel that I am missing a lot. 

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  • My tendency is to try to interpret the experiences in terms of mystical literature. Ibn Arabi, for example, seems to be describing experiences similar to things I experience from ketamine, e.g. the wall, infinity, dusk, subhuman mentality (which has its place, by the way), the central point, the highest word, the intermediary, my divinity, the impossibility of there being more than one person, my non-existence. Because the similarity is so strong, I am inclined to "integrate" by reading Ibn Arabi. But, on the other hand, isn't Ibn Arabi a bit crazy? The question as to what I'm supposed to believe applies to the literature I use in an attempt to integrate as much as to anything else. Without the literature though, I feel that I am missing a lot. 

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