Ketamine integration

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. 

Parents
  • 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. 

  • hmm I don't think thats how its suposed to work. I think it's more like you hear your dead mums voice and realise you had unfinished buisness with her before you she died kind of thing. It's the more personal stuff rather than the metaphysical aspect.

  • I am aware of my dead mother while under the influence of ketamine. But I have trouble separating it from the more glaringly mystical things. Ibn Arabi also mentions contact with the dead. I also tend to perceive my mother as god, which fits with the mystical notion that everything is god. Anyway, I mentioned this to one of the psychiatrists at the clinic (technically, I actually have 4 psychiatrists if you include the 3 who work with me in the clinic). He said "You don't have to believe it. It's enough to feel it." I sometimes have feelings of bliss while on ketamine, and sometimes feelings of discomfort which I can usually banish by telling myself "This is perfect." But I'm not sure what it means to feel that my mother is god, or that I am god, or that no one exists, or that I could meet and have a conversation with Claude Debussy if I tried hard enough. 

  • One of my psychiatrists told me that the ketamine would be more effective if I stopped taking Klonopin. But I take 0.5 mg every night, and weaning off of it would be hard. Or at least I think it would be. 

  • I know you don't care for mystical interpretations of ketamine experiences, but I feel like it is the only way, at least for me. I am thinking now that the phrase "drug fiend" is very significant. It doesn't sound like a simple insult. I think it has something to do with Crowley, and I am now wondering if it could even be taken as a subtle compliment. It is a bit like saying "You're a Gnostic." Under the influence of ketamine I am thinking that some form of Gnosticism, and I include Ibn Arabi, is the only really *emotional* way to understand the presence of evil in the world. (As for Ibn Arabi being a Gnostic, he did believe that the manifestation of God as wrathful and the manifestation of God as merciful are distinct things, and that the latter is more elevated and fundamental than the former. They are distinct names in a hierarchy of names.) 

  • Thats a common refrain with psycotherapy in autistic people. So often the hard part of the therapists job is uncovering some deep seated issue. With autistic people often the issue is close to the surface and the hard part is adressing an issue that's strongly linked to extrinsic factors that can't easily be adressed by a change of perspective or mental patern.

    Frankly counciling autistic people is probably more like counciling some one with a recently aquired profound lifestyle altering physical disability. So much of the psycological distress is bound up with an experence of the world that they know is disfunctional and because they know it could be better if the world was only better catered for their needs.

  • If ketamine is just telling me to do something that I have already been doing for decades, then I don't think it's worth the money. It is only valuable if it is the source of something new. It is not very useful to be reminded of the fact that people through the years have treated me abusively, because I ruminate on this all the time anyway. 

Reply
  • If ketamine is just telling me to do something that I have already been doing for decades, then I don't think it's worth the money. It is only valuable if it is the source of something new. It is not very useful to be reminded of the fact that people through the years have treated me abusively, because I ruminate on this all the time anyway. 

Children
  • One of my psychiatrists told me that the ketamine would be more effective if I stopped taking Klonopin. But I take 0.5 mg every night, and weaning off of it would be hard. Or at least I think it would be. 

  • I know you don't care for mystical interpretations of ketamine experiences, but I feel like it is the only way, at least for me. I am thinking now that the phrase "drug fiend" is very significant. It doesn't sound like a simple insult. I think it has something to do with Crowley, and I am now wondering if it could even be taken as a subtle compliment. It is a bit like saying "You're a Gnostic." Under the influence of ketamine I am thinking that some form of Gnosticism, and I include Ibn Arabi, is the only really *emotional* way to understand the presence of evil in the world. (As for Ibn Arabi being a Gnostic, he did believe that the manifestation of God as wrathful and the manifestation of God as merciful are distinct things, and that the latter is more elevated and fundamental than the former. They are distinct names in a hierarchy of names.) 

  • Thats a common refrain with psycotherapy in autistic people. So often the hard part of the therapists job is uncovering some deep seated issue. With autistic people often the issue is close to the surface and the hard part is adressing an issue that's strongly linked to extrinsic factors that can't easily be adressed by a change of perspective or mental patern.

    Frankly counciling autistic people is probably more like counciling some one with a recently aquired profound lifestyle altering physical disability. So much of the psycological distress is bound up with an experence of the world that they know is disfunctional and because they know it could be better if the world was only better catered for their needs.