Read Sober Psychonaut disclaimer for people in sobriety exploring psychedelic medicine.
During my third ketamine session at home, I went all kinds of places but this time⏤compared to my first ketamine session and my second⏤I stayed engaged and aware almost the entire hour-long session.
I also put the medicine (ketamine) in my cheek this time to see if it had any alternate effect vs. under the tongue. (Maybe just my imagination, but yes! seemed more potent, somehow.)
After listening to the first soliloquy on Soundcloud about always living for the future that never gets fulfilled because now we’re living in the future we were worried about previously—I spit in the cup, swished with my juice, and laid back on my pillows with headphones and eye mask.
Native American flute music = LOVE (this, I was convinced of)
Love, love, love: Playbacks of reels in my mind
The first message I got from my third ketamine session. Open my heart with love. I recall the little rhodonite stone my friend Astaarte just gave me, for opening the heart.
I watched this whole intense reel play out, a recap of the story my friend Liz told me about my godson and his basketball career and journey to senior year in high school. The challenges, pitfalls along the way, and I saw myself getting the whole story from him some time, just sitting across the table from one another. I felt such love in my heart for this kid and what he’d been through, then I saw him as a baby and holding him for his baptism (he was a chunky monkey!). I could feel tears welling from my eyes under the eye mask.
I saw my own mother and Daddy in a made-up scene, early life, maybe in some kitchen they shared, somewhere at some point. In this vision, Daddy picked me up as a baby, threw me over his shoulder, pinched my naked butt cheeks. I shrieked, giggled, I was adorable and funny and loving. The observing me just wanted to hug this child.
I got to feel what it must’ve been like to be my parents and to be enthralled with me, to love me.
LOVING MYSELF!
That’s the intention I created just before my third ketamine session.
Spread love
I felt it. I wanted to love this child so much. Never before could I connect so personally with that “inner child” concept—which always sounded a bit barf-y—but this was physical enough for me to relate. Then the image popped up of me as a two-year-old, a munchkin in Daddy’s ginormous size 13 boots and my mom’s navy blue felt hippie hat. This is an actual photo from my childhood. I am grinning but all you can see is my teeth because the hat is down over my eyes. In my vision, I am so cute and fun and wonderful, I want to sweep myself up again with full love and embrace of this child.
Tears, again. And I choked out loud a little.
I thought of everyone around me as a little child, my workmates, all little kids in their grown-up disguises. I pictured my husband present-day as a little child rushing in the door in his suit (he looked dwarfish, the image didn’t quite work).
Then I switched gears to love for my boys and knew there were more hugs needed for them. Heart-to-heart connections and making time for hugs more often. My youngest, home from school for the day, I made a point to give him a hug when I finished my ketamine session.
I kept telling myself “stay here, stay here, be engaged” and vowed to make it through the entire ketamine session “consciously” vs. checked out. So several times during this journey I was aware of having that conversation with myself.
Earlier in this third ketamine session, I started off seeing a cave wall with a beam of light guiding the way along the wall. Native American flute music plucked at my heart and brain the entire time.
The Beatles’ “Love is All You Need” surfaced with the message about nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Maybe I’ll find myself making hearts—my expression of love in the world—like painting rocks in Costa Rica.
I really wanted to hug my kids today.
Spread love. Love, love, love.
Now, coffee.
