I was curious about this question, posed in Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. 

When you take ketamine or psilocybin or ecstasy or LSD or whatever it is in a therapeutic setting or under clinical guidance, and then you emerge with some new form of consciousness or a message from the Universe, is it just a drug experience or does the drug provide the experience you needed to move into a new frame of mind? To alter your consciousness as it were.

Someone on the outside looking in might well say, "Well of course that happened, you were on drugs!"

But one of the practitioners that was mentioned in the book reminded Pollan such a point is irrelevant. You're getting what the Universe is delivering no matter what and the drug is facilitating that particular possibility.

In which case, there is really no case to be made for, "Yeah, but you could get a message from the Universe without the drug."

Some may argue that we get messages, inclinations, intuition, judgment all the time without taking psychedelic medicine. Shouldn't that be sufficient?

I say it's sufficient if you find it so.

For me, all the dis-ease and mal-aise that guided me to this path has indicated to me there must be something more or that I must find something more. I am not an easily satisfied human being. I always seek improvement, greater clarity and  connection with self and others and beyond. When that went missing, I went looking. So I consider whatever comes up from psychedelic journeying as crucial to my all-around self-exploration and well-being.

I’m also committing to being present and engaged on this journey as I haven’t remembered much of what transpired in my mind during the first two sessions. I am creating the intention of:

LOVING MYSELF
BEING PRESENT

…and continuing to go wherever the medicine takes me.

I am a bit tired of mind this morning so I am aware that I could get lazy about staying present (or is it focused?). I’ll check Mindbloom for pointers.

I take the pill that prevents nausea.
​It's called Ondansetron (also called Zofran or ODT), a 4mg tablet.
Dissolve 1 tablet under the tongue 60 minutes prior to each ketamine treatment.

​Here's what happened during my third ketamine session.
​

I felt a surprising burst of energy and joy after ketamine session number four.

Saturday afternoon after my morning ketamine session, I spent hours in bed writing and working on my website and wasn't tired or lethargic but relaxed and at ease. 

At 5 pm we came together from all corners of the house to go for a family car ride and maybe a hot chocolate. There was still snow everywhere, including my car top so when I went to adjust the sun/moonroof to see the nearly half-moon for our ride, snow came crashing in on us, which I found hilarious and chalked it up to the best part of the outing.

We rode in the dark on Lancaster Avenue and listened to music, grabbed drive-thru hot chocolates at Starbucks and kept meandering. When we got home, I proposed watching the new Get Back Beatles documentary, which was thankfully met with zero resistance so I did a quick subscribe to Apple TV and we all settled in to watch together. 

During the guided meditation for intention-setting, the girl narrating said to hold your intention for how you want to be and experience life these next few months. To create an intention in the positive: "I allow myself to feel joy and happiness" vs. "I don't want to be sad." 

Truth is, I almost didn't do this today.
But here's what happened during my fourth ketamine for depression therapy session.

I woke up, felt every aching bone in my body from slipping on black ice yesterday, let alone these last weeks to going on several months really, the hip pain has gotten so bad I can barely cross the room sometimes. The hips, it seems, affects the knees and even ankles.

Fucking car accident.
Fucking age.
Fucking fuck.

My mood has been a bit low and who knows whether the horse came before the cart on that one. Not feeling good physically is always a recipe for low mood and the pain cycle continues: pain - depression - pain - depression

So I'm a little weepy and feeling sorry for my sorryass self this morning.

But I did get up and take a shower which had a purifying effect. I asked for help, got my husband to make the bed, kids fed the cats.

And I've committed to hanging in bed today.

I swished the sour ketamine around in my mouth (three tablets to the cheek, I prefer to sublingual; not sure it matters but man-oh-man sessions 3 and 4 have been intense). The leading soundtrack fed to me in my Mindbloom program talked about if you had lost it all⏤death, that is, no return, what sweetness there'd be in the ordinary of this moment, if you could just come back here and savor it all again. Using the example of a disgruntled family around the dinner table, everyone bickering, what we wouldn't give to have those moments if they were taken away.

I swished and swished and could feel the intensity of the medicine coming over me as the sound segued into an ominous rhythm. All was dark, dark, dark. My timer indicated seven minutes so I spit in the cup, rinsed with juice, spit again and fell back into my pillows with eye mask and new over-ear headphones.

And I was TRANS-PORTED.

I was one with the bed.

No separation between me and it. The sound was all there was. Rolling and thundering through darkness. I held on and rode with it the entire time, looking in all the corners and crevices of my mind. 

Darkness.

One room filled with dark, I could see a ceiling high above there were white squares neatly arranged. Then just inhaling and becoming darkness again. 

Thoughts were minimal. Blessed relief!

But I did pause as a few popped up. 

I missed my father. And then real tears flooded over the rims of my lower eyelids.

​But I finally fixed on my intention: FREEDOM, HEALTH and JOYOUSNESS.

They couldn't have been further from where I was⏤but I stuck with it.

Eventually the soundscape shifted⏤akin to Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine"⏤leaving the heavy industrial drumming, demanding drone. A synthesized chime came in, piercing the auditory experience, poking and plucking at my brain. 

BRAIN SCRAPE
BRAIN DETOX

These things came up for me.

Soon I was noticing my surroundings again. I bent one leg to the side. I wiped the tears under my eye mask. I suddenly doubted my husband had actually set the time for one hour and would he remember to check on me? 

I peeked at my laptop and it indicated 10:59 a.m., still 10 minutes to go. I got restless but resumed headphones and eye mask, synthetic ambient music easing me into the coming down (or out?). 

I was momentarily bored, ready for it to be over, but remembered everything that comes after is as key to what happens during a ketamine therapy session. 

It was BOOM. Wow. I went that time. Really gone. There was no me.

I was​ the darkness.

Once you start dipping into the psychedelic universe, every door opens unto another and you become hungry for more information. It's overwhelming at times so i try not to subscribe to every single thing out there but rather look for what's really speaking to me and useful for where I am in my inquiry.

That said, here are some psychedelic medicine resources I've found particularly useful.

Here's one you can watch with the kids and everybody knows global fungi expert, Paul Stamets, also referenced in Michael Pollan's book:

• Fantastic Fungi on Netflix⏤basically about mushrooms as one of the most fundamental aspects of life on our planet. If you didn't appreciate them before, you will after this. For all kinds of reasons. Required watching.
• Dosed on Amazon Prime Video⏤about a woman whose decades-long heroin addiction gets a final shake-up with psilocybin (mushrooms), but most effectively, iboga, an African plant medicine. There's also Dosed 2 The Trip of a Lifetime, which I haven't watched yet but is now on my list. Find out more about the award-winning Dosed series. 

Again, there are more and more apps out there to support you in your psychedelic medicine journey or facilitate integration in between sessions. But these are the ones I've started with and have enjoyed using:

• Trip app on Google Play or App Store⏤trippy music for enhanced psychedelic journeying, information and education about psychedelic medicine and its applications, misc. support, integration guidance and more.
• Mindleap app on Google Play or App Store⏤really great educational info on individual types of psychedelics, from ketamine and psiloycybin to LSD and and MDMA and DMT. Plus healing support for trauma and addiction, and general wellness support

Lots of good stuff out there and also important to follow reliable sources. Here's what I like:​

• ​Castaneda.com⏤mostly courses and certification in Tensegrity, a term coined by renowned shaman and  PhD, Carlos Castañeda, whose books in the Teachings of Don Juan series sparked psychedelic curiosity in the 60s. I haven't participated in any of the offerings, but some of the teachers are direct descendants of Castañeda, which is a pretty good reference.
• Fantastic Fungi⏤building on the psilocybin fascination and the film of the same name, you can watch videos from the most recent Fantastic Fungi Global Summit, see who all the players are in this magical mushroom-y space, and get turned on to all the cool mushroom products on the marketplace (psychedelic and otherwise).
• Healing Maps⏤helps find who's doing psychedelic medicine work in your neck of the woods.
• Mindbloom⏤for those interested in exploring ketamine therapy for depression, anxiety, and other dis-eases of mind and spirit. Mindbloom is the company and protocol I chose for my own ketamine therapy experience. 
• psychedelic.support⏤grabbed my attention because this site provides info and access to all clinical trials in the United States currently accepting applicants or planning to or completed. You can also tap into psychedelic support groups all around the country, in just about every geographic location, and with a variety of emphases. If you wish to delve deeper and become a practitioner of some sort, this is also where you get official courses and training. 
• Tam Integration⏤for people deeply committed to personal development through psychedelic medicine and integration work, healing, connection and community. They offer online and in-person courses, meditation events, integration circles and more.
• ​Tripsitters⏤for finding experienced people who can sit with you during psychedelic journeying, for safety, feedback, integration and guidance, or for becoming a tripsitter yourself.
  

A few resources that may be of interest as you continue your research:

• Pscyhedelics in recovery (variety of articles for sober people interested in psychedelic medicine for addiction and general well-being)
• Microdosing protocols: Microdosing every day vs. every other day (see what works best for you and here is some guidance and insight)
  
• Bill on magic mushrooms aims to make Pa. a national leader in psychedelic research (since I'm partial to Pennsylvania, I'm sharing this one, but search up just about any state these days and you'll find who's on board with psychedelic research and pending legality)
  
• Which psychedelic drugs are legal (and where) (fascinating to follow and stay tuned as more get added!)
  ​​

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.

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.

Since my second ketamine session and days beyond, I've asked myself "Is anything happening?"

As I read more about the dissociative effects of ketamine, I recognize that perhaps that blank blue canvas and having very few thoughts flashing in my mind was an example of that experience—disconnection from the trappings of human existence, including the constant mental reel.

Wow! That’s kind of cool.

I did have that during that last session. Such that I don’t remember much of my thoughts at all.

In the time since, I have microdosed with psilocybin but taken no other mood-altering medications. I’ve wanted to write—a lot. Creative urge has been scratching at the door yet work load at my 9-to-5 has been prohibitive.

I’ve also done some pretty good integration work since my Sunday session, including:

• Walking outside
• Journaling
• Listening to guided meditation
• Having fun with my family (baking cookies, watching Christmas movies)
• Allowing things to just be without jumping to new conclusions and decisions

I’ve been thinking about Costa Rica a lot as well. My trip is coming up in February, and I'm pondering the need for resources to take that trip, how I’m going to manage it money-wise and work-wise, and whether I should invite anyone to go with me.

And should I get a second job doing global online teaching so I can make money to pay down credit cards and afford my travel lifestyle?

And how can I get this Ketamine Diaries book out there fast enough to keep up with what’s going on in the market?

I felt prompted to get in touch with a book marketing friend to help me get clear about how to best bring my ketamine stories to the marketplace, so I have an appointment with him this week.

I've also gotten so tired of being in physical pain from my car accident a few years back and resulting arthritic stiffness and pain in knees and hips⏤so I made an appointment with my chiropractor. I haven’t seen a chiropractor in probably five years.

AND⏤I discussed with my regular therapist about taking someone to Costa Rica. By the time that conversation ended I was convinced this next trip needs to be just me doing the leg-work about eco-living in community⏤so I can get an intuitive sense of whether it’s right for me, and therefore whether I would bring it to others.

Tomorrow’s intention for my second ketamine session for depression.

I have all of this:

• IDEATION
• ENERGY
• CURIOSITY
• INSPIRATION
• CREATIVITY

…brewing.

My intention is to have such CLARITY about what to do with:

• My psychedelic experience
• My writing
• My Costa Rica project

My future.

And to be at perfect peace and ease about where it all is—and isn’t.

I’m feeling anxious because I want to be ahead of something. I want to write. I want to sell books. I want to make money. Influence people’s lives. Change people’s minds, and do it in sync with and ahead of what’s about to happen. The Psychedelic Trend. FOMO.

And…clarity around whether my psychedelic journey informs my memoir or if it’s completely separate.

Letting go of all fear and anxiety about the unfolding and how to have the money to do everything I want to do.
How to have time to make it happen.
Whether it will come together at all.
Just letting be and letting me…be.

I want to:

• Connect with my (deceased) father again
• I want to see my (deceased) brother Jesse again
• I want to have guidance from them
• I want them to help me with my story
• I want to be clear, solid, confident, proud, amazing

I want to feel love for all that I am. 

So here’s my intention my second ketamine session for December 12, 2021:

CLARITY
SOURCE
&
PEACE

12/12/2021

I got an early start at 7:30 am with a shower and by 8 am was arranging my room. Old hat by now. Just told my husband the gist of being a Peer Treatment Monitor (a/k/a "sitter") and off I went with three yellow dissolvable tablets of ketamine under my tongue this time. 525 mg up from initial 400mg.

I sat with the bitter mouthful of ketamine spit for the required seven minutes while leaning forward slightly so I didn’t swallow the medicine. The intro soundtrack on Soundcloud came from Oprah about Supreme Destiny and how we always feel like we get off track or scramble to get on track, but there’s no need to scramble because we have this supreme destiny.

​There is no track, as it were.

I took that one in for a moment, considering I’d just written about FOMO and wanting to be on the leading edge of something. Who cares⏤if it’s just my supreme destiny unfolding, right?

I spit out out the medicine in a paper cup, swished with fruit drink, spit again, arranged my eye mask and leaned back into the pillows as the deep shamanic track began to play.

I remembered what Katherine, my psych nurse for ketamine therapy, said about not feeling your legs. I was already noticing a slight disconnect between me and my lower half, but soon thereafter I became aware of my legs and blanket again.

I wondered if three tablets was enough to get this K-train going?

She then asked about my first ketamine journey, which I described as intense at the very beginning, as though I were going to be in that state the whole time, but then it waned and evened out and I was just in a deeply relaxed state lying there on the bed. I let my mind wander without trying to control anything.

“Did you have any body sensations?”

“No, nothing in particular.”

“The reason I ask is I started you with the 400mg dosage. Do you think you need a higher dose?”

“I think I could probably use a higher dose, but I’m not the prescriber,” I laughed.

“Well I mean—could you feel your legs?”

“Oh yeah, I was aware of my body, the blankets, the feel of everything around me.”

“Okay, when you achieve the right dose you have a dissociative experience from your body. You can’t feel your legs. You’re removed from your physical self.”

(Oh right, I’m thinking to myself, I remember that from my recreational ketamine days. I just wasn’t sure what low doses of ketamine were supposed to feel like.)

“So I’m going to up your dose by 125 mg to 525 and see how you do with that. We’ll get that ordered and it looks like they’re backed up with shipping, possibly until late-January.”

Bummer, I’m thinking. I was hoping for back-to-back experiences all through the holidays and I’d be magically cured in 2022.

“Okay.”

She said notice if the low-level mood lingers for one day, two days, or three days.

“Do you know how to recognize a pattern?” Katherine asked. “Happens one time, it’s just an occurrence, happens twice, you notice it could become a pattern and there’s an opportunity to do something about it, happens three times and now it becomes a pattern. The idea is to recognize it before it becomes a pattern and do something to alter it. So keep an eye on that and check in if you need to.”

Her answer was satisfactory enough. I hadn’t felt so low-energy that I couldn't get up and do things, but I had been feeling like I crashed more easily or tapered off more quickly.

“Are you reading any books or giving any books for Christmas?” she asked.

“Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind."

“Oh, do you know they’re making a documentary out of that and our business is just going to explode once that happens."

I made a mental note that I better keep writing, and write faster. I hoped my own ketamine experiences could provide something for others who’ve been in a similar state.

“Keep bringing your exuberance Kennerly, the world needs it,” said Katherine, as we signed off.
​
Ain’t it funny how the world’s most exuberant are often the world’s most pained.

After prepping my Mindbloom box contents and following instructions for preparation for ketamine therapy, i was ready to connect with Billie, my guide, who'd been texting me during the week to see if I had questions or concerns she could support me with. (Read part 1 of what happened during my first ketamine for depression therapy session)