Experience:Ketamine (200mg nasal) Quasi sexual experience

This is an unusual psycho sexual/musical experience in the absence of real or imagined sexual stimuli, and as such thought it merits addition to the literature. I have taken to using Ketamine alone while lying in bed. Either in a darkened room, watching video or listening to music. I find that to watch video, it is most effective to wear an eyepatch to prevent double vision and use a screen with a large apparent dimension, such as a 16 inch laptop screen viewed from about 12 inches. This also gives a sort of pseudo 3D effect as (I believe) the absence of binocular depth cues forces the brain to rely on other cues. The 3D effect can be quite convincing. With music, I find ketamine greatly enhances enjoyment and appreciation. Subjectively, for me, it unlocks a spacial sensation in which different instruments are apparently positioned clearly within three-dimensions

This was the activity I had chosen, and had in fact, decided to watch a music video which I thought I would select after administering the drug during the 10 minute period of clarity. After taking the drug I decided to listen to minimalist music. I enjoy this form of music without drugs.It is a genre characterised by melodic patterns which repeat many times before a subtle variation is introduced, repeated. The brain becomes accustomed to the repeated pattern and the small change to the next pattern appears very profound. I find ketamine greatly enhances this.

In coming up, I chose to listen to music by Steve Reich. I watched a dance interpretation of a short piece called Clapping Music. By the time this had finished I was heavily affected by the drug and just allowed my laptop play the next video, a piece called drumming, loosely based on African drum patterns which slowly change over time. In this case, the changes were rhythmic as the piece uses non-pitched percussion The sound and video were of a live performance. My experience of the music was particularly intense as I had intentionally taken a dose usually large enough to result suppression of memory about previous experience and a subjective feeling, usually safe and pleasant, the the current experience is 'all that there is to reality'. Because of this, the changes in musical patterns seem particularly profound, as they are experience subjectively as a change almost in the structure of reality. The sexual dimension to the experience which follows was new to me. From the beginning the experience felt different from my expectation. My thoughts seemed relatively clear and while I was focused exclusively on the music, I was unusually appreciative of the skill of the performers, the complexity of the rhythmic patterns and the ability of four or more musicians to play complex interlocking rhythms with great accuracy. The changes in patterns elicited an almost physical response like a warm tingling glow washing over my body. Also, as the changes were at fairly regular intervals, I began to anticipate them, and could feel the change 'welling up' in advance of the change which I now experienced as a release of tension, loosely as a climax.

After several of these increasingly intense build ups and focused releases I felt a particularly strong welling up, and the climax phase was experienced as what I can only describe as a full sexual orgasm. While the body and mind feelings were orgasmic, they were not centred on the genitals but spread through the body from the abdomen. There was no erection or ejaculation. Nonetheless, I would say that the experience did not just 'feel like an orgasm' but that it 'was an orgasm'. This experience was repeated with increasing intensity until after about three I could feel my entire body tensing and spasming with the release. It was the most intense orgasm I have ever had. While it felt physiologically to be an orgasm, and was accompanied by deep waves of euphoria, there was no sense of sexual arousal. More gentle orgasms followed. I did not feel sexually turned on by the music or the performers. When the performance ended I 'snapped out' of the music quickly. While I felt slightly disorientated and still had a large concentration of ketamine, I felt fully aware of my surroundings and the events leading up to where I was. My thought processes were reasonably clear. With care, I was able to stand and go to the bathroom. I am currently separated from my wife but because of lockdown we now live in separate rooms in the same house. We are still close, and I found myself wanting to share the experience. I was able to talk about it lucidly, although the following morning she said I 'had looked a bit out of it'

It still feels like a profoundly life-changing experience. It feels life affirming to know that such intensely pleasurable experience can exist outside of sexual situations and desire. Perhaps they can be experienced without drugs and could lead to a lessening of society's borderline obsession with sexual pleasure. My, purely speculative, explanation of the phenomena is that the brain's reward mechanism reached an extreme state of excitement and began to co-opt the brain's sexual reward mechanism.

Submitted by - Nonesuch