Journeys into the bright world

A week passed. First there were five busy workdays of arising at five thirty to eat breakfast before Howard set forth for the hospital where he was due to have his patients already in dreamland before the surgeons began promptly at eight. For me these were days of settling in a new town, shopping for a multitude of household supplies and building up a new clientele for regression sessions. Then finally, the blessed weekend came round once more. Keeping tabs on my reactions it seemed as though the ketamine had energized me, but at the same time I required more sleep. I was looking forward eagerly to our continuing investigations of the realm I had now started to call "the bright world." At the same time, there was no sense of impatience. There were still so many novel impressions to sort out it was good to have time to ruminate over the import of my glimpse into the intricately meshing cogwheels of eternity.

At no time did it seem possible that I or anyone else could become a "ketamine junkie." As far as I can tell the substance is both physically and psychologically nonaddictive. Each session was like eating a supremely good meal. The food may taste delicious but eventually one instinctively wants to stop chewing and digest what has been swallowed. A better analogy might be that of making love since there is a decidedly orgasmic element to the experience. No matter how ecstatic a peak may be reached, bodily desire has its natural limits.

Since seventy-five milligrams had proven so potent we decided not to exceed this dosage. It was Howard's weekend to be on call and we certainly did not want him to be basking in the bright world if an emergency should arise at his hospital. Hence I was taking this trip alone. Settling down in our comfortable waterbed I rolled up my sleeve for the injection, wondering if this time I would be any more successful in recollecting the ineffable effusion of pure cognition which thus far had proven too subtle for my brain consciousness to bring through. At this point we had not yet adopted our later regimen of taping all sessions. Hence, the following outline can give only the general flavor of the experience.

Session 5

November 12, 1977   10:00 am   Alderwood Manor   75 mg

Once again I was tumbling round and round as though some infinite washing machine was removing the accumulated grit that had long been clogging the filters of my sense. No way out now except to surrender and be permeated by that bubbling solution into which all particulars must dissolve. It was not like going somewhere as much as like accepting a state that always has existed and always would-a state of imponderable redundancy that is also a way of knowing what one knows, of remembering what one remembers, and of being what one always was.

However, just as my mundane plane self was becoming increasingly aware of this larger part of my divided being, similarly, here in the deep state, there seemed to be just a shade more cognizance of the individuality that dwelt within the physical body. Like building a bridge from both sides at once, the two spans were starting to reach toward each other. But the work had only barely begun; the gap was still enormous.

For the first time it seemed that I was recognizing certain stages of the journey, as though passing the same landmarks. Upon the path of return from the transcendental to the sensate mode of awareness there appeared to be three sequential phases which although still indescribable, nevertheless differed in feeling tone and general characteristics. The highest state was what I have come to think of as a realm of pure essences; the middle was a realm of archetypes; and the lowest was a realm of beauty. The higher levels were also more abstract, being concerned with pure mentation. Only toward the end of a long gliding descent was emotion wrung out of me like water from a sponge. At the point of emergence I often did weep and my tears seemed to be drops drawn directly from a shoreless sea of inexpressibly deep feelings.

This time I lingered longest at the archetypal level. What I seemed to be observing was a complex interface mechanism of angles. How was I to grasp the intricacy of this sublime network of geometical patterning principles? "Every angel is an angle." I stammered, aware that this couldn't possibly make sense to Howard or anyone else. The statement was no mere pun. I wanted desperately to convey the idea of the livingness of those angles through which an abstract series of emanations underwent a conversion into particularized modes of existence. Like sunbeams refracted by water, rays of pure energy were bending downward into specific shapes and forms.