The Buddhist Matrix
Ketamine & Opium
Citation:   georgetorwell. "The Buddhist Matrix: An Experience with Ketamine & Opium (exp99812)". Erowid.org. Feb 9, 2018. erowid.org/exp/99812

 
DOSE:
500 mg oral Opium  
  400 mg insufflated Ketamine (powder / crystals)
BODY WEIGHT: 82 kg
Last night I had the most incredible experience on Ketamine. I must have snorted about 400mg but used a saline nasal spray a few minutes afterwards to properly dissolve the crystals. What followed was the most intense drug experience I have a had in years, and also one of the most comforting.

It's difficult, if not impossible to truly describe it, and I need to rely to a large extent on other's accounts of their strong K trips as I simply don't have the words to describe it however, I can say that within a few seconds of using the saline spray, I was gone gone, so far gone into a weirdly electronic world … it was first as if I was getting further and further away from my keyboard and desk. I could see my hands as I was trying to type but the chemical was drawing me away fast. Then I closed my eyes, and had the experience that 'it' was finally happening. That I could not resist at all, that the only option was simply to give in and trust to the trip.

That feeling of 'it' happening was unreal. But it was also intensely real. My body was totally calm and tranquillised, I was rushing through time at a tremendous pace… nearer and nearer to the speed of light, and yet perfectly, unnervingly still. Absolutely calm. I could hear an intense rushing sound of electronics in my ears, like static and crickets getting more and more intense and louder and louder, yet behind it all was this surreal intense silence, and these two states, this rushing frantic chaotic intensity approaching the speed of light and this perfect solid, calm stillness co-existed absolutely perfectly and with no friction between them. I watched myself perfectly calmly as my mind approached this electronic wall of white light. It was absolute zen.

I was sitting in front of my beautiful 27inch imac screen. And my mind was entirely focused on my little space, which is at the bottom of a clock tower in a beautiful old victorian building in London, which is a Buddhist centre. I have just bought a beautiful big black comfortable chair, in which I can sit cross legged, upright at my computer desk. My computer is this incredible thing of awe to me, and these objects completely dominate my feelings of comfort, that is to say, they represent a kind of material perfection for me, but also, more deeply, the computer and the internet, our new technology, Peer to Peer and bitcoin, the cult of macintosh, all this represents some kind of evolutionary gateway to me, as if thinking along these lines, we as a species could disappear completely into electronic space, into I-space, into the matrix, or psyopolis, and I've also been thinking a lot about distributed identity and global sovereignty, so my spiritual ideas are all very much here, based at this point. Not to mention the fact of living at the base of a clock tower in a Buddhist centre: it was as if I were at the centre of time and totally zen, as I said above, perhaps as if I were in the eye of the storm (which I am in terms of where my life is right now…but anyway I digress).

Do you know that scene in the matrix where Neo meets 'The Architect'? The walls are panelled with TV screens and there are cuts where he looks at himself in the screen and then the camera goes through the screen into another parallel reality where the conversation is continued? That's very much like the place I got to in infinity. I was talking to God, very directly, very personally, very intimately, being myself absolutely, and also being all of consciousness, all of the world, and all of time.
I was talking to God, very directly, very personally, very intimately, being myself absolutely, and also being all of consciousness, all of the world, and all of time.
There was no division, and I died, I came to the point of death and hung there in infinity for what seemed like an eternity realising that nothing could change now, that I had reached the end of time.

This realisation was really profound, because I knew I had died, I knew that I would be trapped in this moment for eternity, and that my friends could come and find me at my computer screen, in my room, that I would be apparently dead, but that my consciousness would be trapped in this moment, in front of this gorgeous screen, white and silver, apple logo and infinity, the matrix and K all mashed into one singular entity, existing at the end of time, and it was then that I realised that I had no fear, that there was no death, that I was god along with every other sentient being, and that I had to get back to Earth in order to practice Buddhism properly, to help the world with the bright warm light of Buddhist wisdom.

For what seemed like an age I went through this transition. Reordering myself; realising fully that I was on K, experiencing the most fascinating chemical geometric transitions, observing how clean, sterile and perfect the future of consciousness was, how everything would fit together with precise technical elegance and how the race would evolve according to a greater plan regardless of the petty desires of individual egos, that everything would ultimately be alright.

But there was this acknowledgment in me about being high on Ketamine. See I knew very well, very strongly and very consciously that I was not meant to be doing K. I am a Buddhist, and I rely on my Buddhist friends and my community to help keep me strong, and it's in my housing contract not to do drugs on the premises. It's really important to me to be truthful and honest and not to break the bond of my word, but I do nonetheless because I'm so defenceless against temptation.
It's really important to me to be truthful and honest and not to break the bond of my word, but I do nonetheless because I'm so defenceless against temptation.
So this was very strongly and clearly in my mind the whole time, even in infinity; I was very conscious of this fact, but I wasn't worried.

Instead, as I started to reach the turning point in the K-hole, I looked as I had done before, towards this incredibly warm, strong soft glow of radiance that is the Buddhist community in my mind. There are a great deal of friendly, helpful, kind and honest people in my life here, and they are people who I value immensely because their motivations are very strong and very pure and very heartfelt. I felt that if I could bring just a portion of that to the world, then my K-trip would be successful, that if I could bring this Buddhist energy to the world, then I could be forgiven for trying K in the Buddhist centre.

I think this was about the time when my computer screen went to sleep. I had been watching Mad Men on the screen for a few hours prior to the trip, and had taken half a gram of opium internally before I decided to do the K, and I had been absolutely absorbed in 1960s New York and the world of advertising, so during the second part of the K-hole, after the infinity-matrix point, I began to wonder exactly who I was.

I was aware as I said that I was myself and simultaneously not myself, that I was Don Draper from Mad Men, that I aspired to work in advertising, that I wanted to be smart and have a suit, and be married and have kids and be a part of that materialistic world, but I was also aware that I was just some drug-addict, failed, with no job, no girlfriend and no life, living in a Buddhist centre somewhere in London. (although I felt no personal failure here, the reality of who I would be to an outsider, an onlooker was there).

I was also aware that being all of these people I was also the living nature of the world, and the godhead too, and that it was up to me to make a difference to the world, which is when the Buddhist principles really started to shine. I sat back from my screen. Although I'd had my eyes closed since the beginning of the trip anyway, and probably about 30 to 40 minutes had passed in this intense state (I have no real idea of how long I was at the matrix wall for) once I kicked back from my screen into the darkness of the room, my hands finally found each other, I crossed my legs and sat for a long time (I'm guessing) in a classical meditation position, communing with the spirit of god and buddhist ideas, asking for clarification, practicing obeisance, searching my soul for inequity and malice, stupidity and anger, and came to the conclusion that mostly I was good, that I was doing this for a higher purpose, and that I could apply what I'd seen and learned on the trip, returning to earth and this life as an angel.

What's hard to explain here is that this was not some kind of messianic delusion. It was messianic and delusional in some ways, but it was also angelic and enlightened and real in other ways. It made it clear to me just how important spiritual reality is; that I'm one of the lucky ones who actually gets to experience this kind of thing because I'm unafraid to do so. That's when I started to question the law again: why was it that these things are illegal? LSD and Ketamine? I could understand of course; society cannot sanction it because it's not for everyone. Taking yourself on this kind of spiritual journey is a personal choice, and it takes a lifetime to really understand and integrate the experiences, and all too often we fall, as individuals into problems and problem behaviour because we witness too much of the truth to process.

It inevitably drives a lot of us mad. But sitting there thinking about it, praying and being close to time, and close to the great spirit of universal consciousness, one can see that it's not 'illegal' by universal law. It's just controlled. For me there is the extra dimension of course, that a Buddhist practices universal consciousness through meditation only, and that using drugs to get there is ultimately fruitless, so banning drug-use on site is of paramount importance. Hence why a lot of the latter part of the trip was dedicated to asking for forgiveness and soul-searching, but I didn't feel in danger at any point. I didn't feel that I was being judged spiritually, and I didn't feel that I would be be unduly punished for my transgressions, provided that I applied what I had learned on my trip to the real world around me.

One of the challenges I face as an unemployed man, a middle class, educated and enabled man, is that I feel like I should be doing an awful lot more with my life. As I said, watching through 5 seasons of Mad Men I had come to strongly identify with the characters in the show, and their life circumstances. Without TV, my life seems very empty sometimes, however it is not empty, it is just that I get sucked into the artificial TV world for days and weeks at a time, whilst my real life flees to other places and people.

Dealing with this on K was interesting. My desire to work in media, in advertising, to be successful and rich and handsome all came into focus. I could see why I was attracted to this show, and also, why it occupied me. I knew it was fake, just a TV show, but also how the characters came to life in my mind, how I made them real through my identification, how we all do, and how a fictional character like Don Draper, is, in some ways, more real than individual private egos like ourselves, more real than real life.

So I played with this notion as I began to open my eyes. I saw myself in the mirror, in the darkness, my hands doing an unconscious form of tai-chi, moving invisible blocks of data around in the air in front of me, moving and shifting atomic units of identity, playing with don-draper's identities and peggy's and mine, and Buddha's identity all at once, recognising my true agency, investigating my aspirations, determining my future course of action.

It all felt very positive, as if I were capable of anything I set my mind to provided I set my course correctly and deliberately and followed through fully, I could be a Don Draper (if I wanted) but that I had a higher purpose, a deeper motivation and a stronger cause in Buddhism. As if to live quietly and anonymously and peacefully were better than all the fame, money and material things one could acquire through that world of work in advertising. So I sat with that for a while too.

I haven't mentioned quite how black and white the trip was, certainly to begin with. It was all zebra stripes, few colours if any. It was as if I were deliberately constructing a sterile infinite future made in shades of black and white. The matrix wall was black and white, and I knew that this was a projection of the energetic field of my computer monitor, which also has a black and white, image of futuristic sterility on it as a background image.

But the feeling of anaesthetis also played a strong role in this infinite sterile future of mind. That feeling of being there but not there. Numb to the pain of experience, yet fully experiencing it anyway was a crucial element to the K trip
Numb to the pain of experience, yet fully experiencing it anyway was a crucial element to the K trip
, and something I've not really experienced before. It's very comforting in a way, because, unlike LSD where I'm literally alive to my neuron's hyper-activated state, in a K-hole I'm blissfully relieved of that subjectivity. I can be objective about my perilous existence at the edge of time. I can observe my consciousness as it dies and goes to heaven and is gradually reborn. It's very soothing, and near impossible to fight; so surrender comes naturally, and I ride the roller coaster without fear or panic… but if something had happened externally to me during that trip, like there had been some kind of panic or fire-alarm or something… I don't think I would have been able to respond at all. This is kind of worrying: there's always the possibility that something could have gone seriously wrong.

Lastly to sum up, I had a great feeling of hope. I know I've said this already, but I felt that all of time and consciousness would fit together in this perfectly symmetrical and logical chemical dance. That even if I were to die, the great consciousness would develop, continue to expand, to find its way, and that I'd be reborn as part of it, again and again infinitely because I was it, because I am it, and so are we all. Being so close the the 'real self' is a very wonderful feeling, and quite advanced spiritually. I get the impression on Ketamine that these modern engineered chemicals are very advanced ways of communing with the soul of existence, human and otherwise.

All of time and space became a single unified point. It was truly blissful, and whilst scary to experience death in that way, also very enlightening. The opium must've helped but I didn't feel it much. I fell asleep soon afterwards.



Exp Year: 2013ExpID: 99812
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 34
Published: Feb 9, 2018Views: 9,436
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Ketamine (31) : Alone (16), Combinations (3), General (1)

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