After being diagnosed with mild Asperger syndrome in 2006, I started using recreational ketamine for about 3 years. As you know, a lot of ‘NDEs’ have been reported by ketamine users in the past and – of course – they also happened to me.
As a journalist, I became interested in the question and tried to reproduce the experience, by analyzing patterns, hoping to decode and understand what was really happening. We do that a lot – Asperger people 🙂
I was able to reproduce this same experiences experience about 10 times over the matter of 3 years. What shocked me – and deeply troubled me – is explained in the process further down.
It all began the same way: brain waves being altered by the effect of ketamine on temporal lobes – I could feel the effect of changing brain waves and electricity patterns being modified, almost like when you change a radio dial.
The second phase would be the hallucination part: images of religions (although I’m a atheist), I would see images of God, clouds, paradise. This ‘phase’ would be accompanied by a warmth-calming sensation. The light would be pink/fluorescent white and the air would be more like a solid/water/gel substance.
The third phase would see this hallucination disappear. It would dissolve. I would now feel ‘normal’ again, as if I was on Earth, with a human body. I would be in a dark (black) holding area, usually sitting in what seemed like a tunnel-shaped cinema. There would be light at the end of the tunnel-shaped room. I would start hearing humming and feeling a loud-deep vibration all around me. The chair would then move towards the light (almost like a convoy that you see in some amusement parks). The light would get closer. On my way down the corridor, there would be video images* projected on each side of the wall captured throughout my life and shown to me as the chair is moved down the corridor.
*Every time I’ve experienced this experiences, the video would show the same images from one experience to the other.
From what I understand while sitting on that moving chair, is that the significant events in my life in Earth are being showed to me, as a reminder of what just happened. In the first 3 experiences, I wouldn’t distinguish the ‘television/cinema’ setting, nor the fact that I was in a room. I was too overwhelmed by these images of my life. The sound was actually really intense: as if it was injected through my brain, not produced by a speaker. After the 4th experiences, I started looking around and that’s when I noticed the surroundings.
The fourth phase happens at the end of the corridor. When this mechanical/multimedia process is over, the light at the end of the tunnel becomes brighter and brighter. I remember being impregnated by the light at first, transported by the louder humming sound. After 5 experiences, I realized that the light was simply coming from
an opening in the dark wall, leading to a long brightly lit spiral corridor. It was the contrast between being in the dark vs. walking in a bright surrounding that made me feel overwhelmed by the light.
The fifth phase would happen after my eyes had adjusted to the light. I would be transported (usually still in a chair or lying on an hospital bed towards the 7-10 experiences) down this spiral corridor. I would then realize that the humming sound was coming for a cheering crowd of thousands of people in what seemed like a stadium, on top or besides where I was. The vibration would be caused by the clapping of the hands and tapping of the feet, as if the crowd was waiting for me – a kind of homecoming celebration.
In that corridor, some staff/scientists would be walking beside me, smiling and proud of my accomplishment. It seems that life on planet Earth is a ‘passage’ and that I was coming back home. These faces wouldn’t look familiar to me but they always seemed happy and proud to see me back – whilst in experiences 1 to 6
The sixth and final phase would then happen. I would be welcomed as a hero in the middle of a giant open-air stadium with approx 90 000 spectators. Loud music would be playing while I was wheeled on stage. I remember then feeling totally immerse in the experience, as if my body on Earth didn’t exist anymore. (I was able to analyze that kind of information after 5 experiences).
People that I knew on Earth: parents, friends, coworkers, would be waiting for me on stage. They would all be happy to see me again. Giant screens would show images of my life on Earth – as if these people were also watching my progression on Earth while I was there.
And then, the same thing would happen.
As the ketamine in my system worn down (I wasn’t able to administrate an extra dose while in experiences experience without stopping it), I would feel my body (on stage in the stadium) dissolve and ‘melt’. In the 1-6 experiences, I could see people in the stadium becoming horrified or sad. I would hear voices saying ‘we don’t know what’s happening’.
In the 7+ experiences, I would come back to the same dark room but I would be wheeled down the spiral corridor. There would be no humming or cheering. I would be sent down in a backstage area where people (staff, employees?) would be ushering my body in an open space. I would hear the words ‘cheater’ being pronounced by some of them.
In the 10th experiences, I was send to the same holding room. My parents were present – crying and saying that I shouldn’t have artificially induced this ‘transition’ process, that I cheated and that this was the last time we could see each other. I would then see all the stage equipment being dismantled and was left alone. I remember seeing a newscast on a TV screen besides me where 2 anchors (that I know here in Quebec) announce that I was officially off ‘my mission’, that the program had been discontinued and that I would never come back to that area. There was an argument about how the rest of my Earth life would be ‘not so bad’ because when I first left for my mission, ‘I had choose a good and comfortable planet’. My body then dissolved back.
That last experiences was extremely terrifying. Back in my earthy body, it took me 3 days to get over the emotional pain of what had just happened. The whole process was so real, it was life-changing. Still today, 6 years after my last experiences experience, I have vivid sensorial memories of it all. I’ve used ketamine 3-4 times after that last experiences but instead of being projected in this whole light/stadium experience, I was sent to a dark cold place – industrial almost – where I was threatened by voices. My alternate body was then cut into pieces and thrown in a chute. I would wake up immediately.