My report of my personal MDMA and Ketamine Experiences

[Papa Coco]

I would like to start by saying that different people react to Ketamine and MDMA differently. Variables include such things as how the patient's body chemistry will be receptive to it, how the facilitator manages the session, and how ready a patient is for the medication.

Personally, I respond very well to both medications. My facilitators help prepare me with a few days of proper diet and sleep beforehand. They tell me my chances of successful treatment will depend on me not taking any cannabis sleep aids for about a week prior. In both treatments, I'm to stop eating and drinking Coffee for at least 12 hours prior to the treatment. For MDMA, my facilitator even advised that I take 5-HTP for 5 days prior, no digestive medications for the day before and the day of.  Vitamin C and Magnesium on the day of. All of these recommendations are to get my body ready to absorb, digest and relax into the medications. Due to the cost and fuss involved, I did everything I was instructed to do so as to guarantee the best results.

Both medications require a driver to take me home afterward. The 45 minutes of Ketamine IV especially wears off very, very slowly—a day to two days. The 4 hours of being under MDMA wears off pretty quickly at the end of the session, but a driver is still needed for the trip home.

Ketamine and MDMA were similar in that they both gave me a deep, deep, deep connection to love and eternal peace. While under both medications, I tend to become very quiet and introspective, thinking about the people I've known in my life. My description of how Ketamine and MDMA feel is the same as the description I hear from people who have died, and been brought back to life. Near-Death-Experiencers (NDEs) tell the exact same stories I do, that I never want to come back from either experience because I feel 100% safe, 100% loved, 100% eternal while under either medication.

In both medications, the doses are so low that I remain conscious and able to speak with my facilitator if I need to. They can ask me questions. I can ask them questions. But I prefer to be quiet and experience the eternal love of the Universe quietly and with wonder and hope that one day I can stay there in that "visit with God."

I am not a religious person, but I am a believer in that the Universe is eternal, our souls are eternal, and once we leave the human world, the only force left for us to experience is pure, unconditional, overwhelming love.

While under Ketamine, I think a lot. I think about life, and how nothing of life matters. Even on my 12th treatment, while the medication is still flowing into my arm, I can't imagine ever worrying about anything ever again. I think, "Man! Nothing but love matters. Even death isn't really the end, it's just a slide into the eternal love without the physical fears mucking it all up." But when I'm in MDMA, my mind is almost completely quiet. I think without words. But I only think about one thing. Love. Pure, unconditional, 100% love. I see the faces of my loved ones and I find myself sighing. The facilitator hears me. On my one MDMA treatment, I just kept seeing the faces of everyone I knew, one by one, and feeling...FEELING without words a 100% connection to them. Knowing my facilitator was in the room with me I whispered, "Oh my God. I never want this to end."  She would quietly whisper across the room "It doesn't have to. You can take this feeling with you."  As I experienced the overwhelming joy of being 100% loved, I then said, "I see it now. Love is all there is."    She then whispered back, "Yup."  Then as I experienced even more connection with people I haven't seen in 40 years, some of whom have been long dead and I STILL feel 100% connected to them, I said, "I get it now. We're all going to be okay." I kept saying that because that's exactly how I felt. I knew, at that moment, that all 8.2 Billion souls on the earth are all going to be okay in the end. I just kept saying over and over with joy and peace and confidence. "We're all going to be okay."

After the treatments, 12 Ketamines and 1 MDMA over the course of the past 2 years, I can say that the reason I'm better now is because during my treatments (Which I call, "my visits with God), I didn't just hear the words "we're all connected" and "we're all going to be okay", I experienced them. I describe it now as the difference between learning about Disneyland by reading about it in a book, versus learning about Disneyland by experiencing it for a week.

I'm told that my experiences are about as good as they get, and my facilitators believe that it's because I have already done SO much work on my mental health, and was ready for it. My MDMA facilitator said that the only people she's ever known who had bad experiences were those who had never dealt with their past memories, and when their brains opened up, it shocked them. Me, I've been exploring my brain and my memories for almost 60 years, so I was ripe for the healing.

I may never have to do MDMA again. It is often a once in a lifetime requirement. Like an NDE, a person who dies once, never forgets the experience and is changed for life. However, if I choose to do it again, my facilitator advised I wait a year or so before doing it again because just doing the same thing again might not be worth the money. It's best to give it a chance to wear of before doing it again. Ketamine, however, can be done as often as I want.

If I become suicidal and completely hopeless again, I'll sign up for more Ketamine Infusions. The MDMA was more expensive. Both let me visit "with God" for a while, which stays with me for a long time.

I'm permanently changed by the experiences I've had in both treatments.

Some facilitators do therapy with you while you're under. In both my cases, both my facilitators just let me have my experience. They stayed in the room with me and tended to my comfort and safety. I don't know what it would be like to do therapy while on either medication. It might be fun to try that someday, but for me, if it isn't broken, why fix it? Quiet visits with love and peace and eternity have restored my hope in the future. I'm good.

I do NOT want to harm myself anymore. Knowing that pure love and peace await me after I die does not make me want to hurry it up. It makes me feel more patient, like I can wait 30 more years before entering my deathbed. I now know that the love and peace that awaits us is already here and all I have to do is remember it to feel it.

On most days, around midday, I intentionally lay down on my sofa for a few minutes in the same position I laid in during MDMA. I intentionally call up the images of all the people I love. And I intentionally call up the feeling of love that I experienced during the treatment. I even repeat the words, "Love is all there is" and "We're all going to be okay."  That helps me keep this feeling alive.

Am I cured? Nope. I still EF, and I still panic. I still have massive anxiety when I drive in traffic or hear noises outside my house or watch the news. But somehow, that anxiety isn't as raw. It still hurts, but I now know it's temporary and I'm not quite so tortured by it because I now know that what happens on this earth really is temporary. I now know that my soul is eternal and indestructible. Nobody can hurt my soul. So it's always going to be there and ready for me when the lights go out on this theater stage that we are all play-acting on right now. I now know that what happens to my soul is eternal and completely saturated in unconditional unbounded love. I feel safe waiting for a natural and timely passing. My suicidality is nowhere near as strong as it has always been. I'm not afraid of death, and I'm not afraid of life either. I can live this life out now and go home when it's my proper time to go.

That's how I responded to these medications. Like I said, most people have good experiences, but it's not guaranteed. Talking with a professional before signing up to experience it would be a good idea. A professional might be able to gain a sense of how you'll respond.

[Desert Flower]

Papa Coco, I hear you. I know it's there too. We are all gonna be okay.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, they are beautiful and wonderful and amazing. A great way to start my day.
Thank you so much. 

[Dina]

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, PapaCoco.

I can relate so much to what you are describing after your substance-assisted experiences. Particularly about not wanting to hurt yourself anymore, and about not being cured but knowing that your symptoms are something that will pass.

Your experience sounds so amazing and so peaceful, and I am very happy, that you have found that kind of inner peace within yourself, and with what is. I don't believe in God either, but I do believe we are energy, we come from energy and become energy when we go. I guess part of the peace comes from knowing that we are part of something greater than ourselves, and that we just transform. And we can look at this transformation from many different angles, how our bodies change while we age, the psychological changes we experience with each situation while we grow, even that connection we have with some persons, anyway. I'm divagating a bit here. What I wanted to say is that I'm happy you got to experience that love and connection, and that you were able to take it with you from those treatments.

I've done 2 MDMA-assisted treatments. And it was somehow difficult because of what you described, the parts of my past that I've worked on were easy, the rest shocked me but for me still were good experiences, in the sense that I was able to see myself through the pain and from a different perspective, and that helped to access self-compassion for the first time in my life. I was with a doctor and my psychologist, and they both told me that they could tell that I have been preparing myself to face my past. So, for me it was difficult but not overwhelming, and the outcome was a newfound self-love and self-compassion that I had never experienced before.

You mentioned something about the preparation at a physical level, and I wanted to ask you about the mind level (if you are willing to share of course). Specifically, for the MDMA one, did you do any kind of intention preparation, or did you just go in there open to whatever? Also, besides what you mentioned abut laying in your couch to call up those images again, how are you integrating in your daily life what you experienced? Has it been easy for you to still maintain those practices after the so-called window of neuroplasticity?

I'm sorry for all these questions, but it has been very difficult to find someone who has experienced these substances in a kind of controlled or therapeutic setting, and I'm really curious.

[Papa Coco]

Dina,

It took me a few days to respond because I've been entertaining my two young grandsons for a week. They've gone home now and I'm back on the forum reading the latest responses.

I'm very glad to hear that your two MDMA-assisted treatments were so helpful to you.  It sounds like you did it differently, in that you had a doctor and a therapist in the room with you. That sounds like it was immensely helpful for you. I wonder if I would benefit from doing it like that at least one time.

To answer your questions, I prepared my mind over a long period of time, in that I read about MDMA for years. I've talked with therapists about it. I've talked with my Ketamine administrator about it. Then, when I met my MDMA facilitator, we held 3 each, one-hour long sessions talking about it, working to agree on what I might expect or what I want to get out of it. Then on the day of the treatment, I arrived at 10 AM to the office, where my facilitator did some really cool stuff with me. I'm no stranger to woo-woo stuff, so when she smudged me with burning palo santo wood and had me hold the glass of orange juice with medication in my hand for a bit until I felt totally ready to begin, I felt myself truly, emotionally and spiritually sinking into the best frame of mind to accept whatever was going to come next.  My true intention was not clear to me. I had read so many good things about it, that my truest intention was to blend my inner parts together in any way I could.

To your next question: how do I integrate what I learned into my daily life? I have become far more aware that we are one and that in the end we're all going to be okay. I mention how there's a fundamental difference between believing something versus knowing it. To read about how we are one is good. But it doesn't sink all the way down to the deepest caverns of my heart. Experiencing oneness changes me at the fundamental level. While under Ketamine or MDMA I am 100% sure that we are all one consciousness. Experiencing it moves it from belief to knowing. Knowing something changes our behaviors.  Since the MDMA, I've been able to feel an appreciation for life. Mind you that since the experience, I've read more books, I've talked with more healers. I've practiced more meditations and more Letting Go techniques. I never let myself forget those words, "Love is all there is" and "We're all going to be okay." Those are now the foundation that my house is resting upon. As I learn the techniques of how to let go of old emotions, I think the MDMA experience is giving me the power to believe it can be done, and so it is happening.

I think of it as the same thing that happens to Near-Death-Experiencers who say that the experience changed them profoundly, and nothing has ever been the same since. That's how I feel. As I add new techniques for managing my emotions to what happened on that couch with the MDMA, it is all making more sense to me now, and it's working to bring my disconnected parts back together to work as a team, rather than a hundred disconnected individuals.

If what I said here isn't hitting the mark, please ask again. I want to share what I know with anyone who might benefit from it. Sorry that my answer to the second question was a bit squishy. But if you want me to make another pass at answering, I'm here and ready to try it again.

[Dina]

Thank you, Papacoco for answering my questions!!No need to apologize, and I hope you had a good time with your grandchildren.

I'm now back at the clinic, tomorrow I will do the last preparation meeting and on Tuesday I'll have the 3rd MDMA-assisted session. This time I'm not nervous, and I do not want to direct the experience nor to hold back, both of which I somehow did the last two times, perhaps because I was nervous. This time is different and I have a sense that the result can be free as I let the experience be.

I see how your experience was different to mine, yet I can relate to much of what you have shared. I did have active therapy parts during the time I was under the influence of the mdma, and a great deal of the processing happened there. Integration has been gradual but there has been a major shift for me, and I think it has to do with the experiencing of oneness that you mentioned. 

I love what you said about your intention being to blend your inner parts together in any way you could. If I should aim at anything, I think that's what I will be aiming for as well. In the meantime, I'm doing my meditations, relaxing and letting go.

Once again, I thank you for your openness and willingness to share your experience! 

[Papa Coco]

I'm excited to hear how your 3rd MDMA goes for you.  Good luck with it!

 

Lately I've been thinking about maybe doing another Ketamine Infusion just to keep myself freshly connected with the Love of the Universe. I don't know if I'll do it yet, but the infusions help with my sense of feeling like I need to apologize for being me all the time. When I start to feel myself feeling too much remorse over me just being me, I schedule an infusion. It cures me for good long periods of time.

[Denverite]

@ Dina, I'm eager to read about your experiences with MDMA as well! Each one can be quite different and reveal things you never expect.

@ Papa Coco, does the revelation feel like something you're almost embarrassed to talk about? I had a very similar experience with that medicine; tapping into what seems to be the afterlife. Knowing that it really is all about Love and that it will all be okay. That life nor death are something to be afraid of. I made the mistake of talking about these things with a few of my non-tripping friends and I started getting "the Look," so now I stop. I don't want to be That Guy

I had some time with ketamine. I found it to be very educational and focused on the importance of presence. For now, it's off my radar in favor of MDMA + classic psychs, but I think I could re-integrate it back into my practice one day. Funny how we all intuitively discover what our minds and bodies need.

I've tripped 10 times on MDMA, 5 of those guided. I know for many folks it's a 1 and done thing but I keep being invited back to that space. I visit with it every 2-3 months, which is pretty frequent. But I have my own supply so I don't need to hire $$$$ guides. It's true the more you do it, the less of a "magical explosion" it becomes. But the medicine - my body - my self - God - keeps telling me to come back. I keep being told each time that I'm integrating more deeply despite the "weaker fireworks" because my body was so badly abused as a child it needs the deep calm to reconnect with my mind. That the "fireworks" aren't very important anymore, I just need to heal my mind-body split. That experience I still get every time; the profound ocean of calm that digs up past hurts, shows me their origin, and disintegrates them in its embrace. And lets me be held by God for a few hours.

I've also met "visitors" from beyond. Once I was surrounded by my ancestors. Slaves, princes, queens, and ordinary people. I've always struggled with my black identity because I've never felt "black enough" for people. Yet they sat around me in a circle, black shadows like African art shrouded in a gold light, and I connected with them. Felt their confidence, their wisdom, and peace. Their pride in me, and reminding me that black is what I am, not how I act. Many other times I get "visits" from my mother, apologizing for her part in my C-PTSD and encouraging me. Almost like a guardian angel. I try to remain agnostic about the entire thing but the peace it brings is hard to ignore. Not to mention the lines I sometimes have the presence of mind to write down. The message each time has been the same: "it's all about Love" and "everything is going to be okay." But what's most healing of all is being told that "I'm doing GREAT." Even when I feel like crap, I keep being told how wonderful I'm doing with all this C-PTSD bull     

Such great medicine...

[Chart]

Thanks PapaCoco and everyone on this thread for sharing your experiences, it's really interesting and helpful!

[Papa Coco]

Denverite,

What a powerful response. Thank you so much for being so open about your ancestors being available to you and your mother's apologies.

I haven't been apologized to yet, but I have been visited many times by ancestors who I knew and many whom I didn't know. I've also met, and become very close, with beings that aren't from here. They bring me wisdom and healings and protection. They guide me and tell me where to go next, which book to read next, which practitioner to call next. I'm currently deeply entrenched in practicing letting go of my past. I've learned that thoughts don't feel pain. Memories don't feel pain. Only emotion feels pain. And emotion connects to thoughts and memories, so we think it's the thoughts and memories that hurt, but it's not. It's the emotion that we've connected to them that hurts so badly.

With the help of my ancestors and guides and protectors, I'm learning the process for how to release emotions, which then heals the pain, and releases the memories for their own healing. As I let go of my emotions, I'm healing my memories, which is like healing my past. And once the past is healed totally, the future loses all its fear. The past pain drives the future fear. As the past pain heals, the fear of tomorrow dissipates. My guides have been teaching this to me through physical and spiritual connections combined.

This can be difficult stuff to talk about in a world where many, but not all of us, have experienced a connection to the eternity of the afterlife. Getting "the look" is definitely a deterrent to being too open about our spiritual experiences. I, for one, very much appreciate you opening the door for me to openly admit that I believe in that stuff wholly. Some members of my family, and many of my past friends, come to me a lot. I'm a bit shy about telling people this. But you've given me permission to be open about it here in this thread. I have chills while reading your response.

My therapist who has been seeing patients for nearly 40 years tells me that of all his clients over all his decades of service, the ones with CPTSD are by far the most spiritual. I wonder now, chicken/egg, which comes first? Does trauma drive us into the arms of our ancestors? Or does our spiritual connection make us prone to CPTSD? For now, I'm okay with saying "Entanglement. Neither came first. Both are true."




Also, thank you for your information about the MDMA experiences. It's been 2-1/2 months since my first session. I don't have an supply of my own, so I have to visit the practitioner who charges a good amount of money to do the experience, so I have to balance my emotional health with my cash flow. And I have been kind of worried about the diminishing returns of the medication, but you really explained it well, that the diminishing fireworks doesn't mean it's not helping. I did 12 Ketamine Infusions over the course of two years. Now that you mention it, the same thing happened to me there, in that by the 12th session I didn't feel the "wow factor" anymore, but that last infusion had lasting effects on my emotional health. It didn't feel like it worked, but it did.

Denverite, you've given me permission to start thinking about doing the MDMA a few more times, maybe once a quarter. I apologize to my wife all the time for all the money I spend on my own mental health, but she repeatedly tells me it's not my fault that I'm in so much pain all the time, and that she only wants me to get better. She says, "If it were cancer, would you apologize to me for spending money on chemo?" (Of course, I would, because I apologize to everyone for everything I do that is not for them. I was raised that if I do anything for myself, I'm selfish and unlovable. But I get her point. She loves me and wants me to be healthy and happy. My level of suicidal ideation scares her).

As the chills are still vibrating in my upper back and shoulders, I just want to say it again: thank you for the openness of this response. It's giving me permission to open up more to my ancestors and to my MDMA healing plan. Like Coco says, if it were cancer I'd pay for the chemo. With my suicidal ideation, this CPTSD is as deadly as cancer. So, I should find the money and take the meds.

[Chart]

 

[Denverite]

Denverite, you've given me permission to start thinking about doing the MDMA a few more times, maybe once a quarter. I apologize to my wife all the time for all the money I spend on my own mental health, but she repeatedly tells me it's not my fault that I'm in so much pain all the time, and that she only wants me to get better. She says, "If it were cancer, would you apologize to me for spending money on chemo?" (Of course, I would, because I apologize to everyone for everything I do that is not for them. I was raised that if I do anything for myself, I'm selfish and unlovable. But I get her point. She loves me and wants me to be healthy and happy. My level of suicidal ideation scares her).

Your wife is amazing and she makes an excellent point. Healing is healing, mental or physical. I'm so glad you have someone in your life who provides a loving perspective; as C-PTSD sufferers we all crave that but it's not easy to find. You know, my very first MDMA session addressed that exact issue, funny you bring it up, as I haven't thought about it in a couple of years. I also started to think that maybe I was in so much pain because I was laser-focused on myself and healing...I started to think maybe I was just selfish and the pain was deserved because I'm always thinking about my past and my hurts instead of other people.

But that MDMA session made it clear that healing is as much for other people as it is for me. That only with a full cup do I have anything to share with the world. And I find it to be true; I get days now where my cup is full and the first thing I want to do is share it with others. To connect, listen, and smile at people.

Healing really is for everyone! So I hope you do continue to pursue MDMA as a healing resource. It's just one more tool in the box but it's a potent one.

My therapist who has been seeing patients for nearly 40 years tells me that of all his clients over all his decades of service, the ones with CPTSD are by far the most spiritual. I wonder now, chicken/egg, which comes first? Does trauma drive us into the arms of our ancestors? Or does our spiritual connection make us prone to CPTSD? For now, I'm okay with saying "Entanglement. Neither came first. Both are true.

That's a good question. Chicken or the egg...I think it's probably closer to both are true as well. The sensitivity makes for the deep hurt. Yet it also drives us to address it since we can't ignore the dissonance in our being as others often do. Even as a child, I already saw more than my parents did.

From what I can tell with my work, much of this C-PTSD trauma is generational pain. The legacy of slavery and treating an entire people like animals for centuries. And no one knowing what to do with all of that pain other than unthinkingly continue it down the line. Are you familiar with the founding of Liberia in West Africa? It was founded by American slaves shipped off after Emancipation. They settled in Liberia to start a new country - and promptly enslaved the locals. You'd think they'd know better, but no...

[Chart]

For me, our sensitivity and consciousness is what leads us into spirituality. I think abusers, narcissists, etc have suffered just as much trauma as we have. They are just not conscious of it and have (for whatever reason) sought solace through repetition, just like the Liberians reenacting what they so all too well understood. Only that "understanding" was severely limited. Recognizing we have Cptsd is quite astonishing. Then doing the accounting, as honestly as we possibly can, by analyzing at enormous lengths ourselves, our abusers and even the society around us, is something truly special.

For me (like many here, I think) this process has been coming to know myself on a deeper and deeper level. As I continue to go deeper I cannot but at some point hit spirituality. It is the only logical possibility in trying to comprehend something incomprehensible: why in a universe of love do some persist at all cost to continue to crush and destroy, even with the gift of joy within their reach?

I believe we come to spirituality because we embrace truth above all else. This is the road to enlightenment and it eventually leads to an answer that will bring peace to our tortured bodies and souls.

[Desert Flower]

I think spirituality has had a lot to do with my recovery. If I hadn't already known there is this core within me that is okay, that has not been harmed, that it's 'only' a lot of junk piled up around it that's troubling me, I don't think I would have had the courage to dive in as deep as I'm doing now. And finally looking at the junk for real, and being able to look through it to 'the other side'. Thank you for pointing this out.

[Desert Flower]

Maybe some of you will find this interesting too:

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/anesthesia-super-dream-technique-seems-to-soothe-ptsd/

[Chart]

I think spirituality has had a lot to do with my recovery. If I hadn't already known there is this core within me that is okay, that has not been harmed, that it's 'only' a lot of junk piled up around it that's troubling me, I don't think I would have had the courage to dive in as deep as I'm doing now.

DF, this is exactly what my therapist has been working with me on! (among other things ) She actually recorded an audio tutorial on this subject: our indestructible and eternal "core". See my post from August 25th on the subject:
https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15964.msg146114#msg146114

The audio tutorial shows how to visit our core/center/spark and spend time there communicating with our parts and/or healing and resourcing.

It's in French but she's asked my help doing an English version. When it's done I'm gonna start a thread and post the link.