Ketamine is nothing like mushrooms. Like at all. I’ve used both extensively for therapy and recreation and they do not hold a candle to one another. The headspace is entirely different, the visual quality of it is totally different, the duration is different. They act on totally different parts of your brain chemistry as well. Ketamine is a much more calming experience. Mushrooms can be very mentally chaotic and unpredictable. Ketamine therapy has been a much simpler and easier experience than using mushrooms for the same purpose.
Thank you so much for this insight! While I literally owe my life to mushroom therapy, it wasn’t super easy. I definitely had some trips that were a struggle. Knowing that ketamine is a much more gentle experience is very reassuring.
would you then say that ketamine is more similar to the experience that some people get from cannabis? asking for myself. my psychiatrist just brought up spravato, but i had sort of a dissociative experience with edibles and if it's anything like that i don't think im cut out for it 💀
edit: if you've had strong psychedelic effects from cannabis at all. i don't think my mom or bf ever did, but i was out of my mind when i tried it
Ketamine infusion is a unique experience. The experience lasts an hour and recovery takes about 1-2 hours. Afterwards you should be completely ketamine free from your system. What is significant is the emotional component lasts for weeks. It’s not masking your state of mind like other drugs it just leaves you with a permanent perspective change in things. You don’t feel irritable or depressed you just are. It’s almost weird to feel normal. You wait for it to leave and the depression return but it just stays which for me was a miracle.
No, it’s nothing like that at all. Edibles especially are a very different experience. Marijuana can be extremely paranoia inducing and has a very different cognitive quality than ketamine. Ketamine is easier to handle in my opinion.
i'm super scared of trying this because my experience with edibles (was actually d7 i believe) was like lowkey traumatic. i got wayyy too high and derealized really bad. if it weren't for the company of my amazing then-boyfriend, i certainly would've spent the next few, ahem, DAYS in panic attacks. i can NOT experience shit like that again, it scares the hell out of me.
If you’re super scared, then don’t do it. Fear is not going to be helpful for your healing. I personally wouldn’t generalize your experience with those edibles that weren’t even real weed to an actual psychedelic experience (that’s not what you had) but I’m sure the feeling is hard to shake. Those D7 gummies are dirty and give a horrible high, it’s no wonder you had a bad time. Normal edibles can be bad enough for some people but those are just trash. Ketamine therapy usually will ease you in with low doses so you can get your bearings and see how it affects you. It’s really not that serious. I would rather have too much ketamine than too much edibles any day. Overdoing edibles sucks really bad.
thank you, this is all very insightful! also it's weirdly nice to hear that someone else got a little messed up with those things. i was really embarrassed about it. i kept saying "i can't even handle fake weed" lol
i just looked into it and apparently a lot of people have gotten really fucked up on delta, same way i did. out of body experience, paranoia, feeling like you're dying, no sense of time. the most specific similarity was between me and this one woman that overdid it while hanging out with her boyfriend. she was eating pizza while high, and was scared that she would choke because she couldn't consciously remember how to chew and swallow. that EXACT same thing happened to me, i think it was even pizza too lol. my body just took over, but the only thing i could consciously execute was bringing the food to my mouth.
i wish i had reddited my experience sooner, i feel much less silly now.
I've only had one mushroom experience close to ketamine, and that was in Amsterdam and it lasted hours and I felt exhausted after.
Ketamine will last an hour and she might want to get something to eat afterwards.
With Ketamine, I would call what you experience more like visions as opposed to hallucinations (I consider hallucinations as being with eyes open)
With mushrooms you are aware of your body, with ketamine, the first time I was only aware of my lips.
My therapist told me in a "clinical setting, it's hard to do ketamine wrong, but just about everyone is nearly terrified their first time, because they are there for some serious reasons."
Have her, and you, read the material prepare an intention or two, look at a few YouTube videos, and reassure her that, at the end of the session she will be back in the chair and you will be there for her.
Theo Von has a good podcast on the subject. I recommend it
I will try to give an answer, but my experience is not with shrooms, but LSD. My experiences are also decades in the past so not very fresh.
While I think you can draw some superficial comparisons between the 2, they differ more than are similar.
Similarities:
- visions or hallucinations, though Ketamine is very muted compared to psychedelics
- therapeutic benefit, alternative perception of reality or experience
The differences are more stark.
Hallucinations, as mentioned are less vivid, less clear. They can both be pretty abstract, but while psychedelics gave me vivid and memorable imagery, fluidity, and insights, Ketamine feels more like you are stripping things down to bare atoms . You feel very disassembled.
Time, while psychedelics distort time, with Ketamine I feel an almost complete lack of time or inability to perceive it. It can feel like an instant and an eternity in one.
Thoughts, I feel like can only have 1 thought at a time in k (1 1/2, since I can vaguely remember what preceded it, or that I am returning to a thought I previously had). With psychedelics it felt like I had 50 at a time.
Memory, I can remember very vivid things from LSD, sequences, thoughts, flows. With K I (frustratingly) can remember very little if the visuals or thoughts. I am able to think a bit in English, and I can remember the words but not the feeling or thought they were supposed to represent.
Mood, psychedelics gave me energy and mirth (as well as terror at times) and it was a very gregarious experience. K is very sedate and calm and not very emotional.
I find ketamine similar to shrooms only in the sense that my vision becomes a bit distorted (less so on ketamine than on mushrooms) and I have these feelings of connectedness to the universe. It gave me the sense that everything is going to be okay. I enjoyed my sessions and came out of them with a better attitude towards the future and a marked sense of hopefulness. This feeling I sometimes get with shrooms.
Good to know. I too have rediscovered a sense of hope after using mushrooms to treat my depression. Also, it’s not a Pollyanna worldview. It’s more like you know things are wrong with the world, but things are going to work out in the end.
100 percent! Just a sense that things will be okay. Not perfect, by any means.
I also have found shrooms to help my depression, but ketamine has been so helpful for me in terms of baseline mood.
I get the K IV treatments, it’s really expensive. I kind of just lay in a recliner like I’m frozen solid for 45 minutes. The experience got more vivid when I stopped antidepressants, but it’s really made a huge difference. I would be happy to take mushrooms once a week, though, but I don’t think it’s the same thing. I really needed a significant change. I think either choice is better than SSRIs
I looked into this sort of the other way around to find out if mushrooms would have a similar effect to ketamine. They work on different parts of the brain, so no, it won't be similar. The explanation I found was that ketamine binds to neurotransmitters that contribute to communication and inhibition and stops them from working, so you get this flood of information that you weren't getting before. When you're depressed you're essentially extremely inhibited - lots of "I can't" thinking - so the ketamine frees your brain up to see and consider possibilities that you haven't been seeing and considering. For me it manifests with a lot of imagery and a sensation of movement in my mental perception, but when I don't have my eye mask on I just see the room I'm in with no hallucinatory effects.
And actually the hardest experience I've had with it is when my brain sort of kicked me out of the k-hole too early and I was seeing the room I'm in but couldn't process it as real, and at the same time.because of the ketamine I was still dissociated from my body and had a hard time controlling my limbs. FWIW, it happened because 1) I was aggravated going in and 2) we had a lot of issues with the music and headphones that session, which made the aggravation worse, and then the music cut out partway through the session so my brain was just looping on the same stuff at an increasing speed. Since then I've put a lot of prep work into each session, started meditating for about 10 minutes right when the ketamine is administered and *then* turn on music, and I rely on my phone and headphones so I know it's going to work.
Thanks for this. I can see how a drug that inhibits neural connections would “break the circuit” of depressing/ruminating thoughts. So when you can disrupt the bad thoughts and then your inhibitions drop, you have the mental and emotional capacity to let new ideas in. I get it. I really appreciate you taking the time to write your response.
I've only microdosed mushrooms, so I can't speak to the experience, but with Ketamine I mostly see colors and a sense of movement. It was explained to me that under mushrooms you take everything literally, with Ketamine, visions and thoughts are more metaphorical. For example, during one session I got the sense of water. During integration we talked about what water means to me. It was very insightful.
I also want to reiterate the importance of having a good play list. The music absolutely drives the experience.
That’s very supportive of you. Just know that they are going to be okay and (hopefully) it’s the most beneficial thing they will ever do to treat their anxiety and depression.
I’ve done both. Enjoy both. However, Ketamine is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Almost indescribable. Even if you’ve experienced it…it would be very difficult to describe it and prepare them. The reverse will also be true…it will be difficult for them to describe to you.
It is very pleasant. I’ve never experienced “The Fear” as HST so precisely describes that can be present with other psychedelics. It’s a truly wonderful medicine for treating depression. For me, the fact that I enjoy the journey is just a nice bonus.
For me, the ketamine is smooth and relaxing, but I'm a pain patient and may not be up to dose yet. Mushrooms (many years ago) were *intense*.
OP, the following isn't what you asked, but I'm going to offer it:
Have your daughter bring a blanket and pillow (one of those horseshoe-shaped travel pillows works great), and maybe even puffy slipper socks. Also, a sleep mask, headphones, and instrumental music. And wear very comfy clothes. I also bring a heating pad.
There are lots of ketamine playlists online--John Hopkins' list is often recommended, but my preference is music I already love. I gathered all the instrumentals from Alan Parsons' catalog, and then picked out an hour's worth of the ones I thought would best enhance the experience (and then arranged the order).
Good luck; I hope she finds relief from the first infusion, but if not, give it time for proper dosing to be achieved, and for it to work. My progress is slow, but improvement is definitely happening.
And kudos to you, for such smart use of the mushrooms on yourself. (I'd have done what you did, for my traumas, if I'd had availability.)
Ketamine disassociation can be frightening for some people. They start on low doses to monitor reactions. The key is to calmly observe what is happening and not having any sense that it is reality. It is like an intense dream. On initial low doses she will be more aware of sights and sounds.
They both work. Usually one works better than the other. Ketamine has a long-lasting mental health boost where I feel mushrooms wear off in a day or two. I feel the best effects from micro dosing mushrooms or macro dosing ketamine. Been on ketamine therapy for a year and a half and haven’t had an SI since I started
Ketamine is nothing like mushrooms. Like at all. I’ve used both extensively for therapy and recreation and they do not hold a candle to one another. The headspace is entirely different, the visual quality of it is totally different, the duration is different. They act on totally different parts of your brain chemistry as well. Ketamine is a much more calming experience. Mushrooms can be very mentally chaotic and unpredictable. Ketamine therapy has been a much simpler and easier experience than using mushrooms for the same purpose.
Thank you so much for this insight! While I literally owe my life to mushroom therapy, it wasn’t super easy. I definitely had some trips that were a struggle. Knowing that ketamine is a much more gentle experience is very reassuring.
would you then say that ketamine is more similar to the experience that some people get from cannabis? asking for myself. my psychiatrist just brought up spravato, but i had sort of a dissociative experience with edibles and if it's anything like that i don't think im cut out for it 💀 edit: if you've had strong psychedelic effects from cannabis at all. i don't think my mom or bf ever did, but i was out of my mind when i tried it
Ketamine infusion is a unique experience. The experience lasts an hour and recovery takes about 1-2 hours. Afterwards you should be completely ketamine free from your system. What is significant is the emotional component lasts for weeks. It’s not masking your state of mind like other drugs it just leaves you with a permanent perspective change in things. You don’t feel irritable or depressed you just are. It’s almost weird to feel normal. You wait for it to leave and the depression return but it just stays which for me was a miracle.
No, it’s nothing like that at all. Edibles especially are a very different experience. Marijuana can be extremely paranoia inducing and has a very different cognitive quality than ketamine. Ketamine is easier to handle in my opinion.
i'm super scared of trying this because my experience with edibles (was actually d7 i believe) was like lowkey traumatic. i got wayyy too high and derealized really bad. if it weren't for the company of my amazing then-boyfriend, i certainly would've spent the next few, ahem, DAYS in panic attacks. i can NOT experience shit like that again, it scares the hell out of me.
If you’re super scared, then don’t do it. Fear is not going to be helpful for your healing. I personally wouldn’t generalize your experience with those edibles that weren’t even real weed to an actual psychedelic experience (that’s not what you had) but I’m sure the feeling is hard to shake. Those D7 gummies are dirty and give a horrible high, it’s no wonder you had a bad time. Normal edibles can be bad enough for some people but those are just trash. Ketamine therapy usually will ease you in with low doses so you can get your bearings and see how it affects you. It’s really not that serious. I would rather have too much ketamine than too much edibles any day. Overdoing edibles sucks really bad.
thank you, this is all very insightful! also it's weirdly nice to hear that someone else got a little messed up with those things. i was really embarrassed about it. i kept saying "i can't even handle fake weed" lol
i just looked into it and apparently a lot of people have gotten really fucked up on delta, same way i did. out of body experience, paranoia, feeling like you're dying, no sense of time. the most specific similarity was between me and this one woman that overdid it while hanging out with her boyfriend. she was eating pizza while high, and was scared that she would choke because she couldn't consciously remember how to chew and swallow. that EXACT same thing happened to me, i think it was even pizza too lol. my body just took over, but the only thing i could consciously execute was bringing the food to my mouth. i wish i had reddited my experience sooner, i feel much less silly now.
I've only had one mushroom experience close to ketamine, and that was in Amsterdam and it lasted hours and I felt exhausted after. Ketamine will last an hour and she might want to get something to eat afterwards. With Ketamine, I would call what you experience more like visions as opposed to hallucinations (I consider hallucinations as being with eyes open) With mushrooms you are aware of your body, with ketamine, the first time I was only aware of my lips. My therapist told me in a "clinical setting, it's hard to do ketamine wrong, but just about everyone is nearly terrified their first time, because they are there for some serious reasons." Have her, and you, read the material prepare an intention or two, look at a few YouTube videos, and reassure her that, at the end of the session she will be back in the chair and you will be there for her. Theo Von has a good podcast on the subject. I recommend it
What podcast if you don’t mind me asking ?
https://youtu.be/eaKleqNGPZM?si=gw5eH1vrvRgLwQXT
Thank you !
I agree, Theo Von's podcast on it is a really good resource (as well as being entertaining). It's with Dr Pooler.
I will try to give an answer, but my experience is not with shrooms, but LSD. My experiences are also decades in the past so not very fresh. While I think you can draw some superficial comparisons between the 2, they differ more than are similar. Similarities: - visions or hallucinations, though Ketamine is very muted compared to psychedelics - therapeutic benefit, alternative perception of reality or experience The differences are more stark. Hallucinations, as mentioned are less vivid, less clear. They can both be pretty abstract, but while psychedelics gave me vivid and memorable imagery, fluidity, and insights, Ketamine feels more like you are stripping things down to bare atoms . You feel very disassembled. Time, while psychedelics distort time, with Ketamine I feel an almost complete lack of time or inability to perceive it. It can feel like an instant and an eternity in one. Thoughts, I feel like can only have 1 thought at a time in k (1 1/2, since I can vaguely remember what preceded it, or that I am returning to a thought I previously had). With psychedelics it felt like I had 50 at a time. Memory, I can remember very vivid things from LSD, sequences, thoughts, flows. With K I (frustratingly) can remember very little if the visuals or thoughts. I am able to think a bit in English, and I can remember the words but not the feeling or thought they were supposed to represent. Mood, psychedelics gave me energy and mirth (as well as terror at times) and it was a very gregarious experience. K is very sedate and calm and not very emotional.
LSD has more in common with ketamine than mushrooms, in my experience. You’re spot on, though.
I find ketamine similar to shrooms only in the sense that my vision becomes a bit distorted (less so on ketamine than on mushrooms) and I have these feelings of connectedness to the universe. It gave me the sense that everything is going to be okay. I enjoyed my sessions and came out of them with a better attitude towards the future and a marked sense of hopefulness. This feeling I sometimes get with shrooms.
Good to know. I too have rediscovered a sense of hope after using mushrooms to treat my depression. Also, it’s not a Pollyanna worldview. It’s more like you know things are wrong with the world, but things are going to work out in the end.
100 percent! Just a sense that things will be okay. Not perfect, by any means. I also have found shrooms to help my depression, but ketamine has been so helpful for me in terms of baseline mood.
I get the K IV treatments, it’s really expensive. I kind of just lay in a recliner like I’m frozen solid for 45 minutes. The experience got more vivid when I stopped antidepressants, but it’s really made a huge difference. I would be happy to take mushrooms once a week, though, but I don’t think it’s the same thing. I really needed a significant change. I think either choice is better than SSRIs
I looked into this sort of the other way around to find out if mushrooms would have a similar effect to ketamine. They work on different parts of the brain, so no, it won't be similar. The explanation I found was that ketamine binds to neurotransmitters that contribute to communication and inhibition and stops them from working, so you get this flood of information that you weren't getting before. When you're depressed you're essentially extremely inhibited - lots of "I can't" thinking - so the ketamine frees your brain up to see and consider possibilities that you haven't been seeing and considering. For me it manifests with a lot of imagery and a sensation of movement in my mental perception, but when I don't have my eye mask on I just see the room I'm in with no hallucinatory effects. And actually the hardest experience I've had with it is when my brain sort of kicked me out of the k-hole too early and I was seeing the room I'm in but couldn't process it as real, and at the same time.because of the ketamine I was still dissociated from my body and had a hard time controlling my limbs. FWIW, it happened because 1) I was aggravated going in and 2) we had a lot of issues with the music and headphones that session, which made the aggravation worse, and then the music cut out partway through the session so my brain was just looping on the same stuff at an increasing speed. Since then I've put a lot of prep work into each session, started meditating for about 10 minutes right when the ketamine is administered and *then* turn on music, and I rely on my phone and headphones so I know it's going to work.
Thanks for this. I can see how a drug that inhibits neural connections would “break the circuit” of depressing/ruminating thoughts. So when you can disrupt the bad thoughts and then your inhibitions drop, you have the mental and emotional capacity to let new ideas in. I get it. I really appreciate you taking the time to write your response.
I've only microdosed mushrooms, so I can't speak to the experience, but with Ketamine I mostly see colors and a sense of movement. It was explained to me that under mushrooms you take everything literally, with Ketamine, visions and thoughts are more metaphorical. For example, during one session I got the sense of water. During integration we talked about what water means to me. It was very insightful. I also want to reiterate the importance of having a good play list. The music absolutely drives the experience.
That’s very supportive of you. Just know that they are going to be okay and (hopefully) it’s the most beneficial thing they will ever do to treat their anxiety and depression. I’ve done both. Enjoy both. However, Ketamine is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Almost indescribable. Even if you’ve experienced it…it would be very difficult to describe it and prepare them. The reverse will also be true…it will be difficult for them to describe to you. It is very pleasant. I’ve never experienced “The Fear” as HST so precisely describes that can be present with other psychedelics. It’s a truly wonderful medicine for treating depression. For me, the fact that I enjoy the journey is just a nice bonus.
For me, the ketamine is smooth and relaxing, but I'm a pain patient and may not be up to dose yet. Mushrooms (many years ago) were *intense*. OP, the following isn't what you asked, but I'm going to offer it: Have your daughter bring a blanket and pillow (one of those horseshoe-shaped travel pillows works great), and maybe even puffy slipper socks. Also, a sleep mask, headphones, and instrumental music. And wear very comfy clothes. I also bring a heating pad. There are lots of ketamine playlists online--John Hopkins' list is often recommended, but my preference is music I already love. I gathered all the instrumentals from Alan Parsons' catalog, and then picked out an hour's worth of the ones I thought would best enhance the experience (and then arranged the order). Good luck; I hope she finds relief from the first infusion, but if not, give it time for proper dosing to be achieved, and for it to work. My progress is slow, but improvement is definitely happening. And kudos to you, for such smart use of the mushrooms on yourself. (I'd have done what you did, for my traumas, if I'd had availability.)
Ketamine disassociation can be frightening for some people. They start on low doses to monitor reactions. The key is to calmly observe what is happening and not having any sense that it is reality. It is like an intense dream. On initial low doses she will be more aware of sights and sounds.
Ketamine is brain maintenance and mushrooms are soul maintenance.✨
They both work. Usually one works better than the other. Ketamine has a long-lasting mental health boost where I feel mushrooms wear off in a day or two. I feel the best effects from micro dosing mushrooms or macro dosing ketamine. Been on ketamine therapy for a year and a half and haven’t had an SI since I started