- seCtIon FIVe: BoRDeRLAnDs
In a study comparing frequent, infrequent, and ex-users, two-thirds described
the most appealing aspects of ketamine as ‘melting into the surroundings’, ‘visual
hallucinations’, ‘out-of-body experiences’, and ‘giggliness’ (Muetzelfeldt et al.,
2008). Less appealing were worries about ‘memory loss’, ‘decreased sociability’,
and addiction (see also C. Morgan and Curran, 2011). People taking ketamine in
experimental settings are more susceptible to the rubber-hand illusion in which
you feel a fake hand is your own (H. Morgan et al., 2011; see Chapter 4), and
many report bodily distortions: ‘My hands look small, but the fingers are really
long’, said one; another remarked, ‘My legs look very big and funny shaped, like
another person’s’ (Pomarol-Clotet et al., 2006; see also Curran and C. Morgan,
2000). Sometimes these changes in the body schema progress to illusory move-
ments or to out-of-body feelings (Wilkins, Girard, and Cheyne, 2012). And in
high doses, there is the famous ‘K-hole’, an experience of extreme dissociation,
derealisation, bodily dissolution, and, in many cases, out-of-body or near-death
experiences (Chapter 15). Described as anything from a place of extreme horror
to the best time ever, the K-hole is sought by some and feared by others.
On the theory that you can often learn about something by switching it on and
off, Richard Gregory (1986) chose an intravenous infusion of ketamine as a way
to explore the switching-off of consciousness. Under controlled conditions in
the laboratory, he was shown ambiguous figures, random dot stereograms, and
words to read, as well as many other tests. The walls began to move; he heard
a loud buzzing noise; he felt unreal and floating, as though he were in another
world like a bubble full of bright colours and shapes. He even experienced syn-
aesthesia for the only time in his life when he felt the bristles of a brush as orange,
green, and red. Interesting as this was, the whole experience was deeply unpleas-
ant for Gregory. He concluded that he had learned little about consciousness and
had no enthusiasm for repeating the experience.
Sue’s attempts to induce an out-of-body experience with ketamine were far more
pleasant. She had a dose just below anaesthetic level injected intravenously in
a pleasant and relaxing environment. ‘I am lying back in some yielding, flowing
softness [. . .]. I seem to be disintegrating, falling apart into separate pieces and
then into nothing at all. Then back together and flying’ (Blackmore, 1992, p. 273).
Despite these interesting sensations, she concluded that it was very different from
spontaneous out-of-body experiences (Blackmore, 2017). The physicist Richard
Feynman, who experimented with tiny doses of ketamine taken in an isolation
tank, reported that it made him feel as though he were an inch to one side, and
that with practice he could move down inside or further away from his own body,
until ‘everything else was exactly the same as normal, only my ego was sitting
outside, “observing” all this’ (Feynman and Leighton, 1985, p. 333).
Ketamine is also used in different settings as a sacred or therapeutic drug. It is
then as much a psychedelic as an anaesthetic, used to explore the grand ques-
tions of birth, life, and death (Jansen, 2001). Gregory’s unpleasant experience in
the laboratory illustrates how important set (or state of mind) and setting (envi-
ronment) are in establishing the effects of psychoactive drugs.
PSYCHEDELICS
The effects of drugs in this group are so strange and varied that there is no firm
agreement even over their name. We have called them psychedelics, meaning
