Jane, what the heck does that mean?
Jane’s answer: “I didn’t know myself until I took a small dose of ketamine and found myself plummeted back into a dream I had had the night before.” (Ketamine is a dissociative “psychedelic” and is accessible legally through the appropriate medical channels. It is often prescribed for individuals with depression, anxiety and other symptoms of PTSD. Most of you are aware that you can use it in clinical settings where it is administered in high doses under the care of a prescribing physician. But some of you may not know that it is also available for home use as an alternative to anti-depressant medication. In fact, one benefit of Ketamine compared to other psychedelics is you don’t have to get off your SSRI’s to use it.Because it awakens portions of the brain that have been shut down due to symptoms of anxiety, depression and trauma, it has the capacity to take people deep into areas of the psyche that are typically difficult to access. For more information on Ketamine and how to use it and obtain it, I list a few excellent resources below.)
Because Ketamine is a dissociative psychedelic it can be utilized in small doses to dissolve armor or ego defenses in order to access unconscious material typically difficult to access on one’s own. My favorite use of it is in the interpretation of dreams. Because Ketamine produces a dream-like state in and of itself, it can be utilized to enhance our awareness of our dreaming states. Instead of trying to analyze or interpret our night-time dreams, my preferred way of working with dreams is always to re-enter the dream (as if it were a portal to another dimension) and ask the dream what it wants of me. In this way, similar to Jungian techniques that engage the active imagination, we can work with our unconscious in surprising and informative ways. I do this regularly to track my unconscious, in order to receive messages that are not available to my conscious mind. This method has served me well and has guided me through many difficult twists and turns of my life.
But let’s get back to the baby in a box. That night I had had a dream in which I was watching a woman taking care of a baby in a shoebox. She was very involved in covering the baby up with all sorts of trinkets, artsy looking things and otherwise what one might call “junk.” I woke up with no idea what the heck the dream was about. In fact, it was so inaccessible, I tossed it off to the side of my psyche with a shrug and went on with my life.
Later in the day, I was hanging out with some friends and we decided to try a small bit of ketamine together to explore our intentions for the New Year.
What happened next surprised the heck out of me! About 30 minutes into the “high” of the medicine, I found myself literally jumping through the portal of the dream, jumping into the shoebox, grabbing the baby and jumping back out of the dream portal. Holding the baby close to my heart I found myself yelling at the woman who had been tending to this baby in the shoe box, “What the heck! What are you doing! Why are you keeping this baby in a box?” She looked up at me stunned, as if I had broken a trance she was in. She had no idea what I was talking about and couldn’t care less.
As I contemplated my intense reaction, I was surprised by the fact that it had never occurred to me at all to rescue the baby before that dose of Ketamine, I was struck by how powerful the imagery was. And how clear it was an answer to the intentions I had set for myself as to the focus and intentions for 2022.
For some it might have appeared as a personal act of courage to rescue my own inner baby from the trance and numbness of a dissociated caregiver who was busy covering the baby up with trinkets to make her life in a box look pretty and appealing. Yes! That is true, but for me, it was also so much more. It represented the focus on my life’s work: rescuing the many of our innocent inner children who are weighted under a life of unimportant trinkets and objects keeping us locked in a box of our personal and collective unconscious making.
Ketamine helped me see so clearly something I could not even attempt to understand before.
And it didn’t take much. It was a small dose of Ketamine that I easily got from a nurse practitioner in Oregon who prescribes this medicine for many of my clients as well as the clients of others.
Ketamine can be a powerful assist to therapy, and with so many trainings available for its use, no wonder more and more therapists are turning to KAP to help their clients uncover blocks that are keeping them stuck.
Here is an excellent video of Ketamine’s use with Internal Family Systems (IFS). ,
I am now offering KAP (Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy) which includes past life, dreamwork, spiritual and IFS for those of you interested in penetrating the depths of your unconscious for stepping into the life you were meant to live here on planet earth! Please feel free to contact me here for further information.
Here are some further Resources: (So much more is available on YouTube)