I embarked on a mystical journey through the very fabric of life itself. Currently, I sit with the acknowledgement of the interconnectedness of all things and am recognizing that life and death, creation and destruction are part of a continuous sacred flow. The inherent paradox that comes with living life—my post-modern, kaleidoscope journey is teaching me to lean into to the paradox. Just as blood sustains the body, my mystical, spiritual journey feels like an invitation to align with life sustaining, divine energies. It’s so personal, so intimate. I am filled with gratitude & forever changed.
by: TLC’s resident clinical chaplain, Jude O’Higgins, Ph.D.
My Most Recent Ketamine Journey was Transformational
I recently came back from a five-day ketamine experiential training in Portland. Many of us at TLC brush up on our professional skill sets often. We do this so our clients receive cutting-edge techniques and healing tools—this was the intent of my training, and it did not disappoint.
I was excited and a bit nervous, typically because I do not do a lot of medicine work—at least not as much lately as I have done in the past. Currently, I prefer drum or sonic induction when it comes to my own personal psychedelic experiences. However, as I continue to grow and train in my focused specialty—multidimensional integration—I was excited to have recent psychedelic experiences that I could work with in terms of applying techniques around multi-dimensional integration. I was anxious to see if the tools I had been learning, when put to use with my own ketamine experiences, would be effective.
A few of the regular participants in our TLC drum journey group seem to think our experiences together are effective (probably why they come consistently). It is the case that sometimes I offer the drum journey participants individual questions around their journeys to ponder for continued integration, but I honestly don’t know if they are of any use.
It’s probably my science background, but I wanted to generate my own empirical data in order to determine if the integration techniques I have learned and am perfecting are effective, so I decided to hyper-focus on the integrational aspect of my training, and really dive in. I suppose, I was my own guinea pig. We had two days of an actual journey experience and two days as an active psychedelic therapist for our partners. I have only been able to integrate one of my journeys to the level at which I am comfortable discussing. So that is the one I will discuss in this post. My focus is on my IM experience and associated journey. And this was my experience.
Fairly soon after I received my injection, I felt my body begin to tingle all over (which is typical). I had my eyeshades on, my partner/therapist was by my side, and I was on a comfortable mat with blankets, so I felt completely safe and ready for take-off. I had nothing to do but sink into the experience and trust my unconscious to bring forward the metaphorical messages I needed for my awareness as I continue in my personal healing journey.
I think it’s important to state here that we are all continuously healing—there is no finish line to holistic health, and while at times that has felt daunting to me, it is also very freeing—and so I continue.
I will spare you details of my entire journey, but suffice it to say that it was amazing, and I’m happy to share major insights. I entitled it: “My Postmodern Kaleidoscope Adventure,” and if I had to give it a season (which we sometimes do to help with integration), I would say it was a summer journey because everything felt as if it was in full bloom.
There were times in this journey where I felt incredibly frustrated. We were in a large room, with many people journeying at the same time. It was also the case that we were invited to be vocal or move arms or legs if we felt the need. This meant that our environment had a higher than typical type of energy—at times it was loud, and the voices and movements of others pulled me out of my own journey, or it seemed that with each new sound, I moved into a different realm in my journey space. Sometimes, it felt fine to go with this flow, but at other times, I felt as if I missed out on some messages or visuals I was on the verge of receiving. ‘
Most times, I felt as if I was journeying with everyone in the room, and indeed I was. It took me some time to recognize the importance of this particular experience as a significant message for my growth, and it took dedicated integration to make sense of it. I am sure more information will come with additional time and integration, but for now, here is what I learned.
The larger message of my journey was this: I am you, you are me, and we are all one—we are the same individual having different life experiences. I also realized that I need to be able to maintain my own centeredness and connection to source no matter how chaotic the external environment. For me, this means that I must get back into my committed daily practice of meditation and ritual each morning. This is something that I aspire to do every day, but sometimes I just don’t follow through. Especially lately, I have let it slide for a number of reasons. I think this wave of commitment to a meditative practice is typical—we are all human. And while I am not shaming myself, or even really being hard on myself for this slide, my journey was an important reminder that my meditative and spiritual ritual practice are things that keep me grounded, strong, and solid in this chaotic world.
Using Prose and Visual Art Can Be a Powerful Way to Integrate a Ketamine Journey
Let me share with you what I did to integrate the smaller part of my journey that I think led to a bigger breakthrough regarding the overall message.
- I titled my journey: My Postmodern Kaleidoscope Adventure
- I gave it a season: Summer.
- I wrote a poem or prose that detailed my experience (read below).
- I created a collage art card that summarized an aspect of my overall experience. The card is not exactly the visuals I was having because I didn’t have the necessary magazine images that would allow me to create a kaleidoscope type visual (so we work with what we have), but it still worked in that it allowed me to be able to integrate the larger aspect of my journey (see image below).
Above is the image I created, and below is the prose I wrote following my journey:
Meeting the Golden Buddha and Floating in the Red River of Blood
I dissolve into the experience,
the boundaries of my body fading into the vastness around me.
Colors meld into shapes of people—
but whose memories do they hold? Who are these figures, and what is this shifting world?
I met a giant, suspended in golden light,
a Golden Buddha whose presence stretched beyond my senses.
He held a silence heavy with truths I couldn’t grasp,
truths beyond reach.
He descended toward me,
was he coming to whisper,
or were we to merge and float in a sacred golden sea?
I’ll never know the secret that lingered above me,
a murmur in the folds of the universe that remains distant,
because the noise in the room pulled me toward a new path in this space.
My unresolved feelings—still present, even now.
The Golden Buddha falling toward me—
a metaphor I must now learn to carry, and integrate.
From his presence, I sank deeper still.
I became liquid,
flowing through rivers alive with blood,
each cell warm and vital,
each heartbeat a movement that drew me inward.
I swam through the crimson darkness,
my own flesh trembling with each pulse,
a current that led me to timeless places,
where space itself felt like a distant memory.
I was the blood,
the pulse,
the fire within—
the tiny vessels swirling,
each holding life, each a fragile existence.
I descended, unmoored from myself,
into a realm where boundaries blur,
where the edges of being flicker and shift like a kaleidoscope.
A vastness unfolded—
a web of color and light,
meaningless and yet profound.
I was not separate, nor whole,
but part of a pulse too great to fathom.
A thought, a whisper emerged,
coursing through living tissue,
intertwining with the ancient flow—
was I the breath of the body,
or just a vessel carried by its tides?
In the rhythm of my inner world,
I find all that was, and all that will be—
a song sung by unseen forces that weave existence together.
And still, the Buddha waits.
His golden presence distant,
yet I feel him at the back of my throat,
like a secret that cannot be swallowed.
I rise from the depths,
carrying something I can’t name.
The journey persists,
the unsaid secret,
the silence louder than anything I’ve known.
Rising, unsure if I’ve found myself
or lost myself entirely.
The question of breath remains,
unanswered, untouched,
as the Buddha’s presence swirls in my mind—
a secret held,
a truth, currently, too vast to grasp.
This initial message of my journey came to me through these means as I focused on a shorter, specific piece of my journey. I don’t know if it would have been an easier integrative process if I had taken the larger journey and worked with it first, or if working with this smaller piece was more beneficial. I do know that in doing it this way, I was able to see the larger message, and it came through after focusing on smaller aspects.
I plan to continue my integration process by working with the season of my journey as I experienced it, and then I will use specific questions regarding a summer journey as I continue to integrate. If you are interested in learning more about ketamine journeying and integration and our unique holistic protocol around this transformational medicine, please call us at 385-272-4292.
Written by Jude O’Higgins, Ph.D., Psychedelic Clinical Chaplain at The Lotus Center
