"Euphoric Nothingness:" The Dichotomy of Dissociation & Healing

Here, we examine the paradoxical healing potential of ketamine and other dissociative drugs, and how to approach them as the double-edged sword they are.

Ketamine therapy is all the rage these days. It’s one of the fastest-growing segments of psychedelic-assisted therapy and one of the biggest innovations in the way we treat depression in over 50 years.

Ketamine is classified as a dissociative drug — which means it has the ability to “disconnect” or “dissociate” you from yourself and from the world around you.

There are 2 main aspects of the dissociative state:

1. Depersonalization — This involves feeling as though one is an outside observer of their own thoughts, feelings, body, or actions. People often feel as though they’re in a dream.

2. Derealization — This involves experiencing the world around you as unreal. Surroundings may seem blurry, colorless, two-dimensional, artificial, or surreal. Perception of time, distance, and the size of objects may change or feel disproportionate.

Explaining the dissociative state is no easy task. Language itself often proves insufficient for describing these kinds of experiences.

Here are a few examples of people’s reports involving dissociative drug experiences: 

• “Everything is close and far at the same time”

• “My body died, but my mind lived on”

• “I was caught in an endless time loop”

• “I visited a place outside of time”

• “I was teleported to another location or dimension”

• “I forgot who I was or that I ever existed in the first place”

• “My body was dissolving into the fabric of time and space”

• “I lost emotional connection to objects, people, or locations I'm familiar with”

In states of complete dissociation — like the ones IV ketamine can induce in a clinical setting — users attain a profound “zen-like” state of consciousness.

This zen experience is similar to ego death, but the drug’s detachment effect removes uncomfortable feelings of fear and grief that present themselves as the ego struggles to retain its hold on the conscious mind.

All the shame, worry, anger, and discontent someone might feel in waking consciousness is washed away. They enter a meditative, almost thoughtless state of consciousness.

Within this state of consciousness, one has a unique opportunity to identify “undesirable” traits and suppressed “truths” about themselves.

It’s also common to feel a deep sense of insignificance and loneliness within the cosmos. Normally, this kind of realization results in fear, panic, and grief — but this isn’t the case with dissociatives.

More often than not, dissociative users feel blissful and whole rather than scared and alone.

This is the state of “euphoric nothingness” —  a state outside of time and space, completely alone and isolated, but free from emotions like grief or sadness.

It’s through states like this that dissociative drugs such as ketamine provide a profound capacity for healing. They give people the opportunity to peer into their own minds and take an unbiased look at who they truly are without judgment or emotion.