Ketamine is a dissociative drug that acts on different chemicals in the brain to produce visual and auditory distortion, and a detachment from reality. When taken, it can make you feel dream-like and detached, chilled, relaxed, and happy, but it can also make you feel confused and nauseated. Ketamine can alter your perception of time and space and make you hallucinate, stop you from feeling pain, and put you at risk of hurting yourself and not realizing it. If you take too much ketamine, you may lose the ability to move and go into a ‘k-hole,’ which feels like your mind and body have separated, and you cant do anything about it. Regular ketamine use can cause agitation, panic attacks, damage to short- and long-term memory, and depression if taken frequently.
Ketamine can also lead to different effects depending on how much is taken. At a low or moderate dose, it can lead to sensations of lightness, dizziness, euphoria, different thought patterns, and changed sensations of sight and sound. With a higher dose, it can lead to feeling detached from your body, visual and auditory hallucinations, confusion and clumsiness, increased heart rate and blood pressure, slurred speech and blurred vision, anxiety, panic, and violence, vomiting, lowered sensitivity to pain, and even unconsciousness and ‘near-death’ experiences.
It is important to be aware that mixing ketamine with other drugs can be dangerous. Mixed with a stimulant drug such as cocaine or ecstasy, ketamine could put too much pressure on your heart. Taking it with a depressant such as alcohol or heroin can increase the risk of unconsciousness and lead to breathing problems and suffocation.
Long-term use of ketamine may eventually cause flashbacks, poor sense of smell, mood and personality changes, depression, poor memory, thinking, and concentration, mental impairment, and urinary system damage. Recreational ketamine use is especially dangerous because ketamine has a different effect on each individual, and it can be habit-forming, injury-causing, or even fatal if not taken appropriately.
