My personal experience with ketamine has made me a believer.

Ketamine has a unique ability to brush away internal distractions.

For me, the experience was not about what ketamine gave me, but what it took away.

I was scheduled for three sublingual ketamine dosing sessions at a retreat run by my soon-to-be mentor in the psychedelic world, Jayne Gumpel. After the first two, which had been profoundly meaningful, I felt as though I had gotten what I needed. I was beginning to feel a tug of guilt as I spent days exploring my inner consciousness while my two small children needed their mother. Part of me wondered whether continuing was self-indulgent. When I expressed this, Jayne responded, "You will be doing them a favor if you give yourself this time."

I stayed—and that third dosing session became one of the most important experiences of my professional life.

Battling guilt, shame, and annoyance with myself, I expected the ketamine to amplify those feelings. My experience with having more than one glass of wine has often been characterized by embarrassment, self-consciousness, and mental fogginess. Given that framework, I assumed I would leave the dosing feeling similarly disconnected and less cognitively sharp. Instead, I experienced something entirely different: Mental clarity.

The retreat participants gathered for lunch after that third dosing session, and although I was hungry, I was not looking forward to the........

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