#numb white noise visually and experientially day

[jpanneck-blog]

It is probably safe to say that many of you reading this little piece can affirm your anxiety about a visit to ye olde dentist, contingent upon the type and intensity of the procedure. Root canals? Bridgework? Wisdom tooth extraction? Yes, these are a far cry from routine cleanings, although if you are overcome by an overly active nervous system wrung in by episodes of panicky, sweaty nervous tics even with the suggestion of a routine visit, let alone a deep cleaning, then like myself, you request to be numbed out from the immanent terror that will pervade your every cell.

Some time ago, I scheduled a series of 4 deep cleanings. These are not your daddy’s cleanings, but rather the deepest you can go—instruments that make noises similar to the one heard at a construction site. However, the cleanings were even deeper than I could ever imagine, going beyond superficial cleaning to a light cleaning of my soul, in some regard, as I will soon explain. Of course, I had neglected the less pervasive routine cleanings for some time, given my anxiety over going to the dentist, thus, my punishment for such a forbearance of dental hygiene maintenance rendered me culpable and thus requiring more attention from these masked men and women in white. One day I hope to take heed to the Universal Dental Law of the inverse relationship between frequency of visits and intensity of service provided.

Little did I know that one could partake of the consciousness-altering nitrous oxide for a mere cleaning. Only when I began to sweat at my checkup at the mention of a “serious, deep cleaning” did my hygienist give me the good news—that my body would be sitting in the chair, but my mind in fact would be migrating elsewhere. Perhaps somewhere near where my occasional ayahuasca sessions have taken me—to that nebulous Bardo that rests outside this reality-bubble, especially the reality involving hygienists in medical garb operating their intimidating dental weaponry. Yes, I could pop open the Tupperware lid like that curious old Chaldean astronomer did on the famous Flammarion woodcut. I could be as William James did once when he took in that not-so-stale air and saw the White Crow that is the inner-potential of the human race.

My only memory of the effects of nitrous oxide is fuzzy at best—a brief and capricious little college detour (a la whippets) that did nothing more than make me sound like Emilio Estevez on peyote in Young Guns as I tentatively uttered, “Did you know we’re in the spirit world?” It was a pure, unadulterated giggle-fest and nothing more. No discernment or journaling from my trip to the “Other Side.” Of course, this was far before I took serious interest in the study of altered states of consciousness (ASC) as a tool for personal and spiritual development.

Nine years ago, I began a doctoral dissertation on the use of ayahuasca in the context of a religious setting as a method of developing more effective coping strategies for daily and life stressors. A year prior to that, I had witnessed my first ayahuasca session with the Santo Daime Church, a syncretic religious organization that calls upon ayahuasca (Daime) as its sacrament. Since then, I have been attending at least once every couple of months. Those sessions opened the door to a realm of spiritual and psychedelic possibility, invoking a far greater appreciation for all substances psychedelic (or entheogenic if you wish). Now even the occasional marijuana constitutional is much like a neuro-enrichment tool that allows me to break down barriers, make connections, and even discover mini-breakthroughs in my array of psychedelic-related projects.

So, I made the appointment and for the first time was for the most part looking forward to my dental treatment—a remarkable first! Interestingly enough, when I got to the appointment I began to have anxiety about the very thing that was supposed to alleviate my anxiety. A testament to the fact that I am a perfect candidate for nitrous oxide for even what may seem as the most mundane and least threatening of procedures.

And then…..it happened. The Nitrous Oxide worked. It was similar to being stoned ala a smoke session with a superior marijuana strain—but in the middle of the day in a dental office, which completely enhances the experience. There is an added intensity to being stoned in an orthodox setting (albeit, in an unorthodox fashion). That is, instead of smoking pot sitting around a fire, or hanging out with friends on a Friday evening, etc., the contrast of unorthodox ritual (unless you’re a pothead) with orthodox setting (usually involving strangers during the day in public) tends to greatly alter the experience. Although with nitrous, there is an additional euphoria, or giggle factor—less of the paranoia that may often be associated with marijuana.

So, there I was—stoned to the bejesus on nitrous and apparently someone was tooling around in my mouth. Rather than this operation becoming the focus of my experience, it was somewhat ancillary, although it did off-set some unique visionary motifs and sensations. For example, in my years of accumulated ayahuasca sessions, I have come to experience recurring spiritual visions, sensations, and what many would call “astral beings.” Whether or not these are actual beings is another topic for another blog. However, what I did see was so strikingly similar to my ayahuasca visions, that I can conclude it was a different key that opened up the same doorway to that mysterious “other side” of visionary and experiential phenomena.

I saw the ever-present “Buddha’s Eyes” with a vague “Tiger-striped” outline, which engendered the same “I’m a-being-from-another-dimension-over-watching-you-for-some-cosmic-reason” sensation. Additionally, as seen in several of my ayahuasca sessions, there was also the faint presence of a trickster entity revealing these rolls of complex symbol-laden wall paper as if he possessed at his disposal far more knowledge and intelligence than I could ever begin to comprehend. Although, it was typical for me to see the trickster only in the beginning, as if he were testing my meddle, revealing his visual tricks as if it were merely fodder for the purposes of some sort of decorative, theatrical gesture—an initial stage in the journey of the Hero. Perhaps it was a similar dimension, yet the beginning of the course for this particular….entheogen? After all, it did induce very similar spiritual-invoking sensations.

When I did come to focus on the procedure being done on my teeth, this also generated a rather unique experience. Rather than feeling accosted by this dental tech, I felt as though she were some angelic being making love to my soul—those gentle, delicate scrapes on my chin with her prophylactic-clad hand felt like love and connection at the time, rather than torture.  I did experience a little bit of pain, which was related to the drill-bit entering a cavity in one of my molars, reverberating throughout my skull and cascading into strange, psychedelic vignettes. But I was safe, for my dental tech had become my shaman—my angelic guide, cleaning out the old crusty detritus, just as the shaman clears out the psychic detritus of his inebriated and distressed client.

Fast forward to just over 4 years. Although I had a cleaning or two in between the aforementioned session and this one, this particular session was notable. I had set up another 4-quadrant deep cleaning series, and the first one—just 3 weeks ago—was not remotely memorable, at least in a positive sense. I had a different hygienist—not my usual dental shaman with the soft, but calculating touch. This DH seemed to lack the same level of confidence, and she could not quite get the nitrous—my medicine—right, and that was everything! Imagine the shaman not being able to deliver the goods, whether it was an ineffective dose, or administered improperly (“okay, try pouring the shot over your eye and see what happens….”). This throws the whole system off. We tried different apparatus styles and arrangements, and finally settling on one. Ineffective = not a pleasant situation. I didn’t want to make this about dental work. It was more than that. Good dental hygiene is a positive benefit of this session, or should be, but getting the inside of my mouth drilled and scraped should not be a focal point—it should be merely a radio playing in the background.

That was 3 weeks ago. On this particular day, I was introduced to new blood. A [youngish] middle-aged man of African descent with a thick accent and foreign name—a name that was suggestive of a “sleeper” shaman, a warm connector, and a gentle steward of transitions—from the daily grind to the twilight sublime. He turned out to be what I thought of as the Charlie Parker of dental shamanism—the Yardbird of the dental theater. He had a virtuosic technique, his own advanced harmonies, and was at once—clean, penetrating, sweet, and somber, and played my teeth at a rapid bebop clip. He took heed of my medicine (NO)—making sure it was in working order this time, and went right to penetrating jabs of gum-numbing. I asked if I could record myself (for the site), and he casually declined due to potential legal recourse and restrictions. I threw in my ear buds, connected to the wi-fi, and found a random House Trance mix on YouTube—my shamanic shuffle.

After about 20 minutes of desperately grasping my stress ball, the glass insert of the blue sky and clouds on the ceiling became my portal to the Bardo, and again, the drilling and scraping (his equivalent of a shamanic saplado), became an event that was simply occurring to a body that I inhabit most of the time. Although this session did not seem as intense as the one that occurred years ago, I must say that it is beyond refreshing to be at this level of “high” in the middle of the afternoon during a weekday. I was flooded with ideas—for writing, for my business (Bamboom), for performances, and talks. I tend to call the level of thinking that inhabits me “psychedelic cognition,” (PC) in which traditional, linear barriers are dissolved and my cognition and visionary states take on a multi-dimensional, holographic quality.

I sat there thinking—aside from “if William James was here, he’d be proud”—“How am I going to remember all of this stuff? I can’t necessarily write it down on my little notepad.” I then utilized the power of PC and conceptualized a vast hyper-dimensional cube (HDC) in which each thought/idea was represented by potent, numinous constructs (images or symbols), or what I sometimes call concrescences, and these images were “nodal points” on the corners of said HDC. I then attempted to correlate each construct with one another to in turn form a gestalt—a sort of holographic archetypal cube (HAC). I realize I’m getting heavy with the acronyms here, but this last one—HAC—I must admit, is a particularly good one since it is in fact a “hack,” and I seem to have immersed myself (like the rest of the culture increasingly) in the world of hacking (think bio-hacking, life-hacking, growth-hacking, etc.). In short, I left with a smile worthy of revealing given the fresh, new sheen on my teeth, but most importantly, I got to hop aboard the train to a hyperdimensional world with the Shamanic Dental Yardbird as the chief engineer of the Bardo Express.

Happy dental cleanings everyone!

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Justin “Dr. J” Panneck

Dental Shamanism: Nitrous Oxide & Altered States It is probably safe to say that many of you reading this little piece can affirm your anxiety about a visit to ye olde dentist, contingent upon the type and intensity of the procedure.