Image via WikipediaI went in for a deep cleaning back when I had wickedly crooked teeth, which made it painful and hard to keep my gums healthy. They gave me nitrous for the cleaning.
The assistant asked me how the nitrous level was, and I was keen on getting high, so I told her I couldn't really feel anything, so she turned it up a fair bit higher. She then asked how I was feeling and my mind was already reeling with delight so I made a good effort to sound as clear and present as possible.
She told me to just relax for a bit while they got ready for the cleaning and to just breathe normally. She left the room and I proceeded to take as many deep nearly hyperventilating breaths as I could. As I am typing this I can't stop laughing at the mental insanity the followed.
The dentist was busy with something so I sat there for a good 15 minutes sucking away on nitrous and eventually having a mental collapse.
My thoughts went from giddy ecstatic bursts of delight to orgasmic waves of being, where I eventually came to the point of being completely incapable of thinking.
I could no longer think, I could not formulate a thought, and I was distantly aware of this notion, but was simply unable to understand anything, so I was left with a strange detached panic. I was aware that I could not think and became terrified that I may never be capable of an actual thought again and would remain on the verge of self realization forever.
I do recall very vividly the notion as this climax was emerging that my mind appeared to be like a CPU and there was a queue of thoughts that would come in for processing. My load average, or the ratio of thoughts coming in, was always less than the number of thoughts that I could process, so I was always able to simply think about anything I wished with wild abandon.
But here I was, with the on coming realization that a queue was being formed and my thoughts were backing up and waiting for processing. And the panic emerged when I realized that I was using all available processing power by simply noticing that I couldn't think of anything else but this simple and deranged thought.
All the while I am huffing away in a sad attempt to get off at the dentist office. With each breath came a new wave of intensity and an even limited capacity of useful thought processing. It was in that moment, that would have been pure bliss, when I became unable to think. I became a purely feeling being and completely ceased my mind. I was so terrified that I couldn't breath, for I was literally holding my breath.
My being became a singular pulse, a throb that tingled and electrified every cell of my body, but it wasn't the ecstasy I recalled from nitrous filled balloons at raves. This was terror. And I sat there, clenched and contorted, holding my breath.
The waves subsided and the thought queue started flowing again, and to my relief a rush of thoughts came pouring through my mind as I realized I was holding my breath. I let out a sigh of relief and peeled the mask off my face.
I graciously took in the biggest breath of fresh air as the dentist came in and apologized for taking so long. For a brief moment I feared that I had forgotten how to talk, but much to my surprise, made a witty comment about not minding the delay because I enjoyed being alone with my thoughts.
