My (Unholy) Short Cut to Nirvana

I had a root canal today.  Yay!

There’s a perverse part of me that actually looks forward to going to the dentist.  I’m not into pain — not by a long shot — but I have managed to have some pretty positive associations with going to the dentist.  And most of these associations have to do with one thing:  nitrous oxide.

I don’t drink.  I don’t smoke.  I don’t do drugs.  I watch T.V. to tune out.  And occasionally I get to go to the dentist, recline in a comfy chair, turn up my iPod, close my eyes, and plug into the bliss that is nitrous.  Laughing gas — what sweet relief!

And, yeah, there’s usually someone nearby trying to make small talk while poking at sensitive spots in my mouth with a horrid looking sharp metal pointy thing, but if the dial on the nitrous tank is turned up enough, I tend not to care.  About anything.

My pediatric dentist was pretty liberal with the N2O, so for many of my childhood years, no one even dared to shine a light in my mouth without first strapping on the porcine laughing gas mask.

When I was in college in Santa Cruz, I saw a dentist who lived a few miles back into the mountains, in the even more pronouncedly hippy town of Felton.  Turns out this guy had been one of the original Merry Pranksters, so you know I was feeling no pain after leaving his office.  (I remember one time I was still so heavily buzzed after leaving his office, that I knowingly rode my bike a mile in the wrong direction, just because I couldn’t quite figure out how to cross the road to start riding the other way…)

The thing about laughing gas is that once I’m deep in the middle of it, it kind of feels like I’m nowhere.  And I’m no authority on meditation, but isn’t that kind of what everyone’s after when they meditate?  I love how easily I’m able to recognize the comfortable familiarity of nowhere.  I love being consciously aware of the slipping away of consciousness.

The only problem is that afterward  I find that I’m a little hung over from the whole experience, my thinking skills a little less sharp, my response time slowed, and energy level a bit compromised.

I dunno.  I visit the dentist so rarely, I still think it’s worth it.  It’s like a little mini-vacay, a spa day.  A few brain cells is a small price to pay for the ability to get away from it all and find peace.

Om.