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From At Home and Abroad – Margaret Fuller

After suffering several days very much with the toothache, I resolved to get rid of the cause of sorrow by the aid of ether; not sorry either, to try its efficacy after all the marvellous stories I had heard.

The first time I inhaled it, I did not for several seconds feel the effect, and was just thinking, "Alas! this has not power to soothe nerves so irritable as mine," when suddenly I wandered off, I don't know where, but it was a sensation like wandering in long garden-walks, and through many alleys of trees - many impressions, but all pleasant and serene.

The moment the tube was removed, I started into consciousness, and put my hand to my cheek; but, sad! The throbbing tooth was still there. The dentist said I had not seemed to him insensible. He then gave me the ether in a stronger dose, and this time I quitted the body instantly, and cannot remember any detail of what I saw and did; but the impression was as in the Oriental tale, where the man has his head in the water an instant only, but in his vision a thousand years seem to have passed. I experienced that same sense of an immense length of time and succession of impressions; even now the moment my mind was in that state seems to me a far longer period in time than my life on earth does as I look back on it.

Suddenly I seemed to see the old dentist, as I had for the moment before I inhaled the gas, amid his plants, in his nightcap and dressing gown; in the twilight the figure had somewhat of a Faust-like, magical air, ……

Again I started up, fancying that once more he had not dared to extract the tooth, but it  was gone.