I've watched people turn themselves blue only doing whippits, by inhaling a balloon, exhaling, then inhaling another balloon prepared by an accomplice. This only goes on so long, however, before they lose muscle control and fall back in their seat, grinning and twitching. Then, within seconds, their color returns, they snap back to reality, sit up, and immediately reach for the box of whippits. Nitrous is crazy like that. It rockets you to the heavens, then yanks you back to Earth just as quickly.
Truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of almost blinding evidence.
The mind sees all logical relations of being with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity to which its normal consciousness offers no parallel. Only as sobriety returns, the feeling of insight fades, and one is left staring vacantly as a few disjointed phrases, as one stares at a cadaverous looking snow peak from which sunset has just fled. As is true for most anesthetic agents, no one understands precisely how nitrous oxide works on the brain. We know it distorts synaptic responses in a way that dulls pain and disassociates mind from body, but we don't know exactly how, just as we don't know exactly how planets are made. Astronomers suspect the first step in the formation of planets occurs inside the giant, gaseous clouds created, in theory, by the Big Bang.