A new sub's first touch with subspace.

I'm a new sub with no prior bdsm experience, who has been seeing a potential dom for a few weeks now, and our relationship has been developing. We've gone on a few dates with light play, and have had one mini-session so far. Daddy has noted that my pain tolerance is quite high, my recovery is relatively fast, and my body does not bruise easily. Though there were some painful moments during our first mini-session, it didn't feel at all unbearable, and I had no issues going about my day normally the next day, which he said was unusual.

I also have a fairly committed vipassana meditation practice, where I meditate for 1 hour every day. Prior to meeting Daddy, he had remarked that, due to my practice, I might enter subspace more easily than others. He gave me an assignment to research subspace, and I became very interested in exploring it. At the time, it seemed almost fake to me, and I was not sure whether or not I was mentally capable of the level of submission required to reach it.

Prior to our date last night, Daddy mentioned that he would be testing my pain tolerance, though it would not be as intense as our mini-session. It started out with some spanking, and Daddy quickly escalated the intensity to a point where I had to actively focus on taking deep breaths to control my instinct to flinch. Then, he started hitting my breasts with the riding crop. My pain tolerance on my nipples is much lower than on the rest of my body, and Daddy is aware of this. He switched to using the rougher side of the riding crop, and with each hit, I could feel my control slipping away. Small moans and yelps escaped me as the crop bit into the sensitive skin of my areolas and hardened nipples, and I tried harder to focus on my breaths, aligning their rhythm to his hits to absorb the pain.

The next several minutes are difficult to recollect. I vaguely remember Daddy commanding me to use my words, and not being able to find my voice. I don't remember when the pain stopped, but at some point, it felt like my body had been draped in a blanket of numbness, reducing the sharp stings to blunts of pressure against my breasts. My sense of time felt distorted - what felt like a long, drawn-out experience was, in actuality, less than 10 minutes of impact play in total (with one to two minutes in subspace), according to Daddy. Daddy instructed me to get under the covers, and asked me how I was feeling. I still couldn’t speak, and it took tremendous effort to verbalize it; my body felt disconnected from my mind. I crawled into bed with Daddy, laid in his arms, and felt a wave of emotion rise to the surface of my skin, as two tears rolled down my cheeks. The emotion wasn’t one of happiness, or sadness—it simply was. When Daddy asked why I was crying, I did not feel fully responsive, and without thinking, said, “I wanted to take more pain for you.” Daddy reassured me many times that I had done great, and we cuddled for the next several minutes as he brought me back to a safe mental place.

There are two experiences my first brush with subspace reminds me of:

1. MDMA - MDMA triggers the release of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which drastically elevates your mood, reduces inhibition, and makes you feel emotionally connected with those you interact with, even if they're strangers. It's a lucid high; in most cases, you are still vaguely aware of your surroundings, and able to control your body, and communication is not greatly impacted. Pain is dulled, and all physical contact (hugging, squeezing, kissing, sex, slapping) feels pleasant and euphoric.
2. Deep meditation - In deep meditations, I've experienced semi-consciousness, where I feel like my mind has disassociated from my physical being, as if observing it from a third-person perspective. All I can feel on my body are subtle vibrations, and I observe them. It takes me several minutes to "wake myself up" from a meditation session, and I need to gradually ease myself back into reality. Studies have shown that meditation increases endorphins, and gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), a key neurotransmitter associated with calmness.

Subspace felt like an experience that was somewhere in between MDMA and deep meditation. Common sensations I observed in all three were: analgesic effects from the released endorphins that increased my pain thresholds, a sense of inner peace and calm, and a disconnect between my mind and body, as if I was observing my physical self from an outsider's vantage point.

I’m surprised I slipped into subspace last night, because it was not a session, and Daddy was not purposely trying to put me in subspace. Our relationship is also fairly immature, so I was not expecting to be able to submit as fully a I thought I needed to in order to experience subspace. As Daddy has mentioned to me before, it is possible that meditating regularly allowed me to slip into it more easily. In our previous mini-session, I thought of aftercare as nice, but not necessary. After slipping into subspace, I understand why it is so important. There are very few times in my life I have felt that type of vulnerability, and the emotions related to that state - strength, fear, desire, and bliss, to name a few that I can remember. The most powerful shift was feeling magnitudes more connected to Daddy—more open and uninhibited in my communication with him, and more confident in our developing relationship. It's something I'm still trying to make sense of, and curious to experience more of (Daddy did not let me stay in subspace for very long last night).

Though I'm aware that subspace looks different for every sub, I'm curious to hear the community's thoughts on my experience. Does any of this sound unusual, or have others experienced similar sensations and thoughts? What are some things to watch out for, or take extra precautions around as we explore deeper levels of, and extended time in, subspace? How has experiencing subspace with your partner impacted your relationship?