DOSE:

2 hits

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract - 5x)

BODY WEIGHT:

163 lb

I found and printed instructions that would tell me the proper dosage for me to take. I’ll admit off the bat that I was careless. The instructions are for dried fresh leaves. I have a powder extraction of the plant, and thus it is easier to obtain effects. So, in my carelessness, I divided two amounts accordingly to the instructions; one for me and one for T. I put the amounts -- exactly ½ gram each -- in to shot glasses. We agreed to do this in the Pleasure Grove, sitting next to the pond. I love the sound of flowing water, and I decided it would ease the experience.

We sit down, and I pack an entire bowl in to my cold ceramic water pipe, which ends up about 1/3 of a whole gram. With butterflies in my belly, I say to T, “Well here it goes.” I take a hit, and immediately I feel the effects working on my lungs and throughout the body. When I exhale I tell T, “I can already feel it happening (mid sentence my speech becomes difficult) so here we go.” According to my instructions, I do not hesitate to take a second hit. But the very moment I inhale time slows down, and even now, I can not recall completing the inhalation.

My arms outstretch, and that is where time literally stops; it is like a film with one picture at 24 frames a second. And I realize that I am not myself anymore. I do know that my reality exists, but I am no longer a part of it. I have memory though, and I recollect the friend (D.B.) that told me about Salvia, and I assume that he is some sort of being that wants me out of my world and in to a new one. In other words, I felt conspired against. I see T, and I think that he is aware of my departing this world, and may be in on it himself, along with M, because M insisted that I see “What the #@$! Do We Know?” which is all about alternate universes of potentiality explained by Quantam physics. That is the way that I cycled through and tried to rationalize what was happening. What was happening? Well, I hand-to-God decided then and there that the reality of S was fleeting, never to be had again. Not death, just change; in fact, I believed some other soul might inhabit my former body, and I might take on a different persona myself.

I think it was at this time that I began an attempt to regain Earthly existence. I can see the fence of the garden, but not my body, and I could not hear anything but my thoughts, and perhaps a sort of humming. Things sort of melted, in a way, because the reality was dissipating in to illusion.

I do not want to return to my body, not under those space/time conditions anyway. I don’t want myself in the backyard in Portland. I fathom a potentiality of myself under different circumstances, if I am to accept myself at all. There is a feeling for baseball? and the colors of red against white. But that is all I know. It was dark out, and such distinct color contrasts could not have existed under sober reality. I resist coming back to myself, and yet I claw arduously to get out of my terrible stagnation in this other worldly place. It all feels infinite. I had experienced this struggle before, limitless times. The worldly reality that I thought I knew becomes a complete mirage.

Soon, I come back to my reality, but I still am not myself. I see T and M standing off to the side as I struggle. I do not yet know if I am in the real world. It still looks infinitely false. I run past them, “I’ve done this before!” and then in to my room. They are not following and, so I assume they don’t see me at all. Because after all, this is false; I’m merely floating through potentialities.

In my room, I sit on the floor, now more aware. I’m concerned about suffering, and not just myself, I know that I’m experiencing the suffering of worldliness, which every lost soul has to come to terms with. And I say, “Nobody should have to suffer this!” Because now I realize that I’m assimilating into myself again; perplexed, anxious, confused, nervous… I search for familiar things that I can put in to some sort of order. I see my math book on the computer desk, and because it was there, I feel well rooted again. Then, I was myself.

Amazed at what I felt, I run back outside to ask of T and M’s account: As soon I lost worldly awareness, my arms outstretched and I dropped the bong to my left side. T realizes what’s up, and decides not to smoke it himself, and just monitor me -- probably because he didn’t want me trampling his garden… that’s a joke. I then fall out of the chair and lay on the ground. M hears me shouting words at a time, like “suffering!” so she joins T to see what’s up. Over about two minutes of this display, I repeat “help me” about five times. Also, at some time, I reached for T’s leg and pulled at it. But when I came to awareness, they were standing about 15 feet away, just allowing the cycle to run its course. While they waited, I just lay on the ground moving my arms. That brings us to my conscious point, where I stood up and ran past them (still sure that the reality was not mine any longer.)

To sum up on knowledge gained, well, I’m not jumping to any conclusions about dimensions or the like. Ontologically, my sense of self is capable of deciding not to be that which, it previously thought, it could only be. That means yes, there are other worlds. As to the nature of them, I do not know. I believe that this is only a hint of what the human mind can do. Consider the other worlds that eastern meditation is supposed to bring one. Jesus oft used the expression, “Kingdom of God.” And of course there is the tradition of Native Americans using the very substance I was on to gain knowledge of the universe.

But what is certain, is that the suffering I speak of is certainly born from conflict. My conflicts were attachment to worldly life, and desire to change time and space. Allow me to explain further. When stuck in that moment of otherworldliness, of potentiality, all I could decide is that I wanted back in to earthly life (hence attachment,) but not the one I was in (hence desire to change). It was those two things that confused the mind, and will always confuse the mind.

The way that I will live my life now is to attain knowledge of “that which nothing greater can be conceived.” – Saint Anselm. All the earthly compulsive nonsense that merely distracts knowledge will be rid of. The consumer is the greatest enemy of wisdom. I’ve been distracted by attachment to food, alcohol, pot, lust, etc… for long enough. I will be a lover of wisdom. That’s how it is, and it will be a path of discipline.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 33911
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 8, 2006	Views: 16,969
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Glowing Experiences (4), Small Group (2-9) (17)