DOSE:

2 hits

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

135 lb

I had heard about salvia long ago when I was first experiencing psychedelics, but had dismissed it as I had heard that it was 'not fun' and very intense and short and I was still under the guise that these drugs were toys. Having since had that notion obliterated irretrievably, and having started using psychedelics for psycho-analytical and spiritual purposes, I now had a renewed interest in salvia. So, not wanting to go into something like this too ignorantly, I decided to read a dozen or so trip reports, most of which happened to be bad. I was intrigued and a little anxious, but I also noticed that most of the really bad trips came from people using salvia as if it was alcohol or marijuana--people who used it for fun, or people who did it irresponsibly. So I felt reassured that if I simply took this drug seriously, paid it due respect, and did it responsibly I would not be taking a significant psychic or physical risk. So I went to the store and bought a forty dollar packet of 20x extract Purple Sticky Salvia.

I had been taking vitamins daily for a few months and had begun taking dietary supplements for brain and immune system health for a couple of weeks.

For the next month or so I decided to slowly work up to salvia's potential by steadily smoking a little more each time. So far I had experienced little worth noting except for a feeling of being pulled in some direction and a lack of the wonder and beauty that mushrooms and LSD brought. However, I continually thought to myself that I felt on the brink of something important. Even on the first time I recognized what made my friends and others describe it as weird. Experientially, salvia was uniquely dissimilar to any other hallucinogen I had used, even at low doses.

At last, I decide I was familiar enough with salvia to really delve into it. On a Sunday afternoon, I prepared a towel for my bed (in case I made a mess), lit some incense, opened the window, and had my girlfriend, C, sit in my navy blue, fractal poster laden-room with me. She had sat for me for my previous salvia usage and didn't expect much trouble, so she got on the internet while I prepared. I packed the bowl a little bit fuller than I had before (or so I thought) and paused for a moment to reflect on the gravity of what I was about to do. I was in good spirits, though a bit nervous. I had only filled the bowl half full, to make sure I could clear it in one hit, and I did. I held it in a while, and walked over to the window to let it out, though I had not planned on doing this. I laid back on the bed and looked at the ceiling to find that the room was spinning on a horizontal axis (as best as I could describe it) and the plantation shutters in my room where projecting themselves around the room in the direction it seemed to be spinning, though in a way that almost wasn't visual.

The projections seemed to be faces, though not human, and were insistently motioning towards something in the opposite way that they were spinning. They were telling me 'Tell her. Tell her.' so insistently that I perceived them as borderline hostile. I seemed to halfway hear their voice, and halfway simply know what they were saying. At this point I was nearly stunned by the intensity of the situation, particularly because I had forgotten that I had smoked something to cause this and couldn't remember having experienced anything even remotely similar even on drugs. As I followed where they were motioning to I saw that they were pointing to my girlfriend, and baseline edged its way back into my memory. I instantly felt much better, because now I knew why this was happening and that no matter how intense or unpleasant it became, it would be over soon. But, I needed some support.

'Um, I'm tripping really hard.'
'Do want me to stop what I'm doing'
'Yeah, probably'
'What's happening'

At this point I sat up.
'The walls... are alive and have faces... I feel like I'm being sucked towards the wall [a different one], that way.'

I suddenly gained assurance from an unknown source that the faces, though insistent were not hostile.
'[garbled]... But don't worry, they don't want to hurt you.'

For the next two minutes or so I tried repeatedly to describe what was happening to me to C, but failed miserably and was continually interrupting myself by insisting in response to the walls that I didn't know how to tell her what was going on.
'I don't know... I don't know... I think I'm going to smoke some more, I need to figure out what's going on.'

I filled the bowl about half full again and hit it, but failed to hold it in as long. The situation quickly intensified, and I had for the moment forgotten about the walls.

Throughout it all, it was impossible to express what was so intense about it--it wasn't the visuals, because I couldn't really say I was seeing any. Overall it was just an impression that whatever reality used to be, it was extremely different now and could quite possibly never be the same. Ego dissolution was at about seventy-five percent, though throughout it all I continually referred back mentally to trip reports for comparison despite the fact that I wouldn't have been able to tell anybody much about any other memory, even of myself. Reality was being ripped apart around me and I was being instructed by the walls to explain this to someone who had never done a single psychoactive in her life.

Within ten seconds of exhaling (which I don't remember doing), I muttered, 'I need to lie down'. C seemed to think this was quite serious, and quickly wrapped everything up in the towel and put it on the floor hastily. I closed my eyes and left dimensions one, two and three behind.

I remember being in a living, intelligent, multicolored, and Mandelbrot set-esque shaped environment. I was somewhat debilitated with the intensity of it, but had learned with 'lesser' drugs how to handle intensely psychedelic situations. I remember communicating with the intelligences (for there were more than one, but not with a discernible distinction between them),

'Alright, I'll hang out with you guys, as long as I can go back.'

I was reassured and was transported to a dimension I cannot begin to describe for as I said to C,

'It's such a complete and perfect forgetting, when one leaves this place. I have had a glimpse before of this once on a high dose of LSD [about a square inch], but it's so complete... so complete... incredible....'

I remember very little, but one vision I remember clearly was that of a Mayan pyramid, built of glowing green stone, with thin streaks of other colors through it, all set against a static-y blue background.

Somewhere along the way I muttered, 'Please hold my hand; just touch me, so I can have a connection to reality... I love you... Now I remember what psychedelics are really about... I remember....'

I would have had no idea how much time had passed had I not remembered that Salvia lasts less than thirty minutes for most people. Even so, had I been told I was silent for thirty seconds

Or thirty minutes I would not have been able to deny it. There was no time dilation, nor time collapse, there simply was barely any grasp of time passing or even existing. Time was simply an abstract concept that I vaguely understood to be constantly passing in a way I wasn't able to comprehend fully. C told me that about five minutes passed before I started speaking half incoherently about my experience.

'No way to describe it... Even now I know I do not remember it, though I think I must still be tripping. It's always difficult to tell when I have stopped... They wanted me to tell you what was happening, but I couldn't...'

I spent the rest of the trip reflecting on the enormity of my experience and feeling like I would never have trouble handling reasonable doses of other psychedelics again, having handled this so well. No matter how zany an acid trip gets from then on, I could survive just fine, though it may last a bit longer than Salvia. I would have felt a tinge of pride at my psychic constitution had my ego returned enough to allow it. I realized then how right Terence McKenna was when he said that if you do it right, you only have to do it a few times a year to feel fully psychedelic.

My friends do not mess with her, because she will not allow one to play with her frivolously for long, but I truly appreciate and respect her now, more than ever. Salvia has established herself as my entheogenic drug of choice. She doesn't seem to be useful for any self-evaluation, so LSD will retain that niche in my life. I do not feel any longer the urge to do psychedelics more often than once every few months. I hope to be able to return to that place, that extradimensional hyperspace again, and perhaps 'puncture a hole, for it to pour through' into this 'big wonderful lie we call reality'.

Exp Year: 2005	ExpID: 47979
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 14, 2006	Views: 18,621
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Entities / Beings (37), Glowing Experiences (4), Small Group (2-9) (17)