DOSE:

50 mg

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

200 lb

This was one of many attempts to breakthrough on Salvia. I had several unsuccessful attempts with Salvia tincture. The tinctures just did not work for me. I decided to try smoking it, and purchased two 25 mg capsules of 'extra strength' Salvia. My main reason for experimenting with Salvia, was to induce a spiritual experience. I have never used any other substance other than marijuana, and was eager to try Salvia mainly because of all of the reports I read on spiritual experiences associated with it. Basically, my main motive for dabbling in Salvia was to see God, or at least a facet of higher consciousness. I was disappointed, because not only did I not see God, I was terrified and felt very close to having a total mental breakdown.

I would venture to say my first (and last) trip with Salvia was one of the more disturbing things I have ever experienced. I also believe that what I experienced may have been akin to absolute ego death. This has always been something I thought I was prepared for. In fact, it is my goal to someday attain absolute annihilation of the ego. However, I must say that as prepared as we think we are for such a major undertaking, we can never truly know until we experience it. Experiencing the dissolution of the self is a tremendous psychological and spiritual shock, and we cannot possibly gauge our preparedness for it. Salvia is not a shortcut to enlightenment.

I prepared the room for a spiritual experience. Music of my guru played softly in the background and all lights were off but for some dim mood-lights. I was prepared to get in bed immediately after smokign the Salvia. I poured the entire contents of one 25mg capsule into a regular glass-smoking pipe without a screen. As per the instructions and advice found on the Internet, I inhaled and held a decent amount of smoke for about 30 seconds. I did this twice, by which time the Salvia was totally gone and I felt only very moderate effects. I felt lightheaded and moderately disassociated. I was aware that something was happening, though I was not sure what. I lay back in bed and waited for the visual hallucinations I had heard so much about, but they did not come.

By this point, I was fairly certain I was a Salvia hardhead, and I was just one of those few rare people who can get no affect from the plant. I went back into the kitchen and opened up the second capsule and poured the entire contents into the pipe. I went back over to the bed sat down, and took two more long inhalations of Salvia smoke. In front of me, was my partner who was on the computer and acting as a sitter. Which, by the way, I highly recommend having a responsible sitter if you are going to dabble in Salvia. I am afraid of what might have happened if I did not have a sitter.

After the second toke, I lay back in bed waiting for my Salvia experience. I no sooner thought the words, “I wonder if this will work now”, when I was thrust abruptly into what seemed like a parallel universe. I lost all sense of reality in a very, very short amount of time, probably only 30 seconds after I took the second hit. It hit so quickly and was so incredibly bizarre that it made me panic. I felt as if I were being pulled away from my body, as if I were being drawn into an alternate dimension by an unknown and strange type of gravity. I was terrified that I was being pulled away from the world I knew and into another one, and that I might never return. I could not see anything, for the living room seemed to entirely disappear. I had a vague awareness that my partner was in the room with me, but I could not see her, and was fairly certain I was moving further and further away and needed to be pulled back into my life or I would die, or at least experience the death of my life as I knew it.

I yelled to her, “Help. I am floating.” I remember my voice sounded far away from me. I was speaking, but also witnessing myself speaking. At the same time, I also was not sure if I was indeed speaking or had only thought that I had spoken.

Suddenly, I felt as if I were being pulled further and further away from my life, and I felt a panicked need to get out of bed. I was lying in bed, but I felt like I was being pulled into something else, so I struggled to get into a sitting position. When I got into a sitting position, I was unsure if I was in a sitting or laying down position, so uncertain was I that I repeatedly had to ask, “Am I sitting up yet or am I laying down?” I could not tell if I was sitting up or lying down, and this caused me to freak out. I finally got into a sitting position and my partner sat in front of me, trying to ground me. I repeatedly said, “I am scared. I don’t like this at all. I want this to end.”

As I was saying this, I was aware that by saying this, I was somehow trying to remind myself that I had taken Salvia and that this was the cause of the problem. However, on a much stronger level, I was almost convinced that I had lost absolute touch with reality and that I was losing my mind. I started sweating and my heart began racing to the point where it could actually be seen beating and my partner became worried. I looked down at my feet stretched out in front of me, and suddenly, I could not tell if my feet were indeed my feet or if they were my hands. I kept asking, “Are those my arms?” I was completely confused over what were my arms and what were my legs. This was the most bizarre feeling I have ever experienced.

Then, I became confused over the legs sprawled out in front of me (my own legs), and kept asking things like “Whose legs are those?”, “Are those my legs?” “Are those my legs or my arms?” I then began slapping my foot and asking, “Whose foot is that? Why is that hand slapping that foot?” I was completely disassociated from my own body and confused by the body that stretched out before me.

At this point, my heart began to beat even more ferociously and the panic over the potential loss of self began to rise. My partner told me to close my eyes, which I found helped me not freak out so much. However, as I sat with my eyes closed I was still in fear that I was going to be pulled out of my life and into an alternate reality. I then asked my partner to hold my hand. I recall asking this because I had the tremendously real physical sensation of being pulled out of my body. The whole experience was a sense of being outside of my body, alternating with periods of fighting to stay in my body. As I held her hand, it felt very much like holding onto something while 400mph winds are blowing me in an opposite direction. I had the sense that I was floating very quickly through another dimension, and would leave my body totally if I did not fight against it. I kept saying that I was scared and that I wanted it to end.

My depth perception was thrown totally out of whack. As I sat there, I was not sure if I was sitting, standing or lying down. When I looked at my feet, I could not tell if they were mine or not. I was lost to myself. I squeezed my partner’s hand and prayed that I would be restored back to reality as my heart raced and I was sweating profusely.

I gradually came back to a more solid sense of reality, but it took about 15 minutes before I was fully established in my sense of self again. Even after the most intense part of the trip ended, I continued looking at my feet and hands confused over whether they were mine or not. This went on for so long that I began to worry if I would ever not be confused over my own body again. For a period of time, I also recall “going into” my alarm clock, or actually becoming one with the alarm clock for a brief period of time.

When the effects of the Salvia had completely worn off, I vowed I would never touch Salvia again. I cleaned out my glass pipe, sending the remaining dregs down the drain. In retrospect, I think I experienced an impending ego death the likes of which I was not prepared for. The entire time it was happening, I was fighting off going deeper out of fear of what would happen if I did. I am pretty sure that if I surrendered completely to the experience I may have witnessed either absolute dissolution of the ego or a total loss of grip on reality, both of which I am not eager to be part of if what I experienced was only a taste of that cosmic state of detachment.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 51866
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 4, 2007	Views: 5,589
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Guides / Sitters (39), Mystical Experiences (9), Difficult Experiences (5), First Times (2)