DOSE:

125 mg

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract - 5x)

Right, I’ve been meaning to type this up for a while, but it seems only now, approx. two weeks later, that I’ve got the proper perspective to right something useful for people. Initially I was going to classify this as a Bad Trip, but now I’m thinking Difficult Experience or even just as First Time. I hope this is useful or interesting as I’m really going to try my best.

I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m a VERY experienced drug user. For many years I have used cannabis, mushrooms (brilliant), MDMA (also brilliant), cocaine (waste of money), Meth (yuck), BZP and TMFPP (also yuck), morphine (interesting). I have also done things like experimenting with massive dose caffeine and prescription drug cocktails (stupid). Basically I’m know what I’m talking about. I would also like to add that I love psychedelics, they’re my favourite. Anyhow, I did all the reading up on salvia, and I mean thoroughly, for months. I knew to inhale deep and use a torch lighter. I knew to use a sitter. I knew how hardcore this stuff can be. I bought some 5x and despite my reading everything I made stupid mistakes.

My girlfriend was out for a couple of hours, the house was empty, and I had nowhere I had to be for a couple of hours so I thought ‘Hey, I’ll smoke that salvia I bought. I’ll see some shit and it’ll wear off by the time I have to go out.’ What an idiot. I would also like to say I was in a pretty good mental place at the time, but I should have been somewhere better.

I cleaned up, locked the door (didn’t want to go wandering off into traffic now, did I) and sat down on my bed. I filled the bowl with about 1/8 of a gram by eye (I had read this was a ‘common’ amount – double checking I see this is ‘strong’ – big mistake not checking). I had planned to smoke a threshold amount just so my brain had seen the chemical before, but I didn’t bother – another mistake. I was feeling slightly anxious as I torched and sucked in all the bowl in one massive rip. I thought the smoke would be harsh but didn’t find it so. I held it and honestly didn’t expect anything to happen as it was my first go – boy, was that a mistake.

I could feel the salvia coming on after only a few seconds. I went to take another toke but I can’t remember if I bothered. I reached down hundreds of miles to put the bong on the floor, scrabbled to turn on the CD player then watched myself lay back on the bed. I never felt myself touch the bed. I was instantly the highest I’ve ever been. You know those graphs to show you how you go up and down? There was no line up. I went from baseline to fully high instantly. It was at the top of an asymptote.

Reality got sucked away into a swirling vortex. I have noticed many people describe similar things but here goes anyway. There was an orange swirl going clockwise that was my bedroom, then a green swirl going in the same direction, yet in the opposite direction. The geometry of what I saw is completely impossible to explain as it can not exist in our reality. The green swirl was my living room. I was running backwards and forwards between them as my reality was being sucked away. I didn’t remember smoking the herb. I didn’t remember what reality is or was as it was being pulled from beneath me.

This was almost complete ego loss and I was terrified. I mean, seriously, I had The Fear. I new that to bring reality back I had to be in the right room, but every time I ‘reached’ one, I had to ‘go back to the other way’ (the phrase kept repeating in my head) as the correct room had swapped again. I didn’t want to be pulled along the twisting spiral and I tried to pull myself back by grabbing the banister of my stairs and pulling myself along. I could just do this, but it was more effort than I could ever explain. Also I should explain that I had no body and was using ‘the hands of my mind.’

I am aware of the wooden porch my parents had when I was a child. I am also aware of how cross my mother is with me for being so stupid – screwing up my brain with this nightmare because I was a bit bored (I think the image/knowledge of my mother may represent the salvia itself – lady salvia, hey?). I try to say my name in my head but I can’t finish it because a) I can’t remember it all, b) it sounds ridiculous to me at the time, and c) language doesn’t make sense. I try to say the name of where I live but I can’t make language at all now.

I’m standing in my bedroom. I’m confused and hot. I know I’m in my room but I don’t understand what the things in it are. Is this reality or somewhere else? Should I be here? Am I in someone else’s house? I decide to find out if I really was running around the house. The door is unlocked. This confuses me, as I don’t think I would have had the mental capacity to unlock a door. I creep down the hall and peek in the living room. The hall and the living room seem strange and disturbing I don’t recognise them and I don’t think I’ve been here, although the scuffed carpet confuses me. I decide I definitely want to be in my bedroom. I’m now just starting to get a handle on things. I change my T-shirt (I’m really sweating). If I concentrate on something for a long time I know what it is, but if I concentrate too long I forget what everything else is, and I don’t want reality to slip away again.

I should mention that I still seriously had The Fear. Just remembering what happened in this much detail is still making me uncomfortable now. I want my girlfriend to come back and make it better (remember – no sitter = big problem) but I was scared she would be cross with me like my mum is/was. I also at some point around now spilt all the water out of my bong in attempt to put it away, because that might make it stop. I decide that acting normally will make me get better quickly, but TV seems so superficial and I can’t concentrate on it. Plus as I said, when I concentrate I forget where I am. Also the TV program had an antique doll who’s head had three different faces on it (this is true not a hallucination) which I didn’t want to look at all – sill wouldn’t. Adverts were OK.

I spent the next hour/hour fifteen wandering between my bedroom and living room until my girlfriend came back. I instantly felt a bit better. I told her I was feeling confused by everything and she made everything seem better – God bless her.

In retrospect Lady Salvia is not benevolent, not malevolent either. I went straight to ‘I’ (level 5) on the S-A-L-V-I-A scale, and I don’t want to be there again. I had nightmares about that complete ego and reality loss that night. Sometimes I look at how ridiculous the world is and I worry that I’m not back in reality proper. This is just over two weeks later. Initially I swore off salvia completely, but I noticed I haven’t thrown away what I’ve got. It was a profound experience and I may try (MUCH less) salvia again. I would, however, recommend it to no one. But I am glad I’ve done it, even if it was the single most terrifying experience of my life. No one should have to feel what it’s like to be pulled from reality and forget who they are and where they come from – this last one worried me most ‘How do I know if I’m back if I don’t know where I’m from?’

I needed to get this off my chest as I’ve only just managed to integrate what happened. Incidentally, my housemate was upstairs the whole time and said that I was definitely NOT running around the house, so I don’t know what was going on there.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 52820
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 24, 2008	Views: 4,734
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Salvia divinorum (44) : First Times (2), Entities / Beings (37), Difficult Experiences (5), Alone (16)