DOSE:

2 hits

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(leaves)

BODY WEIGHT:

195 lb

First Experience with Salvia Divinorum
(approx 2 mg crushed leaves)

My first experience with Salvia was probably the most surprising encounter I have ever had with mind-altering chemicals, at least after the times in my life when LSD and Nitrous Oxide had revealed the other dimensions and the nature of reality and the Universe to me. After having known those things to be real and true, if not totally accessible at all times, I considered it impossible to have the type of experience that Salvia brought on, without having to die to go there to that world.

A friend of mine had told me that he had ordered a perfectly legal plant to smoke from a mail-order company. I assumed it would be like buying an herbal cigarette, not a real high to speak of even, or like eating a bunch of wild trip cabbage or something equally ineffective to me, but I told him I would come over to try it when it arrived. Well, the day arrived, and me, my wife, and my brother all went to my friend's house.

A LOT of it came. For 36 bucks he got an ounce, which if you haven’t seen Salvia, is a little larger than putting a softball in a baggy. And by a LOT I mean I smoked maybe a pinch…not even enough to fill a regulation sized bowl. I consider myself a heavyweight when it comes to smoking any substance, so this has been, and will always be, a surprise to me, how little it took.

So first up was my Brother. My wife and I were seated on the tile floor right in front of the TV and the fireplace. My brother was on the couch with my friend. Other people were sitting in various chairs around the room. My friend's roommate was in a chair to my right, about 10 feet away. My friend packed him a bowl and he started to smoke. They said it would make you feel hot, and they were obviously right because my brother began to turn red in the face after he had taken two large tokes. His eyes grew large after he turned red and he looked surprised. Suddenly he stood up and walked around the couch, leaning against the back of it on his hands. He looked blown away and he kept saying...”whoa”.

I said, “is it cool?” He said, “Yeah...” Nodding his head and looking messed up, but I trust my brother. Now-honestly I believe he said it was cool because he was trying to convince himself of that, not totally sure of what to make of his experience, but like I said, I trust him, so it was my turn.

A new bowl was handed to me, and I smoked two large hits. My friend was asking, “is it hitting you?” And while I felt a tingling sensation in my toes, I had to say the effects were as I suspected--drab. So he said,”No, it’s not hitting you...take one more big hit”, as he was putting a few more pieces in the bowl. So I smoked it and sat back, leaving the bowl on the coffee table. I left my eyes open, and I don’t know if that was a mistake or not. Suddenly the tingling in my toes became a fire of heat, coursing up my legs quickly. It was totally physical for the first few seconds, the heat was simply rushing up my body, a novelty, but very different..but wait…n,n,n,n,no….oh my god-----at that moment it struck like lightning, pushing my consciousness towards a flat state. It felt at first an overwhelming pressure and heat all throughout me. The world...my whole consciousness...then felt like it was one of those roll-up draperies that you can pull down-a window shade. But when you pull it that last little bit it rolls up to the top. It is like that happening over and over. Like my soul is being rolled up at the top of a window for eternity. This doesn’t describe at all the visual field or the thought field...just to describe to you HOW transforming is this substance.

In my visual cortex...the image from my eyes was interdicted by a colorful line bisecting my view at a diagonal angle from bottom left to top right. The sensation of being “wrapped up” was leading into this “astral” gradient, like my soul was sucking into this line. In retrospect I probably wasn’t calm enough to take this drug, but not knowing at all how intense it’s effects were, I did no preparation.

To top it off, my friend and a few others were remarking on the look on my face, which betrayed to me a sort of involvement. It was especially aimed at my friend, whom I felt KNEW this would happen to me and he was trying to take me to the other side, but since at this point I could not make out their faces I simply felt he and the others--even my wife--trying to pull me through the gradient with this state of mind. I might also mention that at this point I had NO recollection of ever smoking anything that night. To me, I was simply in this state...and it was the end of my life as I know it now. I still could not make out any people in my visual field. The color kept receding into the gradient, which began to talk to me in my own voice. It said things I have not heard since my inner dialog with Nitrous oxide three years ago, which made me even more sure that this was the end. My adrenalin level and heart rate surged to tremendous levels, and the heat increased, blurring my sense of being a person. The voice talked to me, showing me reality spewing forth from the very fabric of the particles in front of my face...the illusion of being forced upon me to a level I had no hope of pushing back. It was a secret of reality that to remember completely, one must pass on, beyond this fold of consciousness. And I felt there was no way to forget...only that I would always know this secret and therefore I was dying.

During this time I felt as though I were wrestling with the gradient, using my arms, or astral apendages to hold myself away from the truth that would end my being. Not that I fear death, but I was not ready. I am an electronics engineer, with many dreams yet to fulfill and many more games to play, without this universal drama unfolding without my control. Later they told me I never moved my arms, but I fought with it, to stay in the world. I felt that letting myself know the secret too intimately would allow me to circumvent the normal laws of physics, and in short, I was scared shitless. This just didn’t fit with what I felt was possible for my life to become, although I’ve had time to get used to the idea and it doesn’t seem so totally horrible.

When my vision returned to a room with people in it, the voices of truth and reason in my head hadn’t stopped, but they had pulled a clever and mean trick on me. Now, whenever I heard a voice from my own head, someone in the room would be the one speaking the words, and it would be in their voice. They were talking to themselves, almost completely ignoring me but to speak my thoughts to each other, as though they were the individual parts of my psyche and they were illustrating my inner dialog. There was an understanding between us that we are all the same person, and at this time we were experiencing life as ME. All of them were parts of ME that were playing their part all along to make me think that ME was actually happening. And now that they were showing me this inner dialog, I assumed that meant it was now time to pull the curtain up and the “Game” was over. The fact that people in the room were explaining this fact to each other that the game was over didn’t help much either. I literally expected each and every one of my aquaintances throughout the whole of my life, to commence a merry parade through the living room to greet me in my final minutes. Thank god this did not happen or I wouldn’t be typing this right now.

So they kept talking my thoughts. Occasionally they would not speak my thoughts, instead looking at each other or me and saying horrible things like, “look at his face! I think he gets it now!” Or “Look, he finally knows.” And my friend would laugh and say crazy things in a weird way like, ”You okay man? It’s all gonna be okay!”

But I just sat there looking totally stupified at all of them, not having the desire or the ability to try to speak, just to accept my fate and let them drag me as far down this thing as they intended to, I was completely disconnected from hope of rebuttal. I felt like I was a child in the arms of his parent, unable to decide the next turn, just to accept the twist of fate. I know I kept looking at them, and I was making a face like, “come on guys, stop it, this can’t be real.” Kind of staring in bewilderment at them like they were responsible. What was really frightening was that whenever one of them didn’t say something that was running through my mind, the TV would say it. The programming made absolutely no sense because it was saying my thoughts! I kept saying things in my mind, sort of like I was talking TO the state of consciousness that I was in, telling it I wasn’t ready to know this and please stop...but the people in the room just kept saying to each other what I was saying to myself in my head.

Then I was about to lose it, and I was forming a sentence that I was going to say to it in my head. It went like this: ”Please, please just let me go back, I’ll give you five thousand dollars if I can just go back!” Like money would buy this thing off or something, but hey, I was very scared! Up until this point whenever anyone in the room said what I was thinking, they would say it to each other. But as this plea for it to stop entered my mind, one of the girls that I did not know turned and looked at me dead in the eye, and said…”Please, please just let me go back! I’ll give you five thousand dollars if I can just go-----“ And that’s where she stopped…because I couldn’t go on in my head. I stopped and she continued to stare at me, and I heaved outward with fear, and my face looked like”what the hell is going on.” And I kind of said to her with my facial expression, “what are you all doing? And WHY are you doing this to me?” Then the wierdest part of the whole trip occurred, and it is probably what still amazes me most about the whole experience: it started to stop. The secret I learned actually started to fade away, and the sensations and all their saying my thoughts started to get less intense, and then totally stopped. The TV began doing its normal thing again, not bothering me. And I suddenly realized that I HAD smoked something, and that’s why all this happened.

Later I confirmed with my brother that this was exactly how he had felt about the whole journey, and we talked all the way home about what the hell was that stuff, and how the hell could all that crazy shit happen like that. It was simultaneously the most fearful moment of my life and the most amazing, undescribable and interesting experience.

Exp Year: 2000	ExpID: 5365
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 14, 2002	Views: 64,916
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Salvia divinorum (44) : General (1), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)