DOSE: T+ 0:00	1/3 g	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract)
T+ 24:00	1/5 g	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

First of all, I'm writing about this experience partially to share with others my experiences on this drug, but also partially for my own sake - to try and get a handle on what occurred and integrate it into a cohesive experience, which I have so far been unable to do. Its an experience that is very difficult to get one's mind around, and that is half the reason I am writing this post.

My buddy tried some of the 5x extract a few days ago, and said it was really interesting. He described how he imagined he was standing up, but was in fact lying down the entire time. He described seeing his friends around him, except they were composed of thousands of tiny versions of themselves, as if you had stacked a thousand Lego men together would make one giant Lego man. While he was in this state he described how he was still pretty aware of things around him.

We decided to give the 7x extract a try. I went first and contrary to the directions on the package we loaded about a third of a gram into the bowl of a large bong. My state of mind could best be described as apprehensive, as I was excited to try this new thing, but at the same time slightly frightened, as I had never experimented with hallucinogens before (I haven't even tried mushrooms). I burned the bowl and cleared the bong in one single, huge hit - the smoke was smooth and flavorful, less harsh than marijuana smoke. I held it in, and after about 15 seconds I began to feel the effects.

I started to feel it in my head first, as a slightly dizzy feeling, then within seconds it had spread to my entire body and I felt my muscles become very heavy. I guess there was a little left in the bong because I remember my friends urging me to finish off the last puff and I complied. I was on a couch with the bong on the floor, and as I tried to move forward it was like I virtually had to force my body to move as if its natural state of rest was in the sitting position. Everything was in slow motion. As I leaned forward the edges of the objects all around me suddenly became checkered or pixellated, and I felt myself taken hold of by an irresistable force which pulled my whole body to the floor and then THROUGH the floor out of the universe.

It is very difficult for me to describe, but somehow I knew that my mind was no longer in the reality that I had previously existed in. I had fallen out of our world into someplace that I can only describe as completely different. My physical body seemed gone, but I felt as though I needed more space to move in (my friends told me later I was on the floor slowly pushing objects out of my way, trying to stretch out.) What I actually saw there I remember little of, but what I do remember was dark and frightening, like something out of Pink Floyd's The Wall. It was not at all what I had expected, and a part of me desperately wanted out, but at the same time another part wanted to sink further into this new world. Wherever I was, I knew that my mind was REALLY THERE and at the time it seemed inconceivable that it was just a hallucination. I could hear my friends voices as if from far away asking if I needed help, and I wanted them to be quiet so I could focus more on figuring out where I had traveled to. I traveled back to a very special place from my childhood, and then, just as suddenly as I had fallen out of our reality, I was pulled UPWARDS back into it. My eyes opened and I was back - I say back because I was filled with the definite and certain feeling that my mind had left my body and traveled somewhere else, whether deeper into my own consciousness or outwards into another dimension I cannot say - but it had left, and then returned. I picked myself up off the floor back onto the couch, which took extreme effort because I could still feel the force pulling me down, as if I weighed hundreds of pounds. It took about 15 minutes before I was ready to talk about what I had seen with my friends.

They proceded to do it. One friend stood up and strolled around outside and described how the world was a lot of fractured pieces coming together to make one big piece, and the other friend just got really giggily and described how he was full of energy. The next night we did it again, except with 10x extract and using about 1/5 gram each. Again my friends were able to stand up and walk around in the house, and speak with us, responding coherently to simple questions. One of them said he went to a place with a green field and a fence but that was as far as the traveling went.

I put on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album, partially to put me in the mood, and partially to act as an anchor to give me a link back to my 'real' world. When I tried it the second time, it was exactly as before. I saw the checkered/pixellated objects, and then sank irresistably into another reality. This time I remember going first to someplace that saddened me greatly (confirmed by my friends watching me cry on the floor) and then to another place, this one filling me with a sense of great joy. The second place was like a town from the wild west, with the ghostly saloons and abandoned hotels standing tall along a long, empty dirt street. I was on the ground, resting in the shade of a giant wagon wheel, in the center of the street looking down it, out of the town and into the vast, endless desert. I felt deeper in the experience, and had no sense whatsoever of the room and the people around me - the music had gone silent. Then again, suddenly, the buildings, which had seemed life-size, revealed themselves to be only shadows on the side of my friends bed standing only 8 inches from the floor. I saw a shoe attached to the leg of a man who seemed to be miles tall, and another man standing above me. I heard the music ebbing back into my mind and I slowly realized that I was looking at my friends. I awoke laughing, filled with a sense of joy and a feeling that wherever I had been was fundamentally good, and I was overwhelmed with a desire to return.

So I did. My friends this time, interested that they got up and walked around while I curled up in a ball on the floor in oblivion, urged me to try and describe my experience as I went through it. I told them that this would be impossible, because my physical body and the physical world vanished, but I would try. Even before I had returned to my baseline state I took another hit of the same size and I left our world for the third time - I had been right, speaking was impossible. This time I was struck with the distinct impression as I left our 'dimension' for the 'other' that the one we inhabit on a daily basis could be no less real than the one I traveled to with the help of the plant. It suddenly seemed shallow and immature. I felt myself turning to the right, and everywhere in the room that light met shadow so too did the 'real reality' meet the 'dream reality'. I finally turned completely into shadow and was gone. I found myself in a turn-of-the-century town, with Victorian style buildings and trappings about town. The buildings were all painted blue. I realized that I was a citizen of this town, and came to the realization that I could feel great amounts of time passing, a span of many years in just seconds. Because I had no physical body I did not age, and the town remained ageless, but I KNEW that many years had passed, maybe 20, or even sixty. INSIDE I felt older, similiar to returning to a high school after graduation and knowing without a doubt that you were young then, and are indeniably older now. I felt as if I had lived a life there, perhaps my own, and perhaps someone else's, I cannot say. Suddenly I felt myself become angry - I was angry because I remembered that my friends had wanted me to describe what I was feeling, as if this were some fucked-up robo trip and the bushes felt 'cool, man'. I felt indignant inside because they were treating the life I felt I had lived as something trivial that one experiences on a lower level drug like weed, when I knew that this was someone's LIFE they were talking about - I was very angry. I remember screaming 'you can't fucking understand' and then it felt like in my anger I physically ripped myself from my dream dimension. I came down very quickly, still feeling angry and insulted. My friend implied in a way that seemed to me to be patronizing that I 'control the experience and talk about it while its happening' and I knew that I could not. It was not under my control at all what was happening and I could neither stop it nor describe it. Impossible to bridge the two dimemsions in such a way, at least not yet. I went immediately to bed, angry because I felt that he had not understood what I had gone through.

I feel like I have discovered a side of existence I never knew was there. Completely separate from the reality we live in day-to-day, and yet just as real. I still have the desire to go back and explore this new dimension further, and I want to stay longer - to tell the truth, while I was there the third time I felt as if it did not matter whether I stayed in dreamworld or returned, because each was equally real, or perhaps each was equally not real. I will probably try stronger doses until I reach a time when I can stay until I feel ready to leave, not when I simply depart against my will. I am still confused by how my friends seem to be able to interact with the physical world when on their trips while I cannot, despite us doing the same dosage in the same environment. They can speak, play with objects, walk around fairly well, while I leave entirely for a place that is contained entirely within my own mind, and the physical world becomes inconsequential and non-existent. I have always known that I have a very active imagination - perhaps this has something to do with it...

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 54391
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Mar 9, 2012	Views: 10,034
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Mystical Experiences (9), Difficult Experiences (5)