DOSE:

0.1 g

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT:

240 lb

First a little background about me:

I have suffered severe depression for the last 20 years. Thanks to antidepressants this situation has been livable. When I first start cycling with depression there were times when I couldn't remember how to brush my teeth or the names of people I had known for years. I called it flatline - total brain shutdown. When I was up I performed very well, IQ of 150 with all the bonuses. I was as a young teen against all drugs. After several cycles of cognitive flatline I knew that all the anti-drug propaganda deserved a second look.

For the next 10 years a tried a variety of anti-depressants and other legal psychoactive substances including: lithium, tegretol, imipramine, vivactil, prozac, anafranil, serzone, reboxetine, levodopa, pergolide, bromocriptine, and Ritalin all to little avail. The combination that eventually gave some relief (for the last 10 years) Wellbutrin ( 450 mg) and Effexor (225 mg) supplemented in recent years by Deprenyl ( 5mg) . These combinations span over 20 years. Intermittently, every few years I would go cold turkey for about 6 months always to disastrous ends, the mind numbing flatness would return emotionally and cognitively.

The working combination¯ enabled me to be mentally very capable, holding down a six figure job and advancing well in my career. However the emotional problems remained, I became a very logical person¯ unmoved or motivated by emotional or romantic interests. For whatever reason, I was numb in many respects which was better than flat. Dating and friends were completely uninteresting to me. I knew I should want these things, but to say I was cold was an understatement. I had a tendency to like intense situations as these could generate a rise out of me. Eventually I all but conditioned away any hint of fear or other primal emotions. I thrived on situations that would frighten other people, these situations helped me feel alive. Eventually through repeated exposure I burned out on many of the thrills and even they wouldn't give me a rise. My number one problem was motivation. It took herculean efforts to get myself motivated about anything outside of work.

The antidepressants made many illegal drugs that might have interested me a non-starter. Early on, in periods when I wasn't on anti-depressants I went through a binge¯ year or two with acid tripping consuming several hundred hits. I did mushrooms a few times and MDMA a few times as well. The anti-depressants made these drugs ineffective because they bound to many of the same receptors. I had also tried smoking pot many times, and cocaine occasionally. These two drugs seemed to have no effect at all.

Last week for the first time I tried Salvia Divinorum:

And everything changed! The after glow from it is amazing. It seems the theory of kappa-opioid agonists resetting something deep in the mind might hold some merit.

Let me start at the beginning...

I got introduced to Salvia Divinorum by a news story just last month. I had never heard of it before. I prolifically began to study every aspect of it and read every experience I could find. I became interested in opioid receptor drugs after hearing that ketamine cured treatment resistant depression in many severe cases that barely responded to antidepressants. Reading that Salvia was legal and a kappa opioid receptor agonist I knew I had to try it.

I ordered 10 grams of 10x extract from a reliable online vendor and had it overnighted to me.

Eagerly I opened the package and was cautious. I had heard this was very powerful stuff. I am currently on effexor, wellbutrin and deprenyl and was cautious about possible interactions. I knew that many drugs barely registered a threshold level of experience with me, however, I had read that this was a very powerful drug.

I proceeded to take 0.5 grams sublingually last Thursday afternoon. Letting it dissolve¯ in my mouth for over 20 minutes I felt some mild effects, things were just a bit surreal. However, at this point I hadn't realized the value of using alcohol to prepare my mouth to maximize the amount of Salvorinum A passing through to the blood so the experience was more mild than it would have been.

At this point I decided to smoke about 1/10th of a gram of this 10x extract and see where that would go. After 3 or 4 hits I felt the typical bending and pulling sensation mentioned by many salvia users. But the best was the emotional part. It felt extremely intense and was even SCARY. I couldn't believe it. I was actually scared, a feeling very foreign to me. Not a scary monster type scared but a this is too intense¯ scared. I remember saying the words 'This is so cool'¯ and 'This is so intense'. I then laid down and started to get very, very horny and turned on (a rarity for me). I proceed to imagine some very creative things and as I came down I ended up masturbating to incredible effect.

In the next several days I proceeded to smoke and consume Salvia every day or two. Every time I smoked I would hit a point where I would think 'This is almost too intense'¯ and the peak would start to come down. The smoking peaks would only last 2 or 3 minutes. When I dosed sublingually the effects seemed to last for about an hour.

The amazing bits were the afterglow effects. For the first time in decades I literally loved people again. I couldn't help but get excited when I interacted with others. I had so many emotional responses to our interactions. Emotional responses that were totally not there prior to smoking the salvia. The theory with this is somehow kappa opioid receptor agonists of this intensity 'reset'¯ some of the brains core chemical systems. This made me human again. I am so excited about people. I realize from other accounts that I will no doubt need to periodically re-administer the salvia to keep repriming the pump. Whatever is wrong with my head will slowly remanifest itself unless periodically reset.

Some of the interesting side effects of the salvia are the way it changed my dreams. I have had lucid dreams for a long time. Literally hundreds of dreams in my life where I realize I am dreaming and can control my dreams. I am used to weird dreams. The salvia however had a really interesting effect. Some how my dreams are louder¯ than usual. Not loud in the sense of sound, but loud in an intensity kind of way. I occasionally wake up from dreams now literally with a headache, it reminds me of listening to the TV when it is up too loud.

The salvia has done some amazing things for me. Though I suppose I would be described as a hard-head I don't mind at all. The salvia managed to make me happy in ways that no other drugs could in the after-glow¯. It managed to rev up my sex drive which will enable me to actually get a girlfriend ( I have passed on more relationships and sex than you can imagine because of low/no libido“ Viagra and the like never totally did the job for me like Salvia does). Best of all it has given me incredible hope.

I am sure I will have many more tales to tell about this wonderful plant! Thank you salvia divinorum for washing my depression away!

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 57536
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 10, 2009	Views: 23,125
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Salvia divinorum (44) : Alone (16), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Depression (15), Sex Discussion (14), Health Benefits (32)