DOSE:	0.5 hits	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract)
	0.25 bowls	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract)
	0.5 bowls	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract)
	0.5 bowls	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

135 lb

I am a 20 year old male college student with comparably limited experience in psychoactives. I have experienced alcohol, nicotine and cannabis recreationally, as well as hydrocodone, morphine, nitrous and an unknown anesthetic in a medical setting. Salvia divinorum is my only true journey into the realm of psychedelics. I have used salvia in a spiritual context for around a year with very few difficult experiences, all rooted to set and setting. I say “difficult” (and not bad) because, with the exception of my first experience breaking through, fear and panic were less prominent than a general uneasiness. Personally, I get uneasy without a sitter because my mind is apt to worry about the physical realm as I exit it, creating a resistance to the effects and making the experience less enjoyable.

The setting: My dorm room, which is small and very Euclidean, squares and right angles prominent everywhere. My sitter, O, is very close to myself, a compassionate platonic relationship. She has used salvia to a lesser extent than myself, but has delved into deep states of trance with the plant and sat for others on various psychedelics. In other words, she understands the plant, which is invaluable. It is approximately 11:30 PM when the first dose is taken, the room nearly completely dark, Indian classical music playing very softly in the background. I had eaten a full meal prior at around 5 PM. I had been looking forward to taking salvia for the hours preceding. The day was spent preparing spiritually, doing yoga extensively and visiting uplifting friends.

The initial dose was minute, approximately 5 flakes of the 15x extract. This will usually create some minor visual changes for me, some mild CEVs, but more so a slight change of consciousness. My modus operandi usually includes a very light experience to break the ice, and then gradually increase subsequent attempts once the effects wear off. Since this first dose did not break through, I’ll omit the details.

The Experience: I can’t be certain to any exact dosage, although in a small bowl with screen the overall pile sat very low in the space it was allowed. I inhaled using the method I’ve found to work best, which is identical to most other suggestions I’ve seen on various websites. In a nutshell, one inhales, sucking the flame into direct contact with the leaves until they are ash. As I lay on my bed, I can feel the effects begin. A framework of four posts, where my bed posts are positioned in reality, stretch and arch over my field of vision. These posts are alive, complete with faces, and smile down at me. Colors are manifesting between this living foundation, and I can sense smaller entities in the background. They all give a playful impression, very benevolent and welcoming. They know me from past experiences. Within the salvia world I have a familiar relationship with these entities. Although I don’t necessarily believe salvia opens a new reality that exists, the consistency of the visions experienced give me an understanding of how the Mazatec shamans could see this as the “spirit world”.

A fabric of smaller entities now rest and flow along the framework as beings separate from the cloth manipulate the structure. This experience is different from any other salvia trip for me in the sense that I still have a bearing that this is drug induced, and although I’ve lost my body to the surrounding landscape visually, I have a firm sense of ego and can move my arms and legs. I feel like I haven’t taken enough to fully enter the world, and this slightly disappoints me. The framework is fully attached to each bedpost except the one to the right of my head, and it floats freely and flails in an invisible breeze, leaving my room exposed where the blanket does not cover. I express this to O. In past experiences this “problem” has happened before when the amount wasn’t substantial enough to deliver me from reality.

The entities continue to work furiously, I feel that they are following a set schedule that occurs with every experience, and some of their actions are familiar. They seem to be making due with what they have, despite the structural flaws. I begin laughing uncontrollably, recognizing some of what they are doing. Suddenly I get a small tug of ego-loss, I felt that my actions up to this point were free will, but as my head rolled to the side a sense of de-ja-vu occurred. My very actions had become part of their schedule, and I suddenly became very concerned that they were using the broken scaffolding as a ploy to lull me into a sense of security, and then blast me off into a very unexpected and intense retribution for underestimating them! This, however, didn’t happen.

Suddenly everything visually became fleeting, although I felt their presence and could “see” them through my awareness of their prior location. I became aware of what was soon to become the most intense part of the trip, everything began dissolving! Through the darkness I could see reality slowly being eaten away by invisible forces, as if a strong acid were soaking on each surface and consuming space itself! I noticed a tingling sensation throughout my newly rediscovered body, and that I myself was dissolving! As my vision was left stationary on the pillow, I watched my body (a greenish mass with flickering, photorealistic faces scrolling along them) rise up.

What happened next is hard to explain. The body was being extruded through some sort of rolling, smooth force. I found great pleasure in this sensation, became slightly anxious to let myself go to the process, but eventually did “let go”. The end result was my body had become 5 or so globules of the green face matter, largest over my head and successively smaller towards my feet. This sat adjacent to my vision for a bit, sort of disbanded into the other surrounding molecules and left me laughing for dear life. The feelings of entities and flowing matter were making speech difficult. I felt the rough feeling in my throat (due to smoking) as a visible piece of landscape set before me, a small hill I believe, and just now realized that it was a feeling opposed to a location. When I tried to speak, the hill would jiggle madly and sort of flip inside out, coming out my mouth. This entire time my throat was a landscape!

I laughed maniacally as O, who knew I was grounded enough to be deemed “sober-ish” joined in the cheerful comedy. This was comforting, as I felt she was going out of her way for me. Hearing her laugh assured me that she was not in any way bored, which was comforting. Although realistically only about 5 minutes had passed (and time did not feel distorted in the least), the sheer disconnect and volume of events in that time led me to open the possibility that O was horribly disinterested and wished to go on her way. This luckily was not the case. O colorfully depicted her account. She stated I rolled from side to side, laughing sporadically, uttering “dude...” and sitting excitedly on the verge of speech, trapped by the spectacle unfolding! At this point, I felt vaguely like Rocky. Round Two was to begin.

I upped the dosage to about half of a small bowl, inhaled, but coughed up most of the hit early on. I inhaled the remains and awaited the results, again slightly disappointed. Salvia wasn’t twisting my ego as it normally did. Either way, the convergence was coming! I lay excitedly as a scene similar to the first experience appeared. The flowing fabric and entities were back, but I wasn’t gone from reality. At the onset, I uttered, “oh... yes” quite sexually, and pondered how O would perceive such expression. The idea of O visualizing my salvia world as an army of sex slaves and my mind as a strange, strange place left me reeling in laughter. Unable to communicate with O and set the discrepancy straight, I gave up trying to speak.

Dissatisfied with the lack of intensity, I spun onto my stomach and planted my face into the small arsenal of pillows before me. I became anxious O may believe me to be suffocating and intervene. Therefore, I devised the only strategy I could to express my safety. “::laughter:: I CAN BREATHE!!! ::laughter:: I’M BREATHING!!!”. She suppressed a giggle and stayed silent, but didn’t get up to remove my face from the slowly churning doorway that was opening inside the pillow. A formal- looking, mahogany double door opened to reveal a pathway lined with trees on either side. I had a slight sense of ego- loss, for a second I was in the garden. Sadly I returned immediately to the other side of the doors. Worried I may really suffocate if I were to enter the garden, I turned to O and verbalized I was in a “meadow”. Dissatisfied with the piss-poor choice of wording (it was a garden, not a meadow!) I tried in vain to modify my explanation.

Suddenly my head flew backwards in space. What really happened was I most likely forgot about my body and lost balance. But within the landscape, my pillow had become a house, the old door vanished and a new one had sprung open. A wooden gear/coglike entity was spinning, smiling, and apparently has smacked my face real good as I searched for the proper word. The gear was apparently feminine, and a female bush/gardener combination sat smiling to the left of the doorway. I found great amusement in this, and like a salmon swimming upstream, braved forward through the cog smacks to look inside the doorway and see O past the gear. I tried to explain and gave up. The house was apparently a sort of windmill or butter churning facility, old-fashioned and busy.

Everyone was so busy! Everything was moving and I felt like I was this clumsy mind impeding on their business. They didn’t seem annoyed in the least, however, and continued working away. I became aware that just behind my “head” and the front face of the house, a chasm had developed. Above us by a few inches was the lip of a purse, and we were inside it! My head had a handle or a connector atop it, securely fastened to one lip of the purse and was free to slide along the lip. Outside of the purse was a cartoonish world of walking, busy businesspeople or shoppers, I’m uncertain. Just as I came to this realization my head was jerked to the side and stopped a few inches from the wall. I lost my balance and my shoulder stopped the fall, although I found this out later.

Someone above me had picked my head up by the handle and continued walking along until my head slid to the limit of the purse. They seemed unconcerned that they lost me, almost like they were going in a certain direction and if I made it there or not was less of a concern. They had no time for inefficient specimens such as me. Another person walking the opposite way picked me up, and I continued being rocked back and forth as such, laughing and trying to tell O these events until the effects faded to the point where I realized I was just rocking back and forth of my own accord, terribly unbalanced.

The primary effects of this trip lasted about 5 minutes as well. I began snickering, imagining the humor O must have found in watching me bounce like a drunken puppy from side to side on my knees. I told her I wished to give it one more go, apologizing for coughing. I felt as if I was inconveniencing her, although she insisted that she would otherwise be sitting in her room late into the night doing little to nothing, and that this sort of intermittent company was well spent time. This, however, wasn’t a strong enough impression and I went into the third trip with this in mind.

This dose was similar to the second, but I got it all in and good to go. I lay down and the beginning is a tad fuzzy, but I do remember that the flowing entities were back, inviting. I didn’t reach the ego-lost land I’m used to, but they were beckoning for me to join, not so much in motion or words, but in their expressions. Tiny interconnected smile flowing like a colorful waterfall. They were a “happy” purple (thanks Bob Ross!), perhaps an orange. I was completely aware that the effects would be short lived and they would vanish soon, and I would lead O out for the night. The entities were bumming out, turned “sad, muted lavender” and sort of conveyed a message similar to “Don’t leave! Please stay around!” as they flowed across every surface.

I turned to the wall next to my bed on the left and rolled onto my knees, talking to them. I believe I said “I’m sorry guys, no, no don’t worry, I’ll be back soon enough”. I mentally said similar things. As I turned to my new left, which, on my knees was the open side of my bed where O sat, the image of O hopped into the blanket, becoming this tessellated, white bordered image within the entities. These tessellations bore a strong representation of my thought “O needs to leave”. The entities became a dark green. At the edge of my bed, the blanket of them formed into a paper cutout of a sad flattened figure (think the AOL running man) sitting slumped at the edge of my bed, resting his hands on the end where he sat. The figure was not “one”, but a manifestation of the lot of them (it was a very I Heart Huckabees moment!) connected to the rest of the blanket. It was much like how a small school of fish collects to create the illusion of a larger fish. The entities were forming this fellow as a sort of symbol of their sorrow that I was leaving, as a way to pity me into staying. It was the cutest and most profound scene, and I began laughing. They were much like a friend sad to watch a loved one leave. The trip subsided and O found delight in both hearing my end of the matter and sharing how compassionate I was towards these creatures I tell her about. I would estimate that this experience was slightly longer, perhaps 6 minutes.

I led O out, thanked her for watching over me and sat on my bed. The prominent visuals had subsided, although there was an off-baseline sort of lens over my vision, much like a small dose of any psychoactive. I went to the bathroom and stared at the white cinder block walls, which sort of morphed subtly in small wavy patterns. I had a vivid dream that night, unrelated to trip itself.

The next day I still felt a slight “connection” to the other reality. A self- description of my mind would be “visual”. Spatial relations come easier to me than most, and even while sober I can usually implement my imagination to stir up some psychosomatic “trippiness”. This is especially pronounced in the time span during integration of a salvia experience. As I went about the day, meditation and yoga seemed slightly more fruitful in some regards, although the limiting factor was most likely my state of tiredness (I usually go to bed around 10PM, the night of the experience left me awake until 1AM). A peaceful feeling had set in, closeness with nature I usually felt normally was amplified. When I looked at objects, if I played with them mentally I could associate them with the salvia world.

This was by no means an “average” salvia experience for me. Usually I am less grounded to reality psychologically in relation to my visuals. I think several factors influenced this. I haven’t smoked salvia in a good while, as well as cannabis or tobacco. Perhaps my lungs weren’t so inclined to absorb compounds as readily as past experiences. The “reverse- tolerance” of salvia may also have had a role. I personally feel it was my set and my sitter. I was very expressive to O about the happenings of my trip, maybe this grounded me to reality and prevented me from disconnecting as completely as other experiences.

Also, O has a very “strong” presence about her. Although she is physically tough, mentally she has a dominating presence, not to the point of intrusiveness, but awareness. Reality dissolved everywhere except the area where she was sitting. Past experiences with her as a sitter were similar, although not to this degree. In summary, I think I was too busy talking to O to listen to what the plant had to say. Despite the milder experience, this was one of the most playful and entertaining salvia trips I’ve had. It lacked the spiritual significance of others, but transience, impermanence and variability are all qualities that salvia has brought to light in my concept of reality. It would be brash to assume these same traits didn’t apply to the plant itself.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 58795
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 19, 2007	Views: 23,661
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Glowing Experiences (4), General (1)