DOSE:	repeated	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract)
		smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

I had started smoking salvia with my smoking buddies due to a bad bit of advice from a senior telling us that it was “legal LSD”. Knowing what I know now I would have belted him right there, however I would not have been introduced to the wonderful world of salvia. Our first trip was a terrific failure, but we finally got it right and what happened each time was entertaining and beautiful. Mistaking the smoking room’s bed as a private castle, trips to ancient Aztec lands and raves and other such trips. Thankfully no bad trips due to good friends, good planning and an overall positive attitude of all smokers involved. This however did not satisfy my curiosity.

Smoking in groups was interesting and the good vibe kept people from getting beyond mild hallucinations. Impressions of the situation seemed to be a common theme with reality seeming like an artsy foreign film, a prison, a public pool etc. I wanted to go deeper with salvia, so I began to smoke it in more controlled settings away from noise and bright lights. I only came close to breaking through once, but I panicked at the critical moment and came back. I bought stronger extracts and finally had my breakthroughs, but as I read more online I realized my trips were somewhat run of the mill and I became dejected. I was going to resign to my fate and leave salvia behind when I noticed a peculiar effect. The night after my salvia trips would be filled with exquisite lucid dreams and I would have the privilege of remembering them when I woke up.

I had an experiment to do. How does salvia affect dreams? With my roommate gone for the weekend, (He didn’t approve of smoking anything) I loaded up my bong with some 13x we had bought. I smoked one rip and hopped into bed as fast as I could before it hit. It was around 4 pm and I had my room as dark as I could make it. I felt my usual salvia effects set in but I could not fall asleep. At first due to the physical feelings, but then it became the clamoring Star Wars’ Jawa chattering in the corner about “how high he was”. So, slightly miffed, I called the experiment a failure. I sobered up and fell asleep thinking about how I could make my experiment work.

The next night I had bit of a pot craving so I begged some from a buddy. I had one solid bud of some of the driest weed I had ever seen. He warned me about it, telling me that it came from a very strong batch and that he had it left over because he didn’t want to smoke it due to fears of it being laced. I had smoked some of it earlier and it was not laced, it was just potent, dry weed. I did some thinking and I had read some trip reports about salvia and weed. I had a good trip the night before, but I could not fall asleep. I decided that the weed would act as a sleep aid allowing for a salvia dream trip. I also played with the idea that the trip would last longer as sleep would reduce my metabolism. I decided that the best way to find out would be to do it, so I got right to setting up.

I got ready for bed normally, but I made sure to clean up my room so I could have an unobstructed path to my bed from my smoking chair. I got my dorm mate who shares my bathroom to sit with me and make sure I got into bed and stayed there, and then leave so I could sleep but to check on me if he heard anything bad going down. I listened to some of my salvia music (Mayan Pipes, Black Sabbath’s Planet Caravan and Solitude) to set my mood and then I proceeded to pack that life changing bowl. I blocked the bowl’s hole with the bud and then I covered it with a bit of 13x salvia. I cannot say how much as I did not weight it but it was enough to bury the bud so let’s assume ~1/5 of a gram. It was enough as after holding in the mix of marijuana and salvia smoke for a count of 20, I felt the salvia start to effect me within 30 sec of exhalation.

My usual salvia trip starts with a visual distortion. My field of vision starts to tilt, similar to spinning in a chair for a few revolutions and then trying to stand up and walk in a straight line. I barely made it into bed before the next sensation hits. I get a feeling all over my body as if I’m drenched in cold water and a thousand tiny needles are burrowing in and out of my sweat glands. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s and eerie feeling. I then think I sober up, but that is when the hallucinations hit. Normally this is as far as I get, but today was different because some new sensations were working their way in.

As I lay in bed, all tucked in with my sitter leaving me to my sleep, I felt a familiar wave of goodness wash over me. The weed was coming on, and it was coming hard. I felt amazing as the salvia was washed aside along with my expectations and worries. I started to drift asleep as the needling sensation subsided. I opened my eyes and was treated to a dazzling display of shifting shapes and colors. The natural phenomena of seeing color patterns in the dark were being exaggerated by the chemicals in my system. This was fun to watch but I knew that they were just a distraction. I drifted into a deeper rest and then I feel asleep.

But I wasn’t asleep yet. It was as if in one fell swoop all incoming sensations were muffled. I could still feel the cloth of the blanket against my skin, hear the sound of my air conditioner, and feel myself breathing, but they felt distant and my breathing was happening on its own. I got agitated and they muffling was lifted. I had woken up. Calming down, I could feel the muffle switching back on. I had found the exact moment of unconsciousness and passed through it conscious. I played with this effect a few times until I decided to go deeper. Left alone with only my thoughts, I decided to use my imagination and draw the world around me. I could pick every bit of existence out and it would become another element in this new world I was occupying.

First my ego and physical self became a mental version of myself. The weed generated feelings became a distant mountain range. Reality turned into a threatening thunderstorm overhead. My bed became the ground under my feet, barren and rocky. The overcast sky threw thunder but not lightning or rain. Salvia however disappeared. I knew it was still at work when I had broken through. No sooner had I envisioned my dreamland, I was transported into it. Looking around I noticed that there was a ledge which separated my constructed world from nonexistence. I contemplated crossing that ledge.

Then suddenly I was walking away onto the ledge. It was as if my consciousness had skipped. I wondered at the strange feeling and so I decided to cross over one more time. Reality skipped again and I was standing with my back to the void. It clicked and I realized that I was standing at a representation of the ego border, one side existence, the other nothingness. I had to try to ease into nonexistence and savor the feeling. I was able to hover between sides and achieve conscious nonexistence where I existed as a single thought for some time. Something felt wrong and I shifted back to reality. An entity, which I can only describe as female and identify as salvia, overcame the marijuana effects and gave me the impression that my time playing at this border was up, and that I needed to move along. It was a similar feeling to being told as a child that recess was over.

I then felt the salvia leave me and I fought my way back up through the levels of consciousness and I woke up to my sitter walking into the room. A glance at the clock showed that 3 hours had passed and my sitter had come in to check on me as he heard me talking to someone. I had been lying in bed, complaining to some unseen person that I was “so close, just a bit more time”. I had repeated this several times before my sitter decided to intervene with my trip. I laughed it off and took stock of my sobriety. The salvia trip was over and a bit of the weed lingered but the trip was over. I went back to sleep and proceeded to fall asleep and have some of the greatest dreams I had ever had. There were no consciousness boundaries this time, I just went to sleep normally.

Reflecting back, I can defiantly say that, for me, salvia has a positive effect on dreams, but was my journey to the edge of existence a dream, a trip, a bit of both, or feeble attempt by my mind to process a facet of reality normally hidden. Some people have told me that a trip is a trip and that they need to be taken with a grain of salt. Others have told me I have had a religious experience and that what I saw and felt was reality unmasked. Most people have told me that I was just tripping hard and that I’m crazy. Personally I think it’s a bit of everything. I can tell what imagery were hallucinations and which were altered perceptions of what’s around me after a trip, but after this one, I cannot say what I saw and felt were real or imagined. I will do the only thing I can with this experience is share it with others and marvel at the power of that plant called salvia.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 64429
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 4, 2009	Views: 7,080
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Salvia divinorum (44), Dreams (85) : Combinations (3), Retrospective / Summary (11), Mystical Experiences (9), Entities / Beings (37), General (1), Not Applicable (38)