DOSE:

One hits

inhaled

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

Just smoked salvia for the fifth time. The first time I've used it alone, not mixed with cannabis. It completely unzipped my head. It really does seem twice as intense with each successive trip. I can't believe I actually was worried the hamburger and cigarette I'd had earlier might 'block the high'. Ha! I doubt if even a shot of thorazine could block that rush of intensity.

I had the TV on, and I wanted music, but the only thing playing was 'All Right Now' by Free. Not one of my favorite songs, but better than infomercials, so I left in on. I packed my dad's one-hitter and blasted a hit. My vision faded as simultaneously every perception was literally bent, starting at the edges, under the force of some new, internal gravity. I became intensely paranoid about the pipe somehow starting a fire, though it was completely cashed, striving to set it in a ceramic bowl on the coffee table even as my vision warped and faded and twisted into strands of melting, bending rubber.

It felt like my mind was being peeled, and divided like an orange, or actually turned inside out. My visual cortex was continuing to divide into millions of these weird strands, like concentric stripes, which warped at the edges and became warped by a vast sucking sideways gravity. The intense gravity was accompanied by a deep electric feeling in my body. But now sudden confusion annihilated everything. I had no idea what I was doing. All subjective reality fled, and I was left completely at the herb's mercy.

Intense waves of fear took hold of my psyche. I felt I'd made some gross error. Somebody should've warned me about this. I actually couldn't remember that I'd smoked salvia before. For all I knew in those moments, I'd never even heard of it before today. I wondered why my father had never warned me of this stuff (I had an odd, completely false notion that I'd 'discovered' the plant in my parent's bedroom, and partaken of it like some Forbidden Fruit. I was still too young to handle properly), though in reality the first time I smoked it (non-concentrated leaves) was with him (he'd said he hardly felt anything; I'd experienced only a mild, cannabis like buzz). But this was an entirely new experience, blowing away even my intense trip a few days ago.

Basically, it annihilated my normal sense of self. I had no conception in these initial minutes that this plant was totally safe, or that the effects were temporary. I felt it had actually warped my psyche irreversibly. My mind searched in vain for some explanation as to what might be happening to me. Surely I must be dying. I was becoming ever more convinced this was the end. Or even that I'd already died and was entering the Dreaming for good. I realized this had to be a dream, and yet I knew I was awake. That left only one option. The world was a dream, not really 'real' at all. A completely directed, constructed plastic dream set up for me by God and my father and mother, which I feared was now finally, irreversibly dissolving.

'All Right Now' seemed to be endlessly repeating the chorus, with ever increasing sense of hilarious intensity. And the singer was talking to me, trying to tell me I was all right, and yet at the same time laughing at my weakness of mind. I couldn't for the life of me understand how to interpret the way I was feeling. Everything had this striped, banded appearance, as if the world were made of flattened tubed stuck together at the edges.

Panic, confusion, and awe were rushing down on me in vast tidal waves as the chorus continued ad nauseam. The video was full of flat tube shapes, and this proved that everything, even what was no TV, was now specially directed at me, and me alone. I changed the channel with the now immensely magical-seeming remote control. But everything image the huge flat screen displayed contained those flat tube shapes, and I didn't want to see any more of those. 'Give me something without those fucking tubes!' I nearly shouted, bursting out laughing as my cat suddenly looked up, startled from her nap. She was looking at me as if I'd lost my mind (which I had). I now came back to sanity enough to know I was hallucinating, and that my perceptions were being warped by the salvinorin.

Every TV channel was talking to me, telling me things I didn't want to understand. Every random phrase held an obvious, specific meaning, directed at me alone. This had to be a fucking dream. Suddenly I couldn't take it, and bolted for the front door, mild dizziness and the 'salvia gravity' making it quite an effort. Standing up was difficult, so I sank to the floor.

Our porch is seven steps up off the ground, with no roof. The noon summer sun was beating down with blinding intensity, but filtered through tall pine trees. I tried to say something like 'what the fucking shit is this?' but my mouth just produced twisted meaningless mumblings. But I could hear the panic in my own voice. I gave up trying to stand and lay on the bare pine board, rolling from side to side. This went on for only a few moments, I think.

I stood up again, now drenched in sweat, and went back inside. The song was unbelievably still going, and the chorus was ecstatically exclaiming how awesome this trip was. I finally had to agree, feeling utterly crazy still but now starting to enjoy the ride. My mouth was filling with cactus-juice-tasting saliva, which I swallowed, thinking this might be my body's effort to flush the drug out of my system. Then the next video came on. 'A Touch of Grey' by the Grateful Dead. I knew they were telling me I'd get through this, I'd would survive, but the fear was intense. 'It's a lesson' Jerry intoned, and I began to sing along. Strangely, this entire song seemed to pass by in a matter of thirty seconds or a minute.

The intensity was leveling off some now, and my comfortable, familiar surroundings began to seem safe and normal again, though waves of awe-struck, weird thoughts continued spilling through my brain. I suddenly realized that my entire 'self' was merely an idea. A safe, comfortable idea of mine, a feeling, and that whenever this familiar comfort zone was removed, I become afraid. I realized how alien the concept of right and left must be to plants, which radiate outward from a central point. This plant is immensely enlightening, taking one to realms entirely beyond our mortal understanding. I can't wait to go back. It's a different journey every time. I can't wait to go there again, though

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 72247
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 4, 2022	Views: 2,092
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Alone (16), Music Discussion (22), Mystical Experiences (9), Glowing Experiences (4), Difficult Experiences (5), General (1)