DOSE:

0.5 g

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

122 lb

What follows is one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me. I have a ridiculous amount of difficulty explaining exactly how things felt, but I'll try my best.

Though a good portion of the salvia 40x extract fell through the bowl (since it's chopped so fine), I got in one good hit and held it for 30 seconds at least. It started with a minor laugh attack at about 30 seconds after I let it go. I kept laughing hysterically and saying, 'Stop it!' to my girlfriend, Jasmyn, cause she just kept looking at me like I was crazy (which, well, I was). Then, I stopped laughing and the entire car seemed to be tilting or twirling backwards. I kind of smushed back against my seat as a response to this gravitational force.

Then, I had a sense that reality was actually sliced into vertical planes that had width, so the car would be sliced up length-wise. There were two or three of these planes that I was a part of. Now, these planes were rotating backwards (like a backflip from my perspective), but at differing times. First the plane on the left side of my body would tilt, then it would be time for the plane on my right side, then back to my left. So, I was kind of twisting my body (like doing the twist) to go with the cycle of rotation. I completely realized that I was under the influence of salvia through the whole 'trip,' unlike many. I don't think I got a good enough hit to really trip, as there were no visuals. The effects of the trip were completely in my mind, rather than externally manifested (except for tilting and such).

At this point, I'm mumbling psychotically to Jasmyn, and keep repeating that it 'doesn't make sense' as I try to explain what's happening. I eventually give up explaining and reach for my bong to take another hit and go further down the rabbit hole. However, since I have to keep twisting because of these forces, I frantically grab at it so I can take a hit within the next cycle of rotation. I take a really mediocre hit before the rest of the extract falls through the bowl. To do this, I have to stop twisting with the rotations, so the rotations are basically over since I've rebelled against them. I smush against my chair facing the left corner of the car, where the door and the dashboard meet.

Jasmyn said that at this point I was really mumbling quite a lot and kept saying that it didn't make sense. I was also reaching out toward the corner. I don't have a complete recollection of everything that happened, but this is where it gets really abstract. I had this feeling that everything about the location (where the door meets the dashboard) was so incredibly important. I sort of get this feeling when I'm stoned, but this was something else entirely. It was almost a life-changingly important corner, if that makes sense, as if my life timeline would be divided between the time when I had not yet experienced this corner and after I had. I had a feeling that I was seeing the world through new eyes, that I was granted access to this - dare I say it - mystical side of reality that, though it exists all the time, only few see.

I felt like I was a character in the midst of a plot. I don't know anything about the events of the plot, but it felt very much like I was a 'something' in the midst of 'things' that were happening. I was in a story. In fact, the corner where the dashboard meets the door was almost like a 'character.' I tried explaining this to Jasmyn, but then said 'It doesn't make sense' because 'character' doesn't exactly describe how I felt about the corner. It was definitely more of a personality than a normal corner. I was in a sort of communication with it, but that doesn't mean that any words or anything of any sort of meaning was exchanged between us. It was concerned with me. It knew about me. It knew that I was in this story and that I was a newcomer to this part of reality; therefore, I was inferior to it, but it didn't have a dominating relationship with me, merely a neutral one. It just knew about me and was interested.

There were particular feelings associated with this experience. Imagine a psychotic laughing clown face. I had this image of that in my mind when I was going through this experience, and I think it was tied to the corner character. I didn't *see* the clown face, but my imagination was active and I was dissociated, so I heavily link the image of that face with what was happening. It wasn't scary.....I wasn't even able to really comprehend things. I was just along for a sneak peek into this other side of things.

Also, I felt like the whole experience was very 'orange-ish brown,' I imagine because that's sort of the color of the door/corner. I wasn't aware enough to even think to check for any visual distortion, though I expect that there was a grand sense of distance between myself and the corner. The rim of the door (where the window comes out) seemed very broad and almost video gamey in the sense that I could totally imagine Mario running across it surrounded by clouds. I just processed images in very different ways. It was very much like a dream. You know when you wake up and have this feeling that you had a really really interesting and awesome dream, but you only remember a few details? That's what it was like. I wasn't cognitively interacting with it; it was happening to me, and it wasn't really up to me how much of it I remembered.

This doesn't even do it justice. The feeling of being a character and of the corner being a character was so incredibly lucid. It made absolute sense. There was this other side of reality, and the corner was this actual thing that could know what I was, and I was just sitting there.... Anyway, I probably sound psychotic, which is basically how I sounded when I tried to explain everything to Jasmyn. The words of the night were 'it doesn't make sense,' and I found myself saying them with ridiculous frequency, not meaning to at all. Everyone can relate to having a difficulty in communicating something with someone, especially with an abstract and uncommon feeling or emotion. This was like three times that. I don't even know how to say how the corner was an entity. I know that somebody could definitely understand it if I had the perfect wording, but English won't allow me that. It's a very relatable, lucid, and memorable feeling. It's something that the brain does, but nobody talks about it.

I stumble over my words enough normally, but even more so talking to Jasmyn as I was coming down from the experience. I remember stammering that everything had been 'twilting.....no.....twirling....tilting....I just said twilting.' There was sort of that magical deja vu feeling when I'm in a certain place that I get often when I play Zelda. Anyway, it was actually an extremely bonding experience for us (though she didn't do it), because I was just in wonder and trying to relate everything that had happened.

When we were driving away from the location, I felt like I had just woken up. I mean, I remembered driving to the location and that it had happened only minutes before, but it was like a brand new day. As opposed to waking up the morning after marijuana, when I am very physically refreshed, I was very, very mentally refreshed. The wind was blowing in my window as we were driving and I just felt so happy and in love with life, Jasmyn, everything. I was able to communicate with her without any fear, without any stress at the thought of losing her or anything. I get the feeling that stress builds up on itself in our brain, almost like physical gunk build-up. Salvia sweeped that away. It was like being born, pure and happy. I felt absolutely no need to harbor any judgment or resentment toward Jasmyn about anything. It felt like I wanted to go on an adventure or something. Just absolute happy innocence. It was a Ctrl-Alt-Delete on the mind, in the best way. I really opened up to her and told her that I didn't feel like she knew me very well, but that it would be really good if she did. We went over to the Glen Acres playground and I told her all about my childhood and stuff, and we laid in the grass and looked at the clouds. Brave, happy, innocent, adventurous, pure, determined to live a good life - I was all those things shortly afterwards.

Coming back to reality wasn't a bad thing, either. I was just in wonder at how I had felt, and how well Jasmyn and I were getting along, how safe I felt with her. There's no depression, no hangover, no lack of clarity. I just feel like my mind has gone back to a more infantile stage and I'm free to redo things the way I want them done. Accumulated bad experience isn't something to be worried about. It's liberating.

Anyway, I wouldn't say that I had a profound spiritual revelation about the nature of the universe or some shit, but it was definitely extremely profound. It was a very, very good experience for me, for both of us. I keep repeating myself, even though that doesn't communicate it better. It was something else. While actually hallucinating would be neato, this had more impact than I ever would've thought.

It hasn't changed my life entirely and it hasn't changed my personality, like with what happens to some people with other psychedelics, but it has been a real interesting journey into (or out of, whichever you prefer) my mind.

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 85036
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Jul 31, 2010	Views: 12,066
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Entities / Beings (37), Relationships (44), General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)