DOSE:	10 mg	oral	Pharms - Diazepam	(pill / tablet)
		oral	Kratom	(extract)
	80 mg	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract - 10x)
	150 mg	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT:

68 kg

This is a report of my first experience with salvia divinorum, written down the day after.

I’m a Norwegian male in my mid-twenties in good physical condition. I divide my time between studying religious sciences in the university of my hometown and being a musician, songwriter and music producer. I have been using various drugs, mostly for recreational purposes through the years, and I struggled with an opiate addiction for a short period of time. I have never used any kinds of hallucinogens besides cannabis. At the moment I’m a moderate user of alcohol and cannabis, and I also use some ethnobotanicals from time to time like kratom (which I find amazing) and blue lotus. I don’t consider myself to be an addict to any substances; I do like to get high from time to time, as I feel it enriches my life, but so do most people all around the world.

Recently I have become very interested in entheogens for a number of reasons. First of all, I am a very spiritual person; though I identify myself as a Christian, I’m heavily drawn towards mysticism in both the Christian tradition as well as others, especially shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism. I truly believe this is where the key to spiritual truths are, which I certainly haven’t found in today’s sciences and most of modern western philosophy. Second of all, as a student of religions I’m very curious about the relationship between humans and entheogens and how they may have shaped our ways of relating to the divine. Third of all, as an artist I’m always in search of new inspiration, and as the music I make is of a very spiritual character I have found my finest moments of inspiration from the mystical experiences I’ve had when praying, meditating and in certain ‘moments of clarity’. I consider all of this to be very good reasons for exploring the world of entheogens.

However, the main reason why I haven’t explored the ‘other side’ before is because of fear. I am a very nervous person and I have a long history of anxiety disorder. I’m not taking any SSRI or other similar drugs as I don’t like the way they work, but I have recently started using diazepam from time to time (a few times a month or so), mostly to avoid panic attacks and never recreationally. Having read trip reports about the horrible experiences people have had while on hallucinogens (freaking out, having flashbacks, HPPD etc.) I was afraid that things like this could happened to me, as I’m easily freaked out when I feel I’m not in control of myself or the perceived reality around me. I decided that the best place to start was with salvia divinorum because the trip itself lasts for such a short while. However, I wasn’t comforted by reading about the nasty experiences people have had with the drug, many describing it as the worst moment of their life. Eventually I started considering the possibility that diazepam would be effective in getting rid of the nasty side effects and this seems to most likely have been the case.

I did A LOT of research on salvia divinorum and entheogens in advance and I carefully studied ‘The Psychedelic Experience’ by Timothy Leary, the information on online and other guides about how to prepare, what to expect and how to deal with a crisis. I picked up some 10x extract while in London (salvia divinorum, as well as most other ethnobotanicals, are not legal in Norway without a doctor’s prescription, which no one will even consider giving you) and I expected this to be quite strong. I started preparing myself the day before; I stayed away from alcohol, cannabis, caffeine and other drugs, I only ate raw food and I did a lot of meditation.

The next day I went to my girlfriend’s apartment, as she agreed to be my sitter. She’s also a very spiritual person who I trust in every sense of the word. Although she’s not experienced with entheogens, she supports my wishes to explore with such substances, and so she read some guides for sitters in advance. My plan was to preload with 10mg of diazepam, then have a few drops of liquid kratom extract to lift my mood, and start of with a small dose (around 80mg) to begin with. I felt that with all this preparation it just couldn’t go wrong, but still I was quite nervous, even after the diazepam kicked in. We then went into her bedroom which has no windows, lit a few candles and she gave me a scarf to be used as a blindfold. Every guide I’ve read recommends this, and so I didn’t want to expose my senses to anything outside my own mind.

I filled up my bong with a small amount of Salvia and lit up with a normal lighter (not a torch lighter). It didn’t burn very well and I had some trouble getting a decent amount of smoke into the bowl. I inhaled all the smoke, and then lay down on the bed with the blindfold on, quite nervous about what would happen to me.

Nothing happened. I tried another hit, having the same problem with getting the smoke into the bowl. Nothing happened this time either. Obviously I was doing something wrong (or I had been given some fake stuff from the supplier in London).

I then took the same dose as before and mixed it with some smoking herbs to make it burn better. This time I was able to get a decent amount of smoke into the bowl. I inhaled, lay back and put the blindfold on, I closed my eyes while looking for patterns. Still nothing out of the ordinary.

Now I was actually starting to get a little angry. All this preparation for nothing? Being somewhat scared of taking a much bigger dose I didn’t want to take any bold chances, but I decided that around twice the dose was at least necessary, since I didn’t have a proper lighter and wasn’t getting the effect I should have. I put around 150mg into my pipe, heated the leaves pretty well before inhaling and this time I was able to get the bowl filled with smoke. I inhaled, held the smoke for about 20 seconds and lay back once more.

As I closed my eyes I started to see some patterns, and they were becoming somewhat three dimensional, like cubes. I also started to feel a tingling sensation in my face, hands and feet, which was pleasant. I decided that I needed another hit. The salvia still burned and as I lit up again I filled the bowl with all the smoke it could hold and inhaled, held for a good 20 seconds and lay back.

Then suddenly I started to feel this gravity pull that people talk about, as I was being pulled down onto the bed. I had a wonderful sensation of warmth in my face, hands and feet and as I saw the lights from beneath the blindfold, I started to see these patterns and images in the dark. I remember moving my arms to see if I could grasp it (or if I could still control my body at all). I totally lost the sense of where I was and I saw the pattern taking the shape of two dimensional creatures, ‘workers’ moving towards the light in a three dimensional space (imagine the workers as moving pictures on a wall in a long hall), and I started to imagine that the light was the horizon and the workers were all doing something to ‘hold the horizon up’ so it wouldn’t fall down.

I was no longer sure that there existed a world outside this horizon, and if it did, was I able to get there? At that moment, my entire world was inside the blindfold, and though I knew there was something more (as I saw the light outside of it), something told me I shouldn’t go there. Then the workers started to sing this simple melody, almost like a children’s song, in the most beautiful harmonies I’ve ever heard. They truly sounded like angels. The workers were kind creatures and they wished me no harm at all, they were just concerned about maintaining their world (and mine obviously) as it was. The experience was wonderful, safe and by no means any threatening. It kinda felt like a lucid dream, not unlike the moments you have when you fall in and out of sleep and can’t really tell what’s what, only this felt more real and stable.

I became aware after a little while that I had been smoking salvia and checked if I was able to talk, which I was. I asked my girlfriend if she could hear all the workers singing. ‘No,’ she said. Then I sort of realized that I was tripping and I started coming down, but still I was not entirely aware that I was wearing a blindfold.

‘This is all just nonsense!’ I suddenly proclaimed.

‘Oh’ she said. I then removed my blindfold and recognized the room, and I immediately burst into laughter, finding the whole experience with the workers and the singing extremely funny. I just couldn’t stop laughing and it felt wonderful! It did however feel like a short trip and it was. Probably around 10-15 minutes including the inhalations with the actual trip lasting somewhere around seven of them. I was a little confused and had some issues with explaining my experience to my girlfriend, who wasn’t really sure if I was back to normal or still tripping. I told her that I was quite certain that it was over, and started telling her about the workers and the song; I even sang her the song, but unfortunately we both forgot it later. I regret not having a recorder nearby so I could’ve recorded it.

The whole experience left me with a feeling of intense euphoria. I remained in a good mood for the rest of the day, and I’m still in a good mood today. I guess this is the afterglow that many people talk about. However, I did feel a little disappointed about not having some of the effects I expected. There was no feeling of deja vu, no sense of any presences, no connecting with the divine or intense spiritual revelation, just these happy two dimensional workers, singing their happy song.

Also the fact that the trip was so short left me thinking that it was impossible to go into the depths of my mind and existence. For instance, after having read about the visions in ‘The Psychedelic Experience’ based on the Bardo Thodol (which I find extremely interesting and well worth exploring) I imagined myself flying around in the universe, losing track of space and time and exploring the mystical experience to the fullest. I guess Salvia just doesn’t last long enough to do that.

Eventually, though, I found myself appreciating the experience, and when thinking about it, maybe I had a vision; the workers, like slaves, being happy within their own two dimensional world, doing whatever they can to maintain it just the way it is, but me being able to acknowledge that there indeed is something on the ‘outside’, other dimensions, or aspects of reality that the two dimensional creatures cannot see, because obviously they don’t know it exists at all. The story of the Flatlanders Carl Sagan told us about in ‘Cosmos’ comes to mind. This being said, I’m not about to make any personal doctrines out of this experience, I’m just thinking that all this is very symbolical and it’s a good visual representation of my own thoughts in a way that I probably wouldn’t have come up with myself. It’s almost like a work of art!

I will most definitely try this again (perhaps using another lighter), and it was a wonderful introduction to the world of entheogens. This being said, I’m not considering this to be a sign of salvia not having the potential of unleashing your worst nightmares, and I still have a profound respect for the power of entheogenic substances. I found very few reports on the combination of diazepam and salvia, and it is my belief that many of the bad trips people report could easily have been avoided this way.

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 85209
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 26
Published: Sep 12, 2010	Views: 36,062
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Salvia divinorum (44), Pharms - Diazepam (115) : General (1), Entities / Beings (37), Personal Preparation (45), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)