DOSE:

1 hit

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

Let me start by saying that I am relatively new to mind altering substances. I started smoking marijuana regularly about three months ago, and have had several very intense highs, including mild open eye hallucinations and very vivid closed eye hallucinations.

Two weeks ago, after smoking two bowls of weed with a few friends, one of them pulled out some 20x Salvia extract. I had seen videos of people tripping on it, but my friend convinced me that it was harmless, just like an intense high, and it would be gone in a few minutes. I smoked it in a small bathroom between my dorm room and the one next door, and two friends were in there with me.

I’m not sure how much was in the bowl, but I emptied it in one long hit from a bong and held it for 30 seconds. At 29 seconds I began to see purple and blue lines snaking across my vision. I exhaled and turned around as the lines became more vivid. One friend tried to tell me something, but as his words left his mouth they turned into more purple and blue lines. The last thing I remember of my surroundings was trying to stand up and immediately losing control of my body. At the same time, my vision broke apart along the lines, as if the world were a picture that had been cut into long strips. Behind the strips was a white void, and they began to separate further and further until all I could see was white. I turned around only to see the void stretching off behind me, and at this point I began to feel myself stretching apart physically. Not only were my limbs and mind pulled apart infinitely, my very thoughts were stretched so thin that they effectively ceased to exist. At this point I experienced total ego loss and became part of the void.

I will continue to use the pronoun “I” for the sake of convenience, but while this was happening there was no ego or personality to speak of. From far off I could tell that someone was talking about the body I had just left, and they were telling me to stop squeezing so tight. I lost interest in those voices as I began to hear other, closer voices. They were speaking about something in hushed voices. One voice asked, “Do you think it knows what happened to it?”. Another replied, “I don’t think so, look at how scared it is.” They seemed to pity whatever it was, as if they were onlookers of a horrible accident but couldn’t look away. I got the sense that I was the thing they were talking about; though I couldn’t see or feel anything, I knew I was the sad thing they were looking at, and that I was to be pitied. I felt physically and mentally stuck, as if I had suddenly materialized inside of a brick wall. The voices became aware that I could hear them, and they seemed to get excited. I felt them pushing me out of the place I was stuck in, faster and faster.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I was not in the void. Instead, I was part of a constantly shifting and grinding whirlpool of emotions, colors, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and memories (none of which were my own). The best metaphor I can come up with is being the only white sock in a washing machine full of colored clothes. I saw colors and shapes I can’t describe or even comprehend. I was completely out of control. This existence lasted for a virtual eternity.
I was nothing but a repeating cycle of randomly shuffled perceptions. I lived several lifetimes in quick succession, and eventually time began to have meaning again. I remember living through my current life at an accelerated rate with a constant slowing until I reached real time. At this point I was in my former body and had control of it again. However, I had no perspective on who I was or what I meant.

My two friends were holding me against the wall of the bathroom, and both of them looked scared and worried. I didn’t know who they were, but I knew they were relevant to the person whose body I was in. I tried to remember what I was doing but failed, and instead tried to comfort my friends. I told them I was all right and asked them repeatedly if they were all right. They loosened their grip as they realized I was conscious again and tried to talk to me, but their voices made no sense to me. As I became more and more grounded in reality, I became more and more aware that I had no memory of who I was. This frightened me, and in an attempt to find answers, I opened the door to my room. Big mistake.

The relative unfamiliarity of the room sent me into a panic, and I started asking one of my friends who I was. None of his answers satisfied me, and I became angry and told them both to leave. I found a pen and scrawled “I’m ok” on a piece of paper in a futile attempt to convince myself it was true. I felt as if someone had left a door open in the back of my mind, and at any moment I might fall out of it, back into the void. This, coupled with the fact that I still had no memories of my past, made me believe I had gone permanently insane. I resigned myself to this halfway existence and curled up in the fetal position on my bed. I was haunted by images of my future in a mental institution, and felt the shame of knowing I had broken my own mind.

I began to breathe deeply to calm my racing heart, and longed for sleep. I began to relax slowly over the next five minutes until I was almost asleep. Then I experienced a sensation that was both intense and comforting. I felt my stretched mind condensing once again, coming back together faster and faster until it was contained in an infinitely small speck. The only other thing I was aware of was very loud white noise. Suddenly the noise stopped and I opened my eyes. I looked out of the window for the first time and remembered where I was, as well as my name and the names of a few close friends and neighbors. I also had a good portion of my old memories back, although they seemed distant and out of order. I knew who I was, where I was, and that I was human, but I didn’t know what that meant.

The next 30 minutes were spent reintegrating memories. At some point about an hour after I first took the hit, I felt normal again. I was shaken but sane. Three other people smoked the same amount or more than I did and all had fun low level trips, so I can only assume that I am just more sensitive. I learned later that as soon as I had exhaled, I became rigid and attempted to leave the room. My friends stopped me and I grabbed their arms for support, squeezing so tightly that I left bruises. They said I had a look of animal terror in my eyes, and that I asked them to help me multiple times, but that I didn’t respond when they talked back to me.

The biggest insight I gained from the experience is the arbitrary nature of human perception. Two positive products of the trip are a comprehension of infinity and the ability to visualize objects fourth dimensionally. I recommend that prospective Salvianauts start with low doses until they know how it will affect them, because while the experience was enlightening, I was in no way prepared for it’s intensity, and would not wish it on the unsuspecting.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 94040
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Oct 2, 2012	Views: 8,498
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)