Salvinorin: The Psychedelic Essence of Salvia Divinorum
1996
Upon smoking the Salvinorin I was transported to a dimension where it seemed that all of creation was visible to me. The entire universe was turning inside-out and then outside-in in a rapidly repeating manner. As this occurred, the "outside" or negative universe was seen to be an exact replica of the "inside" or manifest material universe. These two sides balanced and flowed through one another like a galactic, multi-dimensional yin-yang. The intricacy and perfection of this "dance," this movement and interpretation of the two halves of Form and Emptiness, was spectacular. and can probably best be described as appearing like a cosmic, animated Escher painting.
The entire surface of the universe could be seen as though existing on the interior surface of a giant sphere. With the movement, part of the universe would flow through the center of this sphere, where it seemed that I was staring down the "axis" where form and non-form met and flowed through each other. This "axis" I was staring down also existed within the curved universe, and seemed to curve around and come back behind my head. Each time a cycle of turning inside-out was completed, the last object that would traverse the gate to the opposite side was my own body and being.
As I observed all this I felt a loving connection reaching out to everything in the universe, coupled with pristine clarity and vastly expanded consciousness. At some point I had a revelation where I perceived all form, all creation, as the male counterpart to being. At this same time, I realized there was a female counterpart to manifest creation, which was the emptiness or space from which, and in which, all of this had been created. I had a powerful experience of this Divine Mother and felt the love with which she gave of herself so that existence could come into being, and the love that she feels for all of existence. There were intense feelings of sweeping joy and happiness, and of being in complete harmony with everything. As I gradually started to come out of this state I went through a cycle of powerful emotions which repeated at first every few seconds, slowing to where I would feel each emotion for a minute or two. I distinctly recall feelings of awe, wonder, and reverence beyond anything I'd felt before.
At the time I got out of bed I was still in unison with this magnificent experience. For the first time I can remember I had the feeling that all of my shells and protections, which normally produce a certain distance and separation from life, had been completely removed. To a certain degree this feeling is common with most psychedelics, but I had never experienced anything even approaching this degree of freedom. I was fully and immediately embracing the universe and anything it may place in my path, as it was all a part of the Divine Mother, it seemed that my entire life had been spent behind a sheet of glass that had become grimier and grimier over time, and all of a sudden this glass had been whisked away and the universe was before me with a new and startling clarity. Much to my chagrin, these shells gradually formed around nit during the next half hour. But there remains to this day a connection to this immaculate state, and a desire to live closer to it and someday experience it again.
Much of what I experienced in this session has been felt in subsequent journeys. In particular, the perception of the universe turning rapidly inside-out, and seen as though occupying the interior of a sphere, occurs nearly every time I smoke Salvinorin. Siebert has commented on this perceived "flattening out" of the universe as "it is not so much that the universe becomes two dimensional, it's more that I move into a higher dimension, from where everything appears "flat," similar to how two dimensional objects appear to our normal perception." The cycle of repeating emotions and sensations is also very common. Often this includes feelings of complete disbelief and confusion at what is being experienced. alternating with total understanding of the situation, and even hilarious laughter at how I normally don't recognize the now obvious state of affairs. The experience described above was about one and one-half hours in duration. Most subsequent experiments have also shown increased duration of the Salvinorin trip if taken while on LSD or 2C-B, along with potentiation of the Salvinorin.
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