This report covers my third series of four experiments with smoked Salvia Divinorum. They occurred over a period spanning almost four months. Immediately after a given experiment, I wrote a page (or more) of notes on that experience. This paper is a synthesis of those notes and my thoughts on the experience since that time.

The first trip occurred sometime in November. I loaded what was probably three or four crushed leaves into my extra large salvia bowl and smoked it in large inhalations, which I held a while. This was during the day, early afternoon. I was playing music, the Orb's Assassin.

As it came on, the pulling sensation was very prevalent. Like I am being pulled down, or perhaps into something. There was a familiar sensation of deja vu as well. Like I am returning to the same experience every time. It still feels like a contest to me. This perception is very strange, but it has been repeated throughout most all of my salvia experiences. An even stranger perception is that "Nothing happened, it didn't work" which I sort of feel until I come out of it and realize just how high I really was.

As I finished the smoking I tried to "figure it out". I usually do this, though I try not to. I always feel like "Ooh, I've almost got it..." I feel if I were to simply relax and observe I would learn more, but it is difficult to do so. During this time, I felt as if I were possessed by salvia, or salvia's spirit. I wonder if this is what is preventing me from going deeper? The will of the plant itself?

I started to come out of it and immediately loaded another hit and smoked it. This left me very confused. I wasn't sure what I had just done. I looked up at the ceiling and watched it flow and morph. It was like double vision in a way. Everything seemed to have a pinkish cast.

It felt like the music was becoming me. It felt like the music was defining my boundaries. This was very strange. It was like every note of the music brought a little more of me into being. It felt like I was the music perceiving me rather than me perceiving the music. There was also a sense of pressure, or even oppression, though I am not sure this emanated from the music. A very prickly sensation.

This whole trip was very confusing. I felt like I was in another place, where everything looked the same, but was different. It took me awhile after coming back to feel normal again. It is a very profound, but subtle change in perception.

I was aware of the fact that I was sitting in a different location than I usually am while smoking salvia. This seemed significant. I felt like time was compressed and I was suddenly made aware of multiple points in my lifeline simultaneously. More of the time travel sensation. Since this trip I have made an effort to try salvia in different locations, to see if/how this affects the trip.

The second experiment in this series was a little different. It occurred on December 24, 1997. I used a small amount of a 6X extract that my roommate and I had made. This was a much smaller volume of material to smoke. My roommate had had the most powerful psychedelic experience of his life a week before using the same extract. He had found that experience frightening and unsettling, which made me a little anxious. I used a small amount, perhaps half what he had used. I was able to smoke it in a single medium hit.

I sat back and held the smoke as long as I could. As I sat there holding my breath, I felt the salvia energy building, filling me up. It felt similar to but different than the "sinking into" sensation I get with nitrous, or a hit of really good kind bud that goes directly from your lungs to your head. It seemed to be a wave like sensation.

As I finished smoking it my roommate came into the room. At some point he moved the bong from where it was. When he did that I had a strange sensation that it was meant to be. Like it was what he always did (?). I was like "Ah-ha! Of course that is what he would do..."

Everything seemed partitioned or ridged. It was like reality was made up of a membrane, or number of membranes (like spiderwebs somehow?). It was like all the membranes of reality twisted and were moved from their normal positions. I felt there was vastly more information coming into my head than normal.

Again I felt the familiar sensation of being in some sort of contest. I also felt a protective, feminine energy. It seemed as if it might be protecting me from something, perhaps a deeper aspect of the experience.

This was definitely a severely altered state of consciousness. I liked the extract. It was much easier to smoke, and although this wasn't my heaviest experience with salvia, I see that it would be very easy to go very deep with it, using slightly more extract.

My third experience took place on January 31, 1997 in the early afternoon. I used four leaves from a plant I had been growing (and managed to kill), two largish and two small. I smoked them all in one big hit and held it for thirty seconds or more.

The first feeling was a strong sensation of being pulled backwards. The whole trip seems somehow filtered through this perception. Almost immediately I felt I was back in "the Contest". I felt out of place. What is the contest? It always feels like I am in contact with a reality completely different than the one I am familiar with.

I felt out of it, somewhat spacey. I felt I was back at work (I had just arrived home maybe twenty minutes previous). There were images or feelings of work related things, including a woman that I work with (this particular perception was very strong).

It felt very strange. Sort of prickly and rippled. Salvia twists sense data in a very strange way. It is a sort of synesthesia, but different than other synesthesia I have experienced. All perception becomes overlapped and it feels like there is a lot more going on than normal.

I picked up an object off the coffee table next to where I was sitting and attempted to figure out what the hell it was. I thought it was some sort of X-Ray photo of someone's arm. I was very perplexed by this object and why it was on my coffee table. It turned out to be a rave flyer (it did look a little like an X-Ray).

It was overbearing as well. I went to the floor (I started in a chair) and pulled my shirt off in an effort to escape the overbearing feeling. It made me sweat a great deal (it usually does) and I even thought I had spilled the bong on myself for a minute.

In fact I did spill the bong on the floor. I do not remember this happening. I do remember holding the bong, not sure what I was supposed to do with it. At some point I must have dropped it.

Again, as previously noted, I had a sense of where I was in relation to previous salvia trips. I also felt displaced, and like I was someone else. No one specific, just someone different than who I usually am.

My last experience (as of this report) occurred on February 7, 1998 at approximately 10 p.m. I had fasted for 24+ hours in anticipation of a mushroom trip, but at the last minute decided it was too late to start. Instead I decided to try some salvia.

I loaded what I hoped was two good hits into my large salvia bowl (approximately 1.5 leaves) and smoked it, holding the hits for quite some time. After exhaling the first hit I was starting to feel the edge of it. I didn't hold the second as long, as I was beginning to be quite high, and more or less forgot to hold my breath. I was listening to the Banco de Gaia album Maya as I smoked the salvia.

As I exhaled the second hit "Oh, I'm there!" Where is there? Another place, the salvia space. It still felt like a contest. It is very strange. All my perception seemed to fold, or curve in on itself to form a sort of tunnel. There was a definite female presence there as well. It also felt like there might be another presence as well, but I got no sense of it beyond it's (possible) presence.

My consciousness seemed huge. It seemed to encompass all of reality. I felt this other reality was the "real" reality. It seemed somehow tied into the seasons. Very weird.

I felt frozen, stuck in time. A miniature time stop. When I started to become aware of the room again was when it was the weirdest. I couldn't account for the time I was unaware of the room. It felt like some sort of "super consciousness" rather than unconsciousness however. As if I were having perceptions, but they were too alien to translate back to normal consciousness (or perhaps just went by too quickly to grasp...).

Again I spilled the bong. Again I am not sure exactly how I managed to do so.

I felt like I became (or was possessed by) an archetypal figure of some sort. It was like some powerful unconscious symbol manifested and took over my being.

The whole experience lasted approximately seven minutes (judged by the fact that the second song on the disc was starting). The music seemed more or less incidental and didn't much impact the trip, as far as I can tell.

These four trips have increased my respect for salvia. It is a very bizarre entheogen, unlike any others I have encountered. It is capable of both great power and subtlety.

The contest perception puzzles me. I am unsure what to think of it. I am tending to think that the contest label is imposed by me. That is, I am interpreting the sensation as "contest", though it is likely something completely different. Without labels, it feels like a tremendous amount of attention is being brought to bear on me and my actions, with a great deal of interest in the outcome. This, I interpret as "contest". Like you or I might watch a football game to see who wins...

I have also noted a strong sense of a female presence on several of my trips. Other repeating motifs are being in contact with multiple points of time simultaneously, being possessed by or becoming someone (something) else, an overbearing or oppressive feeling, and the "prickly" sensation. These repeating elements are particularly fascinating.

My future course of exploration will include combining salvia with other entheogens and more use of the extract, in an attempt to penetrate further into the strange dimension salvia gives access to. I feel very positive toward this plant and about it's shamanic possibilities.