DOSE:	repeated	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract)
		smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

I make mention of spiritual experiences several times in this report. I did not have any spiritual beliefs at the time, and still do not.

Salvia was banned in Canada last year, but the headshops that carried it were allowed to sell off their remaining stock. My roommate and I happened to buy the last two 1-gram bags in our college town. That night, four of us walked off of campus to the nearby woods and our usual smoking/ tripping spot, and took turns smoking salvia. There were always two lucid people during the entire experience. A gram-bag contained a surprising amount of material, and I think five or more people dipped into my bag at least once each, and still left me with a few bowls afterward.

My first trip started with smoking a moderate-size bowl of approx 0.05 g salvia 25x out of our glass bong. I held it as long as I could stand, coughed it out, and passed the bong to my friend. This was not my first time, and previous experience taught me to pass the bong as soon as I pulled it away from my mouth.

My next sensation was hurtling- not falling, hurtling- without direction through space. I had 'sprung' open- something that I now remembered to be a rare but ever-present risk. I could feel and see my spiritual body, and the right half of my physical body, flying out into upper dimensions, connected to the left side of my body on Earth by a thin string. This string became my sense of being, and I realized that all of my life I had been a gold ring on an impossibly large finger. I also realized that I had died- I was immediately filled with shock and sorrow, pitying my friends for having to watch me die, and upset over the fact that I would never accomplish the goals I've worked towards in life.

This ended, and I saw a human figure standing upright, while infinitely thin longitudinal cross-sections flaked off, revealing the organs and skeleton etc, and fell to the side. But as this happened, every time a cross-section fell away, for just a brief moment there was a spontaneous forming of a consciousness of sorts- a disembodied entity, aware and intelligent, that would die when the distance became too great to sustain its existence in a fraction of a second. And there I was, as a cross-section of the left ear down to the third toe fell, I came into existence. For that fleeting moment, and an eternity, I reflected on how cruel it was that I should be given a chance at life, with the gift of inherent awareness, and the knowledge that it would end without any ability to even physically manifest, and that I would die. And then it happened.

I came to, struggling to take in my surroundings. I was in a dark, wooded area, surrounded by people- 'oh, this is the smoking spot, and these are my friends. What is this person beside me saying? Oh, he's just smoked salvia and his glasses are bothering him.' My first action after coming out of repeated soul-bending experiences was to reach over and take off his glasses for him. Apparently, during the trip, I sat upright the whole time and muttered incoherently to myself. Unless if my inner monologue made it to my mouth, I can't imagine what I would have been talking about. I did not move or talk during the following trips. It later started to rain, so we resumed smoking in the one friend's car. A couple people left, and others joined.

My second trip was quite odd. I again, had the sensation of dying, but I was much more at peace with it this time. I sat in the void with no body to act out with, and warmly reminisced the best times in my life. Soon, I saw a seemingly never-ending ring, that was not a spiral, but did not form a simple loop, yet was still a ring, that defied all concepts of 3-dimensional space. It 'spun' rapidly, and even though it was impossibly thin, even one-dimensional, I could see a 2-D image on the face of it. I was afraid of the image, though I never recalled what it was. However, every few seconds during the spinning, there came five bumps outward in the ring, identical in size and curve. The image on each of these bumps was of a person, eyes closed, arms outstretched and feet in tight, as if on a cross, and holding hands with the figure on the next bump. I watched this ring move in empty white space forever, or at least until I came to.

My friend in the seat beside me was apparently having a hard time, as she was gasping and looking around in front of her in a panic, which was a very unsettling thing to return to, especially as it happened for a few minutes. I don't hold anything against her for it, of course, but it severely dampened my mood. Side note- she told me afterward she believed she was a birthday cake, with candles and everything.

The last trip started before I had fully recovered from the second. I saw multiple curved line objects simultaneously, similar to the ring in their mixed-dimensionality, but they were not rings. This time, the experience was very unpleasant, and though I had a very brief sensation of dying again, I quickly realized that I was tripping on salvia. I told myself repeatedly that I was tripping and that it would end soon. The hollow and meaningless imagery and uncomfortable sensations of that trip, mixed with the self-awareness, were a write-off, and I stopped smoking for the night.

As I tripped again and again, the trips became less vivid or memorable, with less context or detail, and I became more self-aware. I wonder if this was a temporary chemical tolerance, or a psychological conditioning that causes me to recognize that what I was seeing was not reality, or both. I would not recommend tripping more than once within a couple hours, and I never did it more than once in a day after that.

Looking back, the experience of dying was an eye-opener, and I could not get over my initial feelings of regret for not having lived to my full potential. This has caused me to have a greater appreciation for all aspects of life, and while I am still not spiritual, I am less of a nihilist than I used to be. I've come to believe that consciousness is a very lucky thing to have, and can give sentimental meaning to objects, people and events, which is legitimate to the beholder. However, I've also become disillusioned with a life of working, realizing that a job is a job is a shitty job, and switched my major from the field I was in to take over my family's business, something I'd planned most of my life, to philosophy and English literature. I developed anxiety due to guilt over turning away from the business, and uncertainty of where I would go from there and whether I could realistically get by with that degree, and live an actually enjoyable life. The latter issue has still not resolved, and while I am thankful to the experience for pushing me off a path I would have regretted taking, I am much more stressed about my future than I had ever been before the trips.

Exp Year: 2015	ExpID: 108829
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: Jul 16, 2016	Views: 1,604
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Salvia divinorum (44), Cannabis (1) : General (1), Entities / Beings (37), Retrospective / Summary (11), Small Group (2-9) (17)