DOSE:

2 bowls

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

168 lb

Difficult Recurring Salvia Trip

This is a difficult experience I had quite recently smoking salvia divinorum 20x extract.

I decided to smoke the salvia in my room, and stupidly didn’t have a sitter. I thought as I’d smoked it before I’d be able to contain myself, master its effects and wouldn’t be in any physical danger. I felt a little nervous before smoking it as my last experience had been scary, but was all in all quite excited and relaxed. I smoked it through a hash pipe, being sure to hold on to the inhalations. I wasn’t in any other way intoxicated or on medication.

The first hit didn’t seem to do anything, so I tapped the remnants out into an ashtray and loaded another pinch into the chamber. It was midway through the second hit when I realized that at some point all the air had been sucked out of the room, and I felt very detached from everything in my field of vision. I became aware of my body as an object and felt detached from it. Upon exhaling I became uncomfortably aware of the deadness of the physical space around me. I felt a deja-vu like sense of impending doom mixed with curiosity. Then I left.

There was no continuity between the action of smoking the salvia and my experience after smoking the salvia. I just became aware that I was in a space, and didn’t consider when or how I’d got there. I guess what I felt was primal fear – it was really terrifying. I was pretty sure I was dead, and felt regretful. I felt a sense of realization and, again, there was a deja-vu like feeling about the space – like it was somewhere I knew and had been and also would always return to. I felt judged by an invisible, wrathful higher power for my selfish behavior and felt guilty and punished. I felt utterly isolated and alone. All of this happened and ran through me almost instantly after becoming aware whilst tripping. My thoughts (mostly I was thinking ‘oh shit’, ‘help’ and things) echoed in an infinite reverb. I remember the space was filled with what seemed like different, shifting shades of grey and black. This is hard to describe, but the sense I had was that I was frozen between two moments in time, and every movement was a futile attempt to rejoin the present. When I moved I felt like I was ripping through a physical force.

Then, after flipping out like that for a couple of minutes, I became aware of some music which was entering my awareness, and recognized the lyrics and the melody in an uncanny way, and this brought me out of the trip. The song was just something I’d been listening to before tripping that was still playing on my laptop.

The strange thing about this trip for me is the sense of familiarity about this space , and the deja-vu like feeling I get from it. I’ve experienced the exact same thing from another, earlier salvia trip, and once had a similar experience on a mix of ketamine, weed and alcohol. I also experienced it in sleep-paralysis when waking from a dream once. How strange!

It was pretty terrifying but I think it is really interesting and also insightful. It seems to me a kind of existential, solipsistic nightmare that might help to remind me to value compassion and try to be more open, and also that I need to be honest with myself about my selfish behavior because, obviously, there is a part of me that feels very guilty about something.

Just a note guys – definitely have a sitter with you. I am an experienced drug taker and thought I could control myself but I was moving a lot and could have easily hurt myself. Or at least do it somewhere open with a soft landing.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 109591
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 26
Published: Oct 9, 2017	Views: 2,183
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Alone (16), Difficult Experiences (5)