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Flashback? Shown the Texture of Reality
Salvia divinorum (10x extract)
Citation:   Kathleen. "Flashback? Shown the Texture of Reality: An Experience with Salvia divinorum (10x extract) (exp11031)". Erowid.org. Dec 5, 2001. erowid.org/exp/11031

 
DOSE:
  smoked Salvia divinorum (extract - 10x)
Before when I've done salvia, after every trip I'd realise that, just like a dream, I'd quickly lose touch with the true nature of my experience. Everytime I went back I'd say to myself 'Ah, NOW I get it' But I'd come out and I'd feel the point slip away. I'd always known that I was missing something. But since a completely sober night about a week ago I had my salvia vision come into my reality.

I woke up at about 3am and since I didn't feel tired, I thought I'd do some thinking. I found myself really studying my relationships with people around me; starting with my mum and dad. I ended up deconstructing my perception of my entire life; turned all I thought I knew about it upside down. I had done a frighteningly good job of completely reinterpreting what I felt to be loving genuine realtionships. It was horrible, I was believing it. At this point, my mind split in two. The whole world felt different, I could see and name everything, but I didn't RECOGNISE any of it. I didn't have any associations with the world. But I did recognise this awful panic I felt.

The first time I did salvia, I didn't realise how potent the dried leaf I had was (or maybe I'm particularly sensitive to it, hmm). Anyway, I did more than I meant to and had a full-on vision when I only meant to sample it. Okay, important point:I had my eyes open in a bright room. This is what I think set me up for the real insistence of these visions; I have the exact same experience everytime.

I can't move and all I can hear is my voice saying the word 'chavnink' over and over again. What I can see and feel is an intense fractal which infuses everything. My vision is oddly 2D despite having both eyes wide open. I feel my body impossibly furred with them. I realise my reality has been 'simulated' by countless identical individuals embedded in the kaleidoscopic pattern. I always feel that they're laughing at me, letting me in on a big practical joke; I got the impression that they thought I'd find it funny too, but of course this humour was a bit lost on me. I was saying 'chavnink' to them as if trying to skirt over what they had shown me, it was a bit like saying 'Anyway..'. After my first trip, I was really upset, I felt like salvia hated me or something.

Back in my bedroom, sober and really upset. I was trapped staring at my room; the little men weren't there but the fractal was; only this time it was everything. It was actual reality, the mathematical truth of all creation. Nothing had any meaning, there was no life. I could remember what it had once meant to me and I was sure that I had lost it all. There was no comfort anywhere, EVERYTHING I could think of that once may have made me feel better and safe(hugs, love) could be described in cold mathematical terms and therefore had no REAL meaning. I felt huge and infinitely small at the same time; I was seeing myself in the context of the universe. I couldn't feel anything, I was pinching an rubbing my skin trying to make my body mine again, but there was no sensation, just the wierd perfect roughness of the fractal. I couldn't cry, I just felt trapped. I was sure that 'this was it', all these fake systems and made up meanings would have to put me in an pretend thing called an asylum where I'd just sit there drawing patterns. I was so scared that my bowels refused to stop moving. I worried that this is what death would feel like. Whenever I shut my eyes I'd see the same kaleidoscopic pattern, but I could make out a figure. It was a stiff looking man in a suit, there was a big dot covering his face and he had very pointy bunny ears, or maybe just one pointy bunny ear. Not sure anymore; and I have no idea where he came from either.

There seemed to be no escape; I wished so hard that I'd been born blind. And with that, I realised something which allowed me to feel okay again. I remembered my mushroom trip, remembered feeling and seeing the life in everything, crying at the stars and feeling such love. Yes, from the OUTSIDE these things will appear to be cold and mathematical, the result of chemicals, because that in reality is what they are. Because my eyes were open, it was as if Salvia couldn't show me the invisible. I realised that I was in the purely visual world; how much of our consciousness is the purely visual? Take away that side and there is an internal blind world. That is where the true essence of life is, and what matters is not what it is, but what it feels like inside it. (afterthought: maybe I could only see 2D because I was only looking through my third eye?)

Exp Year: 2001ExpID: 11031
Gender: Female 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 5, 2001Views: 4,173
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Alone (16), Retrospective / Summary (11)

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