DOSE:

1 hit

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT:

130 lb

18 Months Ago

Pulled Apart by Salvia

EXPERIENCE

I began the trip sitting in the middle of my bed, a queen-sized bed, facing the other side of the room. Directly in front of me were two large French doors, the only direct window in my room. Both of my doors were closed, except my closet door, which was left open so that the window in my closet could let in fresh air (since I was smoking indoors). Smoking the salvia out of a water pipe, I inhaled for about 5-8 seconds, held my breath for around 20 seconds, and exhaled.

As soon as I exhaled, I felt the effects immediately. I could feel my vision being pulled towards my window, as if I was being pulled in that direction. The only source of light in my room was from the window (the French doors), which is where I feel this power was coming from. Anything that happened was at the mercy of the light coming through the window. When I felt like I was being pulled, I was being pulled towards this window. As soon as I felt the effects, and could register them in my brain, I almost instantaneously forgot that I was under the influence, and I panicked. The fear I felt had two sources that ran consecutively. One was the fear of death, but not necessarily the fear of dying. I remember at one point I felt that I wanted to pull away, to tear away, and the only way to do that was death. Whatever I was fearing was worse that this, yet it felt like the whole experience was seeped in death. The other fear I felt was that I couldn’t see what was causing this. The minute the drug took effect, I was unaware what was happening was due to any sort of substance. Whatever was causing this felt like some greater power than myself. I was so convinced of this that I called out for it to stop, and then told it not to show me anything. When I lost the ability to form words on my own, I began to scream uncontrollably. I lost all control of my body, I couldn’t even feel my own body. My consciousness had been catapulted from my physical form, that connection had been severed completely. It wasn’t even what I would call an “out of body experience” because that means there is some sense of body, whether you’re in it or not. I’ve had out of body experiences before, and in that, I was still aware of the presence of a body. In this trip, I would consider it more akin to an out of existence experience. My body ceased to exist.

Much of the hallucinations and feelings I had happened simultaneously. I lost the sense of the differentiation of objects. The setting around me, the bed I was sitting on, looked as though I could not interact with it, similarly to the surroundings in a video game, my surroundings were there but it looked and felt like I couldn’t interact with it. At a certain point, everything simply became shapes or blobs in my field of vision. At the same time, I could see my surroundings being pulled away from me, and I with it. At this point, I had also felt like I had melted into my bed (which, I will note, is a very typical salvia effect). The closest way I can describe the feeling is as if I were a block of sour candy strips that were stuck together, and this force had a hold of one end and began to pull towards the window, attempting to unravel the whole block and pull them apart. It quite literally felt like I was being pulled from the fabric of the universe, never to be seen again. I had lost all bodily autonomy, and my arms at first were outstretched directly in front of me, my hands joined together, and my head involuntarily ducked down, my upper arms touching my ears, as I was being pulled forward. Then, my arms began to flail around, something that I had no control over, as if I was literally being pulled around. All the while, and even afterwards, I continued to feel the pulling sensation. Eventually this stopped, but I can say it made up a bulk of the trip.

In the second half of the trip, I had some brief auditory hallucinations, and at this point I had unknowingly laid down sideways on the bed, my face facing toward the door. I didn’t know that I was laying down at this point, seeing as I couldn’t feel my body. I was convinced that I had fused with the side of the bed. In my fused-to-the-bed state, I could hear my mother calling to me, but I couldn’t hear words. She was calling out to me from the door, but I couldn’t see her, and I couldn’t really hear what she was saying. It sounded like she was asking for something. I was slowly returning to my body, so I was able to grab one of the spare pencils on the bed and offer it to my mother. As soon as I was able to offer her the pencil, I couldn’t hear her voice anymore. At this point, I was becoming increasingly aware of my surroundings. I was still zoned out, but I could feel myself recognizing my surroundings. I eventually recognized my room, and I glanced over at my clock. I didn’t know how much time had passed, and what had felt like hours was actually only about 10 minutes. I tried to move but my body felt heavy, and I could barely move. I got up momentarily to walk towards the camera (I was recording the entire experience), but after a few seconds I had to return to my bed. I was dizzy and uncoordinated, almost a drunk feeling. I fell trying to climb into my bed. I laid back down and closed my eyes and rested for almost an hour after the trip. I felt physically and mentally exhausted. I was physically shaken after the experience, and was trembling for quite some time. I remained anxious for the rest of the day.

AFTERMATH

After the initial anxiety subsided, I took a walk to clear my head. I was very relieved to be alive, and I felt lucky to be back on this earth. The whole experience was terrifying, and I don’t think I’ve experienced anything in my real life that was half as terrifying as that trip. In a way, though, that became one positive takeaway of the trip.

I would absolutely categorize the trip as a near-death experience, but not in the sense that you see the light and go towards it. It felt like what would happen if you died and your life flashed before your eyes but all you knew in life was fear and loathing. Like, “this is the end, and what of it?” So when I had returned, I was much more appreciative of the world around me, but not in the typical psychedelic “we’re all one” sort of way, moreso in the “oh, how I’ve missed you.” I was seeing the world through a different set of eyes, a different frame of mind, with much more clarity than before.

One of the things that salvia helped me to realize was that all negative emotions have some purpose, and that even went so far as me thinking that they’re not really negative. The day after my trip, I surrendered to my inability to focus and was forced to confront one of my greatest fears: rejection. Tears streaming down my face, I had to offer myself up to a vulnerable state of being. I found the capacity within myself to allow myself to open up to others, which is something that I greatly feared. But after experiencing the horror that was my first salvia trip, I was able to reevaluate the fear in my life. Fear and anxiety are something that motivates me to do anything, especially with my inability to focus or concentrate on tasks, the only thing that gets me to do anything is fear. At the same time, fear also plagues certain aspects of my life and discourages me from certain things. I think that that was the intention of the trip, though I didn’t set out for it to be. Since fear and panic was something that I involuntarily approach most experiences with, the same behavior kicked in when I began to feel salvia’s effects, and that energy doomed my trip. This plant was trying to shut me out of existence. I was being forced to shut myself off. I had deeply disrespected this plant, as it tried to show me the world, I resisted and panicked, and the plant was well aware that I was resisting. Salvia showed me real fear, and the extent to which my fear could go. Once I experienced real terror, real death, real dissipation of the ego, everything else seemed smaller in comparison.

In this way, salvia also helped me to break down the barriers of fear that had kept me boxed in for a long time. At the time of writing this, I’m currently undiagnosed but have always known and acknowledge that I’m neurodivergent. Many of my symptoms have been repressed due to years of being subjected to shame and torment by my parents, teachers, peers, and doctors. I had completely lost the ability of self-stimulation (stimming) as a method of communicating and expunging my emotions. Masking it for my entire life was exhausting, and took a toll on me mentally. I didn’t have a choice to mask it either, I didn’t even know I was masking because it had been subconscious. But something after my experience, and in realizing that my fears were not so grand, broke down this mental barrier. Now, I’m able to stim for the first time since I was a child, and I feel infinitely better. I hadn’t realize how overstimulated I was until I learned to stim, and now I finally feel like my brain is mine again. What would’ve taken years in therapy, solving a problem I didn’t even know existed, took less than 20 minutes with salvia.

That’s not to say that all the troubles which plagued me before are instantaneously solved, but rather my outlook on them is exponentially different. I still feel anxiety in my daily life, talking on the phone, being in public, being close to other people, but that anxiety doesn’t feel like the end of the world anymore. Since I know how terrified that I can be, I can better understand where on the spectrum of fear my current state of anxiety lays. My salvia trip helped me to put my emotions and my feelings in perspective, to understand and conceptualize that what I’m feeling in the moment isn’t inherently bad, nor is it the worst thing in the world, and to accept every moment as a lesson.

It’s not like other medicines, it doesn’t remedy your body, or fix your mind, rather it acts as a guide to show you how to remedy your own life. Before taking salvia, I had no clue how to fix my problems. Now, having had the experience, I feel better equipped to understand and interpret my problems and find solutions. I still struggle in many ways, but I no longer see those struggles as a curse. Of course, this is not a universal feeling, nor do I claim that it is. Salvia is a personal journey for everyone. It took whatever I hate most about myself and turned it on its head to show me just how ugly things can be, but that’s the beauty of it. Once my trip was over, I feel like I had seen and felt the worst of life, and with that I could continue onward.

At this time, I have no interest in trying salvia again. I now deeply respect this plant, and I am eager to learn more about its history and the science behind it.

Exp Year: 2021	ExpID: 116666
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Sep 30, 2022	Views: 239
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Salvia divinorum (44) : General (1), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Difficult Experiences (5), Alone (16)