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Struggling with Demons
Salvia divinorum
Citation:   dokmai. "Struggling with Demons: An Experience with Salvia divinorum (exp20917)". Erowid.org. Feb 4, 2003. erowid.org/exp/20917

 
DOSE:
  oral Salvia divinorum (liquid)
BODY WEIGHT: 190 lb
This report was written by my father, 58 years old at the time. He had tried Salvia in a concentrated liquid form. The lesson here, I think, is that using Salvia really requires a sober sitter.

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I used the dropper and squeezed out four dropper-fulls of the green liquid into my shot glass. Then followed that with 5 droppers of hot water. The instructions said to use it immediately.

So I got comfortable on the bed. Pillows just so, put on my earphones and turned on my shamanic drumming tape. I glanced at “Gateway Affirmation” from the Monroe Institute which asks for help from any being equal or greater to my intelligence for my stated purpose – to explore other dimensions.

I poured the shot glass with about 0.5 ounce of green liquid into my mouth under my tongue then laid back onto the pillow.

I put a bandanna over my eyes and got comfortable. I repeated the affirmation in my mind over and over. The drumming was steady and deep. Then the drumming got deeper and wider and changed in its color. My first reaction was fear, but I beat that back saying to myself “I am a warrior, I am a warrior.” I felt myself being drawn into a vortex, spinning slowly round and round. I tried to let go but part of me fought to hold onto my reality.

I don’t have any memory of a connection with what happened next. I seemed to be in the bedroom. Everything was soft and melting, including me. Then I was bring drawn backwards, violently, through a hole in the universe into what I knew was my death! I fought and kicked and thrashed about franticly but it was a useless puny effort.

Then nothingness.

My next awareness was that I was floating in space in an immense blackness. Everything that had been me was being stripped away like pieces being snapped off of a cookie. It continued moving inwards towards the center – towards the essence of me. I got smaller and smaller. I was terrified! All that was left was a consciousness, an “I” with no thoughts, no past, nothing – just an awareness. Then I was propelled at a great speed out of a bright light that I knew was my world. I had the awareness that my world was small and inconsequential. I was floating in a vast infinity of tiny lights held in place by a visible force. I became aware that each of these endless lights were an infinity of our universe, each the same and not quite the same, all connected.

My next awareness was being only a consciousness in my proper place in a living, slowly undulating fabric of such an immense size as to defy description, filled with other consciousnesses like me. It was vast and it was alive. It was home, it was the true reality filled with love, warmth, acceptance and joy. I had absolutely no memory of ever having lived, of ever having been me. I wanted to just be. To be here always. Then something happened to the consciousness that was me. I didn’t belong. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. I was aware of many voices calling to me, trying to help me, wanting me to stay. But a membrane was between me and this reality. I pushed and clawed. I seemed at this point to have hands because I can clearly see them pushing against the membrane. I was fighting to stay in, to stay where I belonged.

The membrane became a vast dimensional wall stretching out in all directions. I was half in and half out.

I wanted to stay. I tried frantically to stay inside but I was being pushed out. At one point I can clearly remember my head and shoulders inside and the rest of me outside in another world. I could stick my head back and forth through this wall. One side, full of love, sound, belong – the other side a much darker place, lonely without love or a sense of belonging. I was pushed completely out. I lay there somewhere. I sensed I was a multi-faceted being and I was simplifying down. I felt as though I crystallized down and down. I was filled with disappointment. Finally I had been reduced down to one being. I was small and insignificant. I began to have some awareness of a personality. I recognized my wife. She was looking directly at me from a few feet away. I was trying to speak but my consciousness hadn’t completely formed inside my body. My wife was saying something. “B, can you hear me? B, are you all right?”

Then a man with red hair appeared in front of me. He asked me who was the president? My mind was unsteady and unfixed. I had a swirling of ideas and I voiced “Jimmy” but I couldn’t think of his last name. Then he asked me what month it was. I said October, it seemed right (it was August). Then slowly my consciousness began returning. I was not in the bedroom but in the dining room. My shoulder hurt and my mouth was dry. There were people moving around the room. I recognized that there were fireman and a policewoman. I was back. What a silly scene this was. These people were all concerned about me. I felt very detached like watching a movie. The red haired man said they had to take me to the hospital. My blood pressure was extremely high. I smiled and said “sure.” Then I was in an ambulance. Then at the hospital. It was like a dream. My son and wife were there.

Gradually I came back into this reality. I was cut and bruised. I had broken my shoulder and was in considerable pain. I had trashed one side of our bedroom. Broken furniture, turned stuff over and made quite a mess. Then I had walked around the house. My wife found me staring vacant-eyed, tongue hanging out of my mouth, unable to respond. She thought I had had a stroke and called 911.

But I had no memory of any of that. It was one hell of a ride. I wonder what it meant and why I was shown it!

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Postscript by the son of the writer:

So, there was a trip to the hospital in an ambulance - me in the ambulance with Dad (who was really quite sober by then) and my mother following in her car.

He was admitted through ER and since he had an elevated blood pressure, had showed signs of mental problems (saying that the President in the year 2000 was 'Jimmy') and was bruised/cut and in pain.

He was dealt with quickly. Blood pressure returned to normal. There was no stroke. He had broken his collar-bone in the 'struggle.'

The moment the doctor and my mother were out of earshot my father told me, 'Wow - I can't wait to try that again.' He planned on trying a fraction of the 'beginning dose' he took that landed him in the emergency room.

One day several months later he did try a tiny dose, a fraction of his previous dose then he went for a walk in the woods.

He told me that even at a fraction of the initial dose he felt himself being aggressively 'pulled' into the same 'place' he traveled to during his initial experience - the one described above. He had to struggle to stay in the reality of walking in the woods without being 'pulled away' again.

This second experience convinced him that salvia was not the 'tool' he should be using for his spiritual pursuits and he ended up giving the remainder of the bottle of concentrated liquid away to a friend of his.

Exp Year: 2000ExpID: 20917
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 4, 2003Views: 79,269
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Alone (16), Second Hand Report (42), Families (41), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Health Problems (27)

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