Ltd Ed 'Solve et Elucido' Art Giclee
This reverberating psychedelic giclee print is a gift for a
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image wraps around the sides of the 1" thick piece. Signed
by artist Vibrata, and Erowid founders Earth & Fire.
Peeling Back the Pages, So Many Pages
Salvia divinorum
Citation:   Frentzey. "Peeling Back the Pages, So Many Pages: An Experience with Salvia divinorum (exp31985)". Erowid.org. Aug 10, 2006. erowid.org/exp/31985

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
2 bowls smoked Salvia divinorum (leaves)
  T+ 0:45 0.1 g smoked Salvia divinorum (extract)
BODY WEIGHT: 175 lb
So this was going to be my fifth experience with tripping in the land of salvia. I believe that much of the pleasure in a salvia journey relies on my current mindset. I always try to be relaxed with no priorities immediately ahead; this makes the journey longer and more pleasurable. I tripped with another guy once and his journey was horrible; I attribute this to his 'wanting to get fucked up' feeling rather than trying to prepare himself and welcome the experience. Salvia requires a lot of respect and appreciation to be experienced well. The last thing I would want would be a bad trip which I guarantee will happen if I want to 'get fucked up'. The best preparation is a little bit of meditation (clearing my mind of thoughts, focusing inward, and accepting salvia's powers. I have found that it is easy to doubt salvia and not really trip at all even with huge doses, but why would I want to waste the trip?).

I, unlike my friends who have tried it, have had all pleasurable experiences every time I tripped. This time I wanted to try it out of my room, so I could have what I thought would be a more 'pure' experience. I grabbed a friend at 10:30 and we went out on a nice spring evening looking for an isolated, quiet spot of grass to rest on. We found our spot at about 10:45 and we both smoked two bowls to get the salvia in our system. It was my friend's first time with salvia, so we slowed down after those bowls and discussed how we felt. We were both extraordinarily relaxed and a little disoriented. Since I was more experienced than him, I said that I felt it rather strongly and I came up with some figure of 30% to absolving.

I thought that my friend would laugh at me, but on the contrary he understood completely what I meant. He explained it as being able to vaguely see a window with our world on our side and salvia world just beyond the window. This I understood very well. Even though it was his first time, he recognized how close he was to departing. That is a unique aspect of salvia: when we took it, we both recognized the feeling - it feels so natural is the only way I can describe it. The sensation of relaxation, slowing down, a tingly feeling in my blood, and distortion of sounds - the feeling is not foreign, it just feels so natural.

So I let my friend trip first, I gave him what I thought was enough (.1 g 15x extract). He smoked it and laid back on the ground. He was silent for about a minute and then he explained he was in a 'lattice of bog' and began laughing uncontrollably. All of a sudden, though, he snapped out of it in another minute. He said he needed more to understand the journey. So I gave him another .1g and he smoked it. He got a little confused but he snapped back again. So again I gave him another .1g; he smoked it and said nothing happened. So I was kind of disappointed that he didn't get to trip too hard. Now it was my turn.

By this time it was 11:30 and somehow time had flown by (time gets really distorted with salvia). I sat up on the grass and filled my bowl with .1g extract, preparing for a small trip because my friend didn't get much. I lit it, took a lungful, and held it for what seemed like forever. I began to exhale and then I lost all perception of where I was. With my eyes closed, I felt this enormous tug downwards, more than I had ever felt before, and I saw this pulsing network of faces in hexagonal blocks. The blocks shifted over me by what seemed like a distance of 5 meters. I felt that this grid and I were both sinking through the cosmos, yet I had no fear.

Somehow this all felt natural and so common, much like my other trips. This one was a little different in that I was observing and accepting more rather than questioning it. I enjoyed this feeling of warmth and comfort for about four minutes, then I realized that this was happening because I smoked salvia. I opened my eyes and the world looked completely normal. I asked how long I was gone and my friend said four minutes. I was definitely 50/50 in trying to accept which world I wanted to remain in. I gave it thought for a minute, and I decided to accept the salvia world by closing my eyes and ignoring my outside references. This is where my trip became extraordinarily vivid.

All of a sudden I was thrown into one of the hexagonal blocks, looking upward and seeing a projection of some Asian woman's life. Imagine lying in a hexagon about the size of your head that stretched upward and bent outwards like a hyperbola. When the edges of the sides of the hexagon met my plane at a 45 degree angle, this screen appeared for me. The first thing I saw was her on a street corner at about the age of 22 with her baby in her hand. She was waiting to cross the road of one-way traffic we me on the other side. I felt a little bad that I couldn't help her across the street, but it was out of my hands.

A minute later I saw her in the 7th floor of an 80 story skyscraper with glass sides wearing a brown suit/skirt carrying a folder to her boss. I felt that this was a very significant part of her life, so I was eager to see the outcome. As she approached the door, though, the 'paper' of her existence ripped in two, making her unable to reach the boss. I realized that all of her actions, significant and insignificant, were recorded in this book which was presented in front of me. I was frustrated because the book was out of chronological order; I peeled back the torn page and skipped four pages and saw her as a five year old carrying a plastic red bucket and shovel. She was running up to a schoolyard sandbox wanting to build in the sand. Another young boy was in the sandbox and he resembled another one of my friends.

I wanted to see them interact, but the boy kind of ignored her so she just sat back on the edge of the sandbox and pouted. Suddenly, without turning a page, she was sitting in a white, heart-shaped room at the age of 60 waiting for something. She sat on this chair that was against the wall that was elevated about 7 feet off of the ground as was every other chair in the room. I tried to explore more pages of her life, but they were becoming more and more vague. I re-realized that I had taken salvia, but I tried to ignore that fact and extend my experience.

I had more visions that I don't exactly recall that tapered off over the next 10 minutes. When I came out of all of it, the trip had lasted about an hour. It was now 12:40 at night and my friend and I labored back to our dorm. He wasn't having problems but I was. He was talking on his cellphone and that made me quite angry, a feeling I never get from salvia. I felt he was too strung up and connected to this world to truly enjoy salvia world. I settled into my dorm and took a smaller .05g extract hit at 1 A.M. and I began tripping very hard once again, but I don't remember any of that trip except that I kept thinking I wasn't breathing so I would take very deep breaths every minute or so.

This trip was so much more involved and exposing than any of my previous four trips. I think this happened because my friend functioned as a very accepting sitter and my mind was very relaxed prior to the trip. I never realized how much salvia could smash my existence for so long, when I am prepared again I would like to explore more of the hexagonal grid of people's lives. Maybe I could learn more about other people. One thing about this trip is that I don't know whether this was entirely in my head or if I had connected with what many other salvia users believe is the network of interconnected minds and experiences. With practice, interdimensional travel and contact with others could be possible. This is the pleasure of Salvia divinorum.

I almost doubted the trip twice and I became cold and scared, so I submitted and accepted the journey. This made the experience so much better. Overall this was one incredible night of exploration of perception versus reality.

Exp Year: 2004ExpID: 31985
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 10, 2006Views: 19,579
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Entities / Beings (37), Glowing Experiences (4), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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