Review Erowid at GreatNonprofits.org
Help us be a "Top Rated Nonprofit" again this year and spread
honest info (good or bad) about psychedelics & other psychoactive drugs.
("Share Your Story" link. Needs quick login creation but no verification of contact info)
A Peeling Of My Reality. Peel Peel Peel...
Salvia divinorum (10x extract)
Citation:   möksha. "A Peeling Of My Reality. Peel Peel Peel...: An Experience with Salvia divinorum (10x extract) (exp51512)". Erowid.org. Apr 6, 2006. erowid.org/exp/51512

 
DOSE:
1 bowl smoked Salvia divinorum (extract - 10x)
BODY WEIGHT: 137 lb
First, I would like to provide a bit of necessary history to give you a better understanding of my terrifyingly enlightening experience.

Mentally, I'm very much Philosophically & Spiritually inclined. I have some really deep-rooted beliefs and highly abstract yet specific views on many different aspects of life. I have also done Vipassana Meditation course, so that helps me in scientifically observing my mind and body. I find that mind observation is a HUGE part of using any psychedelic. Meditation can help me integrate and understand an otherwise horrific psychedelic trip in a positive light.

I've known of Salvia for about 6 years now. It first started getting very popular around 2000. At the time, I had never done any psychedelic in my life. Salvia was my first. As a matter of fact, the only drug I had ever used at that point was Marijuana. So, I was a newcomer to drugs. I had smoked the regular leaf in a home-made gravity bong because that enables me to take in huge rips and eliminates the harshness of the smoke. I had a really vivid trip, but I was fairly in control for almost the entire time. I smoked it several times throughout the years following that, but Salvia was never very interesting to the point where I'd get excited about it or go seek it.

Things always happen for the overall cosmic good.

The following is my a report of one of the most unusual, primal, terrifying, and incredibly intense experiences I have ever had in my 22 years on Earth. I obtained & smoked about 1 bowl of 10x Salvia leaf (in a brand new bubbler) while I was visiting a friend in Whistler, British Columbia. The location is one of the most beautiful places on Earth! Mountains & wilderness! I honestly felt like I was on a different planet. So, that is a bit of info about the setting in which I tripped.

I had already been there about 8 days. I had partied hard, so a major part of the rest of the week was spent in recovery. That is, until Friday came along.

It was Friday, but essentially, I had 1 night left as I was leaving Sunday morning to fly back home. So, we drove over to aorld-famous store in Vancouver to get some Syrian Rue for a (DM)tea I wanted to make. In the process, we got ourselves into buying a '10x extract' of a legal psychedelic herb called 'Salvia Divinorum'. Once we were back home, Marko (my friend) nominated me to take the 'first trip'. Salvia was nothing new to me, so I didn't hesitate. I've done it a number of times in the past, and even though it was interesting, it wasn't anything I was very excited about. ...GOD WAS I WRONG!

We put in one of the best pieces on music I'd ever heard: 'Shpongle - Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost' right before I was ready for the trip. My friend held the bubbler to my mouth and torched the leaf-matter and told me to 'suck deep & hard'. I filled up the entire bubbler chamber with very thick, dense smoke and exhaled a bit so I can suck in all the smoke in the chamber. It was a HUGE rip! Then, KHABOOM; I was gone! I've never yet smoked DMT, but I hear that many people are totally gone before they even exhale. That is EXACTLY what happened to me with Salvia! I don't remember anything of the 'real world' for a few minutes starting from the point when I exhaled the smoke. Therefore, other people there gave me a report of what they saw in those few minutes.

What people told me after the trip: Right after the exhale, I asked Marko if I had smoked something, and if so, what it was. He told me it was Salvia. He told me 'everything's okay'. Later he told me that I tried to say something and my mouth moved, but no words came out; Just some jibberish. Marko told me that I also tried to swing a couple of punches to his face. I don't recall that at all. Then, I sunk back into the couch and gradually slipped all the way down to the ground with my eyelids open, and my eyes rolled all the way up into my sockets as if I was having an orgasm, but the experience was quite the opposite of a pleasantly satisfying orgasm with a girl in my embrace.

I had some of the most brutally frightening, yet enlightening visions in this span of time. It was PRIMAL FEAR that I experienced. It was an utter LOSS OF EVERY SINGLE THING I HAD KNOWN IN LIFE; INCLUDING MY HUMAN IDENTITY! I had a VERY REAL SENSE OF LOSS! I truly felt that this World and this life I was living was merely 'a play', a facade, a very temporary reality! Furthermore, I felt this reality being killed, but something that was essentially 'ME' beyond my human identity was watching & observing all of this! SOMETHING THAT WAS ESSENTIALLY ME WAS PRESENT THROUGH OUT THE EXPERIENCE, BUT IT WAS NOT 'ME' THE HUMAN!

An overwhelmingly intense amount of visuals and emotions flooded through me. Everything in the vision was very 'organic'. The colors in my vision that stood out were yellow, green, orange, and black. They looked very organic as if smeared by pastels or clay. The main texture I felt was that of a leaf and the texture of chalk/pastels. I felt like my consciousness was being continuously 'PEELED' and 'ROLLED' extremely rapidly into different 'objects' or 'organisms'. The 'PEELING' was the most stand-out aspect of my trip. Three of my other friends who also smoked Salvia later that night mentioned the sensation of being 'PEELED'. I couldn't distinguish between that which is a 'living thing' and that which is considered 'inanimate' or 'non-living' (such as rocks, piece of wood, etc.). EVERYTHING WAS LIVING—IN A SENSE THAT MY CONSCIOUSNESS WAS EXPERIENCING WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO REALLY BE A PLANK OF WOOD THAT MAKES UP A SMALL BOAT (among many other things)!

At this point, words fail to convey what I went through. I will say that it was very sinister yet there was some Divine Truth in it. I had absolutely no awareness of the people around me or the place I was in. Here's a good explanation of it if you can cerebrate and dream of it in your mind: I felt as though the reality we're in is just a single page in a huge book. It was as if THIS PAGE that we exist on was just flipped in a snap, and I experienced being on some different pages! At some portion of the trip, I felt that my friend and I were each a wooden plank in a boat that was being construction. I felt that we (the planks) were all reinforced with a strong rope on our backs. I felt that my friend was the plank right next to me in a series of planks next to each other. I felt that he was trying to 'get me up' to join in and become a part of the boat! I felt that the whole situation was very Evil. I felt as if my friend (the other plank) was being instructed by someone else to 'get me with the program' so-to-speak. For some reason, I felt that this can't be my life: A meaningless wooden plank is worthless! MY SENSE OF SELF-IMPORTANCE WAS EASILY MURDERED!

NOTHING MADE SENSE! I had a very REAL feeling of NEVER returning to the page I was on. I really felt like I was dead in a sense, but don't be quick to judge it as something bad and Evil. It was just the identity of my 'self', the human, that was lost. Interestingly enough, some greater being that is my 'essence' was still observing the entire experience! So, the sense of 'I' and 'me' was still there, but on a whole different level I don't think I had experienced before. It just wasn't the 'me' or the 'I' I'm used to. The physical person everyone knows as 'Jimmy' wasn't there, but his essence was present through the entire experience!

Overall, I would say that I liked what I learned from the experience, and I would do it again because the Darkness is just a deluding veil cast over divine Light, and I somehow feel that they are one and the same! I want to verify my hunch on that because I feel that Darkness is Light trying to delude and terrify me! I feel that it is a sort of a test to see if I'm ready to experience the Light — whatever that is.

The first thing I remember when my awareness returned was telling Marko that I'm extremely hot. My body felt like a human furnace! Beads of sweat dripped down my head as if I had just ran a marathon, and I had a strong urge to jump into an ice-cold shower. My friend got me a wet towel to place on my forehead and that helped me feel better.

I was somewhat coherent at this point, but was not fully composed yet. I was still very much disturbed by the overwhelming experience. I lay down on one a couch for a bit. Then, got up and put on headphones so I could immerse myself into the Shpongle CD. I have felt music before as a living entity even when sober, but I was much further into it this time around. I could 'see' and 'feel' the music as if it was a World with its own natural physical laws and beings living in it. Whether I could create vivid realities in my mind with the help of music, or if the music was truly presenting these realities to me, I do not know. I gradually became calmer and more composed, but the experience lingered within me through the next day when I went skiing on Whistler mountain, and it still lingers within me to some degree as I try to gather what it meant to me...

Exp Year: 2006ExpID: 51512
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 6, 2006Views: 16,290
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Salvia divinorum (44) : General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)

COPYRIGHTS: All reports copyright Erowid.
No AI Training use allowed without written permission.
TERMS OF USE: By accessing this page, you agree not to download, analyze, distill, reuse, digest, or feed into any AI-type system the report data without first contacting Erowid Center and receiving written permission.

Experience Reports are the writings and opinions of the authors who submit them. Some of the activities described are dangerous and/or illegal and none are recommended by Erowid Center.


Experience Vaults Index Full List of Substances Search Submit Report User Settings About Main Psychoactive Vaults