DOSE:

repeated

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(leaves)

BODY WEIGHT:

190 lb

This is a report of my first encounter with Salvia.
It was March 21st, 2006.

I had ordered an ounce of dried Salvia leaves (not extract) from an online source. I had been a little wary, because local head shops sold Salvia in my city in California for between 20 and 70 dollars a gram, depending on the potency (10x, 20x, and 40x), which was really expensive, in my opinion. So instead I ordered an ounce of the plain dried leaves, for about fifteen dollars after shipping. I had been expecting an amount about equal to an ounce of cannabis. What I got was a huge bag (relative to an equal amount of pot) of flat, extremely dry and easy to crumple leaves. I was excited.

I called one of my roommates and good friends, J, and another roommate, S, into the room. He decided he wanted to go first, so I crushed up about three leaves into three seperate piles on a sheet of paper. I did this because we planned to use our bong to smoke the Salvia, but we didn't have a very large bowl for it, and the leaves were big. I loaded about half a leaf worth of crushed material into the bowl, and he smoked it in one hit. While he held the smoke, I quickly packed the second half of the first leaf in the bowl. He exhaled, and smoked the second half a leaf. His face looked a little flushed, but he seemed ok. After his second hit, he reported feeling the sensation of an invisible force 'pulling' in his head. He also said his clothes felt itchy 'like I wasn't wearing a shirt and rolling around in a pile of dried leaves.' He got up, with some protest from me, and immediately laid down on the floor, laughing.

He remained there for several minutes, but I was anxious to try it so I loaded a half-leaf bowl and smoked it myself. I didn't feel anything at first, and I loaded and smoked the second bowl. I immediately felt altered but I wasn't sure quite how. I noticed that the room seemed to be very hot, almost suffocating. It was a small room, with three people in it and no airflow, so I wasn't sure how much of this was the Salvia and how much was real until later when I realized it wasn't hot in my room at all. I took off my jacket, and laid back on the bed. I kept looking over at S and J, who were both laughing, and I began laughing too. I recalled reading something about the effects of Salvia, one of which was 'uncontrollable laughter.' This made me laugh even harder. It subsided a few minutes later, the room felt cooler, I felt less itchy, and I was back to normal, for the most part. I did feel good, and I felt like it was a positive experience. However, I was a little disappointed that I hadn't had any real visuals, or any of the bizarre sounding experiences other people I've read about have had.

Maybe twenty minutes later, I decided I needed privacy. They had moved on to other activities, so I locked my door, closed the blinds and turned off all but one light. I had been listening to Pink Floyd, and I let it keep playing. I loaded a more densely packed bowl of Salvia, this time almost getting an entire leaf in there. I smoked it in one hit, and repacked the bowl with minimal difficulty. I smoked the second bowl, which was the rest of the first leaf and half of another. I put the bong down, and I felt a very strong urge to lay down. I slipped out of my slippers (lol, ironic) and took off my jacket again. I laid face down on my bed, and felt the sensation of swimming.

It was hard to recall all the images I saw, but the ones that stuck out most poignantly were, I was imagining myself working in a factory, or on a farm, somewhere where there would be an over seer. Maybe a plantation? It was a little unclear but it was a huge work facility of some kind. The word 'ant' kept popping into my mind as well, but I was unclear as to how it worked into the illusion. The ant was the overseer, as far as I could tell, but I couldn't see it, I only felt its existence. I began to thrash about, not violently, but it felt good to roll around and move back and forth on my bed. I reached up towards the sky with my right arm, over and over, almost like I was doing some exercise that didn't make sense. I felt as if, my job on the factory-farm, was to keep repeating that motion. After a while, it could have been 10 seconds, it could have been a minute, I thought to myself, 'what the hell am I doing? This is ridiculous.' Then, I thought, 'I better get back to work or I'm going to get in trouble for slacking off.' That's the last real clear thought I had, I did some more weird arm sky grabbing gestures, then I don't really remember what happened after that; a brief come down and then I sat and thought about it all for a while.

The third time I smoked Salvia (This is all in the same day as the other two still, maybe a few hours later) I smoked it with cannabis. It was much different, and it was really more of a long lasting cannabis high, as I remember it. J and myself decided to go for a walk to a park nearby, and I was sitting outside waiting for him to get ready. I was staring at the concrete sidewalk of our patio, and seeing various changing images, mostly abstract, in it. I also saw neon wavy lines in the warped boards of our fence.

The fourth, and final time for the day, was the most interesting and amusing. I was sitting at my computer, alone in my room, talking on instant messenger to a friend of mine. I distinctly remember thinking, 'I'm a little tired, I'd like to have one more little trial before I go to bed.' I walked across the room to my night stand where I keep my smoking material, not more that 10 feet away from my computer. I sat down on my bed, crushed up approximately a leaf and a half and smoked it in two bowls. By the time I set the bong down, before I even exhaled the second hit, I had no idea what was going on. It is a hard thing to describe, but I imagine it would be similar to waking up in a room you've never been in, maybe in a foreign country, and having no memory of anything that happened before that moment. I didn't remember where I was, or what I had been doing.

My original plan was to go back to talking to my friend online after I smoked, but I wasn't even aware of the computer in the room. Gravity felt weird, definitely different, but I was still able to walk around with some difficulty. I didn't make the connection I was feeling this way because I just smoked, as far as I knew this was reality. I didn't know what was going on, all I felt was a vague sense of, I'm supposed to be doing something. So I put on my jacket (with much difficulty) then I took it back off, opting to put a shirt on first, so I didn't look 'like a maniac.' I slowly walked out into the living room, where S was watching TV on the couch. Her expression was very strange although I don't know why. I saw the cat, I picked him up, and I distinctly remember saying, 'Burt! You're so ugly' (the only thing I said out loud during my entire little journey) and laughing like a madman, I dropped the poor, confused cat and walked back into my room.

I laid back down on my bed, realizing what was going on, and after a minute or two, I was back to normal, with a slight afterglow that made me feel positive. I looked at my play list to see how much time had elapsed, because I rememebered which song had just been starting when I went to smoke. That song had played, and it was the end of the next, so approximately 8 minutes of knowing nothing. There was a vague feeling of everything being familiar, but I couldn't form a single definite thought about much of anything, I just referred to everything in my mind as the thing, shape, stuff, 'that', etc.

So I had several different kinds of experiences all by doing close to the same amount of Salvia. Pretty weird stuff, but I loved it, and I will gladly do it again, probably soon. I'm glad I had a sitter (S) the first time, but I definitely felt it easier to 'let go' and get absorbed in the fantasy when I was by myself. I think this is more a facet of my personality, rather than of Salvia, because I've felt similar feelings with LSD. Not the effects, but rather, I feel like I can experience the true nature of both substances when I am alone, and don't have to worry about other people's reactions to my strange behavior.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 51745
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 6, 2007	Views: 6,976
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Salvia divinorum (44) : General (1), First Times (2), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)