DOSE:

0.3333 g

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

It's interesting how an experience can be funny, terrifying, and profoundly enlightening all at once. When I smoked salvia divinorum, I'd had a lot of experience with marijuana and a good bit of experience with mushrooms as well, so although I was informed that salvia was going to be unlike anything I had ever experienced, I really didn't think it would be too intense--after all, how can something legal be more intense than mushrooms? I was very, very wrong. My worldview has been permanantly and irreversably altered by my experience with salvia divinorum.

I went outside with my sitter, who was much more experience than I was. The setting was perfect: it was about 70 degrees, mid spring, the sun was setting beautifully, the area was familiar to us both, and there was no one around. My sitter guaged how much salvia would be good for a solid, intense trip and then packed my pipe for me. I was sitting outside and he was sitting next to me while I inhaled. I took a really long, deep, hard toke the first time I hit it. By the time I exhaled it, I was already seeing vivid fractal patterns in the smoke. I took another hit and, again, before even exhaling, my visual hallucinations got more and more intense and I was seeing flashing snowflakelike patterns above me. My sitter asked if I needed another hit and I don't remember responding, but he said my answer was, 'No, the universe is already twisting.'

I stretched out on my back and suddenly lost all sense of time, space, language, and identity. My experience completely transcended anything that could be put into words. My sitter said that I was speaking very coherently about my trip, but I felt like the words coming out of my mouth were mere sounds, and that those sounds were creating individual universes every time a new syllable escaped my lips.

I looked around--I'm not sure when my eyes were open and when they weren't--and had the sense that I was a Creator or Goddess-figure and that it was my duty to create these new worlds with my voice and actions. I began making gestures and noises, each one of them unfolding an infinite number of realities. I felt a sudden sense of panic at the realization of my own power, and recognized that there were hundreds of other 'me's each making different gestures, creating different universes. I told the Godlike entity whose presence I sensed that I wasn't ready to be a Goddess, and the Being told me that I always had been one. I said, in my mind, that I didn't want to be aware of that.

My mind started vaguely recalling the world I had come from. I looked at my sitter and was struggling to remember who he was or what he was, but I had a feeling that he was the god of the world I had come from and could take me back. I walked over to him and managed to say, 'This. Is. Really. Intense. I want to go home now.'

He told me that my trip would only last a few more minutes, but hearing 'a few more minutes' made me feel like I was trapped in that state of mind forever, because I was unable to comprehend the concept of measuring time. By that point, the sun was mostly down and I could see the stars dancing and dividing into fractal patterns.

I then had a physical and emotional feeling of being born. I suddenly felt wet, cold, and alone, and my impulse was to reach out for my mother (who, of course, wasn't there). I told my sitter that I felt scared and alone and he held me for a few minutes until the most intense part of the trip had passed.

When the trip was starting to wear off, I looked up at the sky and could see the big dipper. I announced to my sitter that I thought it was funny that when I picked out which universe to land in, I chose one with a big spoon in the sky... It was hilarious at the time, and I ended up laughing until I had mostly sobered up.

Although I think the trip only lasted about fifteen minutes altogether, the after-effects stayed with me nearly all night. I slept very fitfully and awoke at one point with a startling realization of my own mortality. I started hugging my cat (who sleeps next to me at night) and thinking about how everyone I knew was going to die one day, including myself. Although I had thought about it before, it was the first time I remember ever feeling such pain and remorse about the concept of death itself. I started crying so hard that I vomited.

Overall, I would describe my experience as extremely unpleasant, although it was also powerful and enlightening. I do not regret doing it, but the actual trip itself was one of the most painful experiences of my life.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 53440
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Mar 31, 2007	Views: 13,741
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Guides / Sitters (39), Entities / Beings (37), Mystical Experiences (9), Difficult Experiences (5)