DOSE:	10 g	sublingual	Salvia divinorum	(leaves)
	1 hit	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract - 6x)

BODY WEIGHT:

175 lb

Yesterday was an unusual day. My girlfriend and I began the day by preparing some dried salvia leaves, reconstituting them with water, and began chewing them. I prepared about 10g of the stuff for both of us, but it was so bitter that she spat it out right away. I proceeded to chew small amounts of the really awful tasting stuff over the next couple of hours, swishing it around for about ten minutes at a time and spitting it out (some gagging involved). I recorded some songs, and my girlfriend smoked some pot and worked on some drawings. I had a very mild reaction to the leaves, which could have been little more than psychosomatic-placebo effects. It took me a couple of hours to down the entire 10g, which may also have contributed to the mildness of the experience.

So that’s when I started looking into smoking some pot. But the stash was empty. So I took out the 6x extract of salvia from storage, asking my girlfriend if she wanted to try some. We had smoked it once before, but had not held it in for long enough to achieve full-blown effects. This time was different. I cannot remember clearly how things proceeded, so this is partially reconstituted from what my girlfriend recounted to me, and from what I can communicate about what happened to me.

Let me pause here and say that I have a growing interest in the relationship between plants and the human (my) mind. I think that there are some plants that are allies and some that are enemies, just as there are chemicals that make you feel good and poisons that can kill you. I have been experimenting with hallucinogens for many years, but only sporadically, and have turned away from synthetics towards organic ones. I have done DMT in synthetic form several years ago, and experienced the fear of falling off the earth/dying. Salvia in many ways reminded me of DMT in its intensity and duration, and also in the feeling of being sideways, like gravity had shifted.

I remember taking a huge hit from the bong, and holding it in for a really long moment, and then calling into the next room for my girlfriend to come out. It hit me then and, according to my girlfriend, who had just come in, my expression changed dramatically to the extent that she believed I was faking it. I stood up and moved over to the couch, which was quite a trick since gravity had shifted and I had to aim my fall, using the arms of the couch to catch me. I was speaking with her, but don’t remember what I said except that she later mentioned that I had said “There’s so many people in here”. On the couch, I had a distinct hallucination that pretty much comprised the entire experience, and that was not unrelated to the peripheral events of the day in the way that dreams incorporate aspects of our waking life.

There are a lot of metaphors that I could use to try to describe this hallucination, but I will try to stick to the materiality of it. It was like I was in a box, on the side of the earth-universe, and the top of the box was open. This open roof was near my head and my feet were connected to the side of the universe, inside this box. There was a flow in and out of my feet and also an openness around my head. I was aware of the other boxes that surrounded me, in a kind of network. My box was not isolated from the other boxes. I had a distinct impression that other people like me (but not me) were talking and moving in these other boxes, and that if I craned my neck far enough, I might catch a glimpse of or overhear a conversation of someone I know. In fact, I remember my girlfriend’s parents talking somewhere not far away (they live in Florida, we in California). There was a strange relatedness of human beings, that was both visual and aural, but that was not unrelated to technology, at least in my interpretation. I believe that the telephone may be one way in which my girlfriends parents were psychically very close in their box to mine, even though not physically (they had called earlier that morning).

I remember talking about the universe, and my girlfriend asked if it was working. I think I said something like, “It’s definitely working, I’m talking about the universe” and laughing. Then it was over, really in a matter of about 30 seconds, although the strangeness continued thereafter to a lesser extent for a few minutes. Then she took a hit. She can write her own experience, but she described to me the tunnel effect, which I’ve never had, and the thought that she was dead or that a new spirit was taking over her body. She was frightened, but got over that afterwards, and has found the experience interesting and wants to do it again, but not right away, I hope.

I can see why this plant may be frightening, but I think salvia had a unique and beautiful message, intense and exciting. I can see its value as a divining tool, and wonder whether its use could take us into futures that are not as torn apart by war, greed, and self-destruction as the present. I don’t say this to subject this plant to the quagmire of current political conflicts, but wonder whether this and other otherworldly substances can teach us the beauty and the value of our own.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 53769
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 21, 2008	Views: 5,108
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Relationships (44), Mystical Experiences (9), Small Group (2-9) (17)