DOSE:

0.25 g

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

After doing some research, I thought that perhaps .2-.25g. of 10x S. divinorum would provide the kind of visuals and insights people talk about. In retrospect, that must have been way more than a noob to salvia like me should try on the first go.

I have done a lot of different substances in my life, some with great success and insight, some with great sickness. None of my life experiences, or anyone else's I think, could have prepared me for what came.

As I exhaled, I suddenly ceased to exist. I can remember it, but I was so far divorced from normal conscious experience, that I can't get my mind to wrap around it. It was a place and time without any normally perceivable objects or events. It appeared that there was light, but that is just my description. What I perceived was not related to physical reality, so there was no timescale or objects and events to perceive, yet there were events and feelings.

That existence was singularly frustrating as I wanted to be able to think and make sense of it. Saying that I wanted something is still only an interpretation. My existence was far too malleable, tenuous, and homogeneous to separate out such concepts.

I suspect that I perceived existence both before and after my current life. That is when I began to attempt to find out if I could find and re-enter my current life in this cosmos.

Even now, my mind still screams, 'Oh My God!' when I remember what I experienced there.

The next existence I found myself in was a sort of wall made of multi-colored, fine-grained patterns. That pattern was all there was to existence. Even my entire being was an abstract concept in a universe where there were no such things as sentient beings with memories and minds.

There were 'thoughts' in that medium, but let us use that word lightly. Let us call those 'movements in the medium.' Those movements were associated with parts of my former identity, memories, and thoughts. All of the movements had feelings associated with them, and those feelings could be equated with dismay, desperation, confusion, surprise, and more.

My time in that medium was literally timeless. There, I could perceive events not at all related to my former cosmos, though we shall use those words loosely, too. One of the movements was associated with my death, and so, quite naturally, my counter movement had to do with assuming I was not among the living in my former cosmos.

Over eons (or microseconds) I started to become aware of other perceptions. The colored pattern began to overlay objects not of the universe I was just in. Those objects were things such as a bed, nightstand, dresser, and other accoutrement of a bedroom. I didn't know what those new objects were, as there was not yet language and thinking in this new place.

Presently, primitive harbingers of thought began to form, though there was still not language with which to express them. My first real feelings associated with those early thoughts were incomprehensible confusion, disorientation, dread, fear and a need to go.

There was now a woman in the room with me. Not one that I could literally see with my eyes, but definitely there. [I was so far gone that I didn't remember this woman until later.]

She had long black hair, scant clothes, and her, ah, private area was a mouth with sharp triangular teeth. It was biting open and closed. In a manner I can't describe well, it was biting my whole stomach and lower chest area, but not in a painful way. It was erotic, but not in a way anyone would normally think of eroticism. I felt she was drawing me away from reality with each powerful bite, not in line with what I wanted.

The biting feeling in my abdomen, as I said, was not painful. What it did was pull my upper body and hips together, so that I felt like I wanted to keep hunching over. She was on me and that biting thing was her whole being consuming me. The experience was that of two parts of the same being interacting though, not that of, say, a predator eating prey.

I stood up and struggled to understand what was happening to me. I began to walk toward the bedroom door. Everything I could perceive had far deeper meanings and implications that met the eye. Even my movements had profound indescribable meanings attached that had to do with distorted memories and imagery from my past life.

This particular phenomenon is the most confusing and confounding aspect of my experience. I couldn't see or do anything without a sort of profound interference pattern overlaying everything I could see and my every movement.

I desperately needed to get away from something, and with the same desperation, to find something. Those intensely needed things were not in the room I was in. I lose memory at this point, but I must have had the forethought to put on a robe, as I found myself next at the front door, still in utter need to get away and find that thing.

Bear in mind, thought had not been introduced to this new universe. I saw an object before me and went through it. There were sudden strange visions having to do with my former life interlaced with the still-persistent pattern, and of things like trees, snow, sky and my feet on a cold wet porch. I still didn't have concepts of what any objects were, though.

Presently, I was on the other side of that portal. Suddenly, someone must have said, 'Let there be concepts and thought!' For I thought that I might be able to get away from whatever it was and find the other thing. I opened and went through the door again.

Outside once again, I saw my old friend, Tootsie, the husky. Tootsie was quite obviously afraid of what she saw. No matter, The Desperation was still on me in a very profound way. I must keep moving so the one thing does not catch me, and I can find the other.

Back through the strange portal I went. Suddenly, I knew where I must go. I must seek out the presence of my daughter. Perhaps she will be able to help me.

I staggered down the short hallway to her space and opened the portal. I said her name (language and the spoken word in one sudden miracle!) and she responded. New hope and relief exploded into me! Here for sure I could find that thing and perhaps my beloved daughter could stave off the horror chasing me.

I fell on my beloved daughter's bed and said, 'Sorry for barging in, but I [have] taken a plant.' 'Ohhhh Kayyy..?' she replied, obviously worried. My other dog, Spirit, was in the room with my daughter, and he too was obviously spooked in no small way.

'Am I alive?' I asked my daughter.

'Yeah you are,' said my beloved daughter.

At last, I had found what I had been seeking through the ages: My mind. I had also escaped that which chased me: Insanity and death. My love and appreciation for my daughter was indeed profound.

Those two precious things addressed, I set about to get dressed and to get my life back together.

An hour later, I was calmed down enough to try smaller doses, but to no avail. I was too afraid of not being able to predict if I would take enough to repeat what happened earlier. I flushed the remainder, deciding that the horror was too great a risk. I might be able, I realized, to control the dosage accurately, but I could not predict what my reaction might be to any given attempt.

I have never had such a compressed and intense experience as this, ever.

*Later Thoughts and Interpretations*

I took many more less intense trips over the course of about 4 months. None of them came close to pushing the limits of the first one. I am afraid of falling down and hurting myself, but more importantly, I am afraid of finding myself alone with no one to tell me that I am a human being and that I am alive.

When I took my first and only really big hit, I was instantly transported away from any kind of familiar existence. That is merely a convenient description of the journey. I suspect the plant strips away or completely blocks the mind (that part of consciousness associated with the brain/body), along with its identity and memories.

What I was left with was existence devoid of beliefs, concepts, and the history of physical existence. I believe that time/space really is illusory. Our experience of physical reality may be a state brought about by our species' particular focus in consciousness.

If time and space really are illusory, then it would make sense that the removal of the normal functions of the mind would also remove the illusion. All time and space would contract into a sort of singularity that is the most basic consciousness of all: our inmost being.

If all time exists in this one moment, then what we might perceive would be the actual moment of creation itself. I believe that is what I experienced: All That Is creating not only me, but all of reality, right before my eyes.

My horrible journey back to what I call my own cosmos or reality was a metaphor for the creation of individuated consciousness. The terrible and overwhelming déjà vu is nothing less than my own inmost self remembering what it is.

Knowing, or at least believing these things do not help much when a hit comes on, though. I forget everything and plunge toward the One again. What does help, I have found, is to not go in kicking and screaming, but to let my identity go in peace and trust that I will be re-created the way I was before.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 72617
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 7, 2008	Views: 13,173
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Salvia divinorum (44) : Alone (16), Difficult Experiences (5), First Times (2)