DOSE:

2 hits

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract - 5x)

BODY WEIGHT:

13 st

I was only supposed to be the sitter but after taking stock of my friend's first experience I decided to give salvia a try. We'd read plenty of accounts of what effect this plant can have on the human mind and (being a pragmatic spiritual skeptic) I was a little dubious about some of the stories that had been told. They seemed extremely exaggerated to say the least. My friend and I both have experiences of various kinds of mind-altering drugs and had both had good and bad experiences throughout our lives. More good than bad I am glad to say, so you could say I was prepared well for what was about to happen. Wrong.

After my friend came back from his first hit we spent a good fifteen minutes discussing the effects, which he found extremely difficult to put into words. He'd had a relatively small dose (smoked through a bong) and I was very intrigued to find out exactly what the fuss was about, if indeed there was any.

My friend did his first trip in total silence but I decided to add an extra dimension by playing some music, so I put on a random selection of songs by Cliff Martinez (he did the score to the Solaris remake). Sitting on the specially prepared futon I emptied the bong and held it for about 30 seconds.

Immediately upon exhaling, salvia began its marvelous work on my sceptical brain. I could now see why he had trouble putting his experience into words. As I'd taken a relatively small dose I was almost able to articulate my experience but that soon degenerated into uncontrollable laughter. I felt like I had cold little fingers running their tips down my face and upper body while my body was simultaneously being scooped off the bed by a big hand. Where the big hand's 'fingers' touched me I felt cold but not unpleasantly so. Then I seemed to notice the music, which was over to my left. I started to fall in that direction, being pulled by the music, which also seemed to have cold fingers now, pulling me left. I felt amazing. Euphoric. I couldn't stop laughing. Then as quickly as it started the feeling faded away, very rapidly.

Unlike coming down off other substances I wasn't left with a feeling of loss or increasing mild depression. This was amazing. I felt totally fantastic. I wanted more. To go higher.

We discussed the size of the next dose, which was going to be about 30-40 percent bigger. We had a coffee, a cigarette and a good chat and a fair while after my friend had come back from his second trip it was my turn again.

Again, sat on the futon, I nailed the bong and quickly gave it to my friend and then I held in the salvia for even longer this time and lay down instead of staying sitting up. I don't remember exhaling, if I even did! The music turned into something that sounded like it was coming out of a musical jewellery box and the whole of reality started to fold in on me very quickly. I hadn't been prepared for this. Obviously I only realized this in hindsight because conscious thought at the time wasn't possible. I was merely a passenger in my own reality-deprived consciousness. My friend says I remained on my back for about 2 minutes but I remember getting 'up' immediately after laying down. Getting 'up' is just a subjective term because there was no up. Never-the-less I recall rising from my flat position.

I wasn't anywhere I could relate to. Why was I suddenly here? Why was I feeling so very, VERY strange? Why was my entire body no longer under my control? The room I was in continued to fold in on me in roll after roll of soft and wide 'cogs' and it felt like I was crawling around inside these rolls. The place I was in took on a soft yellow-golden tone, interspersed with silver and grey and I felt like I was in some kind of insubstantial liquid made up by these ever turning rolls. I was finding it hard to breathe and found myself having to concentrate on each breath. Almost like I was being drowned but I had no fear of it. All the time I felt icy cold (but not unpleasantly cold) fingers pulling me to my left. I also felt like I was tumbling forwards but not actually going head-over-heels. Every time my head reached 90 degrees from vertical the sensation of tumbling started again but without the feeling of snapping back to full vertical to start tumbling again. Very strange. And all this time I felt like I was pleasantly drowning in a liquid made up from my changed surroundings. My friend was there but to me he was just part of the folding room. No more substantial than the floor that had disappeared, along with my perception of orientation in a 3D world (I'd left behind) that lacked up or down.

This sensation of weightlessness, folding physical dimensions and the fact that I was breathing in a liquid began to feel unnatural and a little bit scary. I realize now that this was probably a result of me returning to normality very gradually and my waking brain was struggling to process what was real and what was not. Unlike my first salvia hit the return took much longer...or felt like it. As far as I was concerned it could have been years, when in fact my whole trip lasted 9 minutes.

I was very glad my friend was there to help me back out. As I gradually returned to the room my friend told me what I had done while I was away. He said that through the whole experience I was calm and serene although my movements certainly did not correspond with the way I thought I had been moving. I asked if it looked like I was struggling to breathe but he said no. I had actually got up on my knees, shuffled over to him, reached out and held both his hands. At this point he'd told me I'd taken salvia, where I was and that it wouldn't last long. I remember none of this. However, I vaguely remember hearing a voice as I was tumbling through my rolling 'liquid' world.

All this was last night.

Last night I went to sleep and had vivid dreams. I rarely remember my dreams. This morning I'm still coming to terms with what I saw and felt last night. I was a skeptic but last night I experienced something very unusual that's hard to explain clearly. Salvia is like nothing I've ever experienced before and should be approached with caution. It only took one big hit of 5x to alter reality and my feeling of self. I have never experienced calming fear before. It's like experiencing one clear emotion but that regular and clear emotion's feeling is turned on its head and it becomes something else, whilst at the same time remaining the same. Does that make sense? Maybe it's not supposed to.

Exp Year: 2009	ExpID: 81525
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 38
Published: Jan 14, 2018	Views: 1,609
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Small Group (2-9) (17), First Times (2)