DOSE:

1 bowl

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

63 kg

Salvia and Depression Do Not Mix

The report in quotation marks was written a day or two after the experience, which must have been around a year ago now. I was at some friends’ house with the intention of having quiet drinks. I hadn’t yet had anything to drink, I don’t think, but I was going through an extremely depressive phase. I’ve had problems with depression for years, but was stupid enough not to think twice when offered this drug. Three of my friends tried it first, and were all normal within a few minutes, reporting happy and ecstatic feelings – one even said she was sitting in a huge flower. What depressed person wouldn’t want to feel this joy? So I tried it. It was at least 25x, I have a feeling it was 35x but I don’t really know. I know it was stupid to go straight to such strengths when I’d never tried it before, but I wasn’t too familiar with it and my friends told me it would just make me laugh. We smoked it from a bong, I have good lungs so I took a few deep inhales and held it for 30 seconds or more. I didn’t feel anything, but my friend told me to go sit on the couch so I did. I remember sitting there thinking “this is rubbish” but that’s the last thing I remember.

“I sat down, and everything became polka dotty. then everyone melted into a tube which was all black, and humans and life ceased to exist, and I remember asking these weird-shaped faces if life was a lie, and they told me life doesn’t exist that I’m the only one. But I could still think, and I was so scared that I was the only thing left but I wasn't a person, I was just a wall in the tubey tunnel thing. And I couldn’t pull myself away, it was like I’d melted and was trying to regain form, but couldn’t.

Then my friend shook me out of it, apparently it was 20 minutes of me lying on the floor with my hands over my face trying to pull myself back into my body. I think I touched his knee, because it was all I could see, and if I let go I’d be the tunnel again. And I didn’t like being the tunnel; it was going around and round. I didn’t want to be touching his knee, but I didn’t know who he was and it was scaring me that a stranger was trying to save me. Was he an alien?

Then it was like I could think, but I had to keep checking I existed, and I had no idea who my friends were or where I was or who I was. Then I like left my body and was watching everything, and I came to the conclusion that we're all robots who roam around with no real point.

But it lasted a few hours, that robot feeling. I could think, but I realised our bodies are just an outer shell. I was debating over whether or not the human mind is just part of the brain, or if it was something deeper than that, at first I thought it was some other dimension, then I started to think it was only a chemical reaction in my brain that gave me those thoughts. So now I think it’s a mixture of both.

I really just wanted to kill myself because I thought I was stuck like that. Even the morning after I was still extremely nihilistic. I’m always nihilistic, but now I know we have no point in life. I feel like it was the secrets of life unravelling to me, although I didn’t want to explore it at all.”

Actually, that night I made my friend drive me straight home. I’d planned on getting the late-night bus but I knew if I did I would probably just jump in front of the bus. I was scared, and even now I still get the feelings I did just after taking this drug. Like a numb, depersonalised feeling where I don’t see the point in life and debate with myself whether or not it’s real. Or worth it. It was stupid taking a psychoactive drug while suffering from mental illnesses, and I don’t recommend it to anyone. I thought that because I can smoke marijuana and drink alcohol with no effects on my mental health, that surely this legal plant would be fine too.

Although Salvia is legal in my country, I don’t understand why it is but marijuana isn’t. If anyone is reading this contemplating trying it, do some research – don’t just go straight for the stronger stuff, start low and work yourself up. This is not a recreational drug, and it demands respect. I'm not saying that my depression caused such a bad trip, I've read similar from other people, but I definately don't think it helped either.

Exp Year: 2009	ExpID: 84875
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: Mar 18, 2016	Views: 2,336
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Salvia divinorum (44) : First Times (2), Depression (15), Post Trip Problems (8), Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)