DOSE:

repeated

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

178 lb

After I had been arrested for cocaine posession I quickly became a sobered individual. Still, old habits are hard, and my girlfriend of five years wanted to do at least a legal drug, so after two months of not drinking or smoking pot or using coke or tripping shrooms we purchased four packages of concentrated Salvia extract. We have yet to open the three remaining packages.

On the first occasion we sat on the couch and put the drug into an empty glass double bubbler. I'd say each time, of which there have been two, we smoked about a quarter of the package between the two of us. The package is a plastic container the size of my large-handed closed thumb and forefinger, the size of a silver dollar. My girlfriend did not enjoy her experience, in that it seemed to not affect her other some mild irritability. She has tried several times.

I, on the other hand, had profound effects of a hallucinogenic manner. The experiences are the only ones in my life I would classify as 'classically hallucinogenic.' I have used LSD and 'shrooms extensively, as a member of the jam-music community and in nature, smoke(d) marajuana daily for 6+ years, was consuming 1/8th of cocaine a night for several months, I enjoy K and ecstasy: in short, I am a drug user. This seems to be common amongst salvia users. Previous to my two hits of salvia I would count my consumption of 1/2 once of dried mushrooms at a sitting the most inspiring, tiring, life-altering experience of my life. But even 1/2 ounce of mushroom did not destroy what it was to have a self like salvia did in 20 seconds.

The trip began with an intense bodily sensation after only a few seconds, like someone rubbing my extremities or my appendages dissolving away. Then a full-on visual hallucination began. The details are confusing, but the first time I saw what were only explicable as reverse-tracers. Each movement of my body was an unfolding of the preordained, and I had a consuming fear it would take the rest of my life to 'eat up all the tracers.' Each symbolic object was revealed as only part of other objects, the rest of the whole, and there was an extreme sensation of the extension of my self into the existence of every thing. This is only related elsewhere in Slaughterhouse-Five. I believe I was seeing like Tralfamadorians.

As I came out, slowly regaining the self I had lost, I was telling my girlfriend, 'Don't do that anymore. I don't think we should do that drug.' I felt that I had stumbled into another place, violated something sacred, done something or seen something wrong. I did not recognize my girlfriend or the music playing or my own paintings initially, but was still telling her not to do any more drug. She was annoyed.

The second time was a party where I wanted to 'prove' to another guy how strong the drug was. My friends think of me as the drug user. They did not believe my account. I took a huge hit and fell on my back, which I do not remember. I remember looking at my friends, looking at their faces trying to remember who they were, seeing my 'tail' wagging, realizing I was a dog, looking over my shoulder at my 'owner', some girl's boyfriend I had only just met, being happy, then realizing my tail was my leg in the air and I was on my back, looking to the right and seeing a door appear, pointing and laughing hystertically, shouting, 'I didn't remember there was a door there!'

The party broke up soon after, as my experience had unnerved everyone and no one wanted to do a drug that had 'floored' me. The guys later admitted it was amazing, and were interested in the story but not the drug. The girls were all frightened by the experience and my claims of being a dog. These are all people I have tripped with or know have tripped. The whole experience lasted much longer than I can remember, probably two minutes, all of it apparently on my back while people cleaned up a beer I had spilt.

I will do this again, I don't know when, but I must know more about the time-dilation, reverse, contraction and the symbolic manipulations that occur. These were the most revealing and only frightening experiences in my twenty-four years. These are my only losses of self. These are some of the only things I cannot explain. These are my only approaches to feeling religous or awe-struck or humble in the way mushrooms, I now realize, only make me slightly respectful. The difference is like believing in Jesus and going to church or Knowing God and having Him as a Friend.

Exp Year: 2005	ExpID: 48203
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 13, 2008	Views: 6,144
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Salvia divinorum (44) : General (1), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)