DOSE:

1.0 g

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

135 lb

First off, let me just say that the events I am about to recount occurred a year ago and thus may be a bit fuzzy, but the basics of the trip itself are pretty darn accurate.

Let me then also say that in order to reclaim memories of trips, I find it best to take the drug from the trip in smaller doses. I seem to remember prior trips better if I’m on the drug. Thus I have been taking low level doses of salvia extract (13X) recently in order to remember what was probably the most intense thing I have ever (and will ever) experience.

It all started the day before when a few friends and I were at Hempfest in Boston where we bought several packets of salvia extract (1 5X packet and 2 40X packets). While at Hempfest we smoked some 5X salvia extract on top of some weed which had little effect other than distorting my vision a bit, much to my stoned amusement. The man who had sold us the extract had recommended that to help us prepare for the 40X, we should do some low level extract first. Let me just state here for the record that 5X salvia was in no way able to prepare me for a 40X experience.

With that context, we now delve into the experience from where this story gets its name. The next day I met my best friend with whom I’d bought the salvia the day before, at a metro station. We gathered two more experienced local drug users to partake in the 40X with us before we started smoking. Once we were all assembled we went to a grassy rocky ledge overlooking the metro station to have our trip. This was a bad idea! In retrospect, we probably would have been better off going to a nice open space like a soccer field to trip. I loaded up my crack pipe, which, due to the fineness of the extract, was an ideal smoking implement, and handed it to my friend who took the first hit of salvia, I then finished off the bowl holding the smoke in for 30 seconds as is the recommended procedure and proceeded to load up a second one. I put almost an entire gram of 40X salvia in the second bowl and when I hit, I inhaled most of that gram. I would later find out that I had probably ingested enough salvia for 5 people or so. As the other people took their hits from what was left, I was holding it in for the 30 seconds.

Suddenly the first wave of it hit me, I burst out laughing. This laughter wasn’t the happy oh-my-god-this-is-so-freakin-funny laughter that sometimes overtakes me when I'm stoned, this was oh-my-god-help!-I-can't-stop!-my-jaw-hurts-from-laughing laughter. I was a bit perplexed by the strange intense laughter emanating from my person but I couldn’t say anything because it was so strong. In dismay I reached out to my friend and started softly batting him on the arm with my hand to get his attention, he just shrugged me off saying that I was ruining his trip.

Suddenly, the laughter stopped just as quickly as it began, giving me just enough time to utter the words “uh oh” before my consciousness was ripped from my body. I saw the scene of us sitting on the ledge grow smaller and smaller (I was seeing it from a third person perspective somewhere above it all) until it disappeared entirely. Then lights started going by me at a phenomenal rate. The best way for me to describe it is the scene near the end of 2001 A Space Odyssey right after Dave activates the final monolith and the cosmic light show begins. I felt as though my soul was transcending both space and time as it was elevated to another plane of existence.

Then suddenly I was plunged into darkness. I had the distinct feeling that another presence was near… as if it were trying to show me something. Then slowly, the earth began to pierce the darkness and float into my view. I realized that I had the power to do anything and that the presence I felt was allowing it. By the time I realized this however, I was already loosing power. I began to fall towards the earth, the closer I got the more I could see that the once green earth had been transformed into a barren wasteland. I kept going… faster… Faster… FASTER! Until WHAM! I zoomed in on the scene overlooking the metro station and was suddenly back in my body. This entire sequence had no sound other than that of my breathing. And I felt nothing except a slight tug at my neck in whatever direction I was going in. My friends later told me that while I was on my journey my actual body was in fits and would have fallen over the ledge (killing me) if my best friend had not caught me before I’d fallen.

I may have been back in my body but everything was not back to normal. I was drenched in sweat, the ground felt like water and I couldn’t remember how to talk. I ripped off the bondage collar that was around my neck and flung it defiantly on the ground while screaming gibberish. I didn’t feel that I should be human. Being human felt so limiting after my experience… as if I was being condemned to a lesser existence. I felt that I shouldn’t be human but something more and yet here I was, condemned to server out my life in this pitiful fashion… as a human.

Over the next 20 minutes or so I relearned all of my life: how to walk, talk, feel feelings, be hungry, eat and all those other things which make us human. My first words were “I am God’s handle!” but in retrospect, I am convinced that what I meant was ‘God has his collar around me’.

I have never had such an intense and scary experience before or since, and I don’t think I really want to repeat it. I would not, however, trade it for anything in the world and think that overall, it’s had a positive effect on my life.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 54684
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 21, 2009	Views: 6,309
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Entities / Beings (37), Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)