DOSE:

400 mg

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

110 lb

Smoking Salvia Divinorum was my first hallucinatory experience, and one I will never forget. Throughout this writing I’ll try to explain my mindset before trying the drug, what I felt / experienced, and my afterthoughts. However, my sense of time was extremely distorted, so events that are described in detail could be what I felt in a fleeting instant (although it felt like more). Let’s get started.

It was the first day of school and I was looking for something to do after school. My plan was to go smoke a copious amount of marijuana with my friends and spend the rest of my day in a daze, but when I was offered Salvia Divinorum I couldn’t resist. Salvia, this magical herb I had been researching for the past two months. I bought it, told my friends, got them hyped, and then we set off to a park. It was about noon and the sky was clear blue and sunny, it was comfortably warm. I and five of my friends entered the park jittery and excited. I had been telling them of what I knew about salvia, and the potency of it (especially extract). I had butterflies in my stomach as I did not know what to expect of my first experience hallucinating.

My friend had a large blanket in his bag, designed with concentric squares. Each square had a different colour, so looking at the middle of the blanket it could give the illusion of looking a far distance. We set down the bong and decided how we should go about smoking the extract I had purchased. We decided that meditation would be a good thing, to relax us and get the nervousness out of our heads. Our sitter, who had already experimented with salvia, led us through the meditation and after I felt slightly more relaxed, but the butterflies were still there. I was both excited and scared when I packed the bowl, then I took my first hit.

Nothing. Didn’t feel anything, so I took another rip, then another, and another. Four tokes later and I put down the bong. After putting down the bong I immediately felt a strong, sleepy buzz settle over me. It was like a shroud that started from my head and gradually moved down my body, putting my body in a sleeplike state. All of a sudden my sense of reality was shattered when I felt my perception get divided into thirds. It was if my vision was a circle, and it was divided into three portions, but I could only focus at one at a time, which was the one on the right of my vision. The thirds weren’t perfect though, the two that weren’t in my vision were skewed and pushed to the left side of my head, and dim so that I couldn’t see into them. I noticed I actually couldn’t move my head out of the third it was focusing on, so I gave up the attempt. None of this felt remotely scary though, I felt calm because it was all so natural… then my trip was kicked into overdrive.

All of a sudden my ribcage on the right side of my body exploded outwards into the distance, which I later noticed was the blanket. The small square in the middle of the blanket was the furthest peak of a mountain, and the largest square on the edge was right by my body, and all the squares between them were fitting perfectly into this. I saw a massive mountain chain right in front of my eyes. I then looked down at my right side of my body and saw that my flesh melding with the closest peak of the mountain, and then continued on in the distance. I felt like I was this massive mountain range, which can only be described by the word awesome. I don’t mean to use it in the ‘whoa dude that’s awesome’ way, I mean I was completely filled with awe and wonder. I was this majestic mountain chain that extended so far into the distance, and each of the mountains’ slopes was a different colour. It seemed like this was some amazing reflection of the sunset off the snow. The sky was clear blue, but in the mountain chain the sun was setting. But afterwards I realized that was because each square was a different colour.

Then an indescribable amount of time passed, it seemed like millions of years, but I was a mountain so millions of years wasn’t a particularly long stretch of time, while I was fused with this mountain chain, while I was this mountain chain. I still felt the presence of my body, but it felt like the left side of my body, including my head, was at the top of the peak of one of the mountains, while my right side was fused with the mountain chain. I had an incredible feeling of being very high up in the mountain, and I felt the wind racing against me and my body teetering on top of this peak… but I was held from falling by the mountain chain part of me that was planted in the ground. Not only did I physically feel like a mountain, but also I mentally felt like one. Vast ecosystems were spread across my slopes, and I felt the responsibility of being a mountain, of always being there. I felt that it was my duty to always stay there, and I felt rewarded by the fact that I was a constant in these living things’ lives. I was something that could always be depended upon, I would always be there. This all felt perfectly natural and I was not as terrifying as you might imagine it to be.

When I came out of this trip I realized that the bong hadn’t even made it to the third person yet, they were all staring intently at me. “What did you feel?” “How was it?” they badgered me and I simply told them to smoke some for themselves, which they promptly went about doing. I felt buzzed, kind of like I had smoked some marijuana and I watched them pass the bong around. Two of my friends felt no effects, but one of them was having an intense trip.

After taking five massive rips (this guy has lungs like you wouldn’t believe) his face immediately went expressionless. The creases and wrinkles that are associated with expression were gone from his face completely, it looked like a smooth surface. He stared into nothing and drool starting falling from his mouth onto his lap. We all tried to get him to stop, but it was clear he had no clue what was going on. What was weird was that the reason why the drool was pouring out of the sides of his mouth was because it had been pooling up in his mouth, like he had not been swallowing. I think he lost all control of his face when he went into his trip, which explains the eerily expressionless face and the drooling. After drooling for about five minutes he started to laugh, still expressionless, for ten minutes. This is the end of the first time I smoked salvia that day.

Later that day I had a bowl of salvia extract packed. I was in a poolshed with my friend, and I hit the bowl. This time I wasn’t scared about it, there were no butterflies in my stomach. I took a few hits, and then immediately my vision split into thirds again, but this time a scraggly black line divided the thirds. It wasn’t straight and was poking out in places, and I knew it was evil. It gave a feeling of artificiality, and I did not like it. I went into a dreamlike trance once again, but this time I felt more vegetative and I was not having the visual hallucinations I was having before.

I could sense that my friend was trying to talk to me, trying to ask what I was feeling, but I couldn’t respond. I felt like I couldn’t move, so I just sat there and continued to dream. I can’t remember too much about this trip as I think that I lost consciousness for a part of it. My friend told me that I just looked at a spot for a few minutes, totally unresponsive to what he was saying. After a short time I regained consciousness and reality came back to me, and I said we should change places. The poolshed gave off an evil aura, and I think it was responsible for the unnerving black lines. So we moved to a swinging cushioned couch in his backyard, which was MUCH more comfortable, much better than sitting on a small plank in a poolshed. My friend packed another bowl and took a few hits, then passed the pipe to me. I took a few rips and then once again reality dissolved into a sleepy haze.

The shroud that had come over me earlier that day when I smoked salvia came again with a sense of familiarity. My vision was split into thirds once more, and the evil black lines were still there, though not as vivid as before. They didn’t annoy me as much so I ignored them. I once again could only focus on the right portion of my vision, and it pushed the other thirds to the side so it was once again the dominant reality. Then, while looking at my right arm that was resting on the couch, I said ‘thanks’. I don’t know why I said that, and my friend told me that there was silence for five minutes before I said it, but it felt right.

Immediately I felt the energy of the word thanks pour out of my mouth and move to where my right arm was. It is a very hard thing to describe, but I will try my best. I all of a sudden became aware of a sort of energy, or presence, that everything had. The couch had it’s own aura as well, but it was too small to notice because it was not a living thing. It seemed like everything that had meaning had an aura, my friend had a very bright aura. My body was illuminated with this energy (not illuminated in a bright way, but possessed) and the word thanks also had this energy. ‘Thanks’ then proceeded to move towards my right arm, then when it reached it my right arm disappeared and ‘thanks’ took its place. It seemed as if the ‘thanks’ had pushed my right arm away and stalled there. I was very puzzled by this, why ‘thanks’ had stalled when it shouldn’t have. It didn’t feel right, it felt like ‘thanks’ was supposed to move towards my friend and go into him.

After thinking about this after I realize that the ‘energy’ I saw was purpose… that is why there was energy in ‘thanks’ just as there was energy in my right arm. But ‘thanks’ was supposed to go to my friend, that was it’s purpose… instead it just stalled where my right arm should’ve been. This didn’t feel painful or scary, just odd. So I sat there looking inside the right third of my vision, staring at the stalled ‘thanks’ that had pushed my arm out of the way (I felt as if my arm simply ceased to exist, although my hand was still there). The effects started to fade away and then all I was left with was a buzz like that of marijuana.

I think I have learned a lot from my experience with Salvia Divinorum, as everything I saw/felt had a deeper meaning than just a visual hallucination. I am very excited to explore with this herb again, hopefully I can delve further into my mind and the world around me.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 56099
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 29, 2008	Views: 14,904
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Salvia divinorum (44) : First Times (2), General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)