DOSE:

1 hit

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT:

180 lb

To preface, let me state that at the time of taking this, I was in a poor frame of mind. I had been depressed for over a year, and had just gotten a job, thinking that the distraction of work would help alleviate my depression somewhat. This completely backfired, and the thought of spending the rest of my life working drove me into a deeper depression than I have ever been in before. I made the decision to end my own life, but I decided that before I committed to the act I would try breaking through on Salvia, to see if that would change anything for me. I had tried Salvia twice before, but only the leaf, and never using a butane lighter. The first time, my perception seemed off, and the second time I had a fit of laughter and felt a strange prickling sensation all over my body. Both experiences were short-lived and, in my opinion, not really worth it. I had no previous experience with any other kind of hallucinogenic substance, though I was an avid pot smoker. At the headshop I purchased a small plastic bong, a butane lighter, and a gram of 10x Salvia Divinorum extract.

I headed over to a friend of a friend's house who had stated earlier that he was interested in trying some. From what I had read online, you only needed a pinch of the stuff for a full blown trip, so I figured I had plenty to share. My friend, P, knocked on the door and we were let in by his friend, E. I explained to them both that this stuff was supposed to make you trip out hardcore, and my friend P decided he would try some too. After explaining how to properly smoke it to them, I asked if either of them wanted to try it first. To my surprise, E said that he did. E lived with his parents, who were home at the time, but he assured me that they were OK with his drug use, and did drugs themselves on occasion. We were in his bedroom, which was dimly lit, with christmas lights and trippy pictures adorning the walls. I began to get a little nervous at this point, being as we were trying a supposedly powerful hallucinogen for the first time, but reassured myself and loaded E a small hit in the bong. I handed it and the butane to him, and watched as he kept the flame on it and inhaled the entire hit. He held it in for about thirty seconds, during which time P left the room to chat with E's parents about Salvia. After exhaling, E began talking to me about how he felt, and very quickly began slurring his speech. He started looking back and forth around the room, and seemed to be struggling with his words, which by this time had become completely incomprehensible. He had been sitting on the floor with his back to his bed when he took the hit, and now he was facing the bed, staring at it. He seemed to be trying to explain something to me, so I asked him if he wanted to get on the bed. He responded affirmatively, then pulled himself onto the bed. He sat for a few moments, muttering, and at this point P entered the room. About this time E was coming down, and he explained that he had seen the bed as a tall building that he was at the corner of, and that he had been trying to tell me something about teeth. E tripped for about ten minutes overall. He said it was crazy, and he enjoyed it.

P decided he would go next. I loaded him a hit a a little smaller than E's, at his behest. He torched it and inhaled deeply, holding it in for at least thirty seconds. He exhaled, then began laughing. He continued laughing as he surveyed the room, when suddenly his cell-phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the number, and answered with 'I'm fucked up!', then continued laughing. The person on the other end said something, and he replied 'I'll tell you later', and hung up the phone. Then he laughed some more and stood up. He began talking in a strange slur, telling us of a pull he felt on himself. We told him to sit back down, but he assured us that he was OK. After a few more minutes, he seemed to be sober again and was speaking clearly. He told us that he was going to go outside to get some fresh air, and we foolishly allowed him to leave unsupervised. We heard a thump on the wall and I went out of the room to find him leaning his left shoulder against the hallway wall. He began telling me about the force pulling him into the wall. E and I convinced him to come back the room and sit down. After another few minutes, he told us he was sober (again). We asked him if he was sure. He said he was. He told us he had felt a force pulling him to the left, and when he had left the room he began spinning in a circle, as the force pulled him to the left and prevented him from travelling straight forward. He somehow made it to E's mother, and began talking with her. She asked him if he was tripping, to which he replied affirmatively. She told him to go back to E's room, and on his way back he began leaning against the wall due to the pull of the force. He told us he didn't get any visuals, just strange feelings and 'the pull'. He said he liked it.

It was finally my turn. Since I figured that I would have to be stupid to be willing to kill myself but not willing to go as far as I could on Salvia, I filled the bowl with the extract. I took the lighter to it and began burning the blackened substance, inhaling slowly. It took me about twenty seconds to clear it, and I exhaled almost as soon as I was done. I somehow knew that it would have been unneccessary to hold it in any longer. I managed to set the bong and the lighter down on a stool, and suddenly things changed. I laughed and exclaimed 'It's just like weed!', and stared at the bowl of the bong. My vision zoomed in on the black part of it, until nothing remained but blackness. The next thing I remember was seeing... Something. P tells me that after I hit it, I said 'Wait, this isn't like weed at all!', laughed, then went expressionless and started staring vacantly into space. I then said 'I can see it. I understand', in a monotone voice. Whatever I saw, I feel it was beyond human comprehension. My closest approximation would be that I saw infinity. I can't remember it well, but even if I did I wouldn't be able to put it into words. It was something you had to experience yourself. The next thing I knew, I was God. I was everything. I knew everything. Despite my previous belief that being God must be great, I found that I wasn't happy. I wasn't sad, either. I just was. It was as things had always been. My previous life, as well as everyone else's, was nothing more than a dream. This was the true reality.

It was strange, I knew everything, but it was sort of like how information was stored on a computer. All the information is always there, but certain sections need to be accessed to find what you are looking for. I found it necessary to ask myself, 'What happens when you kill yourself?'. I was suddenly warped to another place, where I was a strange, geometric entity. I was like a piece of a pie chart, with the point signifying forward. I was seeing myself in the third person, and I was bright with pure white light. My surroundings were pure energy, flowing constantly, blue and white in color. I looked to my left and saw my answer. A large patch of black and brown 'dead' energy, unmoving, sat amidst the flow. This satisfied me, and I realized I did not want to kill myself. I said out loud 'I'm never gonna kill myself because that's what happens if you do!', confusing my companions who were unaware of my suicidal inclination. At some point during this, I stood up in the real world. In my world, I turned my attention to the energy again, saying 'I have to go', I began heading into a tunnel like formation of flowing blue and white energy. It was imperative that I went through this tunnel, though I didn't know why. I just felt it was necessary. On my left was a black half circle, and as I tried to pass it, it stopped me. I was still all-powerful at this point, and felt as if I could have destroyed the entity in an instant if I had wanted to. For some reason I did not want to destroy it. I struggled and demanded that it release me. It refused, and told me to sit down. I again demanded that it let me go, adding that if it didn't I would kill it, again it refused and told me to sit down. At this point I pushed it away from me. When I did this, everything changed. I was incredibly confused. Everything seemed very familiar, but incredibly alien. I looked at the black half circle again, and it too had changed. It was now a strange, alien entity. I realized that I myself had changed as well. I stared down at my hand. I previously had no hands, so this came as quite a shock to me. 'What the fuck is happening?', I demanded from the entity. It gave me no response. I suddenly felt as if I had done this all before, millions of times. In and around my hand I saw something that I can't explain very well. It was like my hand was zooming in, but not zooming in at all, with geometric patterns that all contained information barraging my mind. 'What the fuck is this shit!?', I demanded. No response.

I suddenly realized that I should probably sit down. I stated this out loud, then sat on the bed. I got into the corner of the bed and sat with my back against the wall. Two entities stared down at me. Everything was still changing, becoming more and more defined, and it was angering and confusing me. I asked what was happening to me. Neither one of the entities answered. I began to feel that they were doing something to me, causing this to happen to me. I felt heat and an intense prickling sensation flowing over me in waves. 'What the fuck are you doing to me!?', I yelled, staring up at the entities. Again they were silent, further confirming my suspicions that they were the cause of this. Suddenly, I remembered. I remembered who I was, what I was, and that I had taken Salvia. 'Holy shit!', I blurted out. The two entities - P and E, were staring down at me, wide-eyed. I realized that the strange geometric pie chart cut-out figure that I had just transitioned from was still visible. I saw that it was extending from the back of my head, with the point centered between my eyes. I was aware that it was slowly closing, much like the way pac-man dies. I could still see the world I had left, could feel it pulling on me, and I wanted nothing but to return. That was where I belonged, not in this illusion. I knew that when it closed completely, I would be completely cut off from the 'real' world, completely trapped in this illusion yet again.

After a few more minutes, it closed completely. I looked up at the clock. Ten minutes had passed. I was in a state of disbelief, and was more than unsure of reality at this point. A few minutes ago I was in the real world... But now I was back in this real world. I felt like this reality was some kind of sinister trick. I was definately still feeling the effects of the Salvia. P told me that I had gotten up and was walking towards the wall. He grabbed me to prevent me from walking into the wall. He told me that I was speaking clearly, not slurring my words like he and E had been. He said that he was fearful, as I had a crazy look about me and threatened to kill him. I felt at this point that I shouldn't do drugs anymore. I wanted to go outside, so we went out and sat in P's car. He pulled out his cellphone and began showing it off. I thought that this was a petty attempt to get me to want to be in this world. My worldview at this point was like a Buddhist's, except with a dark sinister force that was actively trying to prevent me from reaching enlightenment. Relinquishing all attachments to this world was the correct course of action, but more than that was necessary. Salvia was the key. It opened the door out, but the dark force had prevented me from escaping and brought me back into the world. I was incredibly suspicious of P at this point.

About a half hour later I was back to baseline and amazed at the power of this substance. My thoughts had returned to normal and I was no longer paranoid of my friends. Despite my previous resolution to not use drugs anymore, I smoked some weed with P and E. I reflected on my experience. If I was indeed trapped in some kind of horrible illusion, what was that dead energy I saw in my trip? It implied that there were others, who HAD killed themselves, while during the paranoid aspect of my experience I felt that I was the only one who existed, everyone else was an illusion. At this point I was determined to see if anyone else would experience anything like what I had experienced, so I went to everyone I knew who was interested in drugs and offered them a Salvia trip. While the results were amusing, no one else seemed to get to the point where they were no longer their self.

Over the next weeks I constantly thought about my trip, and began to find more and more inconsistencies in it. I was all-knowing and all-powerful, yet I was surprised when the black half-circle grabbed me, and I was unable to free myself from it immediately.
Although I was something that was utterly alien, I and the black half-circle were both using English to communicate. This might sound a little crazy, but that's how real the trip was to me. There was no differentiating between it and the real world. It was the real world while I was there, and this world seemed fake in comparison. The closest thing to it that I've ever experienced was the first time I smoked pot, when I suddenly thought that everything was a movie and proceeded to laugh uncontrollably for the next ten minutes. I think this was why I said that it was 'just like weed'.

One thing I did take from the experience though, is that I don't know everything. Before I felt that I had figured the world out and it just wasn't for me. Afterwards... Well, I realized that I don't really know anything about anything. My mind was thoroughly blown by Salvia, it was something I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams. I'm no longer depressed, and I think there is still a lot for me to learn about life and existence. I definately owe this to Salvia, because without it, I never would have been able to look past my own closeminded view of existence, not out of a lack of effort, but just out of a lack of ability. Salvia showed me things I could have never possibly seen on my own, it basically bitch slapped me and told me 'You don't know jack shit'. For that, at least, I'm grateful.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 61238
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 5, 2007	Views: 11,854
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Salvia divinorum (44) : Guides / Sitters (39), Depression (15), Second Hand Report (42), Personal Preparation (45), Mystical Experiences (9), Small Group (2-9) (17)