DOSE:	repeated	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(dried)
		smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

60 kg

Yesterday my friend and I tried salvia divinorum. We had been aiming to try it for a few weeks but always ran into some bad luck trying to get it. I had done a lot of reading on the drug and was looking forward to the experience. So yesterday we got hold of 1g of 10x extract standardised salvia from a headshop. We also bought a butane lighter, which turned out to be completely useless.

We smoked it out of an ordinary gravity (suction) bong, with a 2.25 litre coke bottle as the chamber. I tried it first with a very small amount of salvia as a trial run just to see if it would do anything. All it did was make my heartbeat increase noticeably and gave me a slightly weird feeling, a bit like being stoned. My friend tried the same with similar results. So we increased the dosage by about double.

This hit me in about 5 seconds after breathing out the smoke. I definitely had the uncontrollable laughter people mention. I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes, believing at the time that this was the best way to experience the effects. I felt that I was part of the couch (although with my eyes closed I did not care if it was a couch or not), and it was part of a 3d world that was rotating on the x-axis in a clockwise direction. My arms and legs felt like they were emanating energy out to infinity, and this was a very pleasant feeling. One possible interpretation of this is that it is a representation of the rotation of the earth or cosmos. I was trying to forcibly move the couch (and the world) around with my body, with some luck, but if I pushed to hard I would simply sit up and, surprised, open my eyes and lose it. The whole experience was bathed in complex, multi-coloured hallucinations. When I stood up and walked around the effects were amplified and it felt as if some force were trying to pull me off the ground. I became very hot walking around, but felt a great power was somehow stored somewhere under my shoulders. The feeling gradually subsided, and although I still felt very odd, I could tell the experience was over. The peak lasted less than 10 minutes with the after effects lasting about 20.

My friend took a similar dose. He said he felt at first as if he was in a dream talking to me, and since it wasn’t the real me he could say whatever he wanted (although he said nothing incriminating). He said the walls and lights were ‘pulsating’ and waves were flowing on the ceiling. He also said that he felt like he was speaking like a 4 year-old, when in reality he was speaking normally. He said he was feeling much more but was too lazy at the time to explain it all. He had no desire or inclination to sit up and walk around as I did.

So, now we knew the stuff worked. I wanted to try it again to see if it could really do what it promised. I was keen on doing it again, but my friend had had enough. I read on some internet site that putting a bit of cannabis in the bowl before the salvia improved the effects. Although I also read elsewhere it made them less impressive. I decided to try this anyway. I put a small bud in the bowl and covered it with slightly more salvia than I had before. I should mention that the butane lighter I bought had ceased to work at all at this point, so I used an ordinary lighter. I held the flame on the plant material for the entire time I pulled the bottle up out of the water. This time, instead of taking one huge hit from the bottle, which I previously had trouble holding in for long enough, I took it in two, which allowed me to hold the smoke in my lungs for longer. Nonetheless, I still had trouble holding the second hit and let it out prematurely. As I was soon to realise, this was no concern whatsoever.

The effects struck me about five seconds after exhaling. I lay down on my bed with my head on a pile of pillows. I felt as if I had sunk deep down into the pillows and the realisation of the extent of my relaxation was intensely blissful. I began to feel the same hard-to-describe bodily sensation I had the last time, and started to laugh. I think at the time I was just laughing at how happy I felt, but I don’t really think there needs to be a reason to laugh on salvia, one just does so. From then on I can’t really relate events in any sort of order so I’ll just mention some.

First of all, I can just remember feeling in a very good state of mind: entirely happy and content. I found that closing my eyes enhanced the effects ten-fold. If I opened them the hallucinations were more difficult to maintain, although I did have some open-eye hallucinations as well. When I closed my eyes I was completed transported to a different world and realm of consciousness. My mind (and the drug) would take me on elaborate, dream-like journeys through space, time and beyond. I remember at one point having misty white lines travel upwards from many points on my body and these lines lifted me up into what I thought at the time was heaven. Unfortunately I never got there as I was distracted by another hallucination. At another point I was taken on a journey through a tunnel of multi-coloured space with a black hole at the end that I could never reach. I identified this at the time as some incredible hidden treasure or secret that I could gain access to as long as I could continue on the journey. I was whispering things like ‘Show me the secret’, ‘I’m almost there’, ‘I knew there was something else out there’, But again I was distracted. This is (and was) pretty mind-blowing and definitely something I need to explore in future salvia sessions.
Aside from the more serious aspects of the trip I piloted a space ship, drove a car, threw imaginary coloured balls at my sister (with eyes closed). When my friend started playing music on the computer I thoroughly enjoyed this and got up and danced along. When I closed my eyes I could see the laptop as a sound source in the same way you see heat sources when using infra-red sensors. It was emanating colours in time to the music. It also worked when my friend clapped his hands or any other sound.
While on the trip I found pitch blackness very comforting and rewarding. The darker it was the better as far as I was concerned. Covering my eyes completely left me in a state where I saw constellations of stars and beautiful, slow-moving colours. I seemed to always want to get somewhere darker. But the heat and sweatiness salvia brings on made covering my eyes with a blanket unviable.

The interesting thing about the trip, apart from the fact that it lasted so much longer than I, or anyone else (as far as I’ve seen from online testimony), could expect is that I could consciously keep it going. At times, even early on, I felt my altered state begin to fade away, but as I did not want this to happen I chose to close my eyes even tighter and carry on. This worked time and time again until it very gradually came to an end. A possible explanation for this is that the cannabis acted to extend and amplify the effect of the salvia. As cannabis sometimes gives me some pretty unusual effects I would not be surprised is this was the case. One thing I am pretty sure of, however, is that the cannabis gave me the courage and motivation to want to see more.

The only negative aspects of the trip were being slightly paranoid about people coming over to the house and seeing me in what I thought was a pretty mad state, and being touched or distracted when I had my eyes closed. Most people have reported that moving around is not advisable on salvia; I felt the contrary. Moving around was a lot fun. It made the hallucinations dance around and colours became more complex. However, it is true the more intense spiritual or psychedelic experiences only occurred when I was still.

My conclusion: a mind-blowing experience of intensity and pleasure, leaving many more questions than answers, and every reason to try the stuff again at a higher dosage!

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 68803
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Mar 21, 2012	Views: 11,013
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Salvia divinorum (44), Cannabis (1) : Small Group (2-9) (17), First Times (2), General (1)