DOSE:		oral	Alcohol - Beer/Wine	(liquid)
	3 hits	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

9.5 kg

FOREWARD: Okay, this is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write – partly because I can’t remember it all and partly because what I do remember is impossible to put into words – but I’m going to try. Why? Well, first and foremost to warn people of the potency of this shit. Also, I want a record for myself to look back on. I know from past experience that trips are like dreams – as soon as I awake or come down they are slipping from my memory and comprehension, and given enough time they become just a vague and misty memory, sometimes disappearing completely. Also, the act of writing it down I hope to be in some way therapeutic (though undoubtedly, again from past experience, unbelievably frustrating, since our limited language is inadequate for such things).

BACKGROUND: I’m a 23 year old male that weighs about 9.5 stone and stands about 5'10' high. Between the ages of 16 and 19 I was a regular alcohol, ecstasy, diazepam and cannabis user, as well as using various other drugs occasionally (getting particularly into ketamine for the last half or three quarters of a year). Since then, I have pretty much given up drugs; I still drink a fair bit, never smoke pot, and about every six months take some form of illegal drug, usually either MDMA, LSD, or Cocaine (though this has become a little more frequent since splitting up with my ex-girlfriend of four years)

THE NIGHT: It was my housemate’s birthday and I’d stayed awake all night because, being nocturnal of late, I didn’t trust myself to wake up for shop opening hours. Sleep deprivation may have played a part in what happened. I went to town to buy his presents and met him in the pub about 4pm. I had maybe 5 or 6 pints of Carling lager (4.1% vol) before heading home. On the way home I bought a 75cl bottle of red wine (11% vol). At home, there were about 6 people, including myself and 2 of my housemates. The guy I knew least well (although I’d known him a long time) and felt the least comfortable with, had earlier sold me 10 tabs of acid and borrowed two of them back off me. I had had no intention of tripping that night, since it was my housemate’s party and I don’t personally view acid as a party drug – I prefer to trip with a small group of people I feel comfortable with. After sinking at least half of my bottle of wine, this guy offered me some salvia and I agreed. One of my housemates warned me this was not a good idea coz we were about to set off for the party but I ignored his advice. The guy rolled a single-skin joint of salvia, telling me the first part was pure. I took a few big drags, and he told me to hold the smoke in my lungs, which I did. He said ‘keep holding it, keep holding it - don’t let it out’. I’m not sure what happened next – I don’t really remember the come-up except that I suddenly felt extremely strange. I remember hearing the guy saying ‘Shit, It’s side-burning, man!’ and me only just managing to comprehend what he was saying and thinking that the joint side-burning didn’t matter a tiny bit – I had bigger things to worry about!

The next part I don’t remember but I’ve been told that I went very strange and sort of curled up on the sofa and tried manically to pass the joint away from me like it was diseased or something. I’m told someone asked if I could feel it and all I could do was nod, unable to speak. When asked if I was enjoying it, all I could do was shake my head. Apparently I then fell off the sofa, knocking my friend’s cider all over the floor and proceeded to roll around the floor, looking confused, occasionally managing to verbalize the word ‘What?!’

Now, being on the floor is the part that I most remember, though I’m still perceiving it through a mind that’s no longer in that state and can no longer fully remember or comprehend what the Hell happened (Hell being a very apt word!)...

THE PEAK: The carpet was peeling away from the sides of the room, but the whole of reality was tearing away with it. As the carpet wrapped around me, so did the whole of reality and it crushed in on me like a black hole; suffocating me; making me feel helpless and claustrophobic and panicky! I seemed to shrink so quickly I felt I was falling rapidly. As reality turned inside out, I had rapid flashing images from my life that I can’t quite remember now. I don’t know if it was my whole life flashing before my eyes or just a part of it, but they eventually reached the here and now, with me laid paralytic on my living room rug. This happened a seemingly infinite number of times. Each time I returned to the present, the room looked familiar but I didn’t fully understand it. The faces I knew were meant to be my friends but they were taking glee in my suffering which hurt almost as much, maybe even more, than the suffering itself. And every time I returned to the present and tied to gather my thoughts, the same thing would happen again; the carpet would tear away and I’d be rolled up in the fabric of reality. This repeated itself a seemingly infinite number of times and I couldn’t remember that I’d taken anything, couldn’t remember how to move or speak, who I was, anything but the trip which was all-consuming. The trip was so fast-moving and intense – the only times I could even think were when I was momentarily back in my living room, bracing myself for reality turning inside out again. In these moments, I had an extremely limited understanding – that the room was familiar and that the smirking faces belonged to people I cared about who blatantly didn’t care about me. In these moments I remember thinking things like ‘Am I dead? This is Hell. This is eternal suffering. I can’t cope with this for eternity. But I have no choice. Please, make it stop! I'll do anything!’

It was as if my life was a scratched CD that was skipping, and each time it reached the scratch, my reality turned inside out in the most unpleasant way. I seemed to live many lifetimes over thousands of years. By the time I finally returned to the present on my living room rug, I didn’t believe it was over and was still bracing myself for the next wave. When it didn’t come, I was still confused and disorientated. I’m told I wandered around the kitchen, then left the house without any shoes or coat (it was winter at the time) before returning. I remember different people passing me things – coat, boots, etc – and feeling that I were being exiled. We all left together and began walking down the street, with me staggering behind the rest of the group. I was still unable to speak and felt very dodgy. Realizing I was in no fit state for the party, I headed back, but couldn’t communicate this to the people walking away from me. I first went down the wrong terrace, got the right one second time round but spent a while trying to open the lock, thinking they must’ve changed the locks, before getting into my house.

THE AFTERMATH: Once in, I worried that someone would come back to see how I was and couldn’t face seeing anyone so I barricaded myself in my room, shoving my sofa-bed and bookcase against the door, spilling books and ornaments all over the floor. I then needed to pee and emptied dirty washing all over my room and pissed in my wash basket. I then proceeded to cut myself with my cut throat razor (I’ve been a self-harmer for some years now, but at the time I wanted to kill myself but didn’t have the guts because I was scared that what I’d just returned from was a taste of death and never wanted to experience it again).


CONCLUSIONS: The things I thought whilst barricaded in my room were varied but there was the prominent theme that the reality I was now trapped in was less real than the reality I experienced in my trip. Sometimes I believed I was in a Truman-Show-type reality and all my friends and family were just actors, other times I believed I was trapped in a Matrix-style computer prison that had just been glitching, and other thoughts were a little harder to explain. I still find it very difficult to believe that I didn’t experience something real, but my best theory relies heavily on a book called ‘Is there life after death?’ by Anthony something.
I’m not going to preach to anyone about my ideas, because they’re just ideas – beliefs are dangerous. If anyone is interested, then I suggest they read that book and come to their own conclusions, because I don’t want to extend this already long-winded report any more than necessary.

I’m glad I had the experience, but it’s not one I want to repeat and I’m glad it’s over. The best part of the whole thing was it ending.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 69345
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 23
Published: Jun 30, 2013	Views: 5,495
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Difficult Experiences (5), Bad Trips (6), Large Group (10+) (19)