DOSE: T+ 0:00	5 mg	oral	Pharms - Zolpidem
T+ 0:30	3 - 4 leaves	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(dried)
T+ 0:30	1 hit	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

200 lb

Time: 11:30pm
Dosage: 3-4 small leaves of Salvia Divinorum
0.15 grams - 20x Salvia Extract
5mg Ambien

I have had a fascination with the thought of using Salvia over the past several months. My biggest desire was to see if Salvia could act as a form of medicine, as I had read that while it may be unconventional, Salvia could help broaden one’s mind by unlocking other parts (so to speak) of their mind and help them view life very differently. Second, was the fact that I had never had a psychedelic experience and was curious what that would be like.

Concerning psychedelic adventures, drug use, alcohol use, etc…….I smoked marijuana once when I was 16 or 17 years old, I have never done ANY other form of illegal drug and detest pain killers such as Oxycontin as they give me a truly frightening experience. I have probably only taken 4 pills total in my life and that was by prescription for minor surgery (vasectomy, PRK with Lasik). I flushed the remaining pills I had down the toilet. While I enjoy beer, I hate being drunk or even near it. Anymore, I can hardly drink ANY alcohol as it just makes me feel poorly. 1 to 2 beers and I am no good to anyone, it makes me sluggish and if drink on a daily or semi-daily basis, makes me gain weight.

I don’t even smoke, I have smoked, but am not sure that the little cigars that I smoked a year or so ago even had tobacco in them. Cigarettes make me sick to my stomach. So, in conclusion to my drug, alcohol and tobacco use in the past 38 years of my life, I have been relatively “clean".

One thing that bothers me the most is that I don’t think that I could ever explain to my wife why I have an interest in trying Salvia. I could be wrong, but, I am sure that had I told her of my desire, visions of “oh my goodness, my husband is a drug-user” would most certainly be a possibility of her line of thought. However, my research and recent practical experience has led me to believe that becoming an addict to Salvia is about as likely as becoming an addict to wasabi mustard, however, the experience of Salvia is obviously vastly different than wasabi.

One good thing about Salvia is that it is relatively inexpensive and legal in my State, at least for now. I went ahead and purchased a simple water pipe with a normal sized small bowl. While looking at the headshop, I decided to go ahead and purchase a 12.5 gram bag of plain Salvia leaf as it also was right there and inexpensive. I figured that rather than starting off with my 20x extract, it would make more sense to start out with the “plain” stuff.

I have had the product for over a week and have had much trepidation about using it at all. In fact, I had honestly considered tossing it all into the garbage and forgetting. However, in my case, I remembered back to the quote from C.S. Lewis’s book “The Magician's Nephew” where two of the characters were transported magically to the Lone Islands and there in the center of the courtyard was a square pillar made of stone and on top was a small golden bell and small hammer. Below the bell was an inscription which read:

‘Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had’

Fast forward to last night. It is almost 11pm, my wife appears to be asleep and I am lying down, but unable to sleep. Now I am a little frustrated that I had taken half an Ambien a little earlier to help me go to sleep.

The Ambien begins to kick in a little, which is a little annoying, as I didn’t take it to enhance my experience with Salvia as I didn’t think that I was going to smoke any that night. However, now my family is resting well and I decide to go ahead and try some Salvia. Ambien, even at lower doses (half pill), makes me a little less wary and a little more open , whether conversation or otherwise, and this time was no exception.

I decided to get out my water pipe and take some of the plain Salvia leaves. I took about 3-4 small leaves which couldn’t have been more than 1/10th of a gram and stuffed it into the bowl which is relatively small. It filled the bowl until it was packed fairly tight which was about 1/2 of the bowl.

I went outside and sat on the brick ledge of the back door with my feet on the patio. It was about 11:30pm at this time. I lit the pipe and took the largest hit I could, however, the smoke, even through the water was relatively harsh. I choked and sputtered half-way through, however, quickly pulled in a full hit and was able to hold it for about 15 seconds or so and when I exhaled it was relatively smoke free.

I sat there for a minute or two, however, was disappointed that nothing had “happened”. I had hoped for the “woosh” that others had written about, but, it never came. I sat back for just a minute and then found that I was doing something akin to daydreaming, but it was more a vision of being at the edge of a field and the sky was pink with purple tinges. As far to the left that I could “see” in this vision, there was a conveyor belt of Baby Ruth candy bars on this conveyor belt that went over this little rise, almost like a small roller coaster and then went up and curved back around towards me and went the other way.

All of this happened in what I believe to be a relatively short time as I found myself sitting there feeling somewhat spacey, but, aware of my surroundings and feeling disappointed that “nothing happened”, however, something had happened. Anyway, I am looking out in to the darkness of my backyard and out of the corner of my right eye I see a man really close to me and he speaks very softly in a Hispanic accent that sometimes people need just a little more Salvia for things to work. So, I get up and walk back inside and am a little groggy, however, on the way back to my office where the Salvia is, a woman is with me only for a moment and she also states in a Hispanic accent that yes, sometimes it takes just a little more Salvia.

I go into my office and get out the big guns, the 20x extract. Now, this extract was blended by a master craftsman who has been blending two forms of Salvia Divinorum from 2 different parts of Mexico and has included a finely ground vanilla bean into the extract as well. I cannot smell the vanilla in the extract or when burning. I filled the bowl about ˝ way and packed it tightly. I estimate that it was probably about 1/10th of a gram of 20x extract in the bowl. I lit the extract and it burned smoothly and smoked VERY smoothly. I watched it burn down in one hit till there was no more extract to burn. It was a one-hit wonder.

I held it for about 15 seconds or so and then let it out, some smoke was still there. I still didn’t have any “woosh” or rush of any kind. I put the pipe down on the patio and thought, well, I guess I will go back inside and just lay on the floor of the basement and just wait it out……….

OK, here is where the hammer fell. I had no sooner opened up the door (I think anyway, it is fuzzy right now), then I found myself in the most bizarre world or place you can think of. I knew who I was, I felt my shirt and could feel that I was on my back and was arching up to grasp the doorknob on the inside of the door, however, I could not see the door as there was a pulsating spinning row of huge thin cylinders that looked like large purple starlight mints. They were travelling all in a row and the lower half of my body was right in the center of the path of them, they were spinning rather slowly, but, with much force, they would pass through my body and I could feel the power of them as they pulled through my body and went on, there was an electrical humming coming from them and my whole body would pulsate when they went through me.

They started out as purple disks and then turned to a yellow after passing through my body, all the while, I am trying to grasp who I was, what I was doing and how to get out. It is difficult to try to describe the feeling of these spinning disks which started at the bottom of my feet and went to the top of my head. When the disks ran through me it was like having a big wave flow through you. It was so very real and the force so strong, however, it was not painful, just very weird.

Reality just did not appear suddenly, I was on my back arching my back up as I tried to get the doorknob, it was as if an electrical field was around my body and it was emanating from my hand. My fingers were touching the doorknob, but I was powerless to turn the knob. I don’t honestly know how long I was like this. I was sweating like a pig at this time, very hot. I was able to look around a after a while that seemed to be ages to the darkness of the inside of our finished basement and I looked and saw one of our cats sniffing at my leg yet I couldn’t reach out and touch it. I finally realized that I had taken Salvia and was on a trip of some kind.

I was also more aware that I was lying on the floor and from an outsider probably looked helpless and ridiculous. I was honestly worried during the short time of awareness of how I would ever be able to explain this to my wife if she were to walk up on me while I am on my back unable to move. Finally, I was able to pull away from the “vision” or whatever one may call it and I shut and locked the door, then stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water on my face and washed my hands. I felt that I smelled like Salvia, although, Salvia does not appear to stay “on you” like tobacco smoke does.

I stumbled through the basement, however, the carpet felt like slightly sharp rocks and I was still hot and spacey, trippy as some may call it. I went to 3 different couches trying to get cool and comfortable, afraid that I would soak any of them with my sweaty body. My heart was beating rapidly for a little while, not uncomfortably so, but, just a little faster than typical, but, I was cooling down. It was about 11:30pm when I started and I am now on couch number 3 still trying to get to baseline. The clock on the wall read 12:15am. Now, that does include some stumbling about and the trip itself was probably 10-15 minutes as a guess. But, it felt like an eternity in many respects. I had a somewhat restless sleep having VERY vivid dreams for the remainder of the night. Woke up with what would be considered in most cases a “hangover” headache. It wasn’t a harsh one. However, I believe it was caused by the Ambien and NOT the Salvia as I have taken Ambien before and stayed awake watching a movie and then when I fell asleep, felt like I had a hangover in the morning.

Conclusions:

1. Being cautious if I consider taking any other form of medication with Salvia.
2. State of mind, fear of being caught and surroundings are very important. I was nervous about being caught by my wife and rather than riding with the experience to the end, I fought it and that also probably caused the heart rate to increase, fear and sensitivity to vision, etc.
3. NOT underestimating the power of what appears to be a minute amount of extract in my bowl. Quality of product is much more important than quantity.
4. Having a quiet, dark and comfortable place to rest on the floor, NOT a chair.
5. I did not use a sitter and don’t think my experience would have been any more or less had I used one. My body felt like it was made of lead and I could not get up. Fear of being a somnambulist while using Salvia is NOT a concern of mine at the present. I think some have coined the term “Salvia Gravity” for the feeling of being pinned to the floor, wall, chair, etc.
6. Not fighting the experience. Even though I was in never-never land, I never felt like I was in danger, never had difficulty breathing and after the initial shock of finding myself in this strange place, understood that I had taken Salvia and that it would be over.

Final thoughts before my nightly ˝ dose of Ambien kicks in……What happened to me may not ever happen to others. I never had any “gently floating” experience as I went from basically zero to full-blown psychedelic experience in a few seconds. It is alarming powerful and not be trifled with. If you were to ask me whether I had a good experience with Salvia, I cannot honestly give you one-way or the other at this time as it too powerful and the memory is still so vivid as it was less than 24 hours ago.

I would like to have had a more gentle experience where one may “explore” one's surroundings, rather than being thrown in at a full-tilt pace as I was.

Nobody can prepare you this experience. It is too personal and could be very frightening.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 73238
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 38
Published: May 20, 2020	Views: 1,089
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Combinations (3), Entities / Beings (37), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)