DOSE:

100 mg

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

Dark Side of Salvia

Having 30+ years of psychedelic experiences under my belt, I can reasonably consider myself a seasoned psychonaut. Probably due to correct 'set and setting', quality of substances or perhaps just good fortune, I’ve never experienced real 'bad trips', just a rather unpleasant ‘session’ with ketamine I had some months ago (I discontinued K use since...)

But every psychonaut well knows that a hard experience may be always behind the corner, the 'entheogen path' being an unpredictable and sometimes even risky walking. I learnt that the hard way with Salvia divinorum.

My first experience with a Salvia 10x extract was absolutely positive. Smoking about 50 mg gave me a fleetly access in a sort of colourful, cartoon-like world, with bursts of uncontrollable hilarity and an euphoric, happy mood. That convinced me that Salvia was a friendly and rather manageable substance, so few days later I fill the bowl of my pipe with about 100 mg., confident that even though that was almost the twice my first dose, I would be able to ’manage’ the effects and enjoy them.

I smoked, put down the pipe and lay in my bed. After few seconds, feeling that the effects were beginning, I opened my eyes and...bam! I see a powerful wave of light, colours and energy turning the room upside down and soon after I found myself disorderly flying in the air, moving my arms trying to cope with the powerful current which was taking me away.

Some friends later pointed out that I didn’t surrender enough to the experience, making it more problematic, even frightening. But while I was in that energetic maelstrom I couldn’t even remember having smoked Salvia or having taken a substance. It was impossible to react in a rational way , just try to survive...It was like having been thrown down a bridge while sleeping and waking up midway in the fall. It was all too fast, chaotic and overwhelming.

I remember that at a certain point the room was in some way divided in two dimensions, the real and the Salvia one. I had a fleeting glimpse of my wife sitting on the bed 'down there' far away, while I was drifting in another world and had the terrific sensation that I was forever leaving the ‘human dimension’ and accessing a new, unknown world. Effectively, I had the terrific feeling that I was waking up from a dream (the ‘consensus reality’, where my wife still was and where I had lived until few moments before). I was slowly - but decidedly- waking up and I didn’t want that. I know that if I waked up, I couldn’t even remember to having been in that previous reality and that shocked me. While I tried to resist the force that was taking me away, I even heard some voices, which said, 'Didn’t you know? It works in this way...It ever did...Didn’t you know? There‘s nothing to do.' Moving in that uncoordinated way I was leaving - like flying - the dim illuminated room to enter in the near one, totally dark, but in the Salvia world the first room was the normal, consensus reality, while the other one represented the new, totally unknown dimension. In some way, I managed to come back to my bedroom, literally grasping the bookshelves to resist the overwhelming power which took me away like an irresistible wind.

At a certain point I see a large black hole - about 3 foot large - on my bed, beside my wife, who was still sitting there. (She later said to me that she had effectively patted the bed in that precise point, saying to me to sit and relax.) Even though I didn’t neither hear anything nor notice she had indicated the bed/black hole, in some way I suddenly knew that I had to enter that hole to ‘survive’ or at least to put an end to that nightmare. So I literally threw myself into the black hole, even though I didn’t know what could happen. But I literally crashed into the bed and against my wife and the hit in some way ‘woke’ me up; it was like I had opened my eyes after a dream finding myself in my bedroom again, slowly regaining a more normal state of consciousness. I was totally drenched in sweat and still shaking from the powerful effects I had experimented with. I remember having lighted a cigarette, as a deliberate ‘grounding’ gesture. Afterwards, me and my wife spent a considerable amount of time talking and speculating about the incredible effects of Salvia divinorum and the scaring experience I had had.

A few days later, alone in the patio at sunset, I tried salvia again, but at a much lower dosage, just enough to feel the hint of the usual, powerful force which began to literally turn me upside down. It was just a fleeting moment and the effects immediately subsided, but that sensation was disturbing and I immediately remembered very well the astounding scary energy/power that had taken me a few days before and...I thought to put down my salvia pipe for a while, a long while.

I have never tried salvia again since: maybe I’ll do it in the future, but never more with extracts, just leaves in the traditional (oral) way. I don’t want to repeat that fearful experience, it scared the shit out of me.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 95340
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 52
Published: Jan 23, 2018	Views: 2,421
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)