Salvinorin: The Psychedelic Essence of Salvia Divinorum
1996
- #2 D.M. Turner - 400 to 800 mcg. salvinorin
My next three journeys were done with smaller amounts, ranging from 400 to 800 mcg. There were three related themes which repeated and developed throughout these journeys. The first is a seeming interchange that would take place between myself and whatever I was perceiving. It was as though the perceiver and the perceived switched places. I would become that which I was normally aware of The second theme is an apparent identity shift that would occur almost immediately upon smoking the salvinorin. It seemed that I was "knocked" out of my identity-with-the-body by an instantaneous "percussive" force. Perceptions of this event include the sensation of switching places between my own awareness/identity, and the awareness/identity belonging to the speck of salvinorin which I had smoked. The third theme relates to salvinorin being the substance of pure consciousness, an idea that may have sprung from my amazement at the experience produced by a tiny speck of white crystalline powder, no larger than a couple grains of salt. If there is a physical counterpart to consciousness, memory or identity in humans, and if it could be extracted from our brains, I think we would find something similar to salvinorin. In one of my journeys I began repealing the words "becomes the substance that memory is made out of" The internal sensation was that after salvinorin is smoked and reaches the brain, it becomes the physical matter or substance that constitutes memory, and there is a vast increase in the amount of information which is available to me. I also realized that memory is linked nearly synonymously with identity, and also very closely with consciousness. As salvinorin is coming on I gain consciousness and memory. I never actually lose consciousness, although this was my interpretation of earlier experiences. Ifs simply that consciousness becomes so vast that I lose the perspective of my individual self As the effects of the salvinorin wear off, some protective aspect of the mind censors much of my memory of the experience, as it similarly does to memories of Ketamine and DMT journeys.