this isn't what you're probably expecting, someone who took way too much and blacked out. i haven't smoked salvia in months. but today i fainted, and i swear, it felt EXACTLY like being on salvia. my first thought coming out of it was that it had to have been a flashback. do flashbacks happen? has anyone else who's used salvia fainted before or after they started smoking it, and noticed that it feels the same? even the buzzing feeling was there. it was unmistakeable.
The SALVIA Experiential Rating Scale is as follows (- adapted/shortened from http://www.sagewisdom.org/usersguide.html -) Level - 1 "S" stands for SUBTLE effects. A feeling that "something" is happening, although it is difficulty to say just what. ... Level - 2 "A" stands for ALTERED perception. Colors and textures are more pronounced. Appreciation of music may be enhanced. ... Level - 3 "L" stands for LIGHT visionary state. Closed-eye visuals (clear imagery with eyes closed: fractal patterns, vine-like and geometric patterns, visions of objects and designs). ... Level - 4 "V" stands for VIVID visionary state. Complex three-dimensional realistic appearing scenes occur. Sometimes voices may be heard. ... Level - 5 "I" stands for IMMATERIAL existence. At this level one may no longer be aware of having a body. ... Level - 6 "A" stands for AMNESIC effects. At this stage, either consciousness is lost, or at least one is unable to later recall what one had experienced. ... it is clear to me that the main psychedellic effect is prolonged fadeout of sensory activity, but the meaning of that is not too clear immediately to most people: Sensory activity for this consideration means mental resonance from: Vision, Hearing, Touch, Taste, Smell, Memory, and Timing. Normally all sensory activity combines into a single Gestalt or arising Frame, and as it fades away another arises, naturally. You could say that in natural consciousness there is always two Frames, one arising and at least one passing away. with entheogen the frames fade more slowly, such that at Level - 1 "S" 4 frames are stacked, 3 fading and one arising Level - 2 "A" 8 frames are stacked, 7 fading and one arising Level - 3 "L" 16 frames are stacked, 15 fading and one arising Level - 4 "V" 32 frames are stacked, 31 fading and one arising Level - 5 "I" 64 frames are stacked, 63 fading and one arising Level - 6 "A" 128 frames are stacked, 127 fading and one arising so you will naturally experience this type of frame stacking and the associated mind states up to amnesia, in natural circumstances that extend signal fadeouts, such as dreaming, emotional stress, psychedelics, and probably other consciousness stressors too.
Good post redgreenvines! Anyway, i have had these salvia-like faintings many times, even as a kid when i didn't know what salvia was. These short-time faintings still happen to me because i have trouble with my blood pressure, i assume it's lower than normal. It happens when i stand up fast from a sitting position for example... sometimes it even hits me so hard i actually fall down on the floor and black out, but it lasts only a minute or less. Maybe this is what happened to you too?
I used to have blackouts exactly like how you describe when I was a teen-ager. Went away long ago. (diagnosis-labial blood pressure) Used to like doing it, because it was fun, leap up from reading, tilt my head back...and have vision drain away to purple black tingling and crash to the floor...and then wake up with numb lips a minute later... A simplified version of RGV post is that salvia removes the coordination/cooperation of the senses, revealing the "machinery of consciousness"...other events can also mess up the machinery and show you partial senses (an information stream un-modified by another sense)...like the method you describe (removing blood flow from coordinative/conscious parts of the brain, upper frontal). Basically your senses (vision, touch...) come in as a direct feed from the outside, and then aspects of each are split out and run through "circuits" in the brain that process a single aspect of the sense like "vertical lines" in vision, or "color" in vision, or "depth" in vision and then these split feeds are reassembled just prior to reaching their final destination...the place where all these senses are poured together into a complete whole, the final processing (consciousness) after a variety of sub processing. The process then reverses based on the input into an output which is also split out and processed back out through "circuits" to the body. So basically when in an "altered state" of consciousness you are seeing what is really out there, what things look like without being processed through secondary circuits. A blow to the head, a lack of blood to the head can disable energy consuming circuits of the brain before they assemble normally, where again you become aware of the seperate elements of the mind and the artificiality of "self" and "consciousness". The machine workings of the brain and "ocean infinity of minutiae" of the real Real world become manifest. Its the difference between telling time by glancing at a clock, and forgetting about the time completely when looking at its inner workings of gears, cogs, trips, spacers and cowlings. Its the difference between not seeing the forest for the trees. Its seeing the paper backing on a movie screen and not the movie. Its the color pixels that make up tv or a newspaper photo, and not the whole picture and its identity. This last part is hard to explain unless youre currently on salvia (where you can see/feel it, so Ill keep it ultra simple and use what I wrote on salvia. When Im on salvia, I can see this unprocessed reality near to or behind any organization to any "visions" (psychological explanations, or attempts to organize the induced confusion). I wrote the following: *Imagionistic (imagination-mechanistic) (perception-action) *Imechanation-movemental motion-visual (imagination-*machination)(monumental) *Reality=superadvanced imaging system for (in the mind) *loneliness=(only)seeing all the holes in life-empty places *see chemical soup that is where sensory experience projected on meat-*mud screen, vision-feeling (vision-touch) *in blood mud Parantheticals added for some (minor) clarity. Basically, what you "see" when you "look" at things isnt remotely whats really out there. What youre seeing is really all in your head, literally like a curving tv screen composed of chemical elements (which are the tiny squiggly curved lines grouped close together like spectral parenthesis that you can see when on strong salvia dose). This chemical soup projection screen, when working properly looks completely real and 3 dimensional, but when interfered with, well thats when you start seeing and knowing the illusion of the projection, you see the film jumping, or "cigarrette burn" film markers, or the image becomes plastic and sticky and fake as elements of the senses are not reintegrated completely, causing half fusion (synaesthesia) perceptions. Hell, too hard to describe well enough...
