What was the experience, though? (trip report)

About six months prior of today I had indulged in what I could only describe as trials and tribulations with Salvia Divornium. However much tribulation involved, I would say there was equal parts fascination.

Before I had breakthrough experiences with Salvia; the experiences I will be outlining in this post, prior attempts were only akin to a mild buzzing sensation which were somewhat unique in it's own sense, but almost reminiscent of a marijuana high coupled with feelings of physical distortion relatable to walking through water shoulder-deep. The mental high felt almost similar to higher doses of LSD in terms of ego-loss that probably did not last any more than 2 or 3 minutes. Needless to say, it was not a breakthrough experience by any means.

Luckily, I had been living in a state at the time where Salvia Divornium is legal to purchase, though that does not say much in regards to the extraction process, as it really is not standardized in any sense. Nonetheless, I took the faith in believing their highest marketed extract (80x) would be enough to let me experience the breakthrough I was looking to achieve. Going into the trip, I wasn't quite sure what I could really bring back from it. I did not usually indulge in psychedelics for pure recreation during my 'psychonaut career', though the sheer fascination of some experiences left the temptation there.

I really was not sure what to anticipate from taking it, many would attest that it is not something that can be prepared for, and reflecting on accounts of experiences usually makes evident peoples' inability to capture the experience in words. This I understand clearly now, bear with me.

.2 grams of 80x was packed into a bowl and a torch lighter was used. From prior research it appeared that Salvia does best with directly applied torch heat, whilst being held in the lungs for about 30 seconds. This is exactly what I did. I was accompanied by my girlfriend, who was acting as a trip sitter of sorts, though I assured her she need not do anything, as if I brokethrough, I'd be immobilized from the drug. That was mostly the case.

Upon reaching 30 seconds in my mind with the Salvia Divornium smoke being held in my lungs, I went unconscious. Before experiencing extreme feelings of time distortion and what was the 'visuals', I felt a bit foggy. Upon reflection, as during the experience I didn't really have what I would consider a thinking-mind, the fogginess before I went under was almost like being put under from anesthetics, which I had felt in the hospital many years before in my past.

Seconds go by, and I am lunged into an insane event. Nothing here has any meaning, nor a linear state of affrair. Alternate dimension in what I experienced did not meet sober impressions of what I believed it might mean, though no drug I have ever taken has been what I imagined it to be (for better or worse.) Suddenly, what I can feel, I can only liken to electricity. Being stuck in a current. Holding onto a powerline; the current is so strong you can not unattach yourself from it. Though easy to sensationalise in retrospect, during the event I have no true cognition. The every-day perceiving mind for me was history, an unaccessible memory.

The world as I could witness it, from within my mind, was nothing more than a pattern. Though the visual impressions were beyond anything I have ever experienced with other psychedelic drugs, I did not have enough cognition to really register the majority of events into memory. Everything, as it was, was just happening. If any part of me was left, it was my ability to feel emotion. Strong emotions of chaos, confusion, fear, and panic swept through me in waves. All I can feel is something like being a piston apart of a much bigger machine. I get sensations of being trapped, waiting for a 'turn', at the whim of something much more sinister than whatever I happen 'to be'. At this point in time the visuals are absolutely incredible, though beyond a point of verbal expression. Whatever is in my field of vision contorts and contracts, stretches and splits apart, and recompresses over and over again. My life becomes nothing more than a ceaseless loop that I am in the middle of: visually, physically, emotionally. During these ceaseless loops, nostalgic feelings of something I have no understanding of are brought about. I attempt to escape the experience, as far as whatever I am, and whatever I am in, is concerned, though I keep being snapped back into place, like a domino in a row. Like being the mouse in a mad scientists cage.

Eventually, after what really feels like a period that will never end, it ends. Life sort of glitches back into place like an old VCR tape being fast-forwarded, visually. Immediately after the experience I feel a bit dumb-founded and lost at words in attempts to describe the experience to my girlfriend.

Perhaps I've made the point by now. The experience was certainly 'something'. Though, I have no clue what there really is to 'take' from Salvia Divornium. I don't mind walking away empty handed in this case. I eventually continued to smoke the rest of my batch, each experience was very different, to my surprise. Though, the one I just got through reporting on was without a doubt, the full-fledged breakthrough trip I was 'looking for'.

Any comments/questions are welcomed. Happy tripping.

 

You report my experience pretty exactly and came to the same conclusion/inclusion. I don't mind walking away empty handed but I think incoherent is what it is. A disruptive although happily brief intoxication. I have heard differing reports but you can't prove them by me at least smoked at 80x.

 

This was what made my own experience with Salvia always stand out to me, and it was very disturbing.

 

Your trip report resonates with me in many ways with my first Salvia breakthrough, speaking as someone who has been 'there' I think your words approximate the trip well.

Salvia breakthroughs dissolve the normal thinking mind so thoroughly that it is difficult to have much self analytical growth from the trip, like one may have from more accessible psychedelic experiences. However I find that an area of my mind still gravitates to the 'psychedelic curveball' aspect of Salvia when I'm in deep contemplation on other trips, this aspect keeps in check my thoughts and emotions from becoming too formulaic and/or self validating and can extend to sober consciousness as well but I feel helps growth as a psychonaut in particular.

In the more abstract sense, I am pretty mystified by the realms Salvia elicits. I don't necessarily always enjoy it but the sense of my being being integrated into this alien strangeness is fascinating. There is a sense of casualness that goes on in the Salvia realm with which does not correlate with the emotional/mental recoil that registers in some distant aspect of self during the experience. I find this worthwhile, along the lines of what Terrence Mckenna refers to as 'felt presence of direct experience' being all that one can ever know and therefore makes it 'something' as you say.

 

after an hour chewing leaves i felt like being dragged aside by a powerful magnet. then i started seeing weird things like heads coming out of the ceiling and the table becoming like a hovering slug but icould shake off the illusions if i wanted so. two friends of mine spent the whole time listening to my comments and laughed their asses off . another time one of them asked to smoke what was left and that time according to her account it was a brief but powerful trip. she saw in a tropical forest a green green tree out of which a white snake crawled out . a minute or so, then bang, she was back with me. this was many years ago. never touched again also because it was banned.