Distinguishing between imagination and Lady S

I have a pretty vivid imagination, so I was wondering if it is possible to tell apart closed-eye visuals and mind tricks. I have had a few experiences with salvia, with a good deal of extract in each sitting, and I have definitely noticed weird thoughts and things that "seemed" to be closed eye visuals, along with the recognizable body load of it. I haven't had any experience with any other psychedelics, apart from cannabis, so I don't really know what to expect. Any thoughts on the matter?

 

When you get the full effects of a psychedelic, specially salvia, you WILL know the difference. There is no possibility of misstaking it. If you've only noticed wierd thoughts and things on salvia, you have not tripped.

 

Well, a major aspect(maybe one of the most significant aspects) of tripping is the trippy thoughts. The term "psychedelic" actually means "expansion of the mind", and doesn't necessarily mean the presence of visuals. Which is why I even consider a marijuana high to be a "trip".

my $.02

 

Consiousness-altering (not consiouness-numbing like alkohol or opiates) is at least my definition of tripping. There should be a definite feeling of your outlook on reality being changed to something you would not ordinarily experience (even in your wildest imagination). No-one can imagine what a trip is like before they've experienced it themselves.
There dosn't have to be visuals or other sensory hallucinations, this is just eye-candy and plain fun. If you stare long enough at chaotic patterns you will see both movement and perspective in flat sufaces like linoleum.

Shrooms can be really fun, though they can also put you face to face with your own psyche which can be a tormenting experience. The real fun begins when you feel your consiousness expanding beyond your own body, connecting to other beings and the universe, when you feel like you do not exist as a individual anymore but rather as the supreme oneness of all things. The enlightenment of comprehending all things in the universe and their interactions in a split second of intuitive knowledge is the greatest rush possible.

But salvia is different from shrooms, it is just plain wierd and bizzare beyond words and is seldom as beautiful as shrooms. Most of the time I feel salvia is just plain scary, it shows me a reality that I would rather not believe in, but salvia is very convincing.

Marihuana is a psychedelic by most definitions and I often get closed-eye visuals when I smoke larger amounts.

 

I haven't broken through yet im sure, though yesterday i had a decent bowl of 10x, what some people say is true, the last thought in my head was repeating in my head, this time was, "i didnt do enough", over an over again. with a very large grin


I did'nt break through but was in no state to smoke anymore quick enough to make a differance, i must just be teetering on the edge!

i have never felt anything remotely scary or sinister yet, i don't want to either but am prepared! so far i have loved every second of my salvia experiances and i realy hope it stays that way!

 

Well, if what I experienced counts as closed-eye visuals, then yes, I have had closed-eye visuals from large amounts of marijuana. And yes, I consider marijuana to be a psychedelic. Now, here's my conflict: How do I get the full effects of salvia? I have 5x, 6x, and 20x (all standardized extracts) at my disposal (more 20x than everything) but I do not have a bong at my disposal. Any ideas?

 

You don't need a bong, a simple glass or even wood pipe will work fine. You don't even need a torch lighter when you smoke salvia extracts, since the salvinorin A is already heavily concentrated on the leaf.

 

agreed silverwolf, i've had very strong effects with a very simple pipe and a normal lighter.

I haven't yet had an experience where i go completely elsewhere, or live another person's lifetime or these things that you hear about...

 

all the crazier things ive heard about salvia scares me as well and to me seems largly influenced by imagination, or siggestion maybe?
i cant pretend tounderstand it as its something ive never tried or wanted to try
but id hafta agree with demonslayers descriptions of the psychodelic experience
psychodelics like lsd and shrooms and peyote open you up to a connection with the subtler unseen and misunderstood aspects of life and universal conceisness
but salvia seems to from my limmeted understanding show you a world of total non reality, and through the suggestiveness of a shared experience convince you theres a reality to the confusion..i'm kinda hessitant to judge its merits and dangers till i've had anopportunity to judge the mental status of someone whos used it heavily over many years
it really hasn't been used as heavily as it is today for very long and am kindaworried what state many of its users may end up in in 10-15 years
if ya have been around alotta old school heavy trippers ya know some of em get to be kinda out there and 'normal everyday conversation' can become very difficult if everything as simple as hey can you throw this out for me? becomesa huge spiritual metaphysical dilema, (slight dramatic exageration maybe..but ya kno what i mean) & i kinda fear how such a profoundly bizzare trip as salvia over years of heavy use may affect some peoples perceptions of reality
anyone else thought about that? or anyone have many years of experience with heavy use?

 

I agree that suggestion is heavily involved in a salvia trip. getting the "full effects" with this herb isn't something that can be measured objectively. I'm not sure whether I agree that reports of profound experiences with it depend wholly on suggestion, any more than is the case with other substances.

compared with the well known tryptamines, or mescaline, salvia is like lateral thinking - it hits you hard but not from the direction you expect.

My limited experience with it leads me to suspect it has a lot of potential with regard to personal insight and issues, not so much the cosmic or metaphysical.

None of us can know what the long term effects of heavy usage will be.

All I can say is, it would seem like a pretty strange choice to me to use it heavily and frequently - it's not something i would experience a craving for, or do casually before popping down the pub...

Also, on a purely anecdotal level, it's short and smooth action would seem to indicate a level of toxicity that is remarkably low.

 

I guess I'll just have to try it a few more times and see where it takes me...

 

I bought a gram of 20x...im smoking 2moro for my first time , i did 20x my first time and i got just a feeling no hallcuinations i have not yet broken the bareeer...the reason i bought 20x not 10x...is becasue the place i buy from does not have potent shit so the 10x there is like...uhh 5x i heard...so 20x is a good to start, plus i have a good friend as a trip sitter so .. no worris there.

Salvia effects everyone differntly.. i want to hallucinate but i didnt my first time so im trying again... my first time i didnt get hte full effect becasue i didnt hold it in long enough so this time im prepaired and more educated and more relaxed so let sweet salvia guide me.

 

Though the reports online may seem very imaginative, the effects of salvia are definatly not suggestion. There are very few trip-reports I would doubt the authenticity of. Even if I have tripped on it many times, it always takes me by supprize. salvia-reality is not non-reality, it is extreme subjective reality. It feels unbelivable real, more so than normal reality. I always feel like I've awakened from a dream when I smoke it and that is why I question the psychological safety of using it on a regular basis. But salvia will probably never be a drug of misuse or heavy usage, it is not the kind of thing you develop a craving for. It is not a drug that can be used in social interaction like MJ, alcohol, stimulants or tryptamines, so it will allways be something for a mind-blowing kick or for serious exploration of the consiousness.

Saliva is so convincing that all doubt as to the reality of the experience is blown away, even though the reality revield to you may be extremely bizzare and contrary to all you've ever learned about the physical universe. I've never experienced such extreme effects on shrooms or acid and rate salvia well above LSD in power. There is no other plant that will so completly fuck up your concept of reality after smoking just one leaf.
There are some very interessting videos on youtube.com of people tripping on salvia, most are just vids of people getting really messed up, but some go into greater detail explaing the contents of their trips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWB1w7jLkgg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imPAC0H7GeA This one is good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tCwCPIH3I4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_tJUgx-uIk

 

I've seen those first three videos, and I'd have to agree that they are interesting. Are you the one who recorded them?

 

Man it's a mind trick either way, that's the trip. I have close-eyed visuals when I am sleepy, have even almost broke through to being able to leave my body in a lucid state, seeing my hands and feet and being able to move then but I am just about sleeping... this is all CEV's.

Vivid imagination just means your trips will be much more grand in the hallucinatory aspect. But like someone said, you will def. know when you are tripping. A breakthrough on salvia is very weird, and there's no way you could really 'imagine' a salvia trip.

I agree if the substance is salvia, or a couple others... But when I first learned about LSD and I read for weeks, probably a few hours a day about it... I eventually had a lucid dream in which I took LSD and tripped. I remembered it clear as day, from the way the sun looked in the sky to the way my hands glowed to the feeling of heavenly delight in your solar plexus... when I took LSD it was exactly the same. One of the strangest trippy experiences I have ever had.

 

i went through a period of heavy salvia use (basically, i did nothing else for a week, in every environment i could create for myself), and i've used it occasionally since some time last winter, so i arrogantly consider myself somewhat of an authority on it.

soaringeagle, you have a pretty good idea of what it does... it seems to sort of grab you, and say "THIS IS THE WAY IT IS, COME ON, GET WITH THE PROGRAM!" almost all of my trips have involved someone trying to convince me of something, whether it was to go up the hill to visit the king, or that i was doing something impossible that nobody else was allowed to do, or that i had stolen something and had to give it back, or to pick a slice of a spinning wheel of dimensions to jump into... and i've always been asking for some explanation, or trying to convince "them" that what i have to say or what i believe is worth consideration. but they don't wait, and they don't explain, and they think it's ridiculous that you would even ask. if you give yourself over to absolute authority, you will be dropped back into this realm as your own god. i think every experience of salvia has given me another card to add to a deck, and i always keep choosing the one i've chosen in the past... but they merge a little... and the more cards i have, the more freedom i realize i have, although i really don't HAVE any more... i just see how far my freedom really reaches.

i don't think anyone who hasn't done salvia will understand what i meant by that x___x.

i'm getting really off topic. i don't think i was ever on topic. i'm sorry .

imagination has absolutely nothing to do with salvia, aside from the environment you put yourself in beforehand. salvia FORCES you to imagine and believe something that you never would have on your own. it's very Through The Looking Glass. i would not be at all surprised if lewis caroll has used salvia. i'm actually pretty surprised that he probably didn't. if you want to know what a breakthrough is like, read that, but imagine it even more chaotic.

and i'm talking about the second book, not Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. they're completely different.

oh, and bouncing bear botanicals has really good salvia, and it's pretty cheap.

 

i think every experience of salvia has given me another card to add to a deck, and i always keep choosing the one i've chosen in the past... but they merge a little... and the more cards i have, the more freedom i realize i have, although i really don't HAVE any more... i just see how far my freedom really reaches.

I often find myself reaching conclusions after my Salvia trips that deal with morality, philosphy, my lifestyle, and my feelings on what's happening in my life. What I conclude is not something radically different from what I already believe, but rather I end up more resolute in my decisions that I've made regarding the said topics.

For example, I've always been disillusioned with modern society and lately I've been feeling an urge to get out of the city and live a simpler life. After my first real breakthrough I experienced such an increadible vision that made me even more resolute to avoid the trappings of modern society and all that it says is "good". I don't care what anyone else says, rampant materialism just isn't my thing. It never has been, but I'm becomming even more minimalistic than I used to be.

 

that's awesome... just don't go somewhere cold when you break free from society.

from reading and hearing about people's experiences, it seems like salvia is user specific and shows you what you need to see, although it's message might be difficult to understand. i was with a group of people, guiding them through all of their first trips. we were out in a huge grassy field surrounded by trees, and the sun was shining. they all broke through, and we talked a lot about shapes... they all had experienced the presence of a different shape. my shape is a circle. one kid had a triangle folding on him from corner to corner, and i think watching him was the most amazing thing ever, because he was laughing the happiest laugh i've ever heard and rolling into the folds in an egg shape. he said that when the triangle started getting too small, i became like a wall, he bumped into me, and i stopped the folding.

i know it's hard to describe, but if you can, i'd be interested in knowing what you saw . because it's really strange... i had an experience that lead me to the exact opposite conclusion.

it seems like there are a few different places i could end up in each time... the one that really affected me, and made me realize more than ever how free i am, was a completely objective world. it's crazy, but now, if i calm my thoughts i can imagine it anywhere. absolutely nothing holds a name, a meaning, a distinction from anything else. everything exists, but it is all existing equally. absolutely no judgment. no depth... like an abstract painting, but moreso. but my database still existed. i still had all the information; all the labels and emotions to tag on to things. but nothing was matched up. and as i was coming back, i went through millions of possible combinations, which made no sense at all, until i finally came back to my original one. then, i could look at a pillow and know it was pink, you lay your head on it, you don't have any real emotions to it, it doesn't have a scent or a taste (although in a subtle place in your subconscious, it does)... but before, it had started out as nothing, a piece of everything, and then in a matter of seconds paired up with every other feeling i have about every other thing. i realized that when we are born, we have that experience of nothingness and everythingness, and each of us construct our unconscious labeling techniques uniquely. but we all do it perfectly, because we are able to communicate, and things generally work. when i look at an orange, i feel differently than when you look at an orange, because of the tiny unnoticable links we make to our history, but there is some intrinsic orange-ness that transcends our perception. i think that at it's very essence, that intrinsic quality is solely that it exists as seperate and so has the ability to exist at all. the rest is completely up to us. so i realized how lucky i am that everything is exactly as it is, and i realized how much power i have. nothing is absolute. after experiencing absoluteness, you could cry just because you have the power to lift your own finger, just because that one action is so fucking beautiful. it can mean so much. i guess that's an example of where soaringeagle would be right about the potential for every damn thing being a metaphysical dillema... but it hasn't been a problem for me yet .

anyway, that made me want to move into society and be around people, and be around all the illusions manifested.

i'm sorry for really being off topic, but with salvia, when someone says something, it makes me remember something i experienced, and then i just have to write it down...

 

Facinating description you have there. Sounds like some form of metaphysics combined with fragments of causal determinism. It's a very unifying way of looking at life, in that every infinitely small fragment combines to from a beautiful and complex whole which simply exists. You have a very nice description of that indeed!

When I say I've become disillusioned with society, that's not to say that I dislike people, as it's actually the opposite. I love people and all things that are alive, but when I'm in the city I just feel like everything is lacking life. I'm just not a big fan of the concrete jungle, heh heh. I'd much rather live in a small village or form some sort of nomadic tribe with my friends, but that's becoming ever more difficult in this day and age.

Ah well, this summer my friends and I are going to renovate an old 40' bus that one of them has and travel around for awhile. We'll probably head down to the California Redwoods for awhile, then follow the Oregon coast until we start to head east and live in the Oregon high desert for awhile. The high desert is a truly amazing place, I've never been anywhere quite like it! Man, I miss Oregon... California is lame, and I can't wait until I transfer out of UC Davis and head back to Oregon for school. Not to mention the out of state fees for college are killing me...

Ah yes, my journal entries can be found here:
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200243

 

I believe I had my first salvia experience. All of a sudden, I got pulled down and my body/consciousness sort of went through itself. Then, I went into a dimension, where I was a planet, or universe, and I was in a state of perpetual peeling. That is the best way I can describe it; the whole time I was thinking in a different language or some sort of gibberish, the way an animal would think, not in words or anything. Anyway, I just kept on peeling and peeling, as a sort of omniscent mass, until I recorgized my hand. I saw it as a blob of skin, being stretched out by bones, until my body started to take shape. By then I was coming back, I still couldn't think in words, but I recognized myself and my room.
All in all, the experience was pretty weird. I wouldn't call it good or bad, and I'm not sure if I learned much from it because it was pretty confusing. Nevertheless, I look forward to experiencing salvia sometime soon.