I just needed to share the experience I had with my first time with salvia. It occurred a few nights ago. I was with two friends discussing a project when the topic of convo started to shift. One of the two folks I was with started talking about salvia. I told them I had not tried it but wanted to some day. One of my buds told me he in fact had some and was I interested in trying it now..... You bet! I had read about it quit a bit but still asked for some advice on how best to intake. Keep the lighter on it the whole time and hold it as long as you could is what I was told. They loaded what appeared to be a small amount in a bong and handed it over to me. I took in the hit and held it in. It was not a s harsh as some of the accounts I have read suggested it would be and the flavor was not horrible. After holding it in as long as I could I put the bong down and settled back in the chair. In just a few seconds, I felt a VERY strange sensation behind my eyes. i remember looking over as Dan and pointing to my eyes with my right forefinger, making a circling movement as if to say.."hey, my eyes feel weird" and that was the end of my existence. I was in a large (about half the size of a gym) room. The walls were light blue and plastic looking. The floor was a light brown color. There were several floor to ceiling windows with white trim and no curtains. I never looked out these windows so I know not what they revealed. scattered around the room were people. None recognizable. From what I remember they were not actually interfacing with each other. There was some very strange music playing. This WAS my existence. It WAS my reality. It was not a matter of "wow, i sure am tripping" this was my life. It was the norm. I had no recollection of another reality. As the music played, a person here or there would suddenly break into a strange dance. In this dance they would suddenly kick one of their legs up high over their head. When they did this their body would fold up like a large fan and at the same time begin to spin on the same axis as the folding. Then POP, they were gone. I watched this happen several times when suddenly I began to feel myself folding up and beginning to spin, but only half of me was going. Alternately switching from looking through my own eyes, to looking at me, but still with my own eyes, if that makes any sense, I realized something was not working. Half my body was transforming into this spinning folding fan, whilst the other half of me was now flat. A flat image laying on the floor, made up of what appeared once again to be plastic. As all this (folding and spinning) was going on I was struck by the realization that I did not truly exist, that some vague memories of my room, my home, my family were just an imagination and that I would not be going back there...because there was no there. It was sad, confusing and profound all at the same time. But at the same time, this "was not" a trip. It was not as if I was on something, this "world" I was in was reality, there was no other. Someone in the room was telling me to relax, that it would happen, but I seemed to be stuck halfway through some kind of transition. I was acutely aware of the sensation in my body of a pulling tearing (but not in a painful way) sensation. The spinning almost felt as if you had fanned out a big deck of cards and was running your finger across the faces of the cards... a kind of zzzzzzzip like feeling. I looked to my left and saw a face then a head. It looked as if there was a piece of plastic bisecting this head right down the center, separating the left half, which I couldn't see, and the right half. The face was grinning at me and there was an intense glow from the softly blurred edges. then suddenly with a sensation of being sucked from one spot to another, I was in the room and looking at my friend Nick. I jumped up in shock, realizingwhere I was and , for the most part what had just happened. "I'm back" jumped out of my mouth and I dropped back into my chair. I was not in any way expecting this. I always heard "trip" This was not a "trip" it was a journey to an alternate reality. I always heard about priests, shamans, witch doctors...whatever claiming to go visit other realities and such, but always thought "yah right, they are having a wicked cool trip, want to do it again, so they keep mum" but now I know that it is not the case. This was without comparison, the most unusual intense thing I had ever experienced. I have done everything, and A LOTof somethings, but never was I "gone" never had I left "my world" and ended up somewhere else. It was such a shock at first to realize that I was actually me, actually "back" and had been somewhere else that at first I told myself...never again. Now not so much. I am excited to once again try to reach this alternate reality, to see where I end up next. To see if there will be common threads to each journey, or if each one will be totally different than the others. Ten minutes later I was totally back to normal, no lasting side effects of any sort..... Except for the realization that there is something more out there. Molon Labae!
That's exactly the feeling I, and it seems like many people, have gotten. I typed out my experience and posted it in the forums the other day, you can read it here if you're interested. The feeling of that the "trip" is your real reality and life triggers such a profound realization that the life you thought you were living is not ultimately very important. I wonder why that's such a common element in salvia experiences. Perhaps Salvitorin-A opens a gateway that allows you to briefly become aware of your own 'soul' or consciousness.
I don't know. What I do know is that although I have always been a total "non-believer" as in an atheist, not believing in an afterlife, not believing in any of that, I am now questioning some of those beliefs. It was really an eye (third eye) opening experience. It fascinates me that such a small amount of a plant can have such an effect on ones mind, and that as strong as it is, when it is done, it is done. I didn't feel any hangover or crash of any sort. No munchies, no problems with memories of events right before the dose...nothing. I think this is the only substance I have ever come in contact with that has that quality. What a wild universe we hold within ourselves. I did read your account and was struck by some of the similarities...
Yes. My experience was so real... it answered so many questions I had always had deep down inside but not really thought about. The feeling of being just a consciousness and being in interconnected with a vast network of other conscious beings was something that would be desirable for eternity. The feeling of observing the other beings and what they held inside... it was so profound.
