7 Chapter 2: The Lady Unveils Experiment 3. Dosage: 1/5th gram smoked S. Divinorum extract 6x (crude) I returned home a few days later from work and found the house empty. It was about 3:30pm and I had a few spare minutes before I had to be somewhere. I drew the shades in my living room, now more aware about how important set and setting can be with Salvia. Though not really dark at all it was at least heavy shade. I wanted to continue where I had left off before and see if perhaps in a quieter, more private environment, I could delve a bit further than in my previous attempts which were full of distractions and calamity (see experiment 2. where I burn myself with a jet lighter!). I had ordered some 6x crude extract from a reputable ethno-botany vendor and was ready to see what it had in store for me. For this attempt I used an 18” water pipe filled with ice water and the same butane torch lighter from experiment 2. I put the entire dose into the fairly large slide and torched it, quickly filling the chamber with all of the smoke. Taking it in, I sat back and held my breath, watching the second hand on the clock in my kitchen. 33, 34, 35….Pwchueh…cough…. By this time I felt the now signature throbbing, pulsing feeling which I relate to holding my breath for so long giving way to a clearing state of mind. My attention visually was on the section of wall in my living room, which connects to my kitchen, having one open doorframe. It seemed that a pattern was developing on the wall and was passing from left to right, but it was so fleeting that every time I tried to follow it with my eyes it just seemed to shift out of my direct focus. I felt like I was chasing this pattern mentally too, trying to typify it or understand it, with the exact same result I had trying to interpret it visually. There, but not there. Or, there, but by the time I could think about it, gone and changed. I sat back and closed my eyes, wondering what I might see behind my eyelids. Like a flash of memory I envisioned myself as sitting on a chair at my workplace, watching people move about their day. I felt secretly pleased as if to say, “If only you all knew I wasn’t really sitting here!” Then poof, the vision faded and I was again aware of myself sitting on my couch. My eyes still closed and my head seemingly rolling about loosely on my neck, I felt as though I was starting to lose my sense of physical boundaries and the sense of having a couch behind me. I could hear the crickets through the thin walls of my apartment and I felt as though they where much closer than outside on the other side of the wall. I felt as if my feet and legs were sitting inside but my torso and head were out on my front lawn with the crickets and the cars going by. 8 This state quickly passed as I started to become more aware of regular reality, but I got a real chuckle out of the interesting effect I had been shown on this visit. I sat there, pleased with the success and happy flight and landing I had. Though I had actually expected to go much farther this time, I was content with what had transpired. As with the previous experiment I noted that when I tried to stand to walk around my balance felt a bit off for a brief time, no more than 5 minutes. I left the house on my way to my next engagement within 15 minutes of having smoked the dose, feeling fine. I kept thinking about the experience just trying to summarize it all to myself, trying to integrate it and understand it. Experiment 4. Dosage: 5/8th gram dried S. Divinorum leaf, smoked, followed by 1/5th gram S. Divinorum extract 6x (crude extract) It had been a few days since my last real experiment but would have some time today as it was my day off! Since my last experiment I had been smoking small amounts of salvia extract on occasion, always 1/10th of a gram or less, just small pinches on top of my bowl here and there. I had realized at some point that this might help to lower my tolerance to the Salvinorin chemicals. The effects remained pleasurable, manageable and positive at these low doses. I had been continuing to research Salvia on the web through many outlets. I was now fully intent on reaching a real breakthrough into the higher visionary states I knew were waiting. I readied my living room much like in my last attempt, drawing all the blinds and shades closed. It was fairly dark and sometime just before noon. For this attempt my plan was to use the last of my plain leaf and combine it with a booster of extract at the end. I used the water pipe for the plain leaf and followed it with the extract in a small glass pipe. The two big bong hits went down fairly easy and after a big breath of air and just barely feeling a slight effect from the leaf I torched the extract. I felt like I was going to have a hard time holding my breath. 23, 24…O my! I quickly put my bowl down on the table in front of me, feeling as though I knew I had only moments before something grand would happen. The motion of my head backwards from leaning forward seemed to never stop. I had closed my eyes while moving back and now felt as though I was falling back. I could no longer orient myself properly with my eyes closed and was no longer comprehending things in their normal context. This sense of falling continued, though with no kind of associated fear. I still felt that everything was ok. 9 This sensation gave way to some degree but was followed by a complete disorientation and complete loss of identity. I could no longer relate to my immediate experience in human terms. I felt as though I were spiraling through infinite spaces and thoughts and went on in this way for an unknown length of time until I started to feel some sense of awareness again. But my awareness seemed to have changed, as did my visual perspectives. I felt as though I were moving through fields of colors, mostly green vine like geometric patterns. I seemed at some point to adjust to this and suddenly realized I was in a lush garden of sorts. But it was not as though I were walking AROUND the garden, I somehow WAS the garden. I felt as though I could move about it freely becoming one vine or the next, shifting my presence around as I pleased. Something seemed to call my attention out of this playful newfound state. My perspective locked on what in lack of better terms was a towering female Presence in the middle of this garden like an extension and explosion of the undergrowth with ethereal branches, which seemed to be able to penetrate everything they moved through. She leaned in towards me and then through me. As this happened, I felt as though a billion things were conveyed to me, but in such a brief time that I didn’t really understand anything except for the “jist” of what everything she dumped into me was. The jist of it all was that she needs my (our) help, and always relies upon humans to further her interests. I felt welcomed but somewhat bewildered because some part of me just felt like this was too much. I was being scanned at the same time, as though this entity was just as curious about me as I about her. I felt as though I were being asked to stay and explore and learn. It seemed I had found a secret place in the center of my mind where I could retreat and find bliss in the beauty of the infinite realities underlying everyday life. As she leaned away I felt as though my perspective was beginning to radically change again. I started to loose this sharp clarity of vision and seemed to come back up to reality in much the same manner I spiraled out of it. At this point I think my neighbors upstairs had come into our shared front porch area And I became immediately fairly aware of myself as myself again. I was somewhat dazed and a bit paranoid about thought of having to deal with people as I slowly regained all my faculties. At the same time, I was in utter amazement about what I had seen and felt. I sat there giggling a lot, finding great satisfaction in the lucid nature of this very strange trip. I had read about “Lady Salvia” but did not expect to have such an impacting and direct experience with “her” at this point in my experimentation. That’s ok…. I’m not complaining. Wow…. just wow. 10 I spent much of the rest of my day reminiscing the experience I had. The afterglow seemed to stay longer than previous experiments and all day I felt inspired by what I had seen. I read much of Salvia experiences, pouring through them and trying to relate them to my own to in some way reassure myself that it wasn’t just me who had visited this place. Judging from what I had read so far, I wasn’t. My experience and the reflection afterward convinced me that I could and should in fact help S. Divinorum. It is well deserving of our help as the mind states it can produce may help us in many ways! I had the feeling that I was getting the hang of this and many things about the character of the experience now seemed obvious and clear to me. So many ideas seemed to come freely that day. I felt I had a new understanding and perspective about plants in general and set out to understand more. As I sat there reading, I felt as though my taste for learning had been rekindled. I went from subject to subject online trying to further my knowledge about plants, plant consciousness, and, Salvia Divinorum, now certain that this was a very special plant indeed. More to come soon...nice to make your aquaintances... The Doc
