the salvia experience

[arirm]

I was recently offered to try salvia from someone who told me he had a very positive experience with it. I have never done any psychedelic drugs before, but have been very interested in them for several months and have read daniel's book and several others on the topic. I was wondering what salvia is like from someone who has tried it, since i don't know much about it, and whether or not your recommend it as a first experience as compared with other psychedelics. Thank you.

[daniel]

I find salvia to be extremely strange and very different in character to all other psychedelics - this makes sense as its chemical composition is completely different, neither a tryptamine like mushrooms or DMT or even an alkaloid. My advice would be to start with a very small amount and see if you liked the direction indicated. You might also go to www.erowid.org (http://www.erowid.org) and read the compiled Salvia reports, unless you worry that will color your experience. Definitely try to go into the experience with a good mood and clear, positive intention - and definitely have a sitter present.

[ranchoparque]

My experience with salvia, and I'm curious to see if others had experiences along these lines:
First of all each trip was completely different. The first one (using the tincture) was an experience of a green jungle-like world. The second (smoked enhanced leaf) was a mandala like visual effect of a multicouloured mosaic filling the visual field. The third time there was sort of a time travel like feeling of returning to my experience of 30 years ago. I should add that I had no previous psychedelic experience. But I was reminded of a spontaneous out-of-the-body experience I had many years ago. There was the definite experience of leaving consensus reality and entering a different realm. And there was (of course) a weird synchronicty (for me at least) to all of this. The third and last time I tried it was on 9-10-01. The next morning while watching the coverage of the attacks I thought how weird that the "external" world has just irrevocably changed just after my internal world had been shaken up. And I thought of Terence Mckenna and the ingression of novelity into history.....For a few months after my Salvia experienes I had a somewhat unpleasant, dizzy, flashback-like experience. So I decided not to use it again, to just stick to 420 and meditation.

[Buzz]

Arirm,
I don't think anyone has mentioned the timing on this stuff, and the possible potency of even the unenhanced leaf. Here's my experience.

I've smoked it 3 times. the first time I put one unenhanced leaf in a pipe and smoked. I felt a slight buzz but nothing much. The second time I placed 3 unenhanced leaves in a pipe and smoked. The effects came on immediately. I felt what I considered my consciousness being pulled out of the top of my head, like being stretched out flat in an arch. The taste is not too pleasant to me and I otherwise had an unsure feeling about the experience, but I remembered from the literature that I read that it would all be over quite quickly and it was. The entire episode lasted about 5 to 7 minutes. The third time I packed about 5 unenhanced leaves in the pipe and toked four to five times. Again, an immediate departure from the flesh, again out the top of my head but this time there was no looking back except for the fact that I was concerned about the kid holding the pipe and wished he could be there ( for the reason of dropping the pipe and burning yourself or your house you should have a partner to care for your physical well-being). We, and it felt like I was with a crowd, materialized in some sort of festive carnival. A little girl and little boy were tugging at my hands saying" daddy, daddy, come on, lets's go". Before I could really get a fix on things the whole event was over. Again, less than 10 minutes had passed. i'm not sure about this stuff. I'm a veteran of probably 100 plus psychedelic experiences. I think I prefer the longer, more extended trip. After doing LSD and Psilocybe mushrooms my dreams were more magical than usual, but with Salvia I have not had the same experience.

[Proteus]

Hey Airrm: You're getting good advice here. i'd only add that you also check out the Salvia Divinorum Research and Defense Fund site's FAQ and "User's Guide." Like the Ayahuasca.com site, the SDRDF site presents the substance in question like the one, true religion. But, if you read through this and the Erowid information, you'll be in a very good place to assess how & why you'd try Salvia.

Like many of these very strong organics, there seems a lot of wisdom in carefully thinking through your reasons for calling on the "god" before doing so.

best to you

[ryan]

I have had no success with Salvia. My first encounter was when I ordered two plants through the mail. I kept them alive for a while and collected the leaves that fell off. Then I packed the leaves into a water bong and smoked and received nothing more than a slight light-headedness, very similiar to the moments before I start tripping on mushrooms.

Someone told me that you need to smoke a hefty amount of actual plant leaves to get any affect so I picked up some of that 5x extract and used the same bong, again nothing more than a ligth-headedness.

I used a butane lighter both times, because you need a hot flame and i've kept the flame in contact with the salvia during the enitre session. If anyone has any additional advice I would be grateful for it.

[Phil Thompson]

My experience was amazing, it still live's with me every day.

You can read how it affected me in earlyer posts.

above all, i now feel even closer to the universe than i did before. Left with more questions i would love answers for.

All i had was 5x ectract 10am on a Monday morning in a big water bong. And it worked alright. On the Salvia rating i got to level 5 with out even planning it.

I would do it again and have my friend with me for sure.

My head flipped into another place and back, giving me a true pespective on my life. The experience reduced me to feeling like a grain of sand on a beach.

I learnt a lot from that experience and it will live with me forever.

So be carefull and think positve, ask for protection and you will be amazed at what can flow---->

Again, the advice on this board is very useful.
I wish i had found it like you - before my experience and not after!!

[PuristLove]

ryan, for some reason, many people take several attempts to feel anything from some drugs. This is probably most notable in salvia, cannabis and ayahuasca. Whether it's incorrect technique, the forging of the correct networks in the brain, or a psychological barrier that takes a few tries to shatter, no one can say. Keep faith, when she is ready, Ska Maria will visit you.

[StSimon]

I was given some salvia by a friend, having previously read much of the literature on it but never having tried it, and took to smoking it that very night. My brother (another vetern tripper) agreed to sit for me, as I was unsure what to expect, but knew to be cautious. It was just leaf with no extract, and the first bowl gave me no more than a light headed ringing that abated after I lay down for a minute or two.

Feeling slightly dissappointed, but encouraged, I tried again, toking very quickly and burning as hot as I could with a regular cigarette lighter. I instantly felt the rush, which I characterize as a body feeling similar to the image of the jagged salvia leaf waving back and forth, before I had the distinct feeling I was a small Mexican child playing beside a gravel road watching dad's pickup truck coming and I was going to get in it and I was back lying down on the floor of my apartment.

Nearly every time I have felt some kind of "ego displacement" and lived a brief time through the ego of someone else (whether real or imagined persona, I cannot begin to speculate). I have not used salvia for several months now, even though I still have a quantity remaining, because I developed a certain respect for it. I want to share the experience, but it is not a "kick" in the traditional sense; and I know few true psychonauts. Experiments with the "wrong" fellows or a shaky mindset going in have me waiting until it happens naturally.

[Hazz]

Re; St.Simon I know what you mean. I have some salvia laying around and every weekend I think about doing some (i've smoked the extract twice and wow!) but I keep convincing myself that my head is not in the right place. If that doesn't work then I tell myself the stars are all wrong or a million other things and I put it off. This shit scares me but I know I'll be back....

[Morninggloryseed]

Salvia divinorum is an incredible experience, quite beyond words. I know of no way to describe my salvia trips, but here is an attempt. In some ways, the SAME exact experience happens every time I use it. Kind of like a sequence of events in a story you keep reading. Salvia divinorum gives me the experience of watching my ego roll by, as if it were on a newspaper printing press. I will see all of the little aspects of my personality speed by me. In a sense, it shows me the ultimate truth. Everything in my life, and the universe in general, is shown to me with complete clarity.

The trouble is I usually do not realize I am tripping, and I tend to feel as though my head has been split open for the entire world to analyze. I assume that reality is not the result of salvinorin A in my blood. There are entities there, the 'Salvia' people, and they are able to see everything about me, including things I would rather them not know. This can be a very uncomfortable experience.

It is a true ego-confronting trip for me, but not always an insightful one. It does not seem to tell me anything I already do not know; it offers me nothing new to take home. I still however think the experience is valuable. If anything, it is also very interesting and bazaar. Like a carnival or circus. A wild, crazy, weird, insane experience.

I can recall one silly little thing on a Salvia trip that could be defined as an insight I got to take home with me. I had a disagreement with my girlfriend. When she went to sleep, I went into the bedroom (we slept in the living room.) and proceeded to smoke some Salvia divinorum. All of the sudden I had a vision of her and I was given a message that I needed to be damn thankful for having her. I knew that already, and then I realized how silly it was to be angry with her. I did really upset her. Then (laugh at the absurdity of this if you will) the spirit of Salvia divinorum proceeded to scorn me for becoming unjustifiably upset with her.

I came out of that trip with a deepened appreciation for her feelings about the issue we were fighting over, and I truly felt bad for becoming upset. Had I not tripped that night, I do not feel I would have seen the issue from my girlfriend's point of view. That was valuable wouldn't you say?

It's been two years since I last smoked it, and I can't say I ever plan on again. But I am curious to experiment with the quid method. The Mexican shamans never smoked Salvia divinorum, and I'm curious to try the substance in a more 'authentic' way.

[armedia]

Hi all -

New here, will do a formal intro elsewhere, but I wanted to weigh in with my own feelings about salvia.

I agree that smoked salvia is a strange and disconcerting thing. I have had the classic experience of becoming objects, etc. Since I have usually smoked it in bed, on more than one occasion I had the strange sensation of "being" my headboard, experiencing the world of the bedroom from its perspective. Very weird, and weirder yet, because while I could vaguely remember something about someone having smoked some drug, I also knew I had been/was/would be forever the headboard. Thankfully I was mostly OK with this fact, as a headboard would necessarily be.

I find it also does strange things with time, scrambling or reversing the linear sequence of events. For example, one night I smoked immediately after my girlfriend left to go out somewhere, and for the duration of the effect I was absolutely convinced she would be coming up the stairs to our room at any moment. Not returning from having gone out, but simply coming in, the mirror image of going out.

Perhaps one of the weirdest things about salvia for me (and one that several friends have also reported) is a strange left to right/front to back directionality to the energy of it. Whatever the experience is, it seems to come from the front and left of the body and pass thru to the back and right. (This relates to the fact that I always "become" the headboard behind me.) Like a wave carrying you in its wake. Has anyone else found this to be the case? I know of no other drug that does anything quite like this.

You see how hard it is to speak of these things cogently. It sounds like madness, and in a sense it is. Perhaps salvia is a true psychotomimetic.

Fortunately for me, it is a happy kind of madness, and I am always overcome by laughter at some point in the journey. I crack up with the overwhelming sense that I am getting some hilarious cosmic joke, but I still have no idea what the joke is.

Having said all this, I must admit that I don't smoke it anymore. I find these experiences wacky and amusing, but of little meaning, and for my money the quid or extract is the best way to get to know her.

A good friend of mine with a lot of experience with native salvia use likes to say that salvia is a "wet" spirit, and does not like to be dried or burned, and I trust her on this one. Certainly having lived with the plant, I know this to be true. She loves moisture, and tends to suffer when the air is dry (she loves Hawaii, for this reason, which is the only place I have ever seen her in glorious bloom.)

I would encourage everyone with an interest in salvia to grow her, if only to act as a repository for the plant spirit. Even if (gods forbid) she were to be scheduled, she is such a shy, innocuous plant we could all have in our gardens without fear of detection. Your local garden center sells numerous salvia species that look nearly identical anyway.

I have some tips on how to grow salvia happily, even in the driest of apartments, if anyone's interested.

Best,
Armedia

Originally posted by Morninggloryseed:
Salvia divinorum is an incredible experience, quite beyond words. I know of no way to describe my salvia trips, but here is an attempt. In some ways, the SAME exact experience happens every time I use it. Kind of like a sequence of events in a story you keep reading. Salvia divinorum gives me the experience of watching my ego roll by, as if it were on a newspaper printing press. I will see all of the little aspects of my personality speed by me. In a sense, it shows me the ultimate truth. Everything in my life, and the universe in general, is shown to me with complete clarity.

The trouble is I usually do not realize I am tripping, and I tend to feel as though my head has been split open for the entire world to analyze. I assume that reality is not the result of salvinorin A in my blood. There are entities there, the 'Salvia' people, and they are able to see everything about me, including things I would rather them not know. This can be a very uncomfortable experience.

It is a true ego-confronting trip for me, but not always an insightful one. It does not seem to tell me anything I already do not know; it offers me nothing new to take home. I still however think the experience is valuable. If anything, it is also very interesting and bazaar. Like a carnival or circus. A wild, crazy, weird, insane experience.

I can recall one silly little thing on a Salvia trip that could be defined as an insight I got to take home with me. I had a disagreement with my girlfriend. When she went to sleep, I went into the bedroom (we slept in the living room.) and proceeded to smoke some Salvia divinorum. All of the sudden I had a vision of her and I was given a message that I needed to be damn thankful for having her. I knew that already, and then I realized how silly it was to be angry with her. I did really upset her. Then (laugh at the absurdity of this if you will) the spirit of Salvia divinorum proceeded to scorn me for becoming unjustifiably upset with her.

I came out of that trip with a deepened appreciation for her feelings about the issue we were fighting over, and I truly felt bad for becoming upset. Had I not tripped that night, I do not feel I would have seen the issue from my girlfriend's point of view. That was valuable wouldn't you say?

It's been two years since I last smoked it, and I can't say I ever plan on again. But I am curious to experiment with the quid method. The Mexican shamans never smoked Salvia divinorum, and I'm curious to try the substance in a more 'authentic' way.

[jeffrey]

I know just what you mean about "left to right/front to back directionality," yet i've felt the trickstress coming from different directions depending on the circumstances of the trip:
If i'm with another person, she always comes from the direction in which the person is not. this, for me, has something to do with the intrinsic occult nature of the experience. She is always materializing suddenly out of the quietest corner of the room, always from the one place from which I least expected her!

Please share your cultivation experience, as we'll be recieving some young cuttings as soon as the snow melts...