Salvia Tincture

[nyer]

Long story short, I heard bout Salvia and wanted to try it. I did my research and took a respectful and careful attitude. I decided to get the Tincture because I have heard nothing but positive things about it.
I received it in the mail this afternoon after working a full day. I ate dinner, talked to my girlfriend about the Herb at about 5:00pm. I relaxed in a dim lighted room for about 20 mins. Went into the kitchen and began make a diluted version of the tincture in accordance with the recomendations of the seller for a moderate dose.
I returned to the dim lighted room with the tincture in my mouth(below the toungue) and waited 15 mins before I swallowed. As I was sitting I repeated to myself "I will remain open and calm through whatever that comes to me."
After about 5 mins I felt my face get flush. I felt completely relaxed. When I opened my eyes, shadows seemed exagerated.
After 23 mins (8 mins after the tincture was swallowed) I began feeling a cool breeze blowing on my body. I had thoughts of a desert at night but I feel this was a memory of a Salvia Experience I had read about. THe effects slowly tapered off after that.
This is the extent of my experience other than feeling completely relaxed throughout the rest of the evening. As I write this I feel absolutely fine and am preparing to go to sleep(12:00am).
I am a little disapointed in the experience. I was hoping for a profound experience that I can learn from. I do think that thoughts of my GF in the other room worrying about me, hindered the experience.
I am planning on increasing the dose tommorrow evening. I am a rather big guy and perhaps only felt light effects of the herb. I'll keep you updated. Any feedback would be appreciated and very welcomed. I hope I am not a Salvia Hard Head.

[ March 14, 2003, 06:44 PM: Message edited by: nyer ]

[PuristLove]

Try taking a toothbrush to your tongue beforehand, and use some mouthwash. This should help with absorption.

[nyer]

Ok. I hope you read my first attempt at Salvia. Here is an account of my second attempt:
I prepared the tincture according to the sellers instructions for a high dose. Emptied the excess saliva from my mouth, poured the tincture in my mouth and let it settle below the tounge. I sat in my dim lighted bedroom. I Started to feel mild effects after about 5 mins. This mild sensation continued until 15 mins elapsed. It was very much like the descriptions of "Salvia Gravity" that are posted all over the web. I felt my entire body was being pulled to the right, but especially felt the effects on my face. After 25 mins of the initial dose I started to experience tangental thoughts. I would think about something, then a thought that was related to the original thought would pop into my head and my thought patters would take an entirely different direction. There was no visual hallucinations, only a change in my thought patters. I had to surrender myself to the experience. I want to stress that at anytime I could have popped out of this state. The state I was in was very similar to what one would imagine being hypnotized would feel like. There was no submersion to another dimension, no profound visual hallucinations. Presences were felt, but there was absolutley no reason to be afraid. Overall, I am very dissapointed in Salvia. I am beginning to think the accounts read about on the internet is just a ploy to sell the stuff. You defninitly do feel something on Salvia, and in my opinion, its use should be limited to meditation and self reflection. Do not expect any profound visual hallucinations. Expect to fall asleep comfortably.

Any thoughts or remarks would be appreciated.

[Joshua30]

Funny - I had the very same experience. In fact I took some S.D. in the alcohal solution just like you about 2 hours ago... and nothing really happened. I experience a nice mild calm - but that was over shadowed by my tongue burning because of the ethal alcohal. I was disappointed. I also bougth some 5x extract and smoked this. It was a bit moe powerful than the solution, but not by much. Not nearly the experiences that I have read about. - Not even close.
If anyone has had any luck - I'm all ears.

[PuristLove]

First, salvia blew me away the first time I smoked it. I do not sell it or profit in any way from its sale. It was such a powerful and intense experience I cried for fifteen minutes and then immediately flushed all my supply down the toilet. This was from smoking a 5x extract.

Second, many or most people take several attempts to get the full effects of salvia. And some people claim to have a reverse tolerance with it-- the more they use it the less they need to get strong effects.

Third, sublingual salvia, either as a tincture or a quid will not be as intense as smoked salvia. In all honesty, I think it is more useful that way.

Fourth, as I mentioned before, try brushing your tongue and using mouthwash beforehand to try aiding absorption. You might also try for total darkness next time, and complete silence. A blindfold and earplugs might be helpful.

Salvia is real, and she is powerful and deserves respect.

[nyer]

Hi THere. I did brush my tongue prior to the second attempt. I have about 1/2 ounce left of the tincture. One of these days I will try the whole lot and see what happens. I will post the experience here immediatley thereafter. THanks for the feedback.

[Jomo]

I had some disappointing experiences at first too, but on the seventh or eighth try, I got the "breakthrough" others had written about.

Take my word for it, brother NYer, Salvia can be extremely powerful, no lie. It is no marketing gimmick. It is for real, terrifyingly for real. The sensation of terror is not scary, but rather a means of taking you beyond your conventional self, a necessity in shamanic work.

However, my extremely powerful Salvia experiences were smoked, not tincture. What made the breakthrough for me was when I bought a bong. The bong, cooled with ice water, allows you to draw with the flame held to the bowl, as it requires really high temperature to release the salvinorin-A.

After 10 or 11 experiences, I am gradually beginning to get used to that PSYCHOLOGICALLY WRENCHING feeling it causes. It feels profoundly disturbing... but then maybe we need some disturbance like this if we are going to explore shamanic space. I generally feel some psychological pain as it starts to come on (no physical pain), but I see this as necessary to prove the shaman's fortitude in the face of alternate realities. Real shamans in traditional cultures go through far more painful and terrifying initiations than this, so I have no complaints at all.

Each time I start to trip, I feel simultaneously "Oh yeah, this again" and "This is something totally new." As though in between times I had forgotten just how wrenching it is.

For me, the most valuable lessons I take away from it are not even during the trip, but after the trip is over. It brings this lasting effect of opening up my consciousness to the cosmic dimensions, and that feels pretty good.

[amj]

I tried Salvia a few times with differing effects. The first two times, I smoked it. Getting the dose to "work properly" takes some patience, as I have to admit it is difficult to continue inhaling or sort of watch youself doing this once the effects begin to come on. I would highly recommend a darkened environment. I had some music playing softly in the background. At once, after inhaling, I lied down and then my head was immediately "broken open." I had this sense/vision of a sort of spiral shape, moving around and upward, and then the music i was hearing turned into little creatures, almost cartoonish, colectively forming the spiral and moving around in this spirally direction, upward. The creatures were sort of bouncing with the music - they would all move together on one beat, stop, and all move together on the next beat, almost like a gear of some sort, starting and stopping. It sounds horribly cheezy, but the "sprit" of saliva felt distintly feminine, and the main/only thing it was communicating was LOVE - as in, love is all there is, cliched as it sounds. The whole vision was very fleeting, but the truth of that feeling of love was very moving. I felt alright afterward, but kind of flat and heavy. That would be my main complaint with salvia - its subtlety and the briefness of the entire experience. I couldn't help but be really annoyed to return to the solid and dumpy reality of carpet and doors and walls so suddenly, after having the most magnificent glimpse.

The second time was similar except it was a negative experience, since i started coughing and wasted the whole thing running to the bathroom because i thought i would cough up something. I did have one vision of arms pulling and pushing me. I felt like I was myself at the age of 5 or 6 in this cafeteria in the town where I grew up and these collective voices/arms were trying to push me to "face" something, not to be so shy... I guess retelling this sort of thing is like telling one's dreams, i.e. not so interesting if they're not your visions. he he. sorry.

The last substantial time was with the tincture. It was much more subtle of an effect, more dream-like and the visions were very shadowy, like shapes in darkness, but still visuals connected to thoughts and feelings. I felt like I was in a jungle, sort of near the ground (lots of plants, obviously), and there were many whispery voices around me, speaking Spanish that I could completely understand (my Spanish is not very advanced in waking life)... it got more abstract after this, but like someone else here said, the thoughts/visions were all very fluid and tangential.

small doses of salvia would be good for making out with someone, etc. one's feels quite sensual.

I smoked a little in a social setting once; it wasn't so nice; afterward, I felt clumsy and the room felt too enclosing.

funny to note that my mom tried the tincture too and she said something about being dragged through a jungle on her back. She's Mexican. maybe these jungle archetypes/undercurrents are in the blood. interesting...

[Anonymous]

Salvia tincture is difficult to work with, but in my experience the trouble is worth it; I've had some of the most profound experiences of my life on homemade Salvia tincture.

Apart from the advice that others have mentioned here (cleaning the mouth, brushing the teeth, etc.), I've found a few things which help.

First of all, I dilute the tincture with water at about a 1:1 ratio (I make the tincture with 95% ethanol, and it can sting badly). The dilution reduces the efficacy a bit, but it makes the burning tolerable.

Secondly, Seibert's dosing advice is not good for beginners. It has been well demonstrated that tolerance for Salvia decreases with use, but the doses he gives would be good only for someone who is extremely sensitive. I suggest an amount of tincture equivalent to about 10mg of salvinorin as a good starting point for sublingual investigations.

Last, I have found a staggered dosing is necessary. If you put all of the tincture in your mouth at one time, the salivation will get salvation, and the experience will be diluted. Dividing the does into three parts, taken at roughly 10 minute intervals has done the trick for me.