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The Waking Dream
Salvia divinorum (6x extract)
Citation:   Ipomoea. "The Waking Dream: An Experience with Salvia divinorum (6x extract) (exp28042)". Erowid.org. Jun 2, 2007. erowid.org/exp/28042

 
DOSE:
  repeated smoked Salvia divinorum (extract - 6x)
BODY WEIGHT: 145 lb
I identify as a somewhat religious person, and had recently been on a quest to have some kind of tangible interaction with G-d or an angel through the use of psychadelics. I had researched a few substances that I had never tried before, and had heard amazing things about salvia and its ability to produce an overwhelming dream-like state. When I found out that salvia is legal and easy to obtain, I new I had to try it. I've had multiple experiences with shrooms, ecstasy, and acid, but I can't even relate any of those drugs to salvia...

It was a warm afternoon on the California coast, I had just bought some pumpkins with my friend for Halloween, and we headed back to her place where she was going to carve the pumpkins and sit with me while I tried salvia. I had briefed her on how to take care of me and how I might react to the drug, based on my readings of the experience reports. I made sure I did it with someone I knew and trusted, and I think that definitely made it a better experience that first time. I had secured a gram of 6x extract from the internet for $16, including shipping and handling.

So, I laid down on my friend's bed, put on my headphones and started listening to Cat Steven's Greatest Hits, packed a bowl full of salvia, and took two good-sized hits, holding in the smoke. I was able to put down the pipe and lighter and relax on the bed. I closed my eyes and started to feel tripped out almost immediately, but it was the sort of effects where you don't know if they're being caused by the drug or self-induced. In any case, things became more obviously different seconds after that; I was seeing closed-eye visuals, and it seemed to me I was floating in a flat, geometric plain and my body was encased in a bubble above and below, and the bubble came into my body down my sides, and it seemed that the bubble was filled with moving matter that was the music I was hearing.

I was laughing really hard at one point and repeating 'Oh shit' over and over, because I couldn't believe my friend was just sitting over there carving pumpkins and not knowing what this was like. I sat up eventually and looked around and she asked, 'Its already over?' I couldn't answer, but instead started laughing again because it wasn't over and I thought that was funny that she was so presumptuous. So I laid back down and laughed and watched the visuals some more, and then the next time I sat up it was over. That first experience had lasted exactly fifteen minutes. I told my friend what had happened, and I told her that I felt like the salvia had more to offer and that I would try it again right now, this time taking bigger hits and holding it in longer.

And so I proceeded to pack a bowl into the bub, and took two hits, one after the other, expanding my lungs before the first hit to allow maximum capacity. This time, the effects came on so strong and so fast that my friend had do take the pipe and lighter from my hands. I had read that people become unable to put the pipe down, but I didn't understand what that meant until that moment. It was like a wave crashed into my reality. Its really difficult to describe what I experienced in words, but I suppose it was like how sometimes when one is stoned after smoking marijuana, ideas flow through the mind rapidly and seem like amazing ideas, kind of hard to control. Well, with salvia it was like those ideas were Existence, or were tangible and my whole body (well I can't really say I knew I had a body at the time, more like my 'person' or my 'me' or something) was sliding and being washed over by different realities, or dimensions, I can't really say what.

I can remember glimpses of things that happened; for instance, at one moment I was a grassy hill with a freeway bridge going over it. Also at one point, I was for some reason curious as to what my sitter was thinking about me, because I thought maybe I looked like I was having a heart-attack or something, altough there was absolutely no reason for me to think that, and so I was trying to get a grip on normal reality and talk to her, but it was like every time I could see the room and get a word out to her, I would get sucked back into the salvia universe and then have to work to pull myself back out.

As I tried to strike up what I thought was a 'normal' conversation with my friend, I found myself speaking with an alarmed tone of voice, which worried me, because I thought she would think I was having trouble but really I realized I just wanted to tell her how amazing this was, but it seemed to me that I was just in a big cave of a body trying to yell a message out from a hole up on the ceiling of the cave, but my words couldn't really make it and the only things I could get out were her name, and then I said something like 'I'm tripping out' 'don't worry' and 'just talk chill to me.' I felt that these comments surely were not getting my point across, but eventually I forgot about her and went back into my world.

The most unique and appealing aspect of salvia seems to be its effect on my whole being; its not just visuals or feelings of at-oneness, but even more than that, it was my whole Self was involved, exactly like in a dream. That episode ended in exactly fifteen minutes also, and I recounted what had happened to my friend. I felt unusually calm the rest of the night, and got some things done that I had been meaning to do for a long time.

The next day I really wanted to try salvia again, but my friend had work to do and so was busy, and I felt uncomfortable asking any of my other friends to sit with me while I 'tripped out,' and so I decided to try it alone. I took many precautions; I locked my doors so I wouldn't be able to wander out of my room (although, the last time I wouldn't have even been able to sit up or even move my hands, much less stand up and walk away)and only had one lamp on next to my bed. I knew I would have to do this all quickly because I didn't want to get stuck with the bub in my hand while I tripped out. It was after sunset, and my plan was to take the biggest hit I could, put down the bub and lighter, turn off the lamp, lay back on my bed, pull down an eye-cover, and then exhale when I had to.

So I did all this, without music, and had mild effects just like the first time last time, which lasted about fifteen minutes again, and then I decided to give it a second try. This time I had music again, good old Cat Stevens. I repeated the same procedure, smoke (one hit), pipe down, light off, lay back, eye-cover, and before I could exhale, I was completely enveloped by a different world. Suddenly, I was in a room maybe in a house or a school, and there were people there, it was the afternoon, people were talking around me or to me, I'm not quite sure. In any case, I scraped my hand through the air and sort of tore open reality (so if you imagine the scene in front of you is just like a 3-D movie screen that you can tear through), and climbed into the scrape, which just led me to another scrape and then I was kind of tumbling through realities, and I could really feel each one kind of hitting me, or rubbing past me.

I think I was under the impression that I wasn't on a drug at this point, or anyways my normal life had never existed, and so it seemed to me that I was really just living a life where you could tumble through realities. But then I became a little worried that I wouldn't be able to get back to where I came from, because I couldn't stop scraping. Then I realized I had always been tumbling like that, there had never been another time, and I would always be tumbling and there was no way to stop. This thought really worried me, but then I heard a woman's voice, which seemed to me to be my friend from the previous day but I remembered I was alone, and yet I wasn't alone, and yet I wasn't me, and yet I was caught up in the idea that I was eternity, etc. Anyway, the voice told me its ok, that everything would be ok, and I thought that was weird that people knew about this and never told me before (that people knew about tumbling through realities).

This tumbling episode ended at some point, and other things went on. I think for a bit I was some completely different person, maybe a female, but it wasn't like I was a female, I was just a different person with a whole different life and history and lense of the world. Its all too difficult to put into words. In any case, as the experience was ending I felt very wet, I don't know why, because I was not wet. That whole episode was fifteen minutes also. A few seconds coming up, plateau for ten minutes, and slowly back to reality for about five minutes. I didn't find G-d, and I don't think the people I talked to were angels, but it was definitely an amazing experience.

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 28042
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 2, 2007Views: 5,181
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Glowing Experiences (4), Music Discussion (22), Entities / Beings (37), Guides / Sitters (39), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)

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