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Total Intellectual Death
Salvia divinorum (20x extract)
Citation:   sotherbee. "Total Intellectual Death: An Experience with Salvia divinorum (20x extract) (exp41047)". Erowid.org. Jul 29, 2005. erowid.org/exp/41047

 
DOSE:
1 bowl smoked Salvia divinorum (extract)
BODY WEIGHT: 160 lb
Tonight some people came over who had some 20x Salvia. I wasn't too excited about it, having tried it before with little or no effect. I didn't have any idea that in a few moments from then my entire personality and identity would be stripped down to the core and I would become my inner child in a terrifying, confusing world.

I sat down on my couch and packed a small metal pipe full of the stuff. There were three people with me who were all experienced around me, but I wasn't too worried about it. I had tried 10x before, and to little avail. It had only made me feel kind of giddy. I sat back, tuned into the mix CD I had on, and took as big and long of a hit as I could from the bowl. I remember exhaling it and looking around briefly, but after that, it's not so easy to explain.

All of the sudden something seemed very wrong. I was staring at something that looked like a long flat platform with metal bars sticking out of it. I felt like I was leaning on to the ledge of it with my arms and looking down it, and it went on past where I could see. I felt the skin on my arms move and become part of the wall and the floor, and the chair I was sitting in. Suddenly I had no idea where I was or what was going on at all. I felt like I had no identity at all, that I was some nameless conscious being. I started to become very scared and confused. (My friends tell me at this point I was just sitting and staring at the wall with my mouth open slightly, being completely silent.)

I remember struggling to understand where I was and if I was safe or not, then just giving in to the fear because of the physical discomfort of becoming the wall. I become ultimately terrified, completely confused, I felt like I was dead or going to die. Physically at this point I felt as if my whole body was cut into chunks and spread across the room. It wasn't painful, it just felt like I was made of very soft clay. I became vaguely aware that there were people in the room. I knew I recognized them and they were friendly but couldn't really think of anything else about them. I started seeing a hallucination of the entire room spinning and sucking into itself. It almost looked like the image that I was seeing was on liquid paint and was slowly being stirred. I'm referring to the place where I was as a room, but at that point I had no clue what a room was.

The intellectual part of me seemed to be completely shut down. I felt like an animal. I was so sincerely and primitively scared that I'm surprised I didn't piss my pants or scream. The image of looking at your friends face and seeing it rip and swirl away into the center of the room is very unsettling. One image that I remember distinctly was something black (I have no idea what it was) slowly being churned into the wall. I also remember feeling like I was stretched out over the entire room and not really being able to identify anything I was looking at. Everything seemed foreign and extremely strange. The images I saw were very clear but were so distorted I could not explain to you what most of them were. Mostly very dark, real looking distortions of the objects around me. The hallucinations themselves aren't the worst part, it's the uninterrupted, terrified focus you set on them.

Everything I looked at became my consciousness. Everything I looked at, I seemed to become physically part of. I remembered looking at my friends and feeling some sort of strange helpful aura, but they weren't really saying anything, they were just looking at me. At this point, I said, 'Something's not right here, put me back where I'm supposed to be.' (Something my friends confirmed with me later.) They didn't respond. It struck me at that moment that I was very scared. I started desperately searching my head for my identity. At this point, I picked up my keys and tried to put my wallet in my pocket. It felt like my pocket was an organ that I was trying to slide my wallet into. I couldn't get it in there. I got frustrated and said, 'No,' fairly loud and, 'I don't feel right.' (I didn't remember doing that until my friends told me later.)

I then lay on the floor (which I don't remember doing). I remember seeing some wood looking substance crawl and twist around with black lines streaking across it. I didn't feel at any time during the experience that I was sitting or laying anywhere, I felt like I was just there and part of the room. It wasn't like a third person thing, I literally physically felt like I was part of the floor, lamp, wall, and window. I could feel my consciousness and energies crawl in and out of the various things in the room, including my friends heads (!). I don't remember much after that.

I remember realizing that I had gotten up and gone to my room to lay down because I felt very sweaty and scared and I needed to figure out what was going on. My bed felt uncomfortable. I was about halfway down by this time and was very terrified of the experience I just had. I had trouble realizing that I was still myself, was alive, and was going to be back to normal soon. I still felt very scared and confused. My friends starting talking to me and I talked back but I kind of babbled and I don't remember much of what I said, it seemed kind of forced and automatic. They were saying something about it being OK and agreeing with some observations I was making about it. They could tell I was really scared. I lay in my bed for awhile and eventually realized I was OK and that I just had to most fucked up terrifying experience of my whole life. I began to come down completely and talk to my friends about how it felt and what I think it meant and stuff.

The whole experience lasted about five or six minutes. I realize now that most of my trip took place focusing on a very small area of my wall near my window, and some of it while looking at the video game on the TV. I remember seeing a strange image of people running down a street and later realized it was the video game on TV. I took each image at a time, I didn't realize that the image of the person I was looking at wasn't real and was on a TV. There was no way I could be prepared for my first strong Salvia trip. It's way too hard to explain to people how real and intense it feels. It is the most powerful drug I've experienced yet. (I've done shrooms, weed, DXM, which is the runner up, amphetamines, alcohol, and LSA.)

I was almost in tears afterwards. I was extremely shaken up and starting analyzing my life. I was glad to be alive. Not that I had gotten a new appreciation for life, just that I was glad I wasn't being torn apart anymore. In conclusion, I wouldn't really call this drug fun, but it really is an experience I will never forget. It is an extremely powerful drug that needs to be taken more seriously. It's a serious trip in which I feel completely socially naked, stripped of my comforts, and forced into a threatening world I cannot control.

Exp Year: 2005ExpID: 41047
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 29, 2005Views: 28,496
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Bad Trips (6), Difficult Experiences (5), First Times (2)

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