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Important Substance
Salvia divinorum (leaves & 5x extract)
Citation:   Twig X. "Important Substance: An Experience with Salvia divinorum (leaves & 5x extract) (exp41833)". Erowid.org. Aug 16, 2007. erowid.org/exp/41833

 
DOSE:
  repeated smoked Salvia divinorum
BODY WEIGHT: 130 lb
Salvia. Possibly one of the most perplexing substances I've ever come across. I read about it and decided that it was time that I tried it so me and a friend (E) ordered 1/2 an ounce of dried leaves and 1 gram of 5x extract off of the internet.

After the salvia came in the mail, we drove to a local park to try it out. E packed a bowl of dried leaves and gave it to me to smoke. I was a little nervous due to the reports I've read about people screaming uncontrollably and not being able to remember most of the experience. I also read that in order to achieve effects from it you have to hold the smoke in for as long as possible. I put the piece up to my mouth and lit the bowl. I took in as much smoke as I could and waited. The smoke tasted kind of pleasent and wasn't really too harsh. After about 30 seconds I exhaled and waited for about a minute. Nothing. E asked me if I felt anything and I said no. I finished off the rest of the bowl and felt no effects from it. Needless to say, I was disappointed. E decided to try it and after he smoked a bowl of dried leaves he said he felt no effects whatsoever. First attempt - failure.

Disappointed, we drove over to another friend's house (B) to hang out for a bit. I attempted to smoke another bowl, this time with a mixture of leaves and 5x extract and still there were no effects. B suggested that we roll all of it into a huge blunt. I declined since I wanted it to last a while if we ever got it to work. So we took it out to his garage and smoked it out of a homemade hookah. We put in a large amount of leaves and some extract and we all grabbed a hose and started to smoke. After it was all gone I began to feel slightly different.

Clearly E was feeling it more than all of us. He leaned back on the van that was in the garage and began speaking EXTREMELY slowly. Each word was followed by about 10 seconds of silence. Then he began to laugh. I started to laugh at him and walked outside. I felt a kind of strange high that was very pleasent. I started walking in small circles for reasons that I still don't understand, and then it was gone. The entire high lasted something like 2 or 3 minutes. I was happy that we finally got the salvia to work, but I was disappointed with the duration and lack of strength. Also, when I asked E why he was speaking so slowly he said he wasn't. He claimed he was speaking completely normally.

The next few tries were out of a homemade bong. Each time we smoked it out of this device I definatly felt the effects of the drug. Most of the times I would only need one large hit before I was hit with the effects. I can describe them only as a pleasant high and a change in consciousness that is hard to put into words. Each of these times I felt the feeling of being pushed to one side, always to the right. This feeling was always very slight and I never really thought about it until the one breakthrough experience I had with salvia.

I was very eager to try to get stronger effects from salvia so the next try I put all the rest of the 5x extract (probably about 1/8 of the original gram) and as much dried leaves as I could fit into a very large steamroller. This particular steamroller has gained quite a reputation among my friends. No one has ever been able to clear the steamroller of marijuana smoke and as far as I know the only two people that have tried have ended up either vomiting or with a bloody nose. Up until this point, salvia had not been smoked out of it.

I put the piece to my mouth and lit the salvia up, keeping the flame in there for quite a long time. Once the steamroller was filled with smoke I inhaled as much as I could. I tried to hold it for as long as possible but ended up coughing out an extremely large amount of smoke about 3 seconds after taking the hit. It tasted vile. I don't remember entering 'salvia-space' it seemed as if I had been there my entire life. I saw a large hand come out of the sky and push into me very hard. It continued to press me into the ground until I was nearly horizontal.

I started to laugh and I felt the hand break into thousands of smaller hands all pushing at me. One hand grabbed my tongue and pushed me down and I was unable to close my mouth. This entire time I was slobbering all over the ground. The saliva just sort of oozed out of my mouth and into a puddle. After being pushed into the ground for about a minute, the feeling slowly subsided and I was back to normal. It was strange needless to say and I still don't know why I hallucinated what I did. The entire time this was going on I became aware of another presence in the room. I didn't see or hear another person, but I knew they were there. It wasn't disturbing, just strange.

I have had many more salvia sessions since. Every time I have felt the sensation of being pushed and each time I have felt as though another person was in the room with me for the experience. I have never had an experience as strong as the one with the steamroller but I plan to try higher extracts to perhaps find out more about the push and the presence of another individual. I do remember another strange experience with salvia where I was smoking with 5 other people. After we all hit the steamroller (which had become the salvia-smoking device of choice) I realized that everyone in the room was replaced with a different version of themselves. They all looked the same, but I could tell that they were not the same friends that I have always known.

I have since seen many people smoke it and have heard what the have to say about it. Everyone I have talked to have said that they felt the pressure, although no one has felt it hard enough to make them fall over. One friend smoked 20x extract out of a bong while I was there and stood up, mumbling incoherently, wobbled a bit, walked aroudn the room and then sat down. When I asked him what he felt he said he couldn't remember. In his words 'I forgot 5 minutes of my life.' Another friend likes to smoke the substance for more of a recreational thing. From what I can tell he finds the effects to be more of a pleasant high than anything else although the first time he ever smoked it he said he went to 'Lego-world.'

From what I've seen, most people that smoke salvia laugh uncontrollably the first time (when it is smoked out of a proper device) and then usually just sit there every other time they smoke it. I think when people are first introduced to the substance they don't know exactly what they are feeling so they begin laughing. However, once their bodies are acquainted with it, then they can begin learning from it. I think there is a lot to learn about this substance and I plan to experiment with higher extracts and other smoking methods.

Exp Year: 2005ExpID: 41833
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 16, 2007Views: 5,312
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Entities / Beings (37), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)

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