DOSE:

3 hits

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(leaves)

BODY WEIGHT:

180 lb

i'd received an oz. of dried salvia leaves in the mail, and decided to try them. i'd received them on friday, and it was now tuesday; on saturday, a friend of mine volunteered to try the stuff out, as i was a little scared. she had a very intense and wonderful trip after three mongo hits from the ongbay, and after hearing her praise decided to steel my resolve and give it the ol' college try.

at 11:30 pm on a work night, i dimmed the lights of my room, put on some ambient electronic music (cluster's zuckerzeit -- perfect), lay down on the floor, pulled out the big smoking machine, and put a single crushed leaf in the bowl. i took a hit and nothing happened. took another, nothing happened, just felt the subtlest possible dizziness. (throughout the experiment, i took deep but small hits -- i wanted to feel something, but i didn't want a big freakout.) then i added two more crushed leaves, and took a hit of that. i lay back and got comfortable, and that's when it hit.

all the colors in my room began to breathe, and they were extremely vivid, almost dancing around. the music on the stereo was breathing, too, and it sounded as though the weird swooshing keyboards were some huge beast getting ready to punch through the speakers and pull me in. my head and neck began twisting hard toward the left, almost completely crooked, as though i were stretching them; any attempt to correct this was swiftly knocked down by the spirit o' salvia, which i felt was trying to draw me toward the moon, much as a plant might tilt to the sun. after a few minutes, the head/neck roll subsided, and i closed my eyes. i became very anxious at this point, fearing that i was becoming a plant (my hands felt like they had ivy growing on them), but at the same time i knew this was supposed to be a short trip, and i took deep breaths to calm down. the effects drifted away almost immediately after that.

all in all, i'd say the trip lasted anywhere from five to ten minutes. i was very shaken up afterward, but i think that's more to do with how suddenly it all happened, rather than with the intensity of it. i had forgotten what it's like to go temporarily insane in the hands of a psychedelic.

i would absolutely do this again -- it's the closest thing to psilocybin mushrooms i've ever felt, but there's something sexier and weirdly sinister about it (in a good way). i got the sense that the salvia itself was a living, breathing, all-encompassing personality, whereas w/mushrooms i tend to feel as though the fungus is just a key to a door leading me toward some kind of spiritual force. salvia is this force in and of itself; pretty amazing.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 5064
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 8, 2001	Views: 6,016
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Salvia divinorum (44) : Alone (16), First Times (2)