Salvia As A First Time Psychedelic Experience?

[S-Dog]

So, as stated in the title, I've never taken any kind Psychedelic. The only thing I do or have ever done is weed (which I love) and alcohol (which I hate). I've wanted to try a psychedelic for a long time and feel I'm finally ready to dip my toe in.

The reason I'm thinking of making salvia my first really just comes down to the fact that it's legal in my state so I can just buy it and not have to worry about it potently being some other drug that I'm not expecting.

I've been doing a lot of research on it and while a lot of people have reported horrifying results it seems to me that most of these people went into it cocky, didn't show it the respect it deserves and took a shitload of it their first time. Because it's legal and easier to get a hold of, a lot of these people also seem much younger and not ready for this kind of experience. Is this a fair assessment or am I just making that up?

Lastly, what do I need to know about buying it. I've seen the 5x, 10x, 20x, 100x, (etc) labels and don't fully understand how to gauge what that means. I would like to take as low a strength as I can get for my first time. I'm not trying to jump into the deep end just yet.

Any advice?

 

[cj187]

You should know that salvia is not a typical psychedelic. It activates a different type of receptor than something like mushrooms or LSD, and it's a very different experience subjectively, though still extremely trippy in its own way. It's much more disorienting and confusing than a true psychedelic, which is why so many people freak out on it. That doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a bad time though. Salvia was the first drug I tripped on and I actually enjoyed it every time. I smoked it maybe 10 times, but lost interest in it after trying other psychedelics. I'm glad I tried it but it's not a substitute for acid or DMT or any other drug uninformed people sometimes compare it to.

The really potent salvia extracts like 100x are unnecessarily strong, but if you go with a weak one you might have trouble getting the full effects. I think I used to use 30x, and that was a good strength. I never felt like it was too strong, but I could get the full experience if I tried. A strong extract will be easier on your lungs because you don't have to smoke much, but could also be harder to dose accurately if you don't have a milligram scale.

 

[solistus]

As cj187 said, salvia is a very unique drug, so trying it really won't give you a taste for psychedelics in general - just one very particular, very atypical psychedelic. TBH, I think salvia belongs at least as much in the deliriant family as it does in the psychedelic, although it is typically not _as_ uncomfortable or, frankly, unpleasant as most deliriants.

I think it also just has, for lack of a better term, a nastier attitude than most other drugs, no matter how old you are or what mindset you have going into it. That said, I also think you're right that cocky teenagers who try it because it's legal and easy to get with no idea what they're getting into has something to do with the number of people who have a really bad time on it.

In my experience, low doses have very little to offer. You either take enough for things to get WeIrD or you just kinda feel strange body sensations for a few minutes and then it wears off. That said, the "5x, 10x, 20x" etc. strengths you see headshop salvia labeled as aren't terribly accurate. They're SUPPOSED to mean that the active ingredients from several times more raw salvia has been extracted and sprayed onto the sample, but since alkaloid contents of different salvia plants can vary wildly and there's really no oversight or regulation over the sketchy grey market drug manufacturers who produce it, there's really no way to tell what actual dose of the active ingredients the stuff you buy has unless you own some fancy lab equipment to test it with.

So, I guess to answer your questions: if you're not ready to jump into the "deep end" I wouldn't bother, because the "deep end" is really all salvia has to offer; but if and when you decide you are ready to try it in all its intense weirdness, I don't think there's any issue with doing so before having tried a classic psychedelic like mushrooms or LSD. On the flip side of that coin, I don't think having tried mushrooms/LSD prepares you any better for salvia, although I guess if you've experienced a really intense ego death trip then you'll at least have a sense for just how WEIRD drugs can get. They have radically different effects, and the fact that they both produce mental effects that are intense, weird, and hard to describe is really the only common thread that causes them to be grouped together in the same 'class' of drug.

edit: one nice thing about salvia is that it is fairly short lasting, and at least in my experience and the experiences of people I've talked to about it, it doesn't tend to produce significant time dilation, so if you have a really unpleasant experience and just want it to stop, it will, pretty soon.

 

[SheWasLvL18]

Salvia was the first drug I tried that had completely disconnected from my body. So that being said solistus is right, it will teach you how crazy your brain can get, but it's not similar to any other psychedelic drug I have tried.

 

[Pfafffed]

I'm in the tiny minority of people that enjoyed my salvia experiences, practically all of which took place before I ever tried a true psychedelic (5-HT2a agonist.) Most of the people that tried salvia with me who had no experience with true psychedelics were able to roll with the experience. Those experienced with true psychedelics, though, were invariably disturbed by salvia's alien intensity. Salvia and psychedelics don't produce the same intensity or quality of experience, sort of like how snorting a line of MDMA isn't a good approximation of coffee, even though both are stimulating.

Salvia (smoked) can show you the limits of human consciousness, but it probably won't give you any insight into your life. It's safe from a toxicological standpoint, but I really recommend a sitter, especially if you're using any extracts. I never found extracts to be necessary - they were just a substitute for poor smoking technique. Salvinorin A vaporizes at high temperature, so it's necessary to torch the hell out of your bowl or out won't work.

It's short acting in real time, but not necessarily in salvia time. It can be really harrowing, even downright traumatizing. It's common to be completely unconscious of the outside world, blacking out but continuing to walk or drive. This can easily become unsafe if there's no one looking out for your well-being. I think the loss of touch with reality that it can produce is what causes some people to lump it in with the dissociatives instead of the psychedelics. I recommend working your way up in dosage slowly.

Sublingual salvia is an entirely different experience, as different as crack cocaine and coca tea. Gentle, rich, and valuable - I love it. I never had any luck using sublingual extracts, but fresh leaves worked reliably. If you can grow the plant legally where you live, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend trying it that way. It's a great way to explore a new material, too, building a longterm relationship with it.

 

[mtu mwendawazimu]

I would hate for you to deem psychedelics as a poor DOC because of a bad time on salvia. There are many other psychs that I think have better potential to treat you well. Salvia, as someone mentioned, just shows you how insane your brain can be. It's not always necessarily fun and eye-opening, like the more typical psychs tend to be.

If you do try it, try to be in and stay in a good state of mind throughout the process.

 

[S-Dog]

I already planned to have a sitter so no worries there. I think I would prefer to chew on the leaf but I have no idea how to go about finding just the leaves instead of the extracts. From what I've seen the leaves are pretty hard to find here. As for growing it myself, I could give that a try but I've never had great luck taking care of plants but it might be worth looking into.

would you say to stay away from the extracts completely or is it possible to take care with them and not over do it? I would want to find the lowest dose I can (5x seems to be the lowest I can find). A few other's in this thread have said that starting slow is pointless and you either just have to jump in and deal with what happens or just don't do it at all. What's your opinion?

 

[S-Dog]

it's being made more and more clear to me that salvia is different. I've only ever used pot so I'm really not experienced in the would of drugs but I try not to compare them to each other too much. each is different and fearing one because of a bad experience on another seems like the wrong mindset. it is a bummer that a lot of people don't feel like they can learn much with salvia though.

 

[mtu mwendawazimu]

each is different and fearing one because of a bad experience on another seems like the wrong mindset.

Well you know yourself better than we do. So if that's the case (that you won't get discouraged), and you really want to try this 15 minute "trip" called salvia, by all means go ahead.

 

[mtu mwendawazimu]

A few other's in this thread have said that starting slow is pointless and you either just have to jump in and deal with what happens or just don't do it at all. What's your opinion?

I found for myself that there is a threshold that you need to hit, similar to shrooms.

 

[pupnik]

I like smoked 10x best but I carry something stronger (Salvinorin paper) just in case I have the "need" to go to the other side and have a cathartic visionary moment or two.

while it does not affect the same chemical pathways or recepteromes as LSD or Mushroom, as it ramps to fullness in 90 seconds and then back down again in ~6 minutes, it is AFAIK a full on psychedelic but at very high acceleration, so high that it jerks you out of reality, spins you through your dimensions and enables encounters with your entities, and then slips you back into your everyday space that no longer is quite as ordinary for a while.

I think smoked salvia (10x) is excellent for learning how to relax in the face of strangeness, but I get why people think it is bad prep for LSD etc. as you don't get to languor in any side trips, no lingering or dwelling, it shifts state too quickly for that - going into deep layers and then quickly returning, while the classic psychedelics drift into layered experiencing and remain more or less at that intensity for several hours.

 

[polidelaiko]

I really like salvia. It wasn?t my first psych, but it was my first true full experience. Yes, if you smoke it, it comes quickly and in a couple of minutes its gone, but it has the same quality as ketamine, as it hits you you kind of loose your sense of self, or that you smoked something, and it?s like drifting in a weird multidimensional dream, thats more real than reality.
In my case, its like the new episode of Black Mirror, Bandersnatch. There are infinite versions of myself passing information and each trip shows it in a different way: going thru circles, piles of drawers that open and hands pop out and pass little glass vials (like the ones salvia came in 1999 when I first tried it) sometimes theres millions on mes all holding hands like paper people chain, and always has an emotional content related to my family.
Yes, its weird, but for example, dmt, and I love it, it always scares me when it hits, as rarely you loose counciusness, so the fear factor is always there.
Salvia is like, "what the fuck is going on???.... ohhh I smoked Salvia!!!"