Selective kappa opioid agonists are their own freaky animal. I would call salvia a deliriant before I'd call it a dissociative, but its effects are also clearly distinct from those we've read about in the likes of datura or diphenhydramine trip reports. I like "oneirogens," since it captures the visionary component of the salvia experience, but, it too, is a loose fit.
I'm surprised this naming issue doesn't pop up more frequently given salvia's unique character. I've struggled to categorize its effects over the years. Here's a few descriptions from Erowid that I think might be instructive:
At higher doses users report dramatic time distortion, vivid imagery, encounters with beings, travel to other places, planets or times, living years as the paint on a wall or experiencing the full life of another individual.
-sensation of physical push, pressure, or wind
-sensation of entering or perceiving other dimensions, alternate realities
-feeling of 'presence' or entity contact
-dissociation at high doses, walking or standing
What really sets salvia's effects apart in my view is its capacity for "identity substitution," which is essentially what's being referred to in the last clause in that first sentence from Erowid above. This, to me, more than any of its other effects, is what makes it indispensable as a tool of psychological analysis. Rather than act to dissolve, inflate, or annihilate an individual's ego as many other psychoactives do, it can, within seconds, seemingly re-submit the self-concept in a radically novel form, which is so much more astonishing a feat. I don't know what combination of ancient roots would make for an appropriate neologism though ... sui-trans-morphics?
Phone Websters
