First Salvia 20x Experience 300mg

[wickedmamouth]

A couple days ago i did about 300mg of 20x out of my bong. It was my first time smoking Salvia and let me tell you, I had a awful time. I've done Acid countless times and have experimented with many different psychedelics. My trip sitter was my gf who has never done anything but weed so didn't help much during the bad trip.

I took the hit in and held it for as long as I could I used a normal lighter. with in seconds a high came on extremely heavy so I laid down on the bed next to my girl friend as she was watching TV. the show she was watching was saying some stuff that in my head was directly relating to my trip. Saying stuff like "just let go, you have to let go". And in my mind it felt like this gaint hand was palming my whole body trying to pull me into a different dimension but I was stuck to the bed I was laying on. And the girl in the show talking was trying to tell me what to do to fall into the dimension but i couldnt. the feeling of the hand pulling on me started to really freak me out and I wanted it to stop. I started to move around. Moving around started to make my whole body hurt extremely bad which made me start to freak out more. Durrung all this I didn't see one visual maybe very subtle trails but nothing more. After the peak ended it felt like I had ran a marathon. my whole body was extremely sore for the next hour. Can some one tell me who is more experienced everything I did wrong? I still have like 2.7 grams of 20x and I don't want it to go to waste but as of now I'm pretty scared to try again.
I have been smoking very small amounts of Sally sometimes when I smoke a bowl I'll sprinkle a little on top. I do this because I want to get used to the body load, cause the intensity of the body load during the trip is what really turned it into a nightmare.

 

[pupnik]

you did nothing wrong, and went immediately to the immaterial level in the salvia scale:
Level - 1 "S" stands for SUBTLE effects. A feeling that "something" is happening, although it is difficulty to say just what. ...
Level - 2 "A" stands for ALTERED perception. Colors and textures are more pronounced. Appreciation of music may be enhanced. ...
Level - 3 "L" stands for LIGHT visionary state. Closed-eye visuals (clear imagery with eyes closed: fractal patterns, vine-like and geometric patterns, visions of objects and designs). ...
Level - 4 "V" stands for VIVID visionary state. Complex three-dimensional realistic appearing scenes occur. Sometimes voices may be heard. ...
Level - 5 "I" stands for IMMATERIAL existence. At this level one may no longer be aware of having a body, or the body sensations become hugely altered as if merging with furniture. ...
Level - 6 "A" stands for AMNESIC effects. At this stage, either consciousness is lost, or at least one is unable to later recall what one had experienced. ...

the size of the disembodied hand was the first clue, I think it was your hand being exaggerated - the TV talking to you specifically is also typical of level 4 and 5.

anyway
you did nothing wrong, but I would recommend using just a wee bit less next time, until you find your comfort zone.
that your body was sore indicates that you may have spent some time in level 6 and cannot remember what you did that involved so much exertion.

 

[Solipsis]

I don't buy that explanation and disagree with that scale because IME you can experience body and gravity warping effects and 'stuckness' at an intensity level that would rate more like 3-3½ so to speak. So I wouldn't really conclude from the involvement of bodily and spatial warping that it was level 5. Not to discount the experience, not at all, but it's also not helpful to rate it or rate it with such scales in the first place. Level 5 seems more like a breakthrough experience and beyond, to deep holing.
Your dosage was high and it did sound intense so who knows if it was 5 but my point is: the description also matches lower levels and I have had experiences to 'prove' that. That there were virtually no 'visuals' also contributes to my point that it is not so 'discrete' as those levels suggest, some effects may be very strong but others not so much. Next time it could be the opposite, trying to use the scale would get very confusing.

Salvia is an atypical dissociative and different from psychedelics in a couple of ways. Dissociating can mean that the set and setting may have less influence since you can be so disconnected from reality (not that preparation doesn't help), basically forgetting normality and that everything is okay.

Salvinorin is also a type of opioid which apparently affect proprioception and noniception (pain sensation) plus regions in the brain highly associated with a sort of central feeling of what makes you you. It can cause parasthesia (pins and needles feeling) but I guess also pain or painkilling effects. It's interesting to note that typical dissociatives like ketamine can apparently 'reset' your proprioception besides being painkilling in a more overruling kind of way even than opioids.

It sounds like the mental effects influenced proprioception and pain-killing effects somehow. It's pretty complicated and I am not an expert on this stuff, but consider how a phantom limb can really hurt like hell when there is a disconnect between your body image and reality / stimuli. The cause seems to be mistaken activity in the CNS leading to things like itch or cramps in limbs that aren't even there, which spirals out of control. Typical dissociatives apparently can help with this, maybe with a reset-like effect. It sounds like you temporarily experienced a full-body equivalent of a phantom limb pain.

 

[pupnik]

Sorry Solipsis, with all due respect, the salvia scale is a good one, but interpreting is not easy.
one progresses through it and may even go up and down in and out between levels as the salvinorin is absorbed and processed
this dose was high so I think what happened was this

111111111233445555455545554555555666566566656665665665555555555432111111
(each numeral indicating about 10 seconds)
the duration of the 5's was significant so the gravity effect (layered sensation (additive pressure)) of the hand was very pronounced and seemed to be someone else's hand.
the larger than normal hand signifies some visionary aspect which is not recognized as a visual effect but it was in the spatial visualization part of the cortex which really is visionary.
the high dose introduced a significant blackout or amnesia 6 section during which some position was held that lead to sore muscles and it was not experienced as a blackout but more like a level 5 with a jammed or pinned down state of clueless-ness .

I have over 1000 sessions of salvia indulgence and am comfortable with this simple explanation - as well you might like to look at this thread I put together a while back,

https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/4098635#4098635

 

[Solipsis]

The scale is interesting to get an idea of different things that might happen with different intensity levels but if you go up down in and out it is obviously a little pointless and mostly confusing to try and use it as a map or indicator for other people's experiences. But hey everyone is entitled to their opinion.

If an uncomfortable position is the reason for the soreness that would most likely be awkward enough to be noticed by his gf / tripsitter especially since it felt 'like he ran a marathon' (!) (so hereby we ask wickedmamouth and his sitter), it also doesn't explain the immediate pain.
It would be amazing to me if he was teetering on the brink of 5/6 with all other signs saying that he was beginning to get into a visionary state - I've been there myself, with the gravity shifting and stuckness - the flattening possibly (everything looking 2D in my case). Basically his constellation of effects.. and in my case I am pretty sure I wasn't in that deep, had barely broken through let alone whiting or blacking out.

If what you say were true I am missing a lot of signs of him passing through 3-4-5 so we will need him to chime in on that and tell us if there is a lot you haven't mentioned (the "lack of visuals" don't really suggest there is much more), so I don't know what you are basing on that it was a blackout when there is another explanation for the effects.

On another note: according to you is it a fact or myth that Salvia contains other psychoactive compounds than salvinorin A when harvested and chewed / quidded completely fresh, which are apparently rapidly degraded (quite possibly by enzymes in the leaf, this wouldn't be unique)?

 

[pupnik]

just Salvinorin-A.
Quidding is not great AFAIAC. Smoking is the only reasonable way to get what it offers.
it's in and out quick.
Would you quid DMT infused leaves, I think not.

 

[Solipsis]

I get that but you can't really smoke freshly harvested leaves and it's supposed to produce a markedly different state of consciousness. I am not sure that is easily explained differently, like by absorption or pharmacokinetic differences.
Any type of processing of the leaves for other ROA could easily degrade possible unknown actives. It also makes it very hard to analyze chemically so very hard to prove I now realize - so very hard to know whether fact or myth.

 

[pupnik]

It's true fresh leaves take a couple of days to dry to smokable, or a few minutes of toasting. I have done oral leaves as quid, and drops as tincture and I do not recommend either ROA, effects are very mild from both methods but use 30 to 60 times as much plant material to get similar effects.
remember that the active ingredient is a waxy crystalline solid at body temperature, so it has to either be in solution, or it has to be ground into your buccal tissue (leaves chewed vigorously) BUT the absorption is slow yet the number of molecules in circulation has to be at a threshold or your effects will be down at the S-A-L levels which are low. This can be frustrating to a user who is foaming green at the mouth chewing a huge mass of bitter leaves while one dried leaf smoked quickly will go all the way and back again.

slow oral absorption of a large mass of salvia will ensure a longer trip duration, but not 30-60 times as long, since most of the time you have less than threshold salvinorin-A molecules in circulation.

as for other actives, they are not obvious, I have 99.5% pure salvinorin-A which has identical smoked results as the leaf does.

 

[Solipsis]

I've always suspected it is a prime candidate for complexing with HPβCD for sublingual admin purposes, but it's a bit tricky to actually achieve that.

One could douse The Machine (for DMT normally as you know) 's metal wick with drops of a highly concentrated solution, I guess. Or use a crack pipe and blast a well weighed dose of high potency extract?

 

[pupnik]

not sure if you can see this

this is my kit

 

[JackARoe]

slow oral absorption of a large mass of salvia will ensure a longer trip duration, but not 30-60 times as long, since most of the time you have less than threshold salvinorin-A molecules in circulation.

After years of utilizing Salvia as a tool I had always been embarrassed that quidding never did much for me. I for sure felt it but it was threshold the whole time with a mouth full of leaves. Also any sound irritated me, similar to smoking but with smoking the irritation leaves very quickly. The dark and silent setting is crucial to both smoking and quidding, but to me it is clear that Salvia has brought it's magic to modern users by smoking. I always find it comical when elite people say smoking is disrespectful. It has been nothing but enlightening, gentle, helpful and shown me that smoking is the way I need to utilize it at least. I will for sure revisit quidding.

I think it is important that long time modern utilizers of Salvia talk about technique, folklore and anything else we learned in that time. And Pupnik's observations are classic info that can help as are the technical scientific end that Solipsis brings. All can help us move forward for people that do work with Salvia.

I have to say I am amazed at all the horrific reactions people have had. It doesn't make sense to someone like me that had a gentle female guidance on all trips. I have never seen such differences in any drug effect. It seems Salvia doesn't just do one thing and I have to wonder what contributes to the variances. Is it scientific or mental? Interesting.

 

[Solipsis]

There is not necessarily a separation between scientific and mental just as with psychedelic activity, or it is a mix of both, at least in my opinion. These actions are very complex and far from elucidated though, we thought serotonergic psychedelics just acted on 5-HT2A for the critical part, but the nuance is that 1A and 2C also seem to be relevant. Plus the activation pathways matter a lot.
As far as we know now, Salvinorin is a kappa opioid but there similarly may be specifics about the action making the dynamics much more than one-dimensional which can help to start explaining the various parts of the action. The expression of the relevant receptors in different brain tissues seems to be very important because it can be relatively localized but also a matter of individual variation. Add to that set and setting and what you just happen to be looking at, and apparently these can be ingredients in the content of the trip but as far as breakthrough experiences are concerned it gets even more complicated. I guess it involves losing a sense of the world in a direct way (more dramatically than NMDA antagonists) and replacing this by visions coming from most deep within us.
It's a fine line between something like the 'mental' (I guess set and setting) and how you are wired neurologically and express receptors.

Also what may appear like variation at first glance may just be too difficult for us to compare, but originate from the same sorts of dissociation effects on our faculties.

I don't really know what to make of the often experienced 'female presence' but possibly we have a circuit of associations getting triggered indirectly or we lose activity in 'male' circuits. I think we all have that male and female side and they are basically 'roles' we consider males and females to have, which in part is ancient living on today, but also of course culturally influenced. Some people have especially male or female brains or dominance of those modes of thinking and associated behaviors and this doesn't even need to have to do anything with sexuality.
As I always try to point out: the evidence for part of the theory comes up short and it is not meant to be reductionistic in any way as to deny divinity. But I personally believe that so much ends up being shown as projections from ourselves and mistaken for separate entities that the divine is more like our consciousness in it's more pure and primitive form before we obscured that with all our differentiating as we grow older.

In any case, we have a circuit in the brain (in the frontal or occipital lobe orsth) which when stimulated gives us a feeling of the presence of either god, an unseen force, or a loved one. It's not really a far leap that you could electrically trigger the feeling of a female or male presence specifically.

I am not that amazed at the horrible reactions but at the steep dose-response curve (well included in that is the steep absorption curve you could say - it's not that well controllable to reliably absorb a dose when you're inexperienced). IMO the main reason why people have horrible reactions is because they are ignorant / unaware of that or don't acknowledge it and just approach it as 'smoking a herb you can basically eyeball' and expecting effects on the level of smartdrug / ethno herbs possibly which are usually on the mild side. But really, there is not a good reason not to accurately measure your dose as if it were DMT. Yes you can get plain leaf or a weaker extract so that doses become more eyeballable (lol), but that also makes it harder to properly absorb a dose.

I really don't like dosing high with Salvia, gravity shifts are very interesting but the stuckness and slipping into the cracks of reality feel both terrible and also inappropriate. I appreciate that some people teach themselves by experience to be their own shamanic guide and I do that / have done that with virtually all other psychedelic type drugs, but I just don't want to with Salvia. It felt unhealthy when I was eager to learn the secrets to the fabric of reality and I split open my head enough with psychedelics to see how it's about sabotaging our stream of sensible consciousness. I get the point and am not interested in running around in circles, feeling fulfilled with my path of realization and actualization.
But I did very much appreciate the meditative effects of sub-breakthrough Salvia!! They are really top tier.

Am mildly curious about quidding or making my own tincture (still have a huge pile of homegrown salvia leaves - though i want a hazmat suit before i'll extract, lol) - but it hasn't felt right yet to pursue. I want to be able to reliably titrate my dose to achieve that meditative visionary state and not some soulrape.

 

[burn out]

After years of utilizing Salvia as a tool I had always been embarrassed that quidding never did much for me. I for sure felt it but it was threshold the whole time with a mouth full of leaves. Also any sound irritated me, similar to smoking but with smoking the irritation leaves very quickly. The dark and silent setting is crucial to both smoking and quidding, but to me it is clear that Salvia has brought it's magic to modern users by smoking. I always find it comical when elite people say smoking is disrespectful. It has been nothing but enlightening, gentle, helpful and shown me that smoking is the way I need to utilize it at least. I will for sure revisit quidding.

I think it is important that long time modern utilizers of Salvia talk about technique, folklore and anything else we learned in that time. And Pupnik's observations are classic info that can help as are the technical scientific end that Solipsis brings. All can help us move forward for people that do work with Salvia.

I have to say I am amazed at all the horrific reactions people have had. It doesn't make sense to someone like me that had a gentle female guidance on all trips. I have never seen such differences in any drug effect. It seems Salvia doesn't just do one thing and I have to wonder what contributes to the variances. Is it scientific or mental? Interesting.

everyone is different so salvia effects everyone differently. i don't know what you mean by scientific or mental.

 

[JackARoe]

I don't really know what to make of the often experienced 'female presence' but possibly we have a circuit of associations getting triggered indirectly or we lose activity in 'male' circuits. I think we all have that male and female side and they are basically 'roles' we consider males and females to have, which in part is ancient living on today, but also of course culturally influenced. Some people have especially male or female brains or dominance of those modes of thinking and associated behaviors and this doesn't even need to have to do anything with sexuality.

As I always try to point out: the evidence for part of the theory comes up short and it is not meant to be reductionistic in any way as to deny divinity. But I personally believe that so much ends up being shown as projections from ourselves and mistaken for separate entities that the divine is more like our consciousness in it's more pure and primitive form before we obscured that with all our differentiating as we grow older.

That is a pretty interesting idea on female presence. Also divinity being a purer part of us. That is diving into possible explanations. I guess I had to rethink the mental part or set and setting. When someone takes diazepam, there is usually a set of responses a person has that is across the board, or at least the same effects on most people. Anxiety calmed, relaxed, possible amnesia. With a substance like Salvia the responses are so varied I often wonder if we will pinpoint the exact mechanism that the female presence occurs and be able to repeat it by stimulating part of the brain or is it really so individual that we will never drive down that far. Salvia is pretty darn interesting as a substance.

 

[pupnik]

I think the preponderance of female imagery is due to reversion in part to a childhood which was attended by women more than by men.
The reversion/regression is due to feeling at the mercy of the environment, disoriented, and small.

as such, these are associations, not circuits, associations and memories of all kinds, have not been proven scientifically as circuits, although evidence supports distributed engrams, or patterns that match the specifics of the memories or ideas.

representations of data in the brain (equivalent to media on the computer) are not fully modeled yet, while we are getting a good picture of "wiring" between parts of the brain, and some idea of how those parts pump media in and out generally speaking.

 

[Solipsis]

Anyone who lacked a mother-figure / female role model during childhood who had visions of the Shepardess?

I do subscribe to Jungian archetypes often dominating visions especially as one progresses towards a unity experience, not so much to Freudian explanations and the like. As for the preponderance as the reason for these things, I think that since new data suggests that during psychedelic experiences mental faculties can meld together (also explaining synaesthesia and the 2C-E sort of meta-synaesthesia) or sync in a new way... those archetypes may reflect more primitive though also more pure dynamics in our mind as we transition.

Your theory doesn't really explain why the female figure is so much associated with Salvia but not so much DMT or high intensitity dissociatives of a more classical kind.

 

[pupnik]

I rarely have a female figure in my salvia experiences unless I have it on screen.
my guess is that DMT and Salvia have equal female entity appearance frequency.

The quasi-magical lore, however, plays it up big time. and the suggestible population will probably get in synch with that just because they want to belong.

 

[burn out]

Anyone who lacked a mother-figure / female role model during childhood who had visions of the Shepardess?

I do subscribe to Jungian archetypes often dominating visions especially as one progresses towards a unity experience, not so much to Freudian explanations and the like. As for the preponderance as the reason for these things, I think that since new data suggests that during psychedelic experiences mental faculties can meld together (also explaining synaesthesia and the 2C-E sort of meta-synaesthesia) or sync in a new way... those archetypes may reflect more primitive though also more pure dynamics in our mind as we transition.

Your theory doesn't really explain why the female figure is so much associated with Salvia but not so much DMT or high intensitity dissociatives of a more classical kind.

There is masculine energy/archetype and feminine energy/archetype. Each plant has it's own spirit or spiritual essence, and some of them are more masculine while others feminine or at least are perceived as such. For example, cannabis is feminine. I believe salvia is feminine also. Hence it makes sense people would experience guidance from a feminine figure during their trips.

 

[pupnik]

I find with salvia especially,
it is best not to approach it with preconceived notions.
that would include superstitions, and the lore about the shepherdess falls into this.

what is very interesting, however, is that experiences on salvia often do include uncanny perceptions of visitors, entities, shadows, voices, even ideas in my head that are not mine... etc., which does point to a pattern that involves attribution of events or experiences to an agency which is not the self when there is no actual other being present(, similar to the effects of deliriants, and historical stories of possession).
The process of realities and personalities calving off from our main selves in a way that is similar to icebergs calving off of larger icebergs is something worth more study, and salvia may provide the safest platform with which to explore that phenomenon of mind, because of its short duration and usually rapid recovery.