~ SALVIA EXPERIENCE REPORT ~
Someone asked me about what savlia was like and i ended up rambling into a full trip report so i thought id share it.
I first tried it when i was like 17-18 or something (im 31 now). I originally got 5g of raw leaf from a headshop in town but thats not extract so its really mild. Never gave me much more than a mild buzz smoking full joints of it.
So i ordered some extract when i was at uni not long after that. the vial turned up at my halls like sometime in the early afternoon and i took a bong of it (just a small one, it was 10x extract) on a complete whim. and "allegy dose" lol...
So the next thing i knew i never knew shit. It wasnt like i was too fucked on drugs. Id completely forgotten who i was, that i was a person, that id taken drugs, and was kinda existing in a really bright blocky lego-like environment. This was all totally matter of fact, as cos id forgotten who i was completely and all previous info id taken in / all memories were inaccessible to me, i just accepted my environment before me as if it were always the case / normal procedure.
There was the strongest sense of de ja vu iv ever experienced. Like nothing was recognisable but it was SO FAMILIAR like id "returned to the source" or "home" idk. Reviewing it afterwards, and this didnt really occur to me til a year or so later- im convinced to this day it was me being shown again what it was like "to know nothing" like the shit you experience in the first year or two of your life when you dont have a point of reference and youre trying to make sense of your environment but have nothing to relate any of it to becuse you havent seen enough patterns repeat yet.
At this point i became aware of the fact i was processing thoughts. like sentience literally developed again on the spot. to digress- iv only ever generally experienced a "rebirth" on hallucinogens in the sorta metaphorical sense, like the ability to take a fresh start mentally or watever. but this was literally like being born again. Ironically the point where the salvia was most potent was where i was accepting and amensic of my past, the process of it wearing off and coming to, and making sense of hte confusion is "the experience" i remember. The drug wearing off was just an accelerated version of learning how to sort all the sensory info coming in, and becoming aware of my own thoughts, and eventually ofc having an "ego" again.
In terms of how i "felt"...."trapped in a 2D picture" describes it perfectly. Unlike DMT which adds dimensions and depth to everything, dimensions had been removed here, 2D actually gives it too much credit lol. Not to say that the experience wasnt "deep" but the literal depth of the hallucination and the space that i was occupying was flat.
Started off i got a niggle that "nah something isnt right here" but i couldnt put my finger on it. Then as i mentioned i became aware of the fact i was thinking. Then i realised that i was once a person and that this wasnt the way things were. Next obvious, and completely calm conclusion, was that i had died and this was what the dying process was or the afterlife was or something (my concept of the afterlife at this time, before taking the salvia, was that as your perception of time dilates as you die the experience becomes infinite in the way you percieve it, so this was heavily projected onto what was happening in terms of how i came to the assumption). Then i started to make out Fabriclive 22 playing in the background and knew something was definitely not right lol. That reminded me where i was and who i was, and what year it was etc. I remember thinking "oh fuck wait youre sean!.....what the fuck is going on here then?!", then it hit me about 10 seconds (or infinity seconds) later that "heheh shit that salvia was strong".
At this point i realised i had a body, and that the environment i was percieving was a hallucination, and i opened my eyes. I was completely paralysed, like a sort of sleep paralysis feeling, not pleasant. Head was lyinh on the desk beside my bong which was miraculously upright and i was drooling. When i tried to move i felt an overbearing pressure against whatever way i tried to move (later realised this is because, aside from the fact it heightens fuck out of your senses so a breeze feels like a hurricane, it makes all ur hairs stand on end and go prickly, so anything pushing against them feels like a lot of force, i.e. clothes, people often strip on salvia).
At that point i got really worried that i was trapped and started to panic *just a bit*. After a short period i was able to turn around, and when i looked behind me i felt like i was being in some way "freed" from this hole in front of me, but my limbs were still locked in place and i couldnt tell them what to do, and turning back to face the way i was resulted in me like feeling like id be pulled back in over the event horizon at any minute.
This went on for idk how long, and eventually my appendages woke up enough that i was able to move to sit back on my bed, i was pretty shaken and rolled a joint. Mate came and visited me while i was skinning up. Hes like how u doing? Im like ehhhh....just try this....lol
So he takes a hit, stands up and strips down to his boxers straight away, pissing himself laughing. Then his nose randomly starts bleeding (he gets them anyway) and hes now covered in blood looking manic af not really knowing whats going on. I had a sink in my room but he ended up running all the way down the hall to the communal bathroom to sort himself and another girl poked her head in being like "eeehhh is C alright??" haha. But yeah he never holed on it like i did just got a really wonky confusing experience.
I smoked it with people a few times after that, and the presence of others made it more like i was watching my life as a sitcom and i was somewhere over my left shoulder. But not scary like the first one i had. I reckon being alone and also taken off guard was what caused the hole, and i never holed on it since. Its a lot more like ketamine than it is DMT in a lot of ways tbh. Just notoriously bad for being unpleasant or scary compared to those two.
So i discovered a few years later that the 5g bag of shitty leaf might have played a part after all tho. Salvia worked by reverse tolerance so taking more actually increases your sensitivity to it. So id been working that up the week prior to taking my first proper hit. Might have made a difference.
Another interesting note thats a bit more wooky-
Its traditionally used in tea or as quids. Makes for a much more grounded and less scary experience and is apparently really pleasant, id like to try it again as an adult not just looking to get high tbh.
But the wook part is that salvia divinorum is apparently a "water spirit" and burning it angers it hence the negative experiences. Now while i dont believe thats the causal element (pun fully intended) i reckon its a good analogy for how to approach the substance.
Someone asked me about what savlia was like and i ended up rambling into a full trip report so i thought id share it.
I first tried it when i was like 17-18 or something (im 31 now). I originally got 5g of raw leaf from a headshop in town but thats not extract so its really mild. Never gave me much more than a mild buzz smoking full joints of it.
So i ordered some extract when i was at uni not long after that. the vial turned up at my halls like sometime in the early afternoon and i took a bong of it (just a small one, it was 10x extract) on a complete whim. and "allegy dose" lol...
So the next thing i knew i never knew shit. It wasnt like i was too fucked on drugs. Id completely forgotten who i was, that i was a person, that id taken drugs, and was kinda existing in a really bright blocky lego-like environment. This was all totally matter of fact, as cos id forgotten who i was completely and all previous info id taken in / all memories were inaccessible to me, i just accepted my environment before me as if it were always the case / normal procedure.
There was the strongest sense of de ja vu iv ever experienced. Like nothing was recognisable but it was SO FAMILIAR like id "returned to the source" or "home" idk. Reviewing it afterwards, and this didnt really occur to me til a year or so later- im convinced to this day it was me being shown again what it was like "to know nothing" like the shit you experience in the first year or two of your life when you dont have a point of reference and youre trying to make sense of your environment but have nothing to relate any of it to becuse you havent seen enough patterns repeat yet.
At this point i became aware of the fact i was processing thoughts. like sentience literally developed again on the spot. to digress- iv only ever generally experienced a "rebirth" on hallucinogens in the sorta metaphorical sense, like the ability to take a fresh start mentally or watever. but this was literally like being born again. Ironically the point where the salvia was most potent was where i was accepting and amensic of my past, the process of it wearing off and coming to, and making sense of hte confusion is "the experience" i remember. The drug wearing off was just an accelerated version of learning how to sort all the sensory info coming in, and becoming aware of my own thoughts, and eventually ofc having an "ego" again.
In terms of how i "felt"...."trapped in a 2D picture" describes it perfectly. Unlike DMT which adds dimensions and depth to everything, dimensions had been removed here, 2D actually gives it too much credit lol. Not to say that the experience wasnt "deep" but the literal depth of the hallucination and the space that i was occupying was flat.
Started off i got a niggle that "nah something isnt right here" but i couldnt put my finger on it. Then as i mentioned i became aware of the fact i was thinking. Then i realised that i was once a person and that this wasnt the way things were. Next obvious, and completely calm conclusion, was that i had died and this was what the dying process was or the afterlife was or something (my concept of the afterlife at this time, before taking the salvia, was that as your perception of time dilates as you die the experience becomes infinite in the way you percieve it, so this was heavily projected onto what was happening in terms of how i came to the assumption). Then i started to make out Fabriclive 22 playing in the background and knew something was definitely not right lol. That reminded me where i was and who i was, and what year it was etc. I remember thinking "oh fuck wait youre sean!.....what the fuck is going on here then?!", then it hit me about 10 seconds (or infinity seconds) later that "heheh shit that salvia was strong".
At this point i realised i had a body, and that the environment i was percieving was a hallucination, and i opened my eyes. I was completely paralysed, like a sort of sleep paralysis feeling, not pleasant. Head was lyinh on the desk beside my bong which was miraculously upright and i was drooling. When i tried to move i felt an overbearing pressure against whatever way i tried to move (later realised this is because, aside from the fact it heightens fuck out of your senses so a breeze feels like a hurricane, it makes all ur hairs stand on end and go prickly, so anything pushing against them feels like a lot of force, i.e. clothes, people often strip on salvia).
At that point i got really worried that i was trapped and started to panic *just a bit*. After a short period i was able to turn around, and when i looked behind me i felt like i was being in some way "freed" from this hole in front of me, but my limbs were still locked in place and i couldnt tell them what to do, and turning back to face the way i was resulted in me like feeling like id be pulled back in over the event horizon at any minute.
This went on for idk how long, and eventually my appendages woke up enough that i was able to move to sit back on my bed, i was pretty shaken and rolled a joint. Mate came and visited me while i was skinning up. Hes like how u doing? Im like ehhhh....just try this....lol
So he takes a hit, stands up and strips down to his boxers straight away, pissing himself laughing. Then his nose randomly starts bleeding (he gets them anyway) and hes now covered in blood looking manic af not really knowing whats going on. I had a sink in my room but he ended up running all the way down the hall to the communal bathroom to sort himself and another girl poked her head in being like "eeehhh is C alright??" haha. But yeah he never holed on it like i did just got a really wonky confusing experience.
I smoked it with people a few times after that, and the presence of others made it more like i was watching my life as a sitcom and i was somewhere over my left shoulder. But not scary like the first one i had. I reckon being alone and also taken off guard was what caused the hole, and i never holed on it since. Its a lot more like ketamine than it is DMT in a lot of ways tbh. Just notoriously bad for being unpleasant or scary compared to those two.
So i discovered a few years later that the 5g bag of shitty leaf might have played a part after all tho. Salvia worked by reverse tolerance so taking more actually increases your sensitivity to it. So id been working that up the week prior to taking my first proper hit. Might have made a difference.
Another interesting note thats a bit more wooky-
Its traditionally used in tea or as quids. Makes for a much more grounded and less scary experience and is apparently really pleasant, id like to try it again as an adult not just looking to get high tbh.
But the wook part is that salvia divinorum is apparently a "water spirit" and burning it angers it hence the negative experiences. Now while i dont believe thats the causal element (pun fully intended) i reckon its a good analogy for how to approach the substance.
