Mercury (Hg)
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2010
- Messages
- 105
Originally submitted to Erowid
The following is information either compiled from research (either by myself or others) or derived from my own theories and ideas.
It is my personal belief that most people who try Salvia walk into it with little foreknowledge of its effects and potency. Salvia Divinorum should NOT be taken as a substitute for marijuana (let alone, any other psychoactive.) While I've found mutual effects between THC and Salvinorin A, this is on a lower level; the two are nothing alike overall.
Be prepared for several of the following sensations and effects:
I find, in general, the Salvia experience isn't in and of itself a very pleasant one. It requires much more work on behalf of the user to enjoy and tolerate its effects. I also have not often reached a higher plateau. It's my belief that to reach a breakthrough point, one must have a higher-than-normal concentration of Salvinorin a in the brain in a small window of time (much in the same way one "breaks through" with DMT.) If one fails to breakthrough, smoking more will only increase the "stoning" effect of Salvia. (This "stoning", however different from cannabis, shares some properties from marijuana.)
It is not recommended to smoke Salvia in a cigarette or joint. Because the boiling point (temperature at which Salvia will evaporate) is around 760 degrees Celsius (which is around 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit), it is difficult to smoke. It is recommended to inhale deeply, as fast as one can, and to hold the smoke in for as long as possible.
Due to its high boiling point, Salvinorin A often travels to the lungs as a liquid. I'm not sure if Salvinorin A is soluble in water, however it's possible water can retain Salvinorin A regardless (kinetically). I would not recommend using a water bong. A smaller pipe with low resistance is recommended (i.e. a small bong with a wide opening and stem.) Vaporizers intended for marijuana use often don't go high enough (usually only 400 degrees Celcius) to boil off Salvinorin A from Salvia. One could also do an extract of standard leaves or extract Salvinorin A to make a "tincture." These tinctures are absorbed sublingually (keep them in your mouth, don't swallow, and that's what she said.) Leaves soaked in extract can also be help in the mouth for effect.
I should probably get to the point where I explain the relevance of the title. I've been on 225mg of Venlafaxine (brand name Effexor) for almost a year of my life. Beforehand I was chronically depressed, overly anxious, and intrigued with suicide. While Venlafaxine treated the symptoms of depression, it didn't treat the cause of my depression, which was highly integrated with my beliefs. I realized "reality is subjective", "no one can truly know anything", "there is no higher purpose to life", and that "god does not exist." This is extremely concise in regard to the full scope of my beliefs, but these thoughts were most prevalent and basic. And while my emotional symptoms disappeared with SNRI use, my general thought pattern did not.
My first time trying Salvia Divinorum was also the first time I'd tried any drug. (By any drug I mean in the conventional sense, although it was legal at the time.) Nothing happened, however.
Recently I acquired Salvia out of state where it's still legal, and had my first "true" experience with the drug. Although it was relatively minor, it proved to invoke the second most powerful revelation of my life.
Shortly after smoking, still in the grip of the drug, I went to sleep as I was tired. The next day, I awoke still slightly altered, but in a different sense. Although I was not "tripping", something was definitely off and I wasn't baseline.
Throughout the day I had increased feelings of comfort and empathy, so much so that at work I stared out the window at plant-life and realized that "people have as much of an understanding of reality as plants do." I realize plants aren't cognitive beings, but their sensory of the world makes them as blind to "our world" as we are to the next one. We have more complex systems for a variety of senses, yet these senses are inadequate in depicting reality, as they themselves are filters and it's what we don't or can't experience that contributes to the mislead perceptions people have.
This was extremely liberating. Even though I never believed truth was obtainable, perhaps it could be approximated to some degree. It's highly irrelevant however. Because I don't believe in a higher purpose in life, I think I blindly assigned one to myself as "the quest for truth." Having obsessed over it, I now realize the futility and, although I'll continue with consciousness-expansion, it will be for novel purposes and innate curiosity.
The feelings and realizations I had were the result of Salvia intoxication. Never before have I had such a radical shift (positive or otherwise) in my outlook on life, amongst other things. I no longer need Venlafaxine, and will taper off my dose until I'm off of it completely.
The irony is that when I first tried Salvia, it was in Delaware, back when it was legal. The legality changed since, almost solely due to the incidental use of Salvia (several months prior) to a teen's suicide. See Brett's Law for more on this as well as this.
Of course the parents would never want to own up to their responsibility in their sons life and would rather blame some harmless, potentially beneficial psychedelic as the sole cause of his death. I'll write them a letter regarding my experiences. Although I doubt it'll stop their burning crusade of an ill-selected scapegoat, maybe it'll help them think twice about their role (or maybe lack thereof.)
The ability for one to benefit mentally from psychedelics is largely dismissed or ignored. While I don't think Salvia is unique in its abilities to cause paradigm shifts, it certainly helped me in the greatest way possible. I no longer contemplate suicide, and, unafraid of death, I will enjoy my life to the fullest, without the aid of pharmaceuticals or other external sources.
The following is information either compiled from research (either by myself or others) or derived from my own theories and ideas.
It is my personal belief that most people who try Salvia walk into it with little foreknowledge of its effects and potency. Salvia Divinorum should NOT be taken as a substitute for marijuana (let alone, any other psychoactive.) While I've found mutual effects between THC and Salvinorin A, this is on a lower level; the two are nothing alike overall.
Be prepared for several of the following sensations and effects:
- Loss of control of internal monologue.
This can be likened to the thought disorder of derailment. You will continue to make observations in your head, however you will be under the impression they're not yours. You may feel that you're channeling entities or that people are talking in your head through your own inner voice. Whatever "they" are talking about is barely relevant to sensory input, and often nonlinear. - Discomfort; irritability.
I feel as though physical irritations are exacerbated when I smoke Salvia. One might be hyper-aware of things such as hair in the face, dry eyes, sore muscles, etc. This is particularly disconcerting. - Deconstruction of reality.
I've had fleeting experiences with this stage and can only comment on its softer nature. At one point in my Salvia experience I "saw" sections of my vision separate in a checkerboard pattern. Each square of the grid of my vision was carried underneath the arm of a "human-shaped entity", walking from left to right. This gave way to the notion that consciousness of a higher entity (such as yourself) is composed of smaller individuals, unbeknownst to the higher entity. More on this later. - Loss of sensory adaptation.
Normally, in the presence of a unrelenting stimulus, your brain will "get used" to such input and effectively ignore it. Whenever I smoke Salvia, I'm under the impression that pressure detected by my body as a result of gravity (for instance, feeling the floor against your feet or your hands resting on your legs) are especially apparent and pulsate at that. I believe this is what people talk about when they say they feel like they're being "pulled down" or there's more "gravity." It's very disorienting, and is powerful enough that you feel as though anything against these points is super solid and suspending you. I also feel this is the description people give of "being in concrete", particularly with loss of motor control. - Weirdness.
Salvia is weird. Not strange, not peculiar, but WEIRD. Very much so. At several point of my trips I experience "entities" laughing at and ridiculing myself. This could set off someone of a more vulnerable mind, however I was likewise amused. It was reminiscent of an evil carnival (however ridiculous, this feeling and emotion is very often reported.) The experience itself seems ludicrous. - Excessive sweating.
For me this is restricted to my hands, and puts them in a "cold sweat" feeling. - Strobing.
Strobing refers to the illusion of (usually) rapid oscillation of sensory input. This effect has always been extremely apparent while smoking marijuana and effects my vision and sense of touch. I found Salvia to induce this phenomena, albeit to a greater extent, and only visually. The difference between it and marijuana strobing is very subtle; I can't really tell what it is. To those of you who haven't heard this term before, it's the mental equivalent to the choppy frame-rate of a videogame. However it isn't more like skipped frames, but a purposefully reduced frame rate. I'm going to use a visual analogy. Movement and touch is still differentially fluid and linear (for instance objects in motion don't jump from one place to the next, but travel smoothly from one frame to the next), it's just the time spent on each "frame" increases (in that you're viewing the frame for longer periods of time). This effectively makes time "slow down" (while in reality, your brain's "sped up".) While internally, you feel time move along as normal, externally time becomes sluggish and lethargic.
I find, in general, the Salvia experience isn't in and of itself a very pleasant one. It requires much more work on behalf of the user to enjoy and tolerate its effects. I also have not often reached a higher plateau. It's my belief that to reach a breakthrough point, one must have a higher-than-normal concentration of Salvinorin a in the brain in a small window of time (much in the same way one "breaks through" with DMT.) If one fails to breakthrough, smoking more will only increase the "stoning" effect of Salvia. (This "stoning", however different from cannabis, shares some properties from marijuana.)
It is not recommended to smoke Salvia in a cigarette or joint. Because the boiling point (temperature at which Salvia will evaporate) is around 760 degrees Celsius (which is around 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit), it is difficult to smoke. It is recommended to inhale deeply, as fast as one can, and to hold the smoke in for as long as possible.
Due to its high boiling point, Salvinorin A often travels to the lungs as a liquid. I'm not sure if Salvinorin A is soluble in water, however it's possible water can retain Salvinorin A regardless (kinetically). I would not recommend using a water bong. A smaller pipe with low resistance is recommended (i.e. a small bong with a wide opening and stem.) Vaporizers intended for marijuana use often don't go high enough (usually only 400 degrees Celcius) to boil off Salvinorin A from Salvia. One could also do an extract of standard leaves or extract Salvinorin A to make a "tincture." These tinctures are absorbed sublingually (keep them in your mouth, don't swallow, and that's what she said.) Leaves soaked in extract can also be help in the mouth for effect.
I should probably get to the point where I explain the relevance of the title. I've been on 225mg of Venlafaxine (brand name Effexor) for almost a year of my life. Beforehand I was chronically depressed, overly anxious, and intrigued with suicide. While Venlafaxine treated the symptoms of depression, it didn't treat the cause of my depression, which was highly integrated with my beliefs. I realized "reality is subjective", "no one can truly know anything", "there is no higher purpose to life", and that "god does not exist." This is extremely concise in regard to the full scope of my beliefs, but these thoughts were most prevalent and basic. And while my emotional symptoms disappeared with SNRI use, my general thought pattern did not.
My first time trying Salvia Divinorum was also the first time I'd tried any drug. (By any drug I mean in the conventional sense, although it was legal at the time.) Nothing happened, however.
Recently I acquired Salvia out of state where it's still legal, and had my first "true" experience with the drug. Although it was relatively minor, it proved to invoke the second most powerful revelation of my life.
Shortly after smoking, still in the grip of the drug, I went to sleep as I was tired. The next day, I awoke still slightly altered, but in a different sense. Although I was not "tripping", something was definitely off and I wasn't baseline.
Throughout the day I had increased feelings of comfort and empathy, so much so that at work I stared out the window at plant-life and realized that "people have as much of an understanding of reality as plants do." I realize plants aren't cognitive beings, but their sensory of the world makes them as blind to "our world" as we are to the next one. We have more complex systems for a variety of senses, yet these senses are inadequate in depicting reality, as they themselves are filters and it's what we don't or can't experience that contributes to the mislead perceptions people have.
This was extremely liberating. Even though I never believed truth was obtainable, perhaps it could be approximated to some degree. It's highly irrelevant however. Because I don't believe in a higher purpose in life, I think I blindly assigned one to myself as "the quest for truth." Having obsessed over it, I now realize the futility and, although I'll continue with consciousness-expansion, it will be for novel purposes and innate curiosity.
The feelings and realizations I had were the result of Salvia intoxication. Never before have I had such a radical shift (positive or otherwise) in my outlook on life, amongst other things. I no longer need Venlafaxine, and will taper off my dose until I'm off of it completely.
The irony is that when I first tried Salvia, it was in Delaware, back when it was legal. The legality changed since, almost solely due to the incidental use of Salvia (several months prior) to a teen's suicide. See Brett's Law for more on this as well as this.
Of course the parents would never want to own up to their responsibility in their sons life and would rather blame some harmless, potentially beneficial psychedelic as the sole cause of his death. I'll write them a letter regarding my experiences. Although I doubt it'll stop their burning crusade of an ill-selected scapegoat, maybe it'll help them think twice about their role (or maybe lack thereof.)
The ability for one to benefit mentally from psychedelics is largely dismissed or ignored. While I don't think Salvia is unique in its abilities to cause paradigm shifts, it certainly helped me in the greatest way possible. I no longer contemplate suicide, and, unafraid of death, I will enjoy my life to the fullest, without the aid of pharmaceuticals or other external sources.
