Salvia Report Compilation
[from Dale Pendell's Pharmako/Poeia]
Effects--It's
like a mirror with no frame:
some don't see it at all;
some do, but don't like what they see.
It's like cat paws,
soft cat paws pressing,
or like a bunch of bird tongues lapping the mind.
Or like tiny fingers,
the way ivy fingers reach out to climb a wall . . .
[S.S.Sally]
There were voices in the distance, urging me on to the boat. Finally, I closed my eyes and I was on a ship. I could see the deck under me, I could feel my back against the mast, and the ocean was all around me. The voices were quiet. I was alone and rocking softly with the waves.
[Bizarro World]
... I will preface this anecdote by saying that I am an experienced user of many mind altering substances, some of these I have felt profoundly transported me to some place else. As "gone" as I have been over the years, nothing can compare to this experience with Salvia.
I was not counting on much and preparing myself for a disappointment. Disappointed I was not. It was a profoundly bizarre experience that words cannot describe. Let there be no mistake, this is NOT like other drugs, not like any other hallucinogen I have ever used.
[Salvia and Childhood]
Then the realization hit me that this feeling was the way I felt as a child, perhaps when I was 2 or 3. I began to picture myself sitting in the porch of my childhood house. I was 2 years old again. Memories and emotions from 20 years ago were flashing through my head as if they happened yesterday. Time started to take on a whole new meaning, It lost all form. It was as if all of time existed simultaneously, past, present, and future. I could see how my own consciousness had changed as I had grown up, and I could see what was going to happen in the future. Again and again I moved back the feelings of childhood, as these were the most comforting.
[Becoming a Tibetan Monk]
The following description is but a pale and futile attempt to describe an experience which makes words like: intense, severe and shattering seem hollow and meaningless. I was a monk working somewhere in the monastery grounds. I was wearing thick heavy robes tied at the waist with a heavy rope. There was a nun about 10 feet away, to my left there were other monks and nuns in the vicinity also. We were tending to the gardens. I was nearest to a set of concrete steps which divided two levels of grasses. There was a monastery building off in the distance to the left. I could hear some bells ringing in one of the towers. The sun was bright, the sky was blue, mostly clear and there was a cool wind blowing from my right. I felt a little tired since I had been working since dawn and was looking forward to returning to the monastery later on. I was not surprised by any of this and had no recollection of any other existence. My thoughts seemed calm and I felt utterly at peace with who I was and where I was. I knew that I was real and that my reality was real. Suddenly I was wrenched from my universe into an utterly alien and complex universe. Suddenly I had a new set of memories thrust violently into my brain and my peaceful normal life was shattered forever. I was left sitting in a swivel chair with a water pipe in my hand and a shocked expression on my face. I remembered who I was.
[Large Greenish Reality]
I entered a large greenish reality with the two of us lying in the same relative position. The bed had pillars or bed posts which seemed to be organic and treelike with twining vines reaching up to a canopy of leaves. There seemed to be some sort of music playing like long melodic chords. [The trance deepened. The following becomes very hard to describe:] The steady beat of my heart infiltrated itself into the very structure of the universe. Space and time seemed no longer separable. The dimensions of the room had expanded such that the four walls were now too far away to perceive. The bed seemed endlessly reflected in all directions stretching out to infinity but measured not in terms of distance but in terms of heartbeats. There was exactly one heartbeat separating each pillar stretching out from my feet, head and to either side of me. Each reflected bed was one heartbeat by one heartbeat in size and was separated from its kaleidoscopic reflections by a single heartbeat in each direction. Every now and again my partner would move and a beautiful tinkle would sound as if she was wearing a tiny bell. The sound was incredibly beautiful and I desired to hear nothing but the sound of that bell. Our breathing sounded normal but my heart beats continued to measure out the depth and breadth of the roomscape.
[Smoldering Foliage]
Images of smoldering foliage, often quite abstract, continued to pervade the experience. Picture a leaf smoldering along a single edge, for example. As it's outer edge dissolves in an orange glow, a white tracery of ashen veins remains. The skeletal tracery of that leaf reveals a fractal microcosm as complex as the entire plant, or a stand of them, would seem to ordinary sight. As he continued to toke, our hero's thoughts drifted to the flickering candle. Imagination was at once a sole figure tending a fire atop a craggy desert outcropping, and the observer of that figure. The candle was at once the fire, and a lantern illumining the figure's tent as seen from without. The howl of the coyote could not be 'heard', but could readily be imagined.
Some have characterized shrooms as "solar" in character, Salvia as "lunar". To the extent that Salvia reflects rather than blazes, I at last appreciate the analogy. I'll close with the observation that for being less bright, the moon has been no less the subject of reverie and fantastic musings. Nor will my appreciation for Salvia be lessened by it's subtlety.