[I Like This Stuff!]
My field of vision/reckoning compacted around the bowl as I was smoking, and I lost track of the act of smoking itself, sort of, drifted out of real time consciousness. All the things around me, starting with my physical environment, slipped along long strings of color into the bowl, and as my focus moved outward I noted that it was no longer my living room, but the edge of a forest clearing, and I could sense a tribal grouping right outside my vision but within my awareness.-- several entities, not people because they weren't real folk, and an entity which felt to be the plant itself was sort of hinting that I should go join them, but I'd need to reconcile and let go of everything else first. My focus started slipping in a circle around the bowl, and my surroundings represented/were the facets of my life, the people I knew, my work, my interests, all of the stuff that piles up to form my manifest character. And some of them surprised me or made me balk strangely, like, ah, I had forgotten about that... And all of it went slipping into the bowl, with me sliding beyond it.-- eventually I realized that reality itself was being consumed in the flame of the bowl, and I got to watch everything I knew go physically sliding into the bowl, sucked in on itself, until finally I went around full circle in my field of vision and came to the bowl itself, shwooop, and then I said, "ah!" It felt very clever. At which point I came back a bit and realized that the bowl was bone dry, the lighter very warm, and I really had no clue how long I had been sucking on the bowl after it was dead, because even in forgetting the smoking was all there was, just absorbing.
[All Aboard!]
The Salvia burned bright orange and the smoke was voluminous. The rumble grew louder. The remainder of the unsmoked crushed leaves were perhaps eight inches away from me on a sheet of paper. I thought I should try to smoke one more bowl but found myself unable to reach the paper because the "train" I was on was slowly pulling away from the station! Somehow everything had dramatically changed! I was quite plainly on a train leaving a station. The train had low sides and no windows or roof. I could actually smell the environment change around me as the train left this reality. The train was moving faster and faster up a vortex, towards an entity I can only describe as "death" or "the great hereafter." The feeling of being pulled to my death was rather comforting. There was no fear, but I felt certain that this was what the dying process felt like. The pulling grew more and more forceful and I reached and stretched as hard as I could, trying desperately to reach the crushed leaves that lay a few inches away. It was nearly impossible to reach them. It took several dramatic attempts, but I was finally successful. The rumble I heard had begun to overtake my physical body and I was only able to pack a pinch into the bong with my shaking fingers. I managed to pull a little smoke through (I think) but was unable to find a place to put the bong down, due to the fact that the "train" I was on had left the station and there was no floor to put the bong on. I stretched for what seemed like minutes and finally put the bong down safely. I was totally, completely, and thoroughly removed from this reality. I was travelling now.
Every cell of my body was being pulled magnetically through the vortex. The cells on the front of my body were pulling, those on the back of my body were pushing, hard. For some reason I never looked at the center of the vortex (it was blindingly bright.) Instead I was looking at the world through the side walls of this unbelievable powerful tractor beam.
[Unexpected Satori]
In and out of ego consciousness ... about a dozen cycles and I started to realize that this was a Salvia experience. In 5 minutes I was in a reasonably normal state of mind. It was a bit of a fearful experience. I had hoped to experience a few pretty patterns ... and had been thrust into a Satori like state ... and I was not ready for that.
For years I have been meditating and had glimpses of such states ... Salvia was like a bolt of lightning pushing me over the edge. I was not ready.
Being an old hippie, years ago I did many psychedelics ... legal back then ... but they were all like lemonade compared to Salvia ... I had no idea of its power. I look forward to exploring meditation and Salvia Divinorum with friends.
[Green Stems]
I had decided that I was immune. I did not even bother turning off the lights anymore, I just closed my eyes, and took about 4 deep tokes, and started thinking about Texans. Texans, in their big cowboy hats, sitting down by a river, dissolving into the den of my childhood home. "Why am I having such strange thoughts, am I going crazy? I must fight to maintain reality... Hey wait! This MIGHT be the Salvia. This is what you have been trying for, just relax." My skin seemed to swell, boil, and crack open. Green stems grew out of my of my body, encircled and cocooned me. I was not terrified at all, only very slightly elated but primarily neutral. It was like a dream. My plant covered body grew in size, I pushed my head out through the wall. Finally, I turned my body inside out in an attempt to free my consciousness. Suddenly I was back in my body, back in the room. I was not sure how much time had elapsed... a few minutes?
[Simultaneous Lives]
Around the third hit, the salvia started to overtake me. Suddenly, I was unsure of where I was and, more specifically, when I was. I wasn't sure if I was sitting on the floor in my new apartment or on the couch of my old one the previous week. It felt as if I were in both places at once, smoking salvia. I felt I became unstuck in time. It seemed I was existing simultaneously in the past weeks trip, the current moment, and thousands of other times, both in the future and the past. Not only other times of my life, but of other's lives as well, all existing as a four dimensional hyperbeing linked through salvia. My vision had a very "edged" aspect, as if everything had an extra dimension. While I was laying on the floor with eyes closed, "time tripping", I didn't exactly see anything, but I had a definite sense of being in numerous places, a sort of mental map. As I came up out of the trance I was exhilarated, and started laughing in wonder and joy.
That is one thing I can not state strongly enough. Salvia is easily the most bizarre entheogen I have ever experimented with. The realm it gives access to seems vast and complex. I find salvia to be a unique, puzzling, and somewhat challenging entheogen. I look forward to further explorations in this dimension.
[Salvia and the Vortex]
The last thing I said was "That's enough for me", and handed off the pipe. It was as though I had been suddenly dropped into the best section of one of my finest trips with LSD, where reality has vanished and exquisitely detailed hallucinations can be observed and studied. I felt quite comfortable in this space, as it seemed I had been there before. The entire room took on a wet streaking effect, as though the visual input were being rushed past each side of my head from the back to the front. What struck me about this vortex was that each part of the distortion could be inspected in close detail. I could look into each brightly colored fold and enjoy the highlights and shadows within the abstractions as they convoluted, interpreting them as I wished. The couch felt like a huge astronaut's seat propelling me backward through space, and I wanted to say something about the richness of the experience, but I felt as though there were particle forces holding me frozen in place. I wanted to smile but couldn't seem to remember how to do so. I imagined I was sitting there looking quite bored, detached from my body and unable to express anything, yet within my consciousness a vast fragmenting occurred. I looked at my friends but found them difficult to view since the vortex was giving them pointed ears and extended chins. I didn't want to laugh at them so I looked away to my right where the plants were.
The lesson Salvia taught was "Don't take this reality thing so seriously. There is so much more than it. Take your time and enjoy it all, since you could be gone at any time." Indeed, I was not here for a short time, I might as well have been dead while under the influence of the Salvia, but certainly not dead in a negative sense. With this death came a rebirth, and a courage to continue, knowing that this illusion we call reality can be shattered at will, at any time, through the power of a delicate and velvety leaf.