[Use A Sitter!]
There was some kind of force field not unlike gravitation pulling me strongly in a certain direction. I felt like this field was forcing me to go to its source which was not inside the room but outside.
At this time I saw the force field like some sort of sparkling psychic plasma which covered me and starting crawling and covering everything I touched. The look of the transparent plasma I saw is very hard to describe. It made me and everything I touched a bit sparkling and different and at one time it seemed like another reality trying to slide over the usual reality. I was a bit afraid to get my girlfriend also trapped in this field and so I left the room and closed the door and followed the force and went down the second staircase. At this point I felt quite sober and clear mentally but the force field was still there pulling on me but now I tried to oppose it with my will and this sort of worked but was very difficult. At this point another friend who lived there just came in and looking at me he asked if I was felling well. I said "Yes. . but I don't wanna follow this. . (force)" and than I realized that he was not feeling it and I was the only one. I felt embarrassed as a experienced psychonaut to be in a situation like this but I was happy not to be alone. I now had the sensation that the forcefield is getting weaker and it was easier to control it. I told him that I have smoked a new plant and that it is unlike anything I had before and very strong but I could handle it.
[Beginner's Notes]
A few seconds later the "Salvia Twist" began. It was like a smooth rocket assisted
takeoff into a twisting psychedelic spiral. There was the sensation of a heavy
electric "pinch" that grows out of, then replaced all sensations from the body,
a very pleasurable sensation than in effect obliterated all conscious connection
to the body and left me floating in a visual collage of color and sensation
for about three min. The most interesting feature of this was I retained full
consciousness of who I was and could think quite clearly during the experience.
All that I remember at this point was being very confused. I was mystified at the whole idea of being a human being. I felt as though I wasn't one anymore! Nothing about us made sense - not even the voices I was hearing.
I was slowly coming to grips with the fact that I was human, but it was more like I had decided to play the role of one, and that I was acting. My vision was still unstable but it came back very quickly, and with it so did my ego, so to speak. I then became who I was, capable of contemplating and understanding my human reality.
[The Infinite Ambivalence of the Overmind]
Liftoff. There was virtually no transition: the room broke up rapidly into hard-edged, earth-toned (green and yellow) patterns, and my conscious ego was instantly erased. I had no idea whether my eyes were open or closed, and I had absolutely no recollection that I had, just seconds before, smoked something. In fact, there was no sense of self whatsoever; rather, I felt as if my body had atomized (this was, I think, due to the initial prickly body load, as if my molecules were merging into those of the sofa) and I was part of the swirling mass of universal matter. Plainly put, I felt like I had died, and it was the most exquisite terror I have ever experienced. I was strongly aware of an Other, an ambivalent observer who was, I felt, chastising me for what I later realized was disingenuous motivation: the desire for a thrill. The Other was a kind of cosmic trickster, who seemed to be saying: 'You want to know what this is? I'll show you, and I don't think you're ready!' I cannot think of any analagous experience, drug-induced or otherwise. The feeling was almost unbearably intense, and I felt utterly alone, merged with a kind of universal energy stream beyond our earthly dimension, a kind of agnostic reincarnation detached from any religious significance.
Salvia is an almost unbearably powerful teacher plant. I can say without exaggeration that it seriously altered my worldview, and I am now, two months later, still pondering the significance of my encounter. I am not a recreational drug user, but I think that my cavalier attitude towards the salvia experience resulted in a trip that was perhaps more intense than it might have been had I approached things with a more respectful attitude.
It was neither good nor evil, but rather profoundly ambivalent. I have since begun a reassessment of my thoughts regarding religious experience and the afterlife..
[Entering Reality]
'Trip' does not even begin to describe the experience of Salvia D., it is more of a mental breakthrough.
With the room darkened I smoked half of a leaf and as I was going to smoke the other half, I completely left my body. The events of this experience are extremely difficult to relate in words. My existence melted away and I was aware that there was so much more in the universe. I was being pulled from my body in what I can best describe as waves. I was looking at my girlfriend through my body from inside of my mind, which was composed of the entire universe. I was slightly afraid of leaving my body because I suddenly had the feeling that I was in reality. I had completely forgotten that I had smoked the Salvia and this was now reality.
I saw what was beyond my comprehension. It was much like seeing the entire universe from a far point and being able to grasp all of reality. I began to slip out of my body and I had a faint glimpse of the reality that exists in the universe. Suddenly thoughts rushed through my head, but almost too quick to get a good grasp on them. I saw all of the 'dimensions' of the universe. I began to think about odd things such as sex. I had a flash of my girlfriend and I naked, only I was looking at it from the point of view of me as a child. I couldn't quite comprehend any of it. I began doubting my reality, that is I was unsure if my life was real.
[Three Evenings with Salvia]
I had a very distinct impression of the kitchen of my old house when I was about seven years old. It seemed as though I was standing up in the kitchen looking out the window into the backyard. To my right was my mother, standing quietly, smiling, with her funky late seventies hair-do and glasses. And to my left was my sitter. It was obvious that he did not belong in this space. In fact the kitchen reality actually bent around him like a sheet of plastic. Just like my first Salvia experience, the feeling of a reality membrane was very tangible. But remember that all of these "visuals" were not actually visual. They were more like phantom closed-eye mental images and strong feelings. However if I concentrated on details, such as my mother's face, I could see it quite clearly. As the imagery faded I achieved a rare clarity of thought. Although it is hard to verbalize, I began to understand WHY things are the way they are. I was overcome with a sense of "of course!" when I considered things. For example, I wondered why my sitter was sitting so quietly in the dark. Then I realized, "Of course!" he's sitting there... he's supposed to be sitting there. It's almost as though I already knew that an event had happened before it actually happened, thus creating a sense where nothing I saw was surprising or unexpected.
[The Leaves of the Virgin]
And then, quite simply yet quite extraordinarily, my doors of perception were wrenched from their hinges.
I sat on the floor of my bedroom. I stood in my bathroom and looked at my distorted face in the mirror. I felt extremely cool in my limbs and climbed under the blankets on my bed. I found the light to my disliking and turned it off. Mundane occurrences all, except for the fact that I carried them out simultaneously. I perceived my existence as phase space. The envelope of the present was extended to where I glimpsed that what are normally seen as sequential actions occurred all at once in the here and now. Time was not a cycle or a wave or a line. Time, all of it, was a point, a singularity.
Lying on my bed in the darkness, I closed my eyes and lost all sense of my physical self. I roared through a void. I was surrounded by a space of myriad expanse, yet there was nothing there. I was exploding in all directions at once, expanding, twisting outward, yet there was nothing through which to be moving. I flew, I floated, I flourished. The dark matter which filled me and which I encompassed sang with energy. Just as the abyss about me had a form, so its silence was an ecstatic polyphony. My senses rang with delight.
[Montmartre Rolls Up]
I smoked the leaf, turned the lights out, and laid down saying "salvia salvia salvia salvia salvia" all the time; I wanted to bring my consciousness with me, into the unconscious (what a joke!) (or maybe not, after all...) Suddenly, my consciousness was recrystallized as a deserted neighborhood of Paris. I was this neighborhood... and neighborhoods of other European cities as well!
As soon as I realized this, I/the neighborhood rolled neatly up, like a carpet. Forwarded on a kind of moving belt, I was saying to myself: "Nice! I smoked some salvia, and I am still conscious!" Then, I was feeling covered by roots, and I started travelling upwards in a kind of elevator; I was feeling surrounded by lots of ...very young beings? They were trying to communicate with me, but I was just moving too fast.
Then I noticed that the music was speaking to me. But I was not listening : it was so beautiful around! I found myself walking along a little creek, in a sun-pierced, dark and warm forest. The atmosphere was quiet; the only sounds came from the creek. My attention was following it like the needle on a record : Over the tiny rolling stones... Through quietly gurgling channels...Flickering sun reflections... When it dawned on me that these were all visual translations of the music! I was walking by a creek made of music, with rays of sun touching the ground here and there... A subtle and endearing moment.
Slowly, awareness of my body came back; I emerged and I laughed. Elapsed time : 4 minutes. I felt a bit drained after the experience... But it was wonderful. Thank you salvia!