Oh joy! It's one of this thing's things again. What is it this time, V?
......A smoothie.
Okay, so basically, for context. I had been using salvia divinorum for a few months on and off, eventually just ceasing use because it was way too challenging to work with. It felt oddly weak, and like nothing I did worked with it. Note that I was using a dry herb vaporiser that isn't capable of getting hot enough to actually vaporise the salvinorin A. I even tried a lighter, to no avail. It was stronger, but my 20x extract was definitely not 20x stronger, and definitely not producing these breakthroughs that so many people seemed to be experiencing. It felt hardly different from plain leaf.
Eventually, I was like "what gives?", so I asked the helpful AI chatbot in the TripSit Discord for some advice.
Simply put, "salvinorin A has a high vaporisation temperature. Try a torch lighter, which will get much hotter than a standard lighter, and especially a vape."
Makes sense, and it wasn't the first time I'd seen this advice. I decided to give it a whirl, not expecting much.
A complete recap on salvia (see the link towards the end for a fantastic experience report on it): It's a psychedelic dissociative. Cross ketamine's insane spatial and gravitational feel (as well as the sense of the body vanishing, hence it being a dissociative) with DMT's breakthroughs, and give it its own visuals. At high non-breakthrough doses, it's described as splitting things into infinite stacks of 2D layers. It has a nice saturation to it. At lower doses, before even the splitting of layers occurs, I'd call it cannabis, but acid, with a body high that actually feels wonderful. I'd say it's my absolute favourite feeling. You'll experience lower doses either by chewing or smoking plain leaf. Chewing lasts about 3 hours, while smoking is a significantly more chaotic feel, yet only lasts a few minutes.
And breakthrough doses.. God knows what'll happen to you. You'll definitely become 2D, you'll fold in incomprehensible ways, you'll be flung across space faster than light, you'll turn into a bookshelf for 8 months--the edge of the universe is the limit. You really need to be prepared for everything that can happen, and everything that can't. This is not a grounded chaos like LSD is--it's beyond bewildering. It makes a DMT breakthrough feel like a cigarette by comparison.
Salvia breakthroughs are for the fucking worthy. We really need a PSA on it, too, since a non-zero population seems to step into this herb believing it's similar to cannabis, particularly through misrepresentation. It's relatively obscure. Of course, I'm well informed, but not everyone is. I would not wish a salvia breakthrough on anyone, except, like, orange man. The only thing I can think of that would be more harrowing is the absolutely terrifying datura stramonium, which is essentially the monster in the woods that you never, EVER cross paths with. If I'm scared of it, you should be as well.
With that out of the way.
Out of the frying pan..
So, I load a full bowl of 20x, and light that sucker up. Smoke so thick that it looked solid filled the bottom, swirling. I hit, and Christ, it burns, and I only take a fraction in. We'll find out in just a moment why this is a blessing in disguise, BECAUSE--!
..into the fryer.
Within 10 seconds, I am as high as I have ever been on salvia--and it's not the peak..
..it's the moment of onset.
"Oh SHIT, GET INSIDE!!"
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen..
I practically dive into the foyer from my chair--note that this door doesn't quite close, so it can just be pushed open--still holding the mouthpiece with the salvia in it. I am also dragging the entire universe behind me with me.
"OPEN THE DOOR!!!!!"
As I slam through and pass the doorframe, it's as if I feel a crease form, and the universe has finished moving, folding flush against the apartment. I shut the door (maybe, probably..?), and look to the door to my floor of the apartment, on the left.
Eighteen, nineteen, I'm as high as I've ever been in my life, twenty-one..
A wall at the right of my vision has formed--a void--and is slowly moving towards the left. It feels as if my feet are the base of a clock hand, like my entire life was on a clock.. and my head..
..is rapidly approaching midnight.
It's the end of time.
"WHERE'S THE DOORKNOB!?"
As I reach and turn, I pick up the doorknob..
"OH SHIT, IT'S IN MY HAND.”
..and everything attached to it..
"OH SHIT--!"
..the door, the apartment, the planet, quite possibly the entire universe..
"--WHAT THE FUCK!?"
..and, as I say that, the clock strikes midnight.
This would be a hilarious sequence of events and dialogue, if my present state wasn't fucking fighting for my life. Half of my body has been swallowed by the void, the other half of my vision is now being wiped away.
I feel extreme confusion and turmoil, but it hasn't been long enough for panic to set in. It's not painful at all, which helps. In retrospect, the sensation was much preferable to nausea, due to this fact. God, I hate nausea.
The feeling is quite literally indescribable. As best as I can portray a rough idea.. all directions and sense of position have entirely ceased to exist. I feel like my entire body is spinning to the right, and all I can tell is that sometimes my head feels like it's being pulled down, and sometimes like it's being pulled up.
It feels like I'm in a wheel, being rolled. I bang, and I can feel something, but it feels futile. I turn my head, and my face feels like it's being flattened and stretched an unknown distance wide. Eventually, I can no longer turn--or sense turning.
This feels like two or three minutes at this point. I bang some more, and eventually, a hole appears. I can just make out something on the outside of this trap. There's light. I struggle for another minute. If I can just push harder..
..I slowly come to my senses, and my roommate helps me up off the ground. When I fell, and how hard, I have absolutely no idea. Probably not hard, as I wasn't in pain, and appeared fine after, if a little dirty. The void I was just in simply stays there. I pull my head out, and it looks like a hole in reality, slowly materialising.
My roommate steps back, and I analyse that void stretching through the entire length of the apartment at a downward angle, appearing to crash through the front walls. The blinds look like they're being pulled from the wall by gravity. My roommates hair is the same, same direction. Details on his clothes just hover off.
After a few moments, I just say,
"...WHAT the FUCK!?"
He doesn't say anything, looking almost as dumbfounded as me. I search around, just in awe. He says to me,
"What did you do?"
And then it clicked.
"Salvia?"
That was the effects of the salvia. I hadn't actually reached the end of time. That was the effects.
And it felt absolutely real.
At this point, I couldn't process what had just happened, so I just said "I smoked salvia, and then reality just.... left." He seemed amused, at least. He also mentioned that my roommates upstairs texted asking what the banging was.
I said something along the lines of "Jesus Christ, sorry," and I went outside to where my bong still was. It's still filled with smoke. I blow it out.
"Where did you leave the mouthpiece?"
The mouthpiece, with the salvia in it, that I was holding, as I dived into the foyer. That's a great question, because I remember holding it as I was absorbed into the void. It was in my right hand. I was holding it by a flat piece on the side. Where is it?
I look around everywhere, and I just don't see it. I go outside, I look there, I look inside. Back in the foyer, I eventually see a piece of it. The holder, and the rest of the main part? No idea.
I still don't know where the rest is.
Now, if you can believe it, I found the ride quite easy to live with having gone through. Not only that, but now that I have perspective on how the high goes, I can confidently say it's manageable, and especially enjoyable in its sheer level of chaos. I didn't know salvia felt like this, and now I do.
I called it a favourite in its lower doses, but now it seems like it could rapidly become a favourite in all regards. Being folded and swallowed by a void actually felt completely painless. I also noticed a distinct comedic edge to it. I wouldn't call what I went through funny, but, I mean, come on. Look at the series of events. This isn't the only time I detected a bizarrely humorous edge.
It's like a roller coaster ride, lined with sick and twisted humour, that won't ever crash. When you look at it like that, that actually sounds great. An instance of fatality due to salvia use is simply not documented--and that checks out from a pharmacological standpoint. Physically, damage done to the body is absolutely minimal. After the high faded, I was left with not even a hangover, or a racing heart, or.. anything.
It's my alter ego. A crazy, non-damaging roller coaster of a high with a comedic edge, which is very brief and ridiculously strong, yet entirely painless for its sinister nature, and can send you to who knows where. It builds no tolerance, and there's no evidence of regular users who enjoy the substance developing health problems with it.
It's perfect. It's so me.
I think my favourite account on salvia is this one, done by a Buddhist in a temple, no less. A fellow Lucy enjoyer, just like yours truly. The account is abjectly horrifying, but I enjoy the connection made at the end. Hellraiser. Why do people keep coming back to the puzzlebox?
Well.. I load a full bowl of 20x, and light that sucker up.
P.S.
Ayahuasca is a substance I capitalise out of respect. Salvia will end up the same, with a pronoun. I just can't pick a name.. The Shepherdess? Ska María Pastora? Yerba de la Pastora?
Or, my own term, part of my conlang: Ikr'aku'bai.
Regardless, I know for certain that salvia is a "She", and has plenty in store for me. I'm only 21, and have so many places to go.
