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Source Vaults of Erowid – contributor Soav

I am a 23-year-old female (22 at the time of the below mentioned salvia event) with a fairly respectable quota of psychedelic experiences. Aside from the usual suspects, namely tobacco, cannabis and alcohol, my trips prior to the below mentioned incident had involved drugs such as magic mushrooms (a few different sorts), amphetamine (the street variety), MDMA crystals, ecstasy, H.B. woodrose seeds, herbal ecstasy and 20x salvia extract.

At 02:45 in the morning of a few months ago, my friend B and I decided rather spontaneously to have a go at my 40x salvia divinorum extract. …. B had tried salvia only once before and had found it quite frightening; I, by contrast, have tried 20x extract twice and whilst it was definitely strong and utterly unique, I had not experienced anything close to what I’d heard is possible with salvia.

In any case: at a quarter to three in the morning B and I tracked down my elusive pipe filters, excitedly poured one fourth of my one gram salvia vial into my pipe – forgetting to line the bottom with tobacco as I did the other two times I tried this absurd drug – and turned down the volume of the television……..I tied my ankle to my desk leg, as has so far always been my salvia-specific custom – much as I (somewhat) trusted B to prevent me from jumping out the window or otherwise injuring myself, I like to remain on the cautious side, particularly with drugs that strike fear deep into my heart the way salvia does.

My hand was trembling slightly as I brought the pipe to my lips (no other drug induces such terror within me; I had not yet had a bad as opposed to merely unpleasant salvia trip but could easily imagine it happening) and quickly lit the plant material. Taking a deep drag and leaning back in my computer chair, I estimate that I had inhaled about half of the 250 mg. I looked at my mirrored wall clock and counted along with it until I reached about 15 seconds, when I was overcome with that highly particular salvia feel that I have learnt to recognise. It’s a very difficult sensation to describe in spite of it being so tangibly invasive: in essence, it feels as though my auditory and visual realities pulsate and fold inwards with light levels seemingly diminishing to leave an atmospherically brownish-reddish screen covering everything…………….

At this point I had no concept whatsoever of the fact that I had smoked salvia only a couple of minutes previously. B told me afterwards that I was looking very KO’d indeed throughout most of the trip, what with slouching over the desk, staring fixedly at the TV and groaning.

Throughout the peak of the experience I kept hearing that very loud, rhythmic sound; it was tinny, metallic and of low frequency, and there seemed to be incoherent voices mingled inside it. The handful of flashbacks from this sound that I experienced in the days following the trip rang bells of odd, creepy familiarity in my brain, but I have not been able to place what the voices were saying and what the sound resembled.

Baseline was reached within the hour, by which point a sense of physical and mental exhaustion was the only thing remaining of the trip. I was visited by flashbacks for weeks afterwards, although none were so invasive as to actually disturb normal functioning. Whilst B found the experience predominantly unsettling, I consider it one of the most incredible experiences of my life, and I hope to one day be brave and comfortable enough to try twice that dose [sic!!].