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Salvia Divinorum – J D Arthur

Upon returning, I was in a very deep state and felt that I’d gone very far.  I felt as though I’d been taken out of my body and returned.  As I came into normal awareness, I had a very strong sensation of shrinking of the self.  This sensation consisted of feeling as though ‘I’ consisted of a rod or channel that ran vertically below my "mind."

My physical body was only peripherally connected to this self. The physical was an addendum or a footnote to this central awareness. Although I was gradually becoming more aware of my ordinary surroundings, this clear, central perception was paramount.

To characterize this awareness as "inner" is not wholly accurate. It was as if this "channel" was my real "body"; my primary perceptual reference was this elongated "self." It seemed as if this is always the real body, but due to a perceptual "mistake," the normal physical body is taken as real.

The real self does not have arms or legs, only a central awareness. This awareness, however, does have perceptions of that which is "outside" of itself.  One of the areas outside itself, that it can choose to perceive, is the complex of perceptions that arises through a physical body. It can also choose, under certain circumstances, to not experience those perceptions and can withdraw, the way a hand is withdrawn from a glove. Our characteristic miscalculation is that we perceive ourselves as the glove, rather than the owner of the hand.

It seems that if this state of shrinking of the self could be maintained, deepened, and entered at will, a whole new perceptual matrix would emerge.