dubmeup wrote:
*adds to list of to do's*

Cheers

Well I feel inclined to add to this thread,as drugs and all out weirdness are sort of my forte.

The first time I did salvia I was gifted it by a friend of mine. This friend you must understand,is something of a psychonaut himself,so when he told me he didn't want this stuff because it scared him....I had to try it.

The extract he gave me was home extracted and he said it was extremely potent. I put off smoking it for weeks and weeks,until one night I was in a chat room...either ATS or DI. Can't really remember. An Irish fellow in there would always ask if I had tried it yet,and finally one night,convinced me to do it while he awaited my report eagerly in the chat room.

I'll never forget,Back to the Future was on TV. Other than the glow of the tube I turned all lights off,packed a bowl,took a deep breath and let the lighter touch the salvia just slightly. It hit me that I might as well do it now so I took it all,one bowl in one hit.
I held it for a long while,and as I exhaled I felt kind hands pulling me downward onto the bed. I closed my eyes and tried to get some some CEV's (closed eye visuals),but for some unknown reason was too confused to keep them shut for long.

Suddenly as I looked up,the shadows from the ceiling fan were cutting my room into slices,as if being trimmed by an extremely large pair of scissors. I became terrified as I was being lost in the pieces that were piling up and collecting on the ceiling.
They began to swirl in a sort of merry go round motion. Slowly,calmly I began to try and turn with them,then remember being increasingly frustrated as I couldn't figure out which way to turn.

That's when a woman's voice came from just to the left and above ,and she said "Don't be afraid. Just be what you are."
The effect this had on me was extremely calming,and i'm not sure what happened then as I sunk into the images behind my closed eyes once again.I remember suddenly sitting up then...I had turned the bedroom light on. I stared at the TV and thought, "What is this strange contraption? What an odd place this is..." and laughed. It was almost as if I was dissociated to the point of either possession,or in my mind,I was a clean slate. I had no idea what my name was,or what this place was,but
remember this childlike feeling of curiosity,and excitement that I was discovering it. It was then, that I remember glancing to the futon off to my right and seeing two grey aliens looking at one another as if deep in conversation. Their heads slowly turned to me,and then back as if they were completely disinterested in me,and seeing a human pop into their realm was nothing new to them.

Then I lay back for a while....and suddenly sat upwards,and I was sober. It was like waking from a dream,but I remembered it all. I was sweating profusely,and attempted to walk to the computer to report my findings,but my legs were wobbly as a baby giraffe.
I looked at the clock and only fifteen....maybe twenty minutes had passed. Excitedly,I smoked a cigarette,struggled to the computer,and told my Irish friend what had transpired.

It was a long time before I touched salvia again. I'm not sure if this stuff I had was an extremely potent extract,as my friend had said. Or it was just my sensitivity to it. Either way it was an amazing experience and I wouldn't consider it "fun" by any means,but certainly enlightening....

Doc

Excellent input Doc thank you!
I hear you with the bit about the "clean slate" feeling and the simple and basic questions that sort of humble you with your own inability to grasp the simplest of things I had this self same feeling the first few times I imbibed.
As far as the potency of the extract you tried goes, I'd say your experience was fairly standard for taking down a whole bowl of ANY strength extract below the silly ones The key is in drawing the whole bowl in in one breath I think. Then holding it down, holding it down. I find that I'm holding it down and my lungs feel like exploding and then as the effect comes in, the pain goes completely. I'm never even aware of drawing breath after that.
Incidentally I was told the other day by someone who visited his local head shop, that they don't sell it anymore. Apparently it's been made illegal

Yeah dub...they've been cracking down on Salvia and entheogens in a big way here in the US as well.

Now all I need to do is try bath salts before they're banned....

Haha, I'm not into the chemical stuff tbh.

My approach is natural entheogens in a natural environment (as in not man made). Don't get me wrong I've mixed it with the chems but I wouldn't be revisiting them. The difference between the plant world and the lab world is shall I say um marked?

Indeed. I recently came across a canabanoid/salvia - like legal substance. It feels like it's killing me at times lol
Luckily i've done enough drugs that my constitution is close to Keith Richards proportions,but i've heard of people dying from it.

Give me shrooms,salvia,weed,or hell....even LSD any day.

So Doc, shall we start a little convo about the nature of 'reality' based on our experiences?

I've hinted above that I am inclined to think that Haramein has it pretty close. As in this reality is a projection from the void that works as a feedback loop/toroid. Conciousness creating what it needs to experience, then feeding back to the void. A state of perpetual energy flow to and from, using geometry based on the platonic solids to form the 'structure' of what we perceive as physical 'reality'.

It is of course an ongoing process of gaining insight for me. Next week may hold different notions but despite my inability to express my thoughts in words that well, those thoughts/observations are pretty persistent.

I'd love to have a conversation about my beliefs,but you pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as i'm concerned.
Having seen and done the things i've done,I can't believe reality is as simple as we've been lead to believe.
Like my post about my experience....I've hallucinated before where it was somewhat open to interpretation,but there have been times like the salvia one,where there was no doubt. These things were there. The aliens were clear as day,and the woman's voice was as if someone was standing right beside me talking.

I try not to hold myself down to one view point of reality,but what you explained is very close to the same I hold.

Doc

I'd say trying not to hold down one view of reality is often the motivation of the psychonaut

Of course it is possible that having studied an avenue of research, it will colour one's perception when in the psychedelic state. That said, something like Salvia is so "in your face" in what it presents you and so many people report the same kind of stuff, that it tends to add weight to the idea that it is not coming from preconception. Rather it is actually opening you up to how physical reality really is made up.

We psychonauts must always be vigilant though

Indeed. Personally my own motivation has always been to sort of open my mind to all possibilities rather than find one that suits me.
Eventually that may be the goal,but right now i'm still on the chaos trip.
I believe that we can truly live out any reality we wish to,it's simply a matter of opening our mind to the possibility.
A forced insanity if you will.
To the outsider it may appear that you're "insane" but your personal view will be whatever you wish to experience it as.
Like my sig says :

“Your head’s like mine, like all our heads; big enough to con­tain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turn­ing stars. Whole uni­verses fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this mira­cu­lous cab­inet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The world turns our key and we play the same little tune again and again and we think that tune’s all we are.”

We can traverse different dimensions and ways of being by simply believing them. Sometimes entheogens can be the tool that helps us do that.In my opinion of course.

Doc