Last year I got a couple of tiny Salvia clones on a whim...just over a year later, after a steep learning curve in how to look after them (through the savage winter of '09!) they are both fine, dandy and sporting massive leaves (after a brief period of battling daily heatstroke).

So today I decided to see how they were doing with a little test drive. I've tried smoking extract before with not much effect, probably due to poor smoking technique, and a few years ago tried the tincture - a serious mouth-burn and not much more.

I picked 5 of the biggest leaves (about 7" each in length), rolled 'em up into a tube, gave it a couple of chews and then held it under my tongue as I lay on the floor with the curtains drawn and listened to an audiobook.

Much to my surprise, I had to switch off the audio book after about 15 mins of intermittent chews because I was starting to feel some strongish mental effects and slight closed-eye visuals. I kept the quid under my tongue for another 15 mins, by which time most of the juice was gone from the leaves.

The salvia experience lasted for about an hour during which I lay in bed and explored the thoughts and visuals I was having. Moving was quite difficult (although there was no noticeable body load) and although there were no OEVs, the perspectives of the room and my sense of distance and space was unusual. At points I seemed very far away from my feet.

Internally the experience was most certainly psychedelic and had some similarity to DMT/aya or mushrooms. My mind was making patterns and enjoying circles and dots a lot. There was also a strong kinesthetic element going on as I felt movements - like the sensation of an otter or seal swimming underwater...

So - next time, I'm going to try it out with a few more leaves and some better preparation...I often get asked in the realms, "what are you doing here?" and don't seem to have a particularly good answer (although I always think I know what I'm doing when I go in )

sounds cool, i always wanted to try it as a quid but never had the chance to have fresh leaves.
Do you or anyone here think it could be done with dried salvia or even with an extract ?

Didn’t the bitter taste bother you? I’ve tried quidding before, but the bitterness, especially after having the quid in my mouth for a while, was too much to bear. And unfortunately, I didn’t get any appreciable effects.

Here’s my record-setting leaf from last summer – 16” long by 7” wide:




And here's what a "traditional" number of leaves for quidding looks like (13 pairs)

Dried leaves work just fine. Extracts may work, but quidding extract is a very inefficient way of ingesting salvinorin A.

Well is using the quidding method efficient in preceding smoked salvia for an experience? I have 10x extract which I am still curious to expiriment with.

13 leaves of that size is the traditional amount?!! That's quite a lot to fit in your mouth...5 leaves was a fair bit

I didn't find the bitterness too bad - over the years I've got used to ingesting some very bitter plant stuffs in the name of healing and exploration

And those are some monster leaves - congrats on growing such fine Sallys!

Its 13 pairs i believe. Usually around 20-25 fresh leaves is normal also the shamans in mexico usually have two sitters because of the salvia sleepwalk.

Some salvia, especially fresh, are potent enough to get a trip from 1 leaf. SWIM's salvia was that potent. And the leaf was not that big either. Not all salvia has large leaves like that picture, and not all have the same actives in them. SWIM's was extremely potent but only when fresh. Leaves a day old were much less potent and had different effects.

He had the famous “palatable clone” or so the vendor said. It wasn't bad tasting at all. It just tasted like a leaf.

The Blosser strain is often called the “palatable” strain. That’s what you must have had. The Hoffman-Wasson strain has very bitter leaves. That’s what I have.

The amount of salvinorin A and other active compounds varies. I remember reading that salvinorin A content can range from 1mg/g to over 5mg/g dried leaf.

The leaf size of various salvia divinorum strains are quite similar. Mine were as large as they were because of a perfect growing environment and lots of tender loving care - NOT because of the strain. (Give my green thumb some credit! My current plants have grown nearly 4 feet in 3 months - almost ready to harvest and take cuttings.) Clones from my plants grown in less than ideal conditions produced much smaller leaves.

One thing I’d like to add is that in SWIM’s salvia there were most definitely two active compounds present, or one was somehow degrading into another compound. When the leaves were fresh the effects were far more like LSD or mushrooms when taken as a quid. As the leaves aged (even in the refrigerator overnight) the effects became less like LSD or mushrooms and more like the smoked salvia experience. SWIM does not like the effects of old leaf one bit, and would just throw them out after a few hours if he didn’t use them.

I would like to know what this other compound is. It’s not salvinorin A. That’s the main active of the old leaf people use to smoke. The active present in SWIM’s fresh leaf was either stronger, or more plentiful, and with much nicer effects. SWIM loved it. It was as good as LSD or mushrooms. The old dry leaf just plain sucked.

Some salvia apparently lacks the other compound. SWIM’s friends salvia is exactly the same whether fresh or old. In my opinion it’s vastly inferior to what SWIM had. It seems like most people have this other variety. That’s too bad. The vendor SWIM got his from no longer sells live plants of salvia. His plant died and he doesn’t know where to get the same kind of salvia. He doesn’t like what his friend has one bit. It tastes terrible, and the effects are not the same when the leaves are fresh.

How many varieties of salvia are there, and how can SWIM get the kind he had before? Which variety has the mushroom/LSD like effects when the leaves are fresh? Is there a vendor that still carries that kind?

Here’s a link that should answer some of your questions:

Clones of Salvia divinorum

All salvia divinorum strains contain a variety of salvinorins and other active compounds, some of them more active than salvinorin A, but in much lower concentrations. Maybe your leaves contained one of these other active compounds in a much higher than normal concentration?

Here’s a good paper describing many of these compounds:

Localization of Salvinorin A and Related Compounds in Glandular Trichomes
of the Psychoactive Sage, Salvia divinorum

I feel like salvia affects kinesthetics like no other drug. The sheer oddity of touch is bizarre on salvia for me.

It's been a very long time since I've taken salvia in any form, though I have some 20x lying around somewhere. I've always been interested in trying the quid method, how does it compare to using a tincture? My first salvia experience many years ago was with a tincture and I loved it. The slow onset, the feeling of being pulled on by the universe, and the way it seemed to make everything sound musical. One of my very first entity experiences was on salvia tincture as well.