Dosage: 20-40mg 20x standardized

SWIM has broken through before, but has to smoke 100mg, quite inconsistent with the breakthrough estimates here. The salvia is legit, from a highly rated online vendor.

Now, he has a 10inch glass bong and he loads it into a small bowl, takes his torch lighter, and lights directly for 8-10secs while pulling, takes it all in 1-2 hits, holding each hit for 1min. Is this too long?

SWIM knows the fault comes in either his unique biochemistry or poor smoking technique, probably the latter. Any suggestions to improve smoking technique?

Your technique sounds fine. I don't question your extract either. It might just be tolerance. It varies widely from person to person, with Salvia especially. I used to need at least 100mg of a good 20x to reach breakthrough. Over time, my tolerance has fallen, and now I very much agree with gibran's guide.

The only advice that I can give is: smoke moar Salvia!

Most salvia extracts are not what they're advertised to be or have adulterants added.

I'd hold for more like 20-30 seconds and than take another full hit.

That's true, but most extracts (from reputable vendors) are potent enough. Even if they're not the actual strength they're advertised as.

And yes, maybe 20 - 30 seconds is better because you can get another hit in before you're overwhelmed.

Thanks for the replies. 30seconds/hit will be tried next time. SWIM has less than a dozen salvia experiences under his belt, so he'll keep at it and hope for the reverse tolerance to take effect. He's very sensitive to most other psychedelics, and has friends who have had ABSOLUTELY NO effects from the same dose and method of administration, and others that have blasted on half his dose.

I still don't know what a breakthrough experience is.

I've seen beings, seen the wheel, been the wheel, seen potential, algorithmic realities peeling away from me. I've experienced near death too many times. I've seen artistic displays that were absolutely beautiful.

But I've never been thrown into a totally other world where I was surrounded by people and objects. I'm like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I'm situated in a rotating house inside a tornado. I can see various people and objects spinning outside my open window. There goes that ugly old hag peddling on her bicycle.

But I've never been dropped down into Munchkin Land, DAMN IT.

On the other hand, I can actually get a minor salvia buzz by drawing in the vapor from the unlit leaves through my pipe and into my lungs. I don't even need to light the stuff up. But breakthrough? I still don't know if I've had one.

This seems to be a common problem, I've heard that hundreds of times on so many forums. The only reason SWIM knows what a breakthrough is thanks to DMT, and it shares commonalities with the salvia breakthrough.

The commonalities are so hard to describe in words. When SWIM broke through the first time, he KNEW it. He was SURE of it. There was just nothing, himself compressed to 0, a singularity, all structure erased, and there was no concept of himself, it was just naked awareness. And it was accompanied later by falling into the most beautiful place full of light, of patters, energies, fractals and morphing, fluncuating insectoid beings. Hyperspace and breakthroughs are more difficult to describe than sex is to virgins, that's why there's a hyperspace lexicon section.

Anyway, getting off track... that was one of SWIM's breakthroughs where he was SURE.

He wishes you the best with salvia, burningmouth.

Sorry if this insults your intelligence but... why not try to up dose very slowly and see what happens?

Because I'm a coward (plus I don't have a sitter). I have 10 grams of 25x that just sits there. But you're right. I should up the dose very slowly. For the last two years my dose has been a nice pinch of 10x on top of plain leaf.

I can hear McKenna's voice now.
"Stop being a pussy."

Gibran might have a good definition of a breakthrough experience when he says "I turn inside-out and bloom into a new reality."

Not cowardly at all. Your concern with safety shows your prudence. Ever since my friend dropped his bubbler when smoking DMT, he always sits in a chair far away from anything sharp, and ties the bong with a safety string because he's broken shit before during blast off and awoken with shards all over the floor.

A sitter is highly recommended for such ordeals, but in my experience, from hundreds of trips, I've only actually NEEDED my sitter's help three or four times, when I was going utterly mad. For the other 99%, it just provides a sense of comfort which makes the experience more positive usually, it's easier to let go. The most dangerous act he did on salvia was miscalculate where his chair was and fall on his ass. On the level of the mind, you could be excruciatingly crushed by a garage door (loved that trip report ... but in my experience, when working with ~20x, with proper preparation and setting, tripsitter or none, this has yet to happen.

When you get the chance to experiment, your patience will be rewarded BM!

I share your...hesitation? That's a better word than cowardice.

I've taken the leap and smoked the 25x, but it does still evoke feelings of trepidation. I'm much more comfortable with the experiences you described than when I'm plopped right in the middle of Munchkinland.

The only thing to do is to do it. I'm sure you know, and others who read your posts, that you'll handle it alright. You're a veteran of the Salvia experience, and you need to have confidence in yourself. Let all those past experiences fuel you to take that dive. Then when you return, make sure you write about it so that we can all read it

Thanks Dioxippus. From 2008 to the middle of 2010, just about every time I blasted off, I would return with new insights. I was experiencing McKenna's idea of novelty. Since then, things have broken down. I posted a decent thread over at edot (under a different name), but it didn't reveal anything new. It's as if I'm rahashing the same old stuff. I know that there's still some concealed information that I haven't been able to bring back. I need a good 'holy shit' moment.

I had high hopes for salvia. For two and a half years, I was sure that salvia was the lens through which we could see a truer, more expansive, more actualized understanding of reality. I had the crazy idea that the salvia realm was attempting to contact us. I thought that McKenna's transcendental object at the end of time was the realm as seen through salvia's eyes. I still do.

I have to up the dose, and I have to be able to bring the info back before it gets lost in amnesia. But I can't forget the power of simple plain leaf. Plain leaf has (temporarily:cry taken me to a meditative state where I seem to be able to experience the 'emptiness' of Buddhism, a glimpse of fundamental reality where my awareness unites with some sort of eternal cosmic awareness. So, if extract fails, I can always fall back on plain leaf.

Hmm, very peculiar that you feel overly sensitive to most psychedelics, but a couple big rips from an extract would offer no effects. But these plants seem to know something about our inner mechanisms that we do not. Strange.

That's interesting stuff, burningmouth about what constitutes a breakthrugh. Have you properly broken through if your in a tornado of eclipsing lights and realities?

When I returned from my mind shattering trip, I was sure I had broken through. Any doors had been blown wide off the hinge I thought. But now, I wonder if I crossed the plane, or just turned and sucked my thumb where I had the chance. I was knocked out, a dream hero who did and saw it all, and that all ended, there was nothing, then everything fell out of nothing, and spun through cycles of opening and closing. Ah hell, I'm losing words to keep up with the sensation, but now I want to go back even more.

And I think gibran is pretty right on the money with the inside out bloom into new reality idea. I felt something entirely new on the other side, and didn't know where the hell I was supposed to be.



At least you say it with no excuses. But I'm sure you should know better than to think yourself a coward outright. You cross unfathomable seas with the rest of us man. But if you know you're afraid, it does suck. Hard to stop being a pussy when the other side swallows you every time. I wrote to myself recently, that "if courage is all you're lacking, what are you waiting for", meaning, the only way you become courageous is by being courageous.

It's one of the most difficult things a man can do, no matter the reward or lack of, the challenge itself is worth the facing. Dioxippus is right, the only thing to do is do it. I need to do it too. But I got rough and misshapen living conditions atm, so, my hesitation is double.

As for being crushed,(thank you), burningmouth, can you comment on how easy it is to adapt to the experience after many trips? I am hoping that with yoga like strethcing (think stretching or rolling the body, and it's organs, controlling flow/power) and awareness of the frailty of life, and other such 'knowledge' that the journeying would become something, well, more known at least. If I could understand that I'm not being crushed, but rather my head is being carried over into higher dimensions of the tree of life, or beyond, then perhaps the experience could change. We are no doubt journeying? So we should be somewhat captains, not just in set and setting, but within the confines of the substance, we should be able to explore. Of course salvia likes to rock the boat, but is there a way to balance in that state?

I love your romantic fascination with salvia burningmouth. I find myself agreeing ecstatically. What potential lies in wait for the intelligent modern minds through these portals? What do you do when you are shown, that everything you interact with, is just filler, and can break away like glass into an infinite black?

I've been smoking plain leaf all week, and I gotta say, I'm totally loving it. I keep upping it a little, trying to hit sub-breakthrough. Smoked 2 bowls in about 5 minutes this morning. Followed up my good feelings found there with a small dose of DMT, just to get comfortable with the tingles and rush. It was real nice.

I was joking about the tornado. I can't help throwing in a laugh every now and then.

I've probably had many (minor) breakthrough salvia trips. I've seen some weird stuff. It's as if my retinas are glued to a salvia vista as bright as a computer screen. I've seen little humanoids line up and connect together forming structures that rotate around and around. The humanoids transform into shiny figurines that become embedded into strange salvia walls, salvia membranes. The movement never stops. I once watched an increible scene where a neighborhood was caught up in a plasma-like lava stream. I watched it roll to my left, and as my perspective pulled back, the lava stream became an entire ocean of multicolored plasma being sucked down a central black hole. But I've never communicated with a salvia being in the same way that I can communicate with a person during a dream.

As far as being crushed. I seem to be stuck in that particular motif. I've been there so many times that it doesn't scare me as much. But it's a powerful experience. It feels ontological, as if I'm experiencing some of the basic systems of what it means to be alive. I'm peering inside my own hard drive.

I doubt that I'll ever be able to adapt to it. I hope to just move on, to experience something new. To get beyond the whole crushing thing.

But something inside me tells me that there is still a major secret out there. A secret that nobody has yet to allude to in a post. Just knowing that there is a major secret that has yet to be revealed makes me feel like everything I've experienced up till now has been shallow. Salvia is holding something back. There is a key out there that we need to grab, but so far it's been too slippery.

To me a breakthrough should be as powerful as when a sperm cell breaks through the outer walls of an egg cell. Once that happens, a human being is created.

A salvia breakthrough should rattle the whole fucking earth. It should transform reality. It should be the end of time, the beginning of time. A salvia breakthrough should also be salvia's attempt at breaking into consensus reality. The process is reciprocal. We are breaking through into the salvia realm, and salvia is breaking into our world of materiality.

Once that happens, a new human being is created.

C'mon burningmouth, now you're just taunting us all.

I wonder about a mass breakthrough, with many hookahs and extracts and carnival tents and painted costumed animals . But is there a difference in us doing it and the natives that used it 'traditionally'? As far as I know there is very little documented history to salvia. But what, if you can name it, makes you think we are on the brink of something that they were not? I wonder what they thought of the experience. Maybe some footwork investigation is at hand?

We have to start encouraging an open curiosity for everything. Don't we want to break through? Don't we want to face truth and possibility? People need to understand you are not nuts if you smoke a plant. They need to understand everything here is offered for a reason. Our families, children, workers, etc, need to know as much as they can about our journeys without damaging relationships too much. They need to understand that this is the stuff of legends, in fucking stores for $20 a bag. We can't hide down below anymore, the experience is becoming too loud maybe. (lol, what am I talking about, I've done shrooms once and extract thrice, anyway) More likely it's making it's call known, and all great minds will be unable to deny it.

I'm not trying to de-rail the thread, excuse me lorentz. These salvia conversations seem to be determined to work their way in where they can.

Why I feel such an affinity to you burningmouth, is the things you say in some of these Salvia threads. I feel the same thing, that Salvia is holding back some profound secret. It always feels like it's just out of my grasp. One of my recent extract trips I thought I had it, I was so excited to bring back this amazing revelation for everyone in consensus reality, but by the time I could get up and type on my keyboard, it was gone. Perhaps that's what keeps us coming back for more? The promise of some sort of secret knowledge. Dangle it in front of our faces, show us a part of it, but then yank it away at the last moment. Seems sort of cruel, now that I really think about it Salvia can definitely be cruel, there's no question.

And about the crushing. I've felt it before as well, but it's not something I experience every time. I experience the bending, pulling, tearing, twisting feelings more often than not. It did generate a strong interest in yoga for me though. After using Salvia for a few months, I started to do yoga and I still do it to this day. Because at first I didn't exactly enjoy those sensations. After doing yoga for a while, I began to really go with it and appreciate them.

I like your enthusiasm, Lavos.
The natives quidded the stuff. They might have thought that burning it was disrespectful. I don't know if incredible visuals was possible with quidding. I'm sure they had really good 'spiritual' experiences with it. In order for a shaman to do his thing, he needed to stay in control. People smoking 20x can't stay in control. So I think the shamans quidded it so that they could properly conduct the ceremony (without falling on their faces).

The idea that we are on the brink of something is just a type of faith that I have. Call it salvia faith. It's basically a pipe dream, but I think there might be some truth to it. I don't want to diss the Mazatecs, but to me, salvia has become a Western phenomenon...Youtube and salvia forums. The salvia entities might have been waiting for social networking in order to make contact with our material world. And who are the salvia entities? Maybe they are our own selves, more evolved and actualized copies of ourselves existing out there in the world of probability.
What do I know? Absolutely nothing. But it's fun to speculate.


I agree, Diox. The profound secrets seem to hang out at the very beginning/peak of the salvia trip. They seem to be wrapped up in heavy duty amnesia. What usually happens to me is that I'll witness a profound secret, and a few seconds later, a less profound secret takes its place. And so on. By the time I come down and run to my keyboard, I'm typing away about some third tiered secret, having forgotten the really profound ones.

It's hard to speculate what the profound secret is, but I'm leaning toward the realization that there are a series of....
#edit-delete#Wow. All I had to do was light up and realize how off-track that realization was. Now, with a little alpha in my system, the secret might have to do with the whole....
#edit-delete#Maybe "breakthrough" is just breaking into that familiar realm that seems so...SALVIA....where you're bathed in that salvia spirit...where salvia uses a squeegee and wipes the everyday world off the inner walled membranes of your retinas so that you can see through your salvia eyes.