A second installment from trips oh-so-long-ago. The first part can be read here. This is a short one - more to follow.


Wednesday, may 28, 2008

Same strangeness, different day. Less intense. Smoked 3 (maybe 4 !) hits and the first ones were less visual than my first time. The last hit sent me back into No-I land, but I sort of zipped in and out of it. Astonishing sense of being pulled down into the left hand corner of the room, past the bookcase which had morphed into broad dark lines that seemed to somehow be instrumental in this heavy gravitational effect. Listened to indian buddhist chants, which to my ears were tonic calls to come over to « the other side », the salvia reality which struggled this time to supplant my own. I had this strong sense that I was being welcomed back, and maybe even laughed at, and that the music drew me further into this laughter – but there were no actual voices or audible laughter. I was very glad when things slid back to normal. This substance is frightening, but fascinating. Couldn’t imagine going deeper and so held off and was sailing the euphoria before long.

LINK TO PART 3

It is frightening, and exhilarating all at once. As you move past the fear, a whole new world opens up.

I have also often had the strange feeling that I'm being laughed at or am the source of some amusement for some sort of entities/beings.

That seems to be a constant with me and salvia - laughter and the sense of being ridiculed, and to a degree, judged...

WHAT IS THIS STUFF?

JBArk

Salvia isn’t like that at all for me. I returned last week after a rather long absence. There’s one word that best describes my salvia experiences: home.

The salvia world that I visit is so similar to our own that at times they are indistinguishable. The feeling of very close parallel worlds is so strong. These other worlds seem to be just millimeters away from us.

I must be an oddball or have unusual kappa-opioid receptors or something – my salvia experiences have never been frightening. They have always been welcoming and generally pleasant. (The only difficult experiences were ones where I wasn’t sure I’d be coming back to this reality, but there have been a few where I begged to stay!)

I've experienced both. More often than not, I have the feeling of being "at home" and being welcomed. The entities welcoming me, urging me to come with them. But I have also had that strange feeling of being a source of amusement/entertainment, being laughed at. It's not in any really malicious way, it's sort of like I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm there, and I seem out of place. Like the only person wearing jeans and a t-shirt at a formal black tie event. Oddly out of place, and so it's somewhat humorous

I have to say though, the more I return to Salvia, the more positive the experiences have become. I haven't had a difficult or frightening experience in some time. Probably about two years, maybe longer. Maybe it's a learned reaction. An acquired taste. Your body/brain learning that it's good for you, and thus the experiences become more on the positive side.

But yes, gibran, you may be somewhat of an oddball in this regard. I don't know of anyone who hasn't at least had one frightening Salvia experience.

This is what I find fascinating. What is going on in salviaspace during the time that you are being pulled? Is there some wheel-like structure rotating with your salvia-self going along for the ride?


For me, these other worlds are 2 dimensional worlds that seem to wrap around some type of reality-core.

We're all oddballs here Gibran2... But yeah, very lucky indeed if your salvia experiences are devoid of preternatural terror. And i am always certain that I shall never return to this reality, while in the same instant having forgotten any and all details of it...!

Cheers

JBArk

Nice report very well described I too have had that feeling of being laughed at but not in a bad way more like "look how funny baby is trying to walk" but I do seem to age and find my place there, then not long after the journey begins properly. Its my belief that the emotions we sometimes ascribe to entities are what we have projected onto them.
The onset reminds me of those gameshows where the competitors section of the set spins around to reveal more people or a prize. But rotating downwards and to the left.
When I return from salviaspace I actually pop through the ceiling back onto my bed.

For me the laughter is at least mischievous and often sinister. Sometimes it twists the music if there is any on or mutates the ambient sounds from the street outside into grinny guffaws and leering laughs. It's almost always at least creepy, though once it was almost innocent, and friendly, like the little chuckles of a gaggle of easily amused toddlers.

You pop through the ceiling?! That must be disconcerting to say the least. Then again, is there anything about salvia that isn't disconcerting?

JBArk

I agree very much that the more and more you use salvia you the more and more positive and le3ss judgmental or difficult the experiences become.


Also i am astounded by how specific the themes are with salvia and how many people experience the same thing. For exam[ple you had the sensation of being pulled to the left corner of the room. I had a similiar experience in which there seemed to be a point of heavy gravity on the ceiling and it was sucking all reality in, and once you are sucked into this point is when the transition seems to happen from this dimension to the salvia dimension.

I felt like i was going to fall off my bed into the ceiling lol!

Oh, were this only true for me. I have all but given up on salvia, though I cherish those experiences. I have not had one that is not swirled and churned by abject terror folded through sheets and pleats of horror and infinite fear. But, oh, the majesty! What worlds and planes and realms unfold and re-pleat within that indomitable assault!! And what elation, what ecstasy and peace when the mind is pulled back to a single point and reassembles and one realizes one has not always been, nor always will be, one's sofa, or bookshelf, or a red piece of lego long forgotten and gathering dust under a desk!

Cheers,

JBArk

Have you tried chewing leaves?

No, that was to be my next step, but my salvia plants (and hot pepper plants) got some kind of mysterious ailment/pest that no one has been able to identify for the last 4 years - curled deformed leaves, stunted growth, aborted fruits (in the case of the peppers) and occasional discolouring of the leaves. I have moved from non-toxic (tea) through less toxic (soap based) insecticides then on to lethally toxic (malathion in the soil and leaves) and have done all treatments several times, each time doing it a second and third time (and even a fourth!) to catch any incubating eggs/larvae. Strangely, the malathion helps a lot, but never gets rid of the problem.

So my salvia plants may be finished for consumption... But the problem persists and I think it is in the soil. But if it is, it may be in the soil of my 130 + cacti, including a young peyote, and I cringe and shudder to think of the failsafe solution to my gardening woes: chuck EVERYTHING and start over in a year or two...

Hard bullet to bite.

Insofar as chewing goes, well, I was planning on it, as I said above, but my experiences have all been so harrowing that even the notion of having an experience a tenth as strong, but for many hours, frankly fills me with dread! And this last year of my life has me playing things a little more cautiously for the moment. Maybe one day!

Cheers,

JBArk

Bump ^^^^^^

Anyone have any gardening advice ? ^^^^^^

curled leaves can be normal for salvia at times..I don't know about the rest. Are they outdoors right now? Salvia tends to get sick looking and brown in the tips for me indoors. They don't die or anything though just look less healthy for the 4 months or so that I bring them inside for. I try to get them outside as early as possible and bring them inside as late as possible. Being outside in open air seems to help with a lot of plant problems that I see indoors in my plants.

No this is a chronic, cross-species condition that i have been battling for years. The leaves are long, curled and un-uniformly thick and mutated. Growth in spurts (usually when I malathion assault it), but generally VERY slow. It may be a disease, I don't know. No one does: 2 gardeners, 1 botanist and a few friends with very green thumbs....



I really don't want to chuck everything out, especially the cacti.

And, more on topic, I really do want to try quidding, but as stated, I would have to get over the fear and probably get less toxic plants...

JBArk

have you ever seen the bugs your trying to kill?

I would consider some mold or contamination in the soil a much more likely candidate, maybe try letting fully dry then re potting

Not sure. There are little flies, but they are indistinguishable from fruitflies - they are not whiteflies, aphids or spidermites, this much has been established. There is nothing visible (even under a magnifying glass under the leaves). I have spotted very small (1cm), brown, thin worms, but I have not seen them in a while. Also, I found some minute droppings (not eggs, they didn't smear blood) that I have attributed to some very small grey beetles whose carcasses I found under the pots, indoors. They look like little armadillos, but the consensus is that they are not pests...

Stranger still - in my old apartment (yes, all my problems migrated!), when I would take the plants in from a healthy, humid summer, they would all seem in much better health and would thrive under lights or in front of windows until slowing for the winter months. Then, in january or february - bam! The problem crops up again!! What bugs have incubation periods of 4-5 months!!??? And/or what diseases that affect salvia and pepper plants (and tomato and pretty much any seedling from coleus to squash) can lay dormant for this long?

Insofar as mold or contamination goes, possible i guess. They have been overwatered for periods, but also underwatered and watered appropriately also. They have completely dried, been inside and out, in two different apartments and gardens/balconies, and still the same thing. If contamination were an issue, would malathion nearly remove the problem, for it to resurface later?

I am stumped. And discouraged.

JBArk