I extracted 2 grams of dried salvia leaf with warm acetone and 90% IPA. I explain the reason for using warm acetone here.

Instead of infusing the extract onto dry leaf, I deposited it onto 5 grams of corn starch. I explain the reason for avoiding leaf, and using a non-porous substrate here and here.

For comparison, I have attached pictures of the cross section of a typical dried leaf, and corn starch granules in a broken grain of maize. The dried leaf looks like a sponge, the starch granules are smooth and non-porous.

I dried the mixture in a dark area. The final result was a light green powder. First photo is the mixture before drying, the next two is the starch powder after drying.

I split the green corn starch powder into a 3 and a 2 gram dose. My normal dose of dry powdered leaf is 0.8 grams. The 2 gram dose contained the extract of 0.8g of dry leaf, so it would be a control.

I consumed the doses on two separate days, beginning with the 3g dose.

3g: Trip onset 11 minutes Trip end 46 minutes
2g: Trip onset 13 minutes Trip end 44 minutes

Compared to my normal experience with leaf, the onset was faster, the trips were more intense, but of shorter duration. The ends were also more abrupt, with less afterglow.

Putting the corn powder into my mouth was very uncomfortable initially, because it was dry and dusty, and some of the dust migrated into my nasal passages. I produced enough saliva after 2 minutes to turn the powder into a thick paste. I spread the paste around the inside of my mouth, and began swooshing.

The dust problem will probably dissipate by increasing the amount of extract deposited onto the starch.

Next steps:

1. Increase the amount of crude extract deposited onto the starch. How much extract can the starch carry before it loses its powder qualities and becomes a sticky mass?

2. Test the higher strength powders. Is it possible to go beyond a Level 4 trip with these enhanced powders?

This afternoon I extracted 5 grams of dried crushed salvia leaf with warm acetone and IPA. I deposited the solution onto 1 gram of corn starch. The residue after evaporation formed small flakes when scraped off the glass dish. The flakes crushed easily into a soft green free-flowing powder.

Photos show slurry ready for final drying, powder after scraping off the glass dish, and the final yield of enhanced powder.

Tonight I will test drive 0.6 grams of this powder - equivalent to 3 grams of dried leaf. This is nearly 4 times my usual dose. I will report back tomorrow morning.

What an interesting way to consume salvia! Do you think this is one of the most effective ways to use it?

Also, those microscopic pics will trigger people with trypophobia, but I absolutely love them!

Would you mind listing out some details regarding your extraction method? (Amount of liquid used and at what step, etc.?) I'd be happy to try to duplicate your method/results.

Do you think you pulled all the salvinorin from the leaf, and do you think there was any loss to IPA with this method?

Trip report:

I wanted to weigh out 0.6 g of the starch powder, but ended up with 0.76 g. The powder rolled out of my small storage container in soft lumps, and I didn't have the patience to return the excess.

I prepared by putting the animals out of the house, brushing my mouth and rinsing with mouthwash, inserting ear plugs, putting a sleeping mask on my head.

The small amount of powder was easy to put under my tongue. It dissolved after one minute. Texture was like melted chocolate, but the taste was different!

8' I could feel crawling sensations on my skin.

9' Waves of warmth.

11' Trip began.

55' Trip ended abruptly, as before. I became aware of the sleeping mask on my head. I had neglected to cover my eyes! The salvia pulled me down again.

59' I emerged again, just long enough to glance at my stop watch. A few seconds later, I submerged again.

1H 04' I emerged for good. I went to the toilet to urinate, and then went to bed. I fell asleep immediately, but my legs were cold for about 2 hours after going to bed. I had to urinate 2 more times during the night.

Trip intensity: This was the most intense trip I have experienced on salvia. I do not smoke, so I cannot compare it to a smoked salvia trip.

I have read through 3 different descriptions of Level 5 (Immaterial) states. Some of the elements apply to this trip. But mostly I had very vivid hallucinations. So this probably rates as a high end Level 4 trip.

Update: This morning, my wife asked me whether I was still tripping when I went to bed. I was not aware of it, but my wife said I muttered incoherently when she asked me a question.

I would be delighted if you repeated this experiment, physics envy!

I weighed out the starch, and put it onto a shallow glass dish

I put the crushed leaf into a glass tumbler and covered it with solvent. First I used room temperature acetone, to extract the less polar components like waxes and salvinorin.

I stirred the leaf/solvent mixture with a spoon, and left it for a few minutes. Then I sucked up the solution with a plastic pipette. I removed any dust that I had sucked up, by squeezing out a drop or two of solution back into the tumbler. I squirted the remainder onto the starch.

After 2x acetone extractions, I used 1x room temperature 91% IPA, to extract the more polar components, like gums and saponins. I could have followed with a water extraction, to extract tannins. But that doesn't appear to be necessary and may affect palatability. The starch powder is less bitter than quid or powdered leaf, probably because the water soluble tannins remain in the depleted leaf.

I dried the extracted leaf by spreading it out on a saucer. I quidded the 2 grams of depleted leaf to check for residual activity. There was a mild effect, like warming and tingling, but no hallucinations.

The images below are of acetone/IPA solution and dried depleted leaf.

AH! Thank you for the write-ups, Zebbie - that helps tremendously

Good idea to test the residual as well. Sounds like you got most of the goodies out.

I'm hoping to give this a try Wednesday night. Hopefully this method will push me past my normal plateau. If so, I assume that would mean some of the hard heads might have a better option for getting a 'quid' to work for them. It seems most of the people I talk to in real life are unsuccessful with quids (for a variety of reasons).

I tried to present all the relevant information in one pdf document. Here is the first draft.

Thank you for the pdf
Would the water from non-dry acetone take on undesirables? Anyway the IPA is not dry so I suppose the acetone does not have to be dry?

Undesirables are good! You need them to transport the salvinorin A across the mucous membrane!

You are correct, the acetone does not have to be completely dry. On the other hand, if there is a significant amount of water present, it will not dissolve salvinorin, waxes and lipids, but it will dissolve things like gums and saponins.

You need salvinorin as well as some of the other components for the process to work. So I use a less polar and a more polar solvent.

If I went more extreme, say hexane followed by water, I would not extract any salvinorin at all, but I would have oils and waxes (hexane), as well as polysaccharide gums and tannins (water).

I am going to repeat the experiment as well. This time I will grind up 5g of crushed leaf in a coffee grinder before extracting with solvent. I think grinding the leaf will break open some trichomes, and improve access to the interior of the leaf. It will also increase the bulk density of the leaf. This will make it more compact. There will be fewer voids between leaf particles that need to be filled with solvent.

The solvent extract of the ground up leaf was a beautiful emerald green colour. The leaf released a lot of chlorophyll!

The green solvent extract weighed 40 grams. I estimate about 5 grams of solvent was left in the wet extracted leaf. So I probably used 25 grams of acetone, and 20 grams of IPA to extract 5 grams of ground up leaf.

The corn starch + extract formed a soft and sticky mass after drying. It felt like a green wax crayon that had been lying in the sun too long.

I started with 1.02 grams of corn starch. After drying the yield was 1.19 grams.

Tomorrow evening I will attempt a trip on this material.

Thank you for the PDF - great write-up!

I'm curious - while quidding, have you ever seen reality 'unzip' or 'flatten out' or turn into a big gear/cog structure - experiences common when smoked?

Thank you, Zebbie! Excellent, intriguing idea, and very well written up. Long overdue some time with Ska Pastora, but plenty of dried leaf on hand, so I will definitely be trying this soon

The only similarity to a big gear/cog structure I have experienced is being a giant tractor tyre. Instead of conveyor belts, I often get transported along roads and inside pipes. The 'flatten out' thing happens occasionally. I may be at a crossroad, looking at buildings. The buildings turn into a slow whirlpool, that disappear down a drain.

I have never seen any elves or goddesses or strange creatures. And I have never had a terrifying trip.

It seems like there are two me's involved in my trips. The one me experiences the hallucinations. The other me observes from the outside. The other me is aware that this is an illusion, but tries to remember it for documenting later. The other me is sensible to the real world. It can feel a cramp or itch developing. It can feel my back resting against the couch. But it tries to keep as still and unobtrusive as possible, so as not to disturb the first me.

I made up a batch with corn start last night, and am planning to try it tonight. I used 5g leaf and 1g starch, and will probably try 0.6g of the resulting powder.



I haven't seen the unzipping/gear thing when quidding. If I do...I will likely label it a '5/I' trip on the Salvia scale, although for me it starts to happen at what I'd call a '3' when smoking.

I haven't seen any 'others' while using Salvia either...although it feels like I'm in a 'common' area and very well *could* connect with someone else. I've been wanting to try a simultaneous quidding trip with someone for years just to see if we could somehow connect in that space, but have yet to make it happen.

I've never had a terrifying experience either, but a few times when smoking I felt like I broke the world and everyone knew and were pissed and were waiting for me to come down so everyone could get back to what they were doing. Those felt sort of shameful, and I didn't like them at all, but they weren't scary. Now that I'm more familiar with the salvia space, I doubt I'll have those types of trips any longer.

I'm also curious whether you have a similar general overall experience when quidding. My normal perception is at the front of my face/eyeballs. When I quid, my perspective location moves more towards the center of my skull. Simultaneously, my imagination becomes illuminated so that I can see/view it. It feels like I turn on a light bulb and can now see what I'm thinking. It also feels as though I'm going up into an attic in my head, and up there is a 'common' area where I could potentially connect with 'others' (although I never have...) My perception of others while in this state is that their energy is bigger than their regular body, and very free-flowing like smoke.

Interesting approach, thanks for sharing. I've got a bunch of dried leaf I've been wondering what to do with, so I think I may give this a shot!

Trip report time!

That was certainly the strongest, and probably the least enjoyable trip I have been on.

I weighed out 0.8g of the soft green waxy powder. I divided it into two portions, and squeezed them into little tetrahedrons.

0' I put the tetrahedrons under my tongue. They did not dissolve immediately. I manipulated them above my tongue.

1' Tetrahedrons dissolved into paste. I moved the paste back under my tongue. Over the next few minutes, the paste thinned down. I moved my head forward to keep the paste under my tongue, and around my cheeks. This powder was more bitter and had a more pronounced salvia flavour than the powder from post #4 and #7

7' Itching

8' Warm feeling

8' trip begins, and very quickly becomes intense. I felt like I was trapped in a tornado, and couldn't move up into the sky, or back down to earth. Fortunately, my full bladder brought me back down to earth.

1H06' I staggered to the bathroom, urinated, and went to bed. The trip continued. I can remember a phrase repeating itself over and over again. It was "Prevent the bamboo's from contacting". The trip was very long. I didn't check the duration, because I fell asleep.