I'm curious to hear travsha's tips, too - but I've followed other tips found on this site and it has always worked for me. I also seem to be lucky in that although I'm a bit of a hard-head with the smoke, I can get noticeable effects when chewing a single fresh, palm-sized leaf.

I simply brush my gums and rinse with mouthwash, then chew a leaf or two using my molars. I try to keep the saliva mixture near the back of my mounth and under my tongue, and swallow just a little juice at a time to get it to the absorption area of the throat.

I have been using a method Gibran mentioned of spending 2-3 minutes chewing on a leaf or two, then swallowing the mixture. I continue this pattern up to 30 minutes if a deeper experience is desired. Initial effects are noticeable in about 10 minutes.

I've only tried using re-hydrated leaves once and it seemed like I needed a bit more than when using fresh leaves to obtain the same level.

Best!

I did not see those posts but they sound interesting. I actually wrote a paper which is part of one of my books on something related.... Wish I could share it but this site has some strange rules about what we can share and since the article has my name on I cant share it. It basically covers a theory of how epigenetics and the limbic brain can hold records of our trauma and how psychoactive medicines can speed up rapid limbic revision creating powerful emotional healing. Would be a great article for this site....

Tips for chewing? I also have a long written section of this in my book but I cannot share that cause it would give away my "secret" identity. So I can try to quickly summarize maybe.... Psychic Envy pointed out that the back of the throat and under the tongue are the best spots for absorption - I especially think the back of the throat is good. I too will swallow little bits at a time so they get to the back of my throat.

I work with dried leaves though, not fresh. I would take about 4+ grams of dried leaves and re-wet them. Chew that for about 20 minutes - it should be about as much as you can fit under your tongue.... I chew the leaves every once in a while to get out more juices and I sit so that most of the liquid in my mouth sits in the back of my throat and some under the tongue. Swallow little bits every once in a while so the amount of liquid in the mouth does not get overwhelming. Eventually either spit out or swallow the leaves.

Experience starts to peak around when you either spit out or swallow the leaves. At this time I then lie or sit very still in a dark and silent room. Sit very still and quiet. Music becomes distracting in my experience unless you sing a salvia song she teaches you....

And always ask a question or have an intention before starting - I notice if I dont ask anything then she doesnt talk much and other people have reported similar experiences to me....

I think with a few tries you could figure it out. Really gentle plant when chewed so it makes experimenting easy.

I would prefer fresh leaves. The experience seems to have a nicer quality. I have the luxury of live plants nearly the size of me, and ounces of home grown dry leaf so I can pick and choose. Re-hydrated dry leaf works well enough.

The quidded fresh leaves give a better experience, but the dried will do in a pinch.

I was curious as to your chewing patterns or swallowing.

I like to leave the fresh quid in for a while and just hang out with it.

One thing I notice is that I don't ever ask her for anything or enter the space with an intention. I like to be as quiet as possible and suspend desire as much as possible. That's how I meet her. She's so shy.

I've been working with the other sages too, so I'm careful not to "prime" the situation with any expectations or even questions. I try to listen to the "signature notes" of the experience.

Twig's meditation on the olfactory pathway and meditations on KOR expression and the phenomenology of "dysphoria" have been really helpful guides to just what "salvia divinorum space" is in and of itself.

I loved Dale Pendell's short chapter on Salvia Div.

http://holybooks.lichten...-Dale-Pendell.pdf?351736

He calls it the "just this" plant. I'm fascinated by its pure "isness" phenomenology.

It just as if you had sat zen meditation for a long time, or sesshin.

I can see why it is not for many people. It goes against the entire directive thrust of our stimulated society.

What seems to the stimulated person to be "dysphoria" may be a potential "isness" space.

salvia is def not dysphoric to me. It is tranquil.

I think the dysphoric feelings come to those who are over-stimulated, as drfaust said. The majority of people are so wound up and almost never just sit in silence and be with themselves. They're constantly staring at screens, interacting with people. Silence is almost like death to them; it makes them very uncomfortable. So with Salvia when you're somewhat forced into that mode of tranquility they begin to fight it, to look for something to break the silence within themselves. That's when the dysphoric feelings can manifest. As per the definition of the word itself, it's difficult to bear.

At least this was my personal experience when I first started to work with it. Once I began meditating regularly and started learning to enjoy silence that made a huge difference.

This. It's serene. It may be dysphoric for people who are uncomfortable with silence/darkness/emptiness/stillness, or for people who have smoked strong extracts.

Salvia is one of the most tranquil experiences I have ever encountered.... Always makes me feel so peaceful and afterwards I feel so satisfied and fulfilled with everything about my life. (when I chew at least - smoking is the opposite)

Dr. Faust, as for chewing patterns... I dont sit with the quid for a while before, but I do have a little ceremony.... I'll smudge the house and smudge the quid. Call in the directions. Sing a song to my quid. Sometimes I may then have a pipe of mapacho before quidding, but I dont always include this step. Then I quid - sometimes I will quid in silence, or sometimes I will put on a 20 minute playlist of chill music or icaros to listen to while I chew - the music then ends when it is time to spit out or swallow the quid. (then I sit in silence for the main peak of the ceremony)

I actually really like cold-pressed salvia tea. I might prefer it to the quid. I blend some dried leaves with a little cold water, let it steep 15 minutes, strain with a french press and then it is ready. Tastes heavenly if you add a little lemonade, but I usually enjoy it plain.... Swish it around and swallow little bits at a time just like you were quidding. Works great. Havent tried a tincture yet, but I recently bought tequila just for making a salvia tincture so maybe soon! (I dont drink, so it really is just for the salvia tincture - tequila is traditional and I was told to do this by Salvia last time I dieted her)

part of the problem with smoking, IMO, is that people do not smoke enough. If you are uncomfortable with the fact that you have become a flat plane stretching out for miles, you have not achieved full breakthrough into the space IME. On a real deep salvia breakthrough you realizze the streching, pulling, twisting etc is just a mechanism of the release..there is a point upon which you break through beyond those membranes into a place that is real, tangible and you are fully incorporated into that space and you are not thinking about anything here in this world..and you are not trying to escape the trip because the trip IS your life now.

That is a real salvia breakthrough, and it is more like a cosmic inter-dimensional gate system than it is the stretching and pulling twisted fun park that people try to run away from..in my experience.

I don't think that many people really have true breakthroughs with the stuff. It is just so potent that the sub-breakthrough experience is too much already. the sub-breakthrough is more alarming than the full breakthrough into that space.

...and pretty much no one is going that deep with quids, that I know of.

Twig (or anyone with experience...), can your buccal paste reach these breakthrough depths?

Ive been doing heavy construction, traveling, the work and The Work.... and am way behind on personal correspondences and that includes keeping up with these threads. I do have things to say about all this---

but this is an easy answer:

buccal paste can go past all phenomena and is able to send one into void states, which I have never personally seen or exeperienced with quids (or fresh leaf)

Usually the paste starts becoming deeper and less subtle - aka like "out of body - smoked experiences" with doses that are prepared with around 20+ grams worth of dried leaf. But its still different because of the slow onset one learns how to balance the worlds and not get thrown into alien landscapes.

I'm off on another camping trip.

I only want to pull a little on the thread of "dysphoria." I'd like to not just throw it out and push on to others the dysphoric aspects of KOR expression in general and Salvia Div. in particular.

I get it, I think, that Twig is hip to that aspect of Salvia. What if, simply, euphoria-dysphoria is one unrepresentable and subtle whole whose poles are euphoria and dysphoria. They both have their richness.

We simply get to something of the paradox of our experience, of the body/brain/mind, and of Salvia.

Our models of the brain for example are too discrete/disjointed/partial and not global enough if we do not see the one whole of it. For example the olfactory sense is both a direct route to the deepest "glandular" layers of brain/body and a highest most flexible sense that requires intercommunication with the most nimble and highest cortical layers, simultaneously.

The triune brain, for example, is already off the table as it equated the emotional only with the "limbic" and not limbic-cortical which it is proving to be. And intellectual tasks also have limbic components. The triune brain is a limited model that is partially helpful but when the authors of A General Theory of Love cut the limbic off from the higher brain as they do in the intro to that book, they have already failed.

"Physics Envy" led me to a very lucid article by Noam Chomsky
http://www.trulysuperb.c...l-of-Philosophy-2009.pdf

Truly worth a read. Basically, our models are not there yet, and the substrate "neurology" will surely be revised again and again. He likens it to Newtonian research in physics that could not yet explain chemistry. The substrate had to be rethought again and again to get to a coherent description of chemical interaction. Spooky "action at a distance" had to be tolerated and studied as a fact first. Before the physics could get to post-Newtonian physics.

What is here now is our direct experience. That and our intuitions, combined with local theories and local research that does not necessarily cohere into a model that works as explanation.

We have to stay open, and forgo the easy explanation that would stop research and satisfy itself with a model only. We have to do this if we want to be honest and direct.

The one whole of the brain, simultaneously both higher and lower, and not even isolated from the body and the environment has to be tolerated as a fact, however paradoxical. Science itself demands it.

And we as living beings also, I'd say, demand it.

Here is some post triune brain work on emotions and the brain:

http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~knutson/ans/ledoux00.pdf

In the case of Salvia, local research on KOR expression, endogenous opioids, brain lateralization and emotions and novelty is, I think, really important.

Also, I think, to summarize, that the research points to something beyond a "trauma" model to a capacity to contain "trauma" model. "Trauma" could be another name for extreme novelty. Something of the capacity to handle the traumatic impacts of life is built up in one person and not another? Study on KOR expression and study on lateralization points to that capacity as something that can be developed.

Can Salvia help grow those "trust" networks? I think so.

I also really enjoy this method. I prefer it over quidding, actually. Whenever I have fresh leaf I put it through my wheatgrass juicer and you can get some pretty concentrated juice that way. Steeping the dried leaf in cold water and pressing it works very well also.


This is essentially how I feel about it. Once I overcame the dysphoric feelings I was met with some intense euphoria. Perhaps I'm somewhere in the middle now, neither extreme but more balanced.

Nice. Yes. I've had that funny paradoxical effect as well.

And what of unpacking the "dysphoria" pole? Loosely, globally, and broadly we could lateralize dysphoria to the right side of the brain. And also on the right side we would see "face recognition" and "object" recognition, spatial sense-abilities, global sense and so on.

And with Salvia phenomenology we have the odd "becoming-object" and "isness" experiences where the most basic reality sense is both immediate-obvious and also realized as just "mind." Globally, in some odd way "dysphoria" and "isness" are linked.

The right side of the brain is also implicated in the capacity for novelty and for emotional experience in the midst of the "traumatic stimulus of the real."

"Dysphoria" is rich indeed.

Ive learned long ago that large doses of salvia extract is not a fun thing..

The extracts effects can take your brain apart.. and spread its atoms across 5 universes!

It is not a party thing at all..


Ive found low doses of salvia extract easier to navagate with and more rewarding!

When I do smaller doses .. it becomes like an instant state of deep meditation with other effects.

Respect salvia and it will respect you...

How deep of an experience does 4 grams dried give you and how long does it last? I use about 0.5-1 gram for light experiences which last anywhere from 20 minutes 1.5 hrs (adding cannabis tends to extend the experience with light salvia doses for me). I imagine 4g would give me a pretty decent level experience that would last for several hours. When I've done larger doses before bed (with fresh leaves so far), I've found I tend to doze off after a few hours, then wake up a couple hours later after vividly dreaming/dozing and its hard to tell if I've actually been asleep or not.

I've been giving away several grams of dried leaf to various people lately and instructing them to start by chewing 0.5 gram and working their way up...but maybe I should be suggesting they start with a little more? Most of the people I've been in contact with have a few decent smoked experiences under their belt...perhaps I'm being overly cautious.

I'd love to hear how much other people use when quidding dried leaves and how deep/long their experiences are.

I usually work with 3-4 grams at once. Dried leaves though, not fresh, so not sure how different that would be. Effects last about 40-80 minutes. I dont usually mix cannabis - I actually prefer them separate most times, unless I was smoking cannabis before I even decided to do Salvia. I feel I get the most insight when I focus on Salvia only.

Some salvia should be different strength too... Most people I have spoken to use somewhere in the 3-4 grams range as well unless they are trying to do lighter doses.... If I do less then 2.5g it is hard for me to enter "salvia space" and I kinda just have a really nice relaxing meditation (if I am lucky maybe an insight or two). I get more interesting results with larger doses unless I am doing consecutive ceremonies (I notice a reverse tolerance with consecutive daily doses).

When I do ceremony before bed my ceremony turns into a dream and they seem like a continuous single thing rather then 2 different states... I actually like journeying this way, though it is a little harder to remember - good to keep a journal by the bed.

I am a hard-head with smoked substances, but must be a light-weight with edibles. I also take about 1/4 the amount for cannabis edibles that an average person would take. So maybe I should suggest slightly larger doses as an 'average' amount needed when chewing dried leaves. Thanks for the info!



"One single thing" - yep - that's a better way to say it than I did, but that's exactly how it seems to me.