I feel like I have an understanding of how to use the conventional psychedelics (LSD, Mushrooms, RC's) and DMT to facilitate learning, healing, insights, etc. But salvia is a complete mystery to me. Whenever I come back from a salvia journey, I don't feel like I've gotten anything from the experience except for the reaction of "what the hell was that?!??!"...

What do you get from salvia, what do you do, what are your intentions while journeying, how do you integrate the experience to get something useful from it?

Do you use salvia extracts? Once every 6 months i feel like trying salvia and i buy salvia extracts on impulse. Then i take them home with me at the end of the night and there i leave them in a drawer where all my other bags of salvia extracts remain unused.

I've smoked extracts before and it was interesting. The experience is still relevant. Once in a while i also take mushrooms in a good set and setting. When things get spiritual. I start to remember my experiences with salvia. So the experience kind of bleeds over into my spiritual development. So i believe salvia is very powerful.

Last times i smoked salvia it told me to stop using extracts. That's about 2 years go. I wanted to start a thread to ask what the best method would be for me to take salvia. But i'll just add more questions to this thread;

What is the preferred method for salvia ingestion? I don't grow plants. I have to be able to buy everything i need from vendors.

^ why don't you grow plants Infected?

SPiral, try quidding it instead of smoking. Thats how its been down by the ancients and it seems to be much more workable, drawn out, and comfortable when explored that way. Especially on top of some caapi vine.

For me, especially with smoking it, the outcome is incredibly sensitive to elements of my state of mind, intentions, and environment that i'm in. I prefer to do it in nature at night, just laying on a few blankets in the yard..or in silent darkness in my bed. Surrendering into it and making my deep respect for it clear is very important when smoking for me to have a positive experience. Any amount of resistance can snowball into unpleasant feelings at times. Its an incredibly powerful plant but worth while to build a relationship with, because what it can show you is beyond belief...i remember jamies line that "salvia makes dmt look like a squirt gun sometimes" ^__^

Also, for me it can be very uncomfortable in the lower/sub-breakthrough areas as opposed to the breakthrough itself.

That's very true about the resistance. You have to completely submit to this experience in order to gain something from it. Totally letting go is a lot harder than most people think, even those of us with experience with other powerful psychedelics.

Makes DMT look like a squirt gun, that's very accurate to my experiences with it. They're both powerful, but Salvia is the only thing I've done that has so completely shattered my reality and forced me to reassess my entire life and the way I live it. I'm not trying to start an argument here, just relating my personal experience. A few other psychedelics have had similar influences on my life as well, but nothing to the level that Salvia has.

This plant takes patience and persistence. Stubbornness even. A true desire to delve into the deep abyss, knowing that you're playing with madness. It takes a special breed to continue to explore what is so terrifying, and like was mentioned, may even seem meaningless at times. But my experience has been that every single trip I've had with Salvia had some meaning to it, whether I understood it or not. That's another thing a Salvianaut needs, a good grasp on the metaphorical, the poetical, double meanings hidden inside riddles masquerading as fundamental truths. Confusing, to say the least. A challenge. Something I have never shied from.

Plain leaf, either quid or smoked, is how I approach the plant. Extracts feel unnatural at the best of times. Doesn't mean I don't use them from time to time, but plain leaf is all I need. With enough persistence your tolerance will fall to a level where one bowl of leaf can send you to indescribable places. Extracts are overkill, and allow the plant to be abused too easily. Although I do understand gibran's and others argument about the amount of smoke they wish to inhale. That I'm not disputing. It's just extremely easy, especially in the beginning, to take a massive dose and have a negative experience. With your tolerance falling with each successive experience, it can be quite difficult to determine a reasonable dosage. Plain leaf leaves a lot more room for error, without frightening you so badly you never want to touch the stuff again.

I will also echo the suggestion to grow your own. They are wonderful plants which provide an intense feeling of satisfaction for me.

^ Yeah that reverse tolerance aspect is intriguing to say the least, the more experience you've had with Salvia the less it seems to take to get you there. Most of my early Salvia experiences with smoking straight leaf just didn't work at all and then when I wasn't expecting it, I had a really powerful trip from a relatively small amount.

I prefer quids myself too, it comes on much slower, lasts longer and is much more enjoyable. You don't get catapulted into another realm in a instant so it's not scary like an extract. For me a quid takes me into a dreamworld a bit like a cartoon in some respects, but I still have a feeling of being in control of my own mind.

Some of those extracts are insane - 100x
I wouldn't recommend that for anyone, no matter how hard headed they are.

I guess my experience with salvia is atypical. I’m not sure why, but I’ve never had a bad experience with it. (Maybe responsible dosing? Hmm…) There are certain aspects that some people find uncomfortable (the folding, stretching, etc.) that I’ve always found fascinating. I never have the pre-flight anxiety with salvia that so frequently accompanies vaporized DMT.

Even though I may lose my identity, be unaware of who I am, what I am, and how I got to whatever strange place I might be in, and even though I might flip through countless realities like pages in a book, completely losing track of which one is “mine”, I’ve never found any of this distressing. It seems “natural”.

I definitely prefer smoking a pre-measured (15-25mg) dose of my own 20X extract to any other method. I find the rather rapid transition to be predictable and manageable, if not enjoyable. I haven’t had much success with quids.

Salvia is very strange. Although there are occasionally meaningful messages, the experiences are usually very cryptic. There are aspects of reality that become very clear when in salvia-space, (often I think “how could I have forgotten this?”), but it’s hard to bring any of this back. It seems that salvia tells us something about the nature of this reality – about the multi-dimensionality of space, the illusion of time, about our co-existence in many different places. Who knows what it’s all about…

In my experience, salvia seems to be more about the strangeness of this plane of existence, whereas DMT (vaporized) seems to be about other realms beyond this existence.

As others have said, salvia is easy and rewarding to grow. I started growing salvia even before I ever tried it. Maybe that has something to do with the positive relationship I’ve established?

It's strange, I have never had a bad experience with Salvia. It was my first taste of the psychedelic. I tried it many years ago, but had no idea what it was. I was fearless with it (out of ignorance). Now that I have much more experience with psychedelics, I am much more cautious. I've had three nice big plants for the better part of a year, and have been too wary to really mess with Salvia.

Does anyone suppose the reverse tolerance could work with just one quidded leaf? So, say I quid one good sized leaf a week for a while, would this eventually be an entheogenic dose? I quidded a leaf last night, and I could definitely feel it. It was quite mild and really seemed to sharpen my mind up.

Is there really any evidence besides anekdotal experiences that supports a theory of reverse tolerance? I mean, are there any biological reasons for reverse tolerance?

My first dose was nothing. Barely a pinch of my finger. Since then i've tried to mimic the effects with much higher doses but never got anywhere quite as weird as the first time. I do however remember quite clearly what happened on previous break-throughts each consecutive salvia trip. This memory. (Which i think is probably some neuro-linguistic pathway that develops with chronic salvia use) I suppose salvinorin A has the ability to unlock this pathway. Giving the illusion of a reverse tolerance.

As does other entheogens. Somehow. Because i also remember salvia experiences when i take shrooms. I suppose we can find some important link if we know what mushrooms and salvia have in common if we look at their fysiological effects.

I'm not sure how it would go with just one leaf at a time, when I quid I normally go for as many as I can fit in my mouth, which is at least 20-25 leaves and then another 15 or so once the first batch has reduced enough to allow me to fit more in. I've even had up to 60 smaller leaves in my mouth at one time - which was too many as my mouth was really full and I had a hard time keeping all the saliva in there and some of it ran down my chin.

My experience with the reverse tolerance was mostly with smoking, but I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work with a quid. I'd start with at least 10 leaves for a quid and see how that goes. It's totally different to smoking it, so it shouldn't give you a scary trip with 10 or even 20 if you can handle the taste & keep it in your mouth for long enough to get the effect.

I'm not sure of the biological reasons, and I do think it is a sort of learned behavior, that with each dosage our brains "learn" better how to go deeper. I have no idea how this happens, but it's very real. I can't see it as an illusion because however or whatever the function, the effects become stronger with repeated use. Even if it is that our brains learn to utilize smaller and smaller amounts of salvinorin A to achieve the same level of effects.

I also find my Salvia experiences having an influence on my other experiences with other psychedelics. Mushrooms and DMT. Even the last several times I've had Ololiuqui. Also cannabis. When it happened with cannabis I thought it was because I had smoked it out of a bong that I had also used for Salvia a while back. But the same thing happened when I smoked a joint with some friends weeks later.

Whatever this plant does, it really changes the way you experience psychedelics specifically. I have used Salvia regularly for years, however. But once you go that far down the rabbit hole with Salvia, you don't come back the same. In a different way than most other psychedelics.

Still, I love it, and wouldn't take back any of the experiences I've had with it.

It's an intriguing phenomena that hasn't really been thoroughly investigated - as far I'm aware anyway.

I only have a very rudimentary understanding of synaptic communication but it has kept me awake at night many times trying understand the mechanisms of "reverse tolerance"

I'm hoping someone will chime in here and correct me on any misconceptions I might have but anyway....

We know that there are two major methods of synaptic communication.
1 Electrical
2 Chemical

I've also read (maybe imagined ?) that electrical synaptic connections can be reconstructed through chemical signaling if the original electrical connections are severed through brain damage due to trauma or viral damage etc.

So we know (or maybe I've imagined?) that synaptic communication can be trans-located to different parts of the brain due to chemical signaling if the need arises.

Maybe our brains (or DNA) interpret the electrical synaptic connections formed under the influence of Salvinorum A to be important enough to be reproduced chemically in the advent of electrical synaptic communication breakdown and make a chemical backup that is constantly being copied and spreading to other synaptic connections inadvertently ?

Every subsequent Salvia experience could then reinforce this chemical synaptic backup and produce a logarithmic expansion of synapses affected.

Maybe I've just had way too much to drink, I really should stop after 15 drinks.

Wow, thanks for all the great responses! I'm going to need some time to digest this all

Agreed.

In my experience, and in hearing of others who have repeatedly experimented with the plant, I've found myself drawing closer to the conclusion that it isn't the result of a biochemical function but a "learned" behavior. As Dioxippus mentioned earlier.

Perhaps it's a bit unfair to call it a "reverse tolerance," as it implies that it's like the inverse of cannabis or MDMA, wherein it takes more substance during a chronic period in order to get an equal high - or a break long enough to "reset" the chemical tolerance. In fact salvia's reverse tolerance doesn't work this way. It isn't temporary the way other substances are - it's permanent! It doesn't matter how long you wait before using the plant again - having traveled through its wilderness before, you automatically gain a kind of permanent guidepost for returning. If there's any biochemical function, I imagine it has to do with pattern memory. Once your brain has experienced the new salviaic pattern, it has a memory of the state which is then more easily accessible on a subsequent trip.

I've also experienced a vivid flashback while watching a movie - the editing seemed to spark a somatic memory and for a tiny instant I experienced a full-body-and-head salvia feeling. Remarkably vivid. It has only happened that once.

i've found out that the smell of recently burnt weed does this for me. The smell is akin to what i smelled from the pipe i used for salvia at the time. which bleeded in and got amplified big-time in my breakthrough/obe experience.

This triggers an emotional response and memories, and allowed me to revisit stuff i've lost but was once able to remember. If i had simply written it down tho, i think i would have remembered upon reading it.

Let me chime in a bit : So we know that synaptic communication let's say between 2 neurons can be restored due to brain plasticity by the pre-synaptic neuron rebuilding dendrites that reach out to the post-synaptic neuron as it was before the damage. They don't actually reach out to remote locations in the brain if they were not designed to do so before the damage.





What you seem to be talking about here, is long term potentiation. That generally happens with most psychoactive substances, by reinforcing the bonds (electric potential, chemical signaling) between communicating neurons, and it is allegedly why some people experience "flashbacks". These flashbacks can be a result of a reinforced pattern of brain activation that is triggered by an external or internal stimuli (e.g you were tripping in front of a specific shape, and whenever you see that shape sober, the possibility exists that the potentiated pattern of activation will fire off, simulating the activation pattern you reinforced during the trip). Which is similar to the mechanism of post-traumatic stress disorder.

But to the point, it seems that you're not far off in the original speculation. Salvinorin's reverse tolerance may not be biological (we need a biophysicist and a molecular biologist that is knowledgable on the physical properties of the k-opioid receptors to understand if this is the case), but could easily be a type of sensitisation to giving in to the behaviour. From what I read on this study, the neocortex (carrying high-level functions such as numerical, visual, auditory, spatial and motoric processing) shows a significantly reduced spectral power. This means that the millivolts between synapses (electrical signaling) are much weaker, resulting in a "dampened" activity of our processes. It could easily resemble a mild comatose state (brain-wise). Interestingly, the part of the temporal lobe that engulfs the hippocampus remained active (if not more active) than the rest, giving power to the numerous reports on how this substance brings up faded memories. It could be speculated that the need to "let go" is much more important with this substance than any other, not in a need to avoid a bad trip, but to be able to experience its ideal state.

By that notion, we may be reaching easier into the experience just by learning not to resist it.

Maybe this is why too much light, noise or general distractions can make someone come out of the trip, since a distraction will force some parts of the brain to increase the firing rate and voltage, thereby restoring the normal spectral power and "waking" us up (to an extent, of course).

My best theoretical educated guess, on why the effects and usefulness of Salvinorin are so much different than most serotonergic substances.

Great discussion on reverse tolerance... I'm going to swing back to the OPs original topic!

My work with Salvia began by smoking strong extracts. I started at 10x, had a series of hard-head experiences, and broke through on three tokes of 30x (my technique was terrible, so much was wasted). My goal was: As long as I could move and understand my movement as the effects kicked in, I would toke again. Another time after that I broke through on 20x, but a far easier trip than the 30x, much more in-control, much more playful and visionary.

Integration was very difficult with the sub-breakthrough doses as there wasn't much to integrate - except for the obvious Salvia-truth of plastic perception. All reality is simply what we believe to be true in the moment. There may be no reason or purpose to any of it - WE imbue our experiences with purpose, WE create our reality, and we do it for all the cosmos because we are of the cosmos. Salvia seems to make this kind of integration crucial: What people traditionally view as "real" may not be as solid as many think. We inherit human vessels, which are machines designed to perceive cosmic energy in a specific cross-section - a(n) hallucination, an illusion of "full" reality.

My big breakthrough on 30x carried a much easier, even automatic integration. It was a complete mind-melt of a trip, 6 on Siebert's SALVIA scale, though where he doesn't recommend it because of the amnesic element, there was no doubt in my mind that something big had happened, and while I couldn't remember many specifics of the trip, I very much noticed the effects.

It was all in empathy. The day after the breakthrough, everything seemed alive, and I felt newborn. I saw the waves of water and recognized something fundamental in them, recognized the living music of all the universe in them. I saw the flowers and leaves of a tree rustling in the wind and chills ran down my spine and somehow I knew that I had a deep personal connection to this tree - as if I had in fact lived its life, had been it entirely. Every insect and leaf and gust of wind, every brick and piece of sidewalk, every cloud and star - All were living, conscious, bathed in a sea of consciousness that moved through all perceivable phenomena.

This gave me a powerful boost to empathy and the way that I approached and thought about others. I feel to this day that every single person is myself (and vice versa with total equality) with a slightly different shape to their prism. I feel that all life is really energy, light, focused through temporary prisms (our machine bodies and brains) while we in fact share the very same light that gives us experience.

My perception of time itself changed. I realized that the universe simply IS, it is a shape, a spectrum, and within this is all change that will and can ever be. It's our machine-bodies that tie us to the arrow of time and the perception of one-dimensional one-directional change. There is in fact one moment which never ends, and we perceive this single moment as in constant flux. It's all in where you look - and how.

I also received another seemingly-new power - A strength over anxiety and stress. Having endured such an annihilating journey - experiencing the total dismantling of myself, becoming the void between cosmic breaths, and re-entering chaos and the tree of connected life and consciousness, feeling and seeing and knowing somehow in some nearby language the ineffable shape of it all - It has allowed me to approach any challenge without fear, to process violence and negative energy around me with serenity. The knowledge that, in the end, nothing really matters except for the weight we create, has freed me from a kind of bondage I never before realized I was in. I don't believe I have felt anger toward a human being since my experiments with Salvia. If that isn't a profoundly positive effect from half an hour of smoke-induced journeying, I don't know what is.

Meanwhile my old vision of death as simple oblivion has been wiped away, and it's very difficult for me to imagine death as anything other than a new transformation into the conscious energy we were before birth and will return to again. There is a new fear in my mind because of this - Fear that there's no way out, fear that I will have to endure all the cosmos ever has in it. Sometimes we crave oblivion, we want rest, we want peace, we want off this spinning sphere for a while. And in those moments of fear I remember the void, the pregnant peace, the infinite expanse of nothing, the utter lack of anything and somehow the foundation of everything. If we can know the void, then we can know peace.

Having taken all of this into the core of myself, I don't smoke extract anymore. I feel it would be greedy somehow for myself. And yet I do feel the call of Salvia. I long for that feeling of the void, for that emptying of the mind and the ability to instantaneously "know". These days I still use the plant, but I exclusively use Siebert's tincture, generally opting for the high end of the "Strong" dose (but not yet a "Very Strong" dose). I use the tincture while I continue to try to hunt down a plant. I would most love to work with the leaves but have so far not found a plant, and unfortunately my lifestyle sees me out of town so often I may have to frequently get plant-sitters during my at-times very long trips away. As for tincture, I have so far not broken through using this method, but it brings me into that familiar world beyond my body, the churning machine of energy that surrounds us and reminds us that we aren't our meat and bones, we aren't our brain or heart, and the world as we see it is a kind of smoke-and-mirror show. I come out of these trips with a glow of love for all life, even life corrupted and turned monster. There is darkness in potential too - That's the price we pay for diversity, for color, for the ability to take part in the wild game and be free to choose our path along the way.

And the most important choice is the choice we discover of perspective - That we can CHOOSE how we see each other and the world, we can CHOOSE what we believe is important and what matters. There is a place where nothing matters, and in that place all potential realities can be held in a pixel. We are not in that place, though Salvia can give us a glimpse. We are in the middle world, the jungle, the swamp, the realms of eating and fucking. It's utterly ridiculous, this place. I can't help but love it.

Great post and conclusion! Couldn't agree with you more Bemeda : )

Very good description I can relate to the tumbling through states of consciousness grasping at some but others living it a lifetime.
The different angles of awareness always concertina quite spectacularly and gracefully.
Have you had the disassembling of you as a cheeky lesson/joke by Lady Salvia to show you who we realy are? She has obviously had a very long relationship with our kind and no doubt has experienced the fleshy flappy existence we call humanity. I found the key to having a smooth ride was first respect and secondly a submitting attitude. Go there to learn and submit to every part of it with all your heart don't force any agenda in the slightest onto it and then you will be embraced by SallyD (or sallyA), its ok to feel you are in many pieces because you are! We are multidimensional beings.