PurpleDot wrote:"Far too many people blast themselves into Salviapsace with a high end extract and it scares them off it for life"
I wonder a bit about "being scared off of salvia" and I'm not fully sure, whether this is because of the experience itself or due to some "property" of salvia or the way it works that is keeping people from doing it regularly. It is generally said to be non-addictive and the number of people to regularly indulge in salviaspace is marginal, but it appears in recent years it has found its connoisseurs.
Anyway, here is my little story on that: I've tried salvia when I was quite young (maybe 16) and just has been introduced to cannabis, but didn't had too many sources for that. Salvia was generally legal at that time, and it was easy to obtain different products from a guy who operated a mail-order shop and seemed particularly enthusiastic about salvia. So, I had really well dried leaf (it was brown and had a look/feel like tobacco), some fluid extract, and a live plant.
Yet, I smoked the bought and the grown leaf with only very minor effects: I generally was always thinking it is not doing anything, only years later when I tried a 10x extract, I realized what has been the effect the years ago.
I stored the fluid extract for a few years and tried it with a friend at college, again, very minor effects, barely noticeable closed-eye effects in as much drakness we could achieve, and they could have been placebo. We ended the experiment after a few hours and when I went outside to walk back to my place, I really enjoyed all the trees and plants next the boardwalk and the fresh, cold evening air, etc. But is was more like a nice, still subtle, afterglow, nothing really to be called an effect.
Then, I guess about two years later, I offered a friend to smoke some 10x extract (still legal back then) in a small hookah glass pipe. At that point, I had lost any much expectation into salvia, and we were mainly doing that because we had no weed.
It was a summer evening, with a lot of sun outside, so in no way the room could have been called "dark", but there was no direct sunlight coming in. Before smoking, I explained to my friend that one must not move in order to not make the effects go away, that one might be "gone" for a few minutes and that the total duriation will be roughly 15-20 min at max (not sure about this timing as I just write). Anyway, we agreed that I go first, and he will stay out of may way for 10 minutes and at the 10 minute mark would check on me.
So, I took one big toke, held it for a while, then took another one. I intended to hold it long and see if effects would set in. But I couldn't. Effects appeared pretty fast, so I could barely get the pipe out my hand. I leaned back and let me lie down on the bed I was sitting.
The beginning of the trip reminded me of psilocybe mushrooms (slightly off-topic: the mushrooms which initiated me were bought in Amsterdam, and they were quite small mushrooms, not like cubensis, and were packaged at 1.32g dried for 2 doses. If anyone could enlighten me on the Psilocybe species that could have been that, I would be very happy, have thought about that for years actually.)
On the mushroom trip, effects started after 15 min and took like 30-45 min to plateau at some strange but familar "place" or maybe "dimension". On the salvia trip, the initial fractal visuals were missing, but it took only seconds to get to the same place at which the mushrooms had plateau'ed. For the fraction of a second it felt like the idential place. But unlike the mushrooms, the salvia didn't stop there. Amazed, and with still eyes open, I could see the room, but gradually all boundaries between the outline of my body and the bed I was lying on ceased to exist, also all boundaries between all objects ceased to exist. My body, the bed, the room, the windows, and all other objects were like one single membrane. I found that all highly interesting, closed my eyes (no idea, how I did that, but I did) and only saw blackness with something very small in the far background, but I don't really remember what of if it was anything.
During that fast trip come on, I had zero fear, was highly interested and remember that I was like "hey, this is nice, manageable, and super interesting. probably, this is similar to DMT coming on, from what I've read. So after that, I'm finally ready to try some DMT".
Yet, as I had just closed my eyes and was waiting if any interesting vision might happen, my friend touched me and asked me how I was doing and if anything is happening. According to our prearragement I assumed that this means 10 minutes have passed, while I've experienced it like 30 seconds of going into the trip. This was when I panicked. I could not believe my sense of time got *that* distorted without me noticing anything in that regard.
I stood up, and the trip stopped completely. 100%. I was practically sober instantly. That's what still amazes me. It blasts you (in a quite pleasant, non-overwhelming way, at least for me at that dose) beyond physical reality, but you can get up and it stops instantly.
After reorienting myself, I checked a watch and talked to my friend and it turned out that maybe 1 or 2 minutes had passed and that he just poked me without sticking to our prior agreement.
So, lesson one: have experienced trip sitters (apart weed, that particular fired of mine never has done any psychedelics) or at least people that are able and conscious about sticking to agreements.
And to get back to the inital point: During the trip, everything was fine. The end was a bit rough, and I had some minor anxiety, I immediately knew what was going on and was still sure that this experience would free me of any hesitations regarding "breakthroughs", either on Salvia or DMT.
Yet, the next times, when I tried lower amounts of it, I more or less "freaked" a bit after smoking, had not much of an effect, but after maybe 3 further attempts, I've never touched the stuff again or have any intention to do so. I wonder why. So even if you don't freak due to the blast, it seems to have some kind of inherent "I have no interest in doing it again" quality.
nothing is true, it's all just imagination