Salvia Divinorum (C or D)?

^ lawlz

can HOOS or someone who's done it describe what it's like? is it similar to a lot of mushrooms or acid, but just more overwhelming? and maybe explain the orb effect?

you were quick to say you got none of them facts.

Nah, I was quick to say I don't give a shit about providing footnotes to everything I say.

let it go now plz?

you first, starting.... NOW!

more salvia talk here:
Kratom, the legal opiate alternative (and other legal highs discussion, I guess).

to reiterate, i've done damn near everything and salvia is more disorienting by a factor of about a million, a sitter is a must.

**(Of course, I understand why someone would not believe that a man on LSD sawed off his leg while his girlfriend watched and neither of them thought it was a bad idea until it was too late. Believe me, I understand the inability to accept this. However, what I'm telling you is simply that I read it in a non-fictitious news article only a few years ago and I don't give a shit if you believe it. If it was a popular urban myth, you'd probably find it all over the net. If it was a small news bite about a random jackass in Utah, it would probably have faded out of the news completely at this point. However, the dangerous shit people do on Salvia is readily viewable over at erowid.org... It has nothing to do with "who gots da facts." Facts aren't something a person got or don't got. They exist out there in space. What I don't got is a reference on that particular article.)

this thread revival reminded me I should try it again.
I did it once a few years ago when I was trying to think of a way to earn a living without compromising too much my happiness. I was pacing around my apartment for a few hours already, being all cerebral and restless, alternating sips of thick green tea and red wine, it was very hot outside but inside was fresh and shady. So I smoked some salvia; I was not expecting enlightenment, or a solution to all my problems , but consciousness being governed by physical causes and for what I knew about it I took a safe bet that instant consciousness alteration could provide a jolt of physical wisdom, a different sensual experience of matter ( the world and myself), that could be part of an ongoing critical perspective on my life (Take a step outside the planet Turn around and around Take a look at where you are) . I only remember a vague feeling of it, like walking through an underbrush, in my apartment, ferns felt transparent, the veins of leaves flowing. It seamlessly faded into my keeping on walking around the apartment for a few hours with stops at my computer, alternating sips of my beverages and thinking. So that's my little story, a materialist almost "ceremonial" usage, I think lots of people should invent such a thing for themselves.

BTW, has anyone here done PCP?? I remember Beastie Boys sang about it, didn't they? Isn't that what "dust" is? PCP sounds like my worst nightmare.

Sébastien, did you learn anything from it, like you'd hoped?

Does salvia seem to kill massive brain cells? These people look more cracked out during the experience than crackheads.

quick trip at wikipedia : "Salvinorin's potency should not be confused with toxicity. Rodents chronically exposed to dosages many times greater than those to which humans are exposed did not show signs of organ damage."

who wants to try this with me

also called Jimson Weed, Gypsum Weed, Loco Weed, Jamestown Weed, Thorn Apple, Angel's Trumpet, Devil's Trumpet, Mad Hatter, Crazy Tea, and Zombie's Cucumber

lolo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8J883zTavA

inside edition is on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u12SZAyMp54

it's weird -- wikipedia mentions "phantom cigarettes." these^^^ guys smoke one. seems like a pretty particular side-effect..

damn goliath why u make sad?

I did salvia a few years ago. I didn't have a bad experience, but I felt kind of lucky for not having one. I didn't have any desire to do it again.

I was chatting on IM with a friend of mine, and took a toke. After a few minutes I was kind of stuck. I couldn't focus on the chat window, and the light from my monitor contrasting with the dark room did something weird to my head. I felt like I was a statue with vines and plants growing all over me and coming out from under my monitor. It felt like someone was in the room with me - something I can only describe as feminine and slightly sinister - but it didn't frighten me or anything. After a few minutes, my clothes felt very uncomfortable. My skin was really scratchy and sensitive. That's about it, really.

I read a bunch of stuff afterward on erowid and some other sites like that. I get a huge kick out of the stories, and these idiots on youtube crack me up, too. I learned that the feeling of a presence in the room is a pretty typical thing, and plants seem to figure into a lot of people's trips as well. I suppose it's possible I had read some of those stories before I took it, and they influenced what I experienced, but it's pretty weird that a drug can induce such similar "visions" in different people.

I can't really think of a drug it reminds me of. The closest would be nitrous or ketamine.

i never even heard of jimsom weed abuse. this stuff disintegrates your kidneys on contact.

xpost yeah plants were all over my one huge trip, first the corner in which my stereo sat (playing aki tsuyuko, under normal circumstances the most benign music in the world but twisted to evil ends) became a sentient, assholish celestial christmas tree, and after a while I was caught in like a multi-billion acre corn field except the corn stalks were sideways christmas trees and i was shoved through/under them (with the stalks scratching my body over and over) for what seemed like hours.

That sounds way fucked up.

this stuff disintegrates your kidneys on contact.

?

i did this with a friend in high school. it had no effect on me but my friend at one pt rolled towards the wall as if he was being pulled by something

Sébastien, did you learn anything from it, like you'd hoped?

experiencing a sensual Otherness like that got part of the process of my sensual maturity, that had repercussions on my critical thinking that eventually got me where I am today, accidents included and all that, fairly free happy internet man. .

can HOOS or someone who's done it describe what it's like? is it similar to a lot of mushrooms or acid, but just more overwhelming? and maybe explain the orb effect?

-- negotiable, Saturday, 28 July 2007 00:21

I see some others have already chimed in here. My fuzzily remembered experience is as follows:

As was recommended, I tried to burn the full dose with a single toke. I succeeded, though not without some protests from my chest. There was the attendant coughing, watering of the eyes, and disorientation; this is where it kicked in. As I leaned my head back to take in air and recover from my coughing, my eyes fell on a painting on the wall. It was an image of some brush lining a winding path that lead over the top of a hill. Further back in the painting one could see hills further away, and at the farthest hill there was a house with some sheep.

I was immediately struck by the fact that the brush had taken on a three dimensional quality. It looked like it was protruding from the frame just enough that I could walk up and touch it. It felt fuzzy and organic, like a Chia pet.

I suddenly remembered "hey, I'm under the influence, I can do whatever I want here."

So I grabbed hold of the brush on either side of the "path" in the painting and pulled hard, which brought the image rushing at me. Then I was in it. In front of and all around me were the contents of the painting, I was in this dollar store decorative work. I looked behind me and saw, like looking out a massive picture window, the contents of my loft: my sober & serenely smiling friend, furniture, computer, and all. I felt completely safe, secure in the knowledge that I could go back any time I wanted to.

So I ran around in this idyllic vaugely Irish-looking setting for what felt like hours. I was able to leap from hill to hill, so I got to the house at the back of the painting rather quickly. I talked with the sheperd and ran around with the sheep. He offered me some tea but I told him I had to go, I had company waiting for me. I bounded back over the hills and used the brush to slingshot myself back out again. Then I laid down on the floor of my loft and let it wear off. Then I took a nap.

My friend assured me later that I was standing in front of the painting staring at it for about 15 minutes.

experiencing a sensual Otherness like that got part of the process of my sensual maturity, that had repercussions on my critical thinking that eventually got me where I am today, accidents included and all that, fairly free happy internet man. .

I'm confused a little bit, not that it matters. But, are you saying you are now a fairly free happy internet man or you were just calling me "internet man?" Lack of comma suggests you are referring to yourself there, so I am just wondering if you're involved in web design/consultation/publishing, etc. Not that these are remotely the same industries, but they are all web-oriented careers.

HOOS, i would smoke all this salvia with you

Sébastien is webmans. we all webbers

i never even heard of jimsom weed abuse. this stuff disintegrates your kidneys on contact.

Heh.. Datura is to be avoided. I'm sure there are shamans around that dig the stuff, but I'm not one of them.

HOOS thanks & wow. it sounds like what i thought drugs were like before i actually did any drugs.

I've had some similar experiences when I would do multiple doses of "double dipped" or liquid LSD, but I remember when I would tell other people who'd used acid, nobody really seemed to believe me. So, it just became a relatively secret type of experience shared by one or two other "trip buddies." I remember once every single bit of everything I could see was just wiggling and I suddenly was transported into this cosmic sandstorm where I actually felt like it was so windy I could barely breathe and I was trying to shield my face from all the shit that was flying at me. It was notably different also in that everything was rust or greyish colored rather than obvious psychedelic bright colors. I was basically incapacitated and having a kind of panic attack for a while on the couch, just collapsing under the weight of these incredible visions. Once the peak experience passed, the rest of the trip was straight out of a science fiction movie, where everything in my apartment looked like portals or hallways of a spaceship or robotic and metallic in some way. There was almost no talking the entire time except when we were both frightened by the cat, which looked like an evil robot monster coming right for us. The entire thing was cold and alien rather than warm and organic.

Sébastien is webmans. we all webbers
^^^^^ that's right

Webmans + webbers! Thanks for the specifics! ;-)

Watching Syd Barret's documented acid trip sort of enlightened me how silly the use of psychedelics really are:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4fyxNPz9-ks

Not to bum anyone's trip or nuthin'...

Yeah I want to emphasize that I had a positive experience, but that I would *not* recommend the use of the thing given the preponderance of people that have had horrible experiences with it.

HOOS, that's amazing. It reminds me somewhat of the account I read of the person who took Salvinorin A, and then found himself in his grandmother's house, just as he remembered it from childhood. But, to emphasize, he reported being actually, physically there, like in the sense of a place that felt more concretely real than the room in which he had been before he had taken the drug...He could walk around the place, open up drawers, or whatever. That particular story is probably online somewheres; I will try to dig it up.

Also, have any of you read Dale Pendell's books? I highly, highly recommend them, if you have even the slightest interest in any psychoactive substance, from the most commonplace to most exotic. He's an amazing guy.

Found it. It's from Daniel Siebert, the guy who first isolated Salvinorin A.

...But then I saw that something was very wrong! This was not my living room. It was the living room of my deceased maternal grandparents. And it was furnished as it was when I was a child, not as it was later in their life. The most extraordinary thing about this was that this was the real world, not a memory or vision. I was really there, and it was all just as solid as the room I'm sitting in now. I had the sudden realization that although I had managed to pull myself back into my body I had somehow ended up back in the wrong spot in the timeline of my physical existence. I was convinced that I might be stuck in this situation and would have to continue my life from this point in my past. As I panicked and desperately tried to remember where it was that I was supposed to be, I lost awareness of the physical world again and found myself without a body—lost. Then it happened again. I found myself regaining consciousness in the real world. And again, as soon as I saw everything clearly, I realized that this was not my home, it was a friend of mine’s. Then again I panicked and lost consciousness. This cycle repeated at least seven or eight times. Always I would find myself in a familiar room. Some of these places were from my childhood and some were from my more recent past. In this state, all the points of time in my personal history coexisted. One did not precede the next. Apparently, had I so willed it, I could return to any point in my life and really be there, because it was actually happening right now.

link

Also, Dale Pendell on Salvia...

i had some wolf shaman friends who were really into this. they were all "safety first" so i said fuck y'all lightweights and dusted mine with a healthy serving of pcp. i passed out immediately and felt nothing, but now everytime i see a bowl of beernuts this happens:

http://filer.case.edu/~gjc2/donwave.gif

For real?

no, sorry

It seemed kinda plausible, you had me going there.

your trip sounds really amazing

Just for the sake of clarification, I didn't try it again and I haven't touched any psychoactive drugs in almost two years. "Put down the bong and get on with life" and all that.

Also the Buddha prob wouldn't be real happy with me trippin.

HOOS, have you ever read "Zig Zag Zen"? It's a really thoughtful and well-worth read about the intersection of Buddhism & psychedelics.

um, zigzagzen.com

Also the Buddha prob wouldn't be real happy with me trippin.

Yeah, the hippie mentality of psychedelics as "instant enlightenment" is silly. It's the opposite, pretty much. Certain Vajrayana sects use/d them once or twice to reintroduce a person to the nature of mind, but more than this is basically going the opposite way of what Buddhists are trying to achieve. Psychedelics blatantly show the endless arising of thoughts and allow one to experience the enormity and interconnectivity of existence with the fresh eyes of a baby and functioning brain of an adult. Other than that, from a Buddhist perspective, they're a rather dangerous waste of time and opportunity.

But, there's got to be a reason such a large percentage of American Buddhists used to be hippies or psychedelics users. It seems like enlightenment and it gets one off chasing even better "highs" and opens eyes to possibilities, right?

Certain Vajrayana sects use/d them once or twice to reintroduce a person to the nature of mind...

whaaaa? examples please! seriously.

I'd suggest that given psychedelics' tendency to disconnect us from present reality, they can be nothing but a road block to experience of "thus."

But, there's got to be a reason such a large percentage of American Buddhists used to be hippies or psychedelics users. It seems like enlightenment and it gets one off chasing even better "highs" and opens eyes to possibilities, right?

I think this is pretty much correct. Psychedelics, if they don't damage you permanently, certainly leave you open to alternative ways of looking at the world. Given Buddhism's surge in popularity in the early 70s, it's a pretty safe bet that lots of that surge was coming from ex-hippies who were looking for psychedelic-free ways to experience "reality." The same happened with Christianity: look at the language used to witness in the late 60s/early 70s! "Jesus is far out and really NOW, maaan," etc

xpost to el deano

There's a bunch of info online including an mp3 lecture, if you're really lazy (as I was at the time ;-)) But where I originally read about it was Blofeld's "Tibetan Buddhism." The author himself was a product of the 60s and this catapulted into the serious study of Tibetan Buddhism. All you have to do is look at the iconography and it seems pretty obvious there's some psychedelic origin. In Tibet, the form of Buddhism is an amalgamation of everything from the area thanks to that great king whatsisname who made enlightenment the #1 goal of Tibet, so it blends all the forms of Buddhism with the shamanic-like practices that were indigenous to the region, like Bonpo, etc. There's some great passages I could pull from books that show the certain similarities that might be addressed in Zig Zag Zen (I don't know, I haven't read it).

I'd like to comment on something I didn't even realize I hinted at in my post above about the cold and alien metallic science fiction trip. I don't know what caused this particular sort of "space" trip, but my tripping partner had the same experience. As I said, the entire trip was silent except for the time when we freaked because the cat was coming at us and we couldn't tell if it was a real robot alien monster or just a hallucination. I think the extent of our conversation at that point was, "Ah! What is it? Is it real?" or maybe even startled mumblings. I remember it was my roommate who said finally, "It's the cat!" (because I think he had balls enough to touch it and felt the fur?)

But, the question I'm getting at here is: what's with the psychic factor in psychedelics? The 2 guys sharing a phantom cigarette in the above video sort of hints at this, too. In my experience, my friends and I saw the same shit. Now, how is that possible without communication?

I'm gonna try to avoid the cognition trap from the meditation thread when I say this, BUUUUUT:

Did you and your friend actually see the same thing, or did you just think you did? Unless you were inside your trip partner's head (whoa), there's no way to be sure you guys actually had the same experience at the time, and memory tends to be easily bent (especially when drugs are involved).

Reading much more subtle body language maybe? xpost

Well, we were pretty serious "white boy drug professors" at the time and we'd compare notes and draw pictures to compare the next day, etc. Obviously, I don't know what he saw because I wasn't in his head. But, when the entire vision is skewed into a cosmic storm and the entire trip takes on a metallic spaceship appearance for no particular reason, that's weird. And this is only one particular trip. We were basically always seeing the same thing. As far as "body language" goes, in this particular case, we couldn't see SHIT and we were both lying on our backs staring at the ceiling and the opposite walls for about 4 hours. Typically, I remember we didn't look at each other too much at all because we always looked strange and it was just not very appealling.