Salvia divinorum - Erowid Exp (2024)

Salvia is a gift from the gods that demands respect.

It has been a year since I discovered salvia. It has had so many effects on my life. It has completely changed the ways I think about myself, my dreams, other people, reality, space/time, consciousness, history, nature, the world, and the universe. There are many good experience reports (even though words fail so miserably to describe salvia), so rather than describing my specific experiences, here is some retrospective information.

My first experience with salvia was with some 13x from a local headshop. I hadn’t had any experience with psychedelics before, and I didn’t expect much because it is legal. About 20-30 seconds after taking my first hit, a rainbow shot out of my chest, sounds became all distorted, and I was being sucked out of the room. I was terrified!

I didn’t know that “going on a trip” actually meant *going* on a trip!

The first 4 trips were euphoric and even fun, despite the initial panic the first time. The 5th trip was very different. I thought that I died, and I experienced my ego being obliterated. I had used salvia once a week, but this experience made me take a 2 month break. After the break I started using salvia once again, about once every 2 weeks, with a couple 4-6 week long breaks as well. Sometimes the trips are “constructive” and life and the universe make more sense afterwards. Sometimes the trips are “destructive” and pull apart everything that makes sense.

Sometime during the last year, I realized that my physical appetite and psychological desire for alcohol simply evaporated.

I’m a 30 year old male, and I’ve had trouble with alcohol since age 18 with ups and downs. I’ve had counseling and quit twice for periods of about six months. Prior to finding salvia, I had been having more trouble. I’m not sure what happened. I think that salvia had some physical effect on my mind. The day after my first salvia trip, I noticed that colors were brighter and contrasts were sharper. Something was different. Things looked different. It is possible that the salvia may have had a psychological effect. It is also possible that there was some sort of addiction transference, but since I don’t crave salvia (in fact, I’m a little scared of it), I don’t think that is what it is. It is also possible that something else physical (for example hormonal) or psychological happened – possibly associated with my turning 30.

I have had the opportunity to smoke many different strengths, from plain leaf to extracts (5, 10, 13, 17, 20, 21, and 30X), different brands/sources, and salvia tincture. It seems that the body feel depends strongly on the brand/source. I have found that the extracts made with alcohol tend to be a bit “weaker” and have less of the crushing/grinding/burning body feel. When smoking salvia, my trip begins almost immediately and last for about 10-15 minutes. There is also a long “tail” to the trip that lasts about another half-hour. The first few times using salvia, I ignored that part of the trip, but as time has gone on, I’ve learned to use that part of the trip more and more.

Although salvia is expensive, it is amazing how little is needed to completely turn reality on it head. I find that a trip on salvia tincture takes about 5-10 minutes to start, and can last about an hour. A dosage of about 5 ml (diluted with an equal amount of warm water) produces a very useful trip that is more like guided meditation. A dosage of 10 ml of tincture (again, diluted with an equal amount of warm water), produces an experience as deep as 20X – and the experience lasts for a long time. It leaves me completely exhausted. Salvia tincture is not weak! The biggest problem with tincture is that it “burns” my mouth like when I drink too hot a beverage. The burn goes away in a couple of days.

Common to all of my experiences are: death, the helpers, spinning, stretching, lines, turning into other things, losing my identity, other dimensions, and the membrane. I also get a lot of music: American Indian and native African drumming, techno, and vocal “humming”.

Salvia is very spiritual and should be used like a sacrament.