A few months ago, a little bird whispered the following account to me: (Disclaimer: I didn't do it! Nobody saw me do it! You can't prove anything!)

This weekend I had the pleasure of trying Salvia for the first time, and let it be said; it worked! Wow!

Here goes...

Since I was quite ignorant as to how much I was supposed to smoke, I started out with just a tiny pinch, and sprinkled it into my home made pipe (made from a bottle), lit it and puffed away. Very minor effects, yet quite comfortable. I felt a bit more thoughtful and philosophical, and visualizing things with my eyes closed became quite easy. Also, a vague tingling sensation was felt, but this might come from my exitement. :)

The smoke wasn't all that bad. It tasted a bit like oregano, and keeping it down was no problem.

But, the experience wasn't quite as expected, and I decided to give it another shot. I waited about 15 minutes, and this time I used approximately twice as much as last time. Probably still a small dose, I thought.

I decided to go for one big hit this time, and lit up. The white smoke filled the bottle much thicker than the last time. I could still beel this tingling sensation from the first try, but I could feel it getting stronger, so I quickly put down the pipe, and laid down on the couch.

And then I laid down on the couch. And again. And again. Faster and faster. Time stopped moving forward, and the last few moments kept repeating themselves, up to 3 times / second or so! It almost felt like my body was spinning. I started to feel very dizzy, but without any nausea, which was a bit odd.

The need to get up and "shake it off" was overwhelming, because it wasn't very comfortable, but luckily I managed to keep calm. I have read numerous stories and trip reports where people try to get up and walk during this "trance", and ended up falling down and hurting themselves. I repeated to myself "don't get up, just go with it." over and over. Thinking rationally was difficult, but I managed somehow.

After the initial few seconds (or was it longer?) the time loop and dizzyness went away, and I felt myself sink deeper into the couch, almost as if the couch changed into something softer. I was staring at a picture on the wall. (The room was just enough lit to see it.) Then - take off! The wall and parts of the picture started to flow and dissolved into a mass of strange shapes, which everything seemed to be made of. Most of them were shaped roughly like a key hole. The picture on the wall seemed to lose it's "squareness", and looked more like a gate or portal. It was very colorful, but quite hard to make any sense out of at the time.

I suddenly realized that this was the Salvia "talking", and decided to close my eyes, as I have read that external stimuli, like sounds and images, can disturb the "trance".

As I closed my eyes I saw the same river of shapes as earlier, flowing key holes, filled with small colored "sub-shapes", these also roughly shaped like key holes. In retrospect it reminds me a bit about the typical self-similarity of fractal patterns.

After having studied this river for a while, I accidentally moved my foot to get more comfortable. Wow, what a sight! I immediately noticed that parts of these shapes seemed to move "along with me". The shapes didn't resemble anything humanoid, but they did move in synch with the movements I made!

By the way, the fact that I was suddenly aware of my body again seemed to interrupt the normal flow of the trip, and it seemed like I had to start from scratch again everytime I realized that I was actually lying on a couch, and not hovering over this river of colors. Therefore I didn't care to study these sychronized movement effects very closely.

After a while - I had no idea how long at the time - things started to slow down. And as soon as I noticed just that, it was over. It was just as if someone turned out the lights. I could, however, seem to notice the shapes if I tried real hard, but after an additional 20 seconds the ride was over.

I sat up, and noticed that everything felt soft. The floor felt like foam rubber. I also felt a bit "high" and trippy, but only vaguely. I sat down by my PC to share the experience with some friends on the net, and one of them - let's call him Ben - suggested that I'd look at my plants, and see if they had this energy field around them. To my amazement, they did! A soft white shimmer seemed to engulf all of the plants in the room. I have no idea what this was. I might have imagined it, as I was told to look for it, but who knows. This was approx. 20 minutes after the touchdown, and I was feeling quite "sober" again. As a side note; Ben called this effect "plant telepathy", and I understand that it isn't all unheard of with regard to Salvia experiences.

The time never occured to me, but I guess the inital full-blown trip lasted 5 - 10 minutes, and the much softer second part of the trip lasted an hour or two.

Some "conclusions";

- The come-on is fast and intense! The vertigo sort of freaked me out, especially considering the insane urge to get up. However, as all trip reports recommend a trip sitter, I should have suspected something like this. I'd recommend one. If not, at least be careful and start out with small doses.

- It ends just as abruptly as it starts. However, the longer and softer phase leaves you with a semi-euphoric and "high" feeling for an hour or two.

- Salvia is not a party drug. Not by a long shot. Actually, the trip isn't that comfortable at all, but nevertheless, it is a very interesting psychedelic, and left me in a very philosophical mood.