First Time
1st Trip Report
by Anthony
I just wanted to say a word or two about one of most indescribable experiences of my life. I’m a 48 year old ex-psychonaut who gave up drugs back in the eighties when they became incompatible with professional life. Lot’s of experience with acid, shrooms, pot; just about anything that was around back then that had the potential to alter your perception. Anyway, enough background. I picked up some Salvia at a local shop yesterday. Both of the kids running the shop had dire warnings about the stuff that went something like “you should only try this if you are shaman.”, or “this is NOT a good-time-happy-fun thing.” I felt like telling them I was a decorated veteran of the Psychic Wars, but I held my tongue.
I drove to a secluded area of a local park and sat in my car listening to “ambient” music. This was really a big part of the experience. I had a view of a little marshy part of the river with some long necked white Egrets coming and going. Very “pretty” scene.
True to the warning, there were a number of things I was not ready for. The first, and least severe, was the lung burn. It felt like I had just swallowed a welding rod. I coughed after about ten seconds and thought “oh well, let’s see how far this gets me.” I immediately noticed that I was starting to “see/feel” things. I saw/felt the back side of a huge zipper head run underneath the length of the car. I had a momentary sensation that things were being sucked into the resulting (black) void below, but then the unzipped area was distributed on the horizon and the whole scene became 2D, except for my head and the headrest of my car which seemed to slowly moving along the surface of the scene. The scene was absolutely astounding with the necks of the birds curling into knots like something from the Book of Kells. I was really enjoying the sensation of being the center of the universe when I started to feel a kind of undefined guilt for having screwed up the whole garden. I said aloud “I would NEVER have given this up.” , and reached out to touch the stereo which was displaying a mandala like graphic and now seemed to be more central to the scene than my disembodied head. At this point, ten minutes into the trip, several things happened simultaneously; I regained self-awareness, I got a drink, and I started worrying about getting “caught”. After about five seconds of drinking water, I was 5X5 and standing on the baseline, astonishingly clear headed. The effects were gone.
I got out of the car and walked around trying to take some pictures (I’m a photographer), but I never could get into the zone. My cameras viewfinder only seemed to magnify what was becoming a dull scene by comparison to what I had just seen. I felt OK to drive so I left the park probably about half an hour after smoking the Salvia. On the way home, I did have a momentary episode of confusion at a traffic light, but it’s hard to say if I would not have had it otherwise.
In summary, I would have to say it was a fascinating experience. I would probably have to give the same sort of warnings as the kids who worked at the head shop. I would add that this caused complete disassociation. Important for people who know what that is. Partial disassociation is worse because it leaves you enough reality to worry about it. The “reality” I experienced completely replaced my common reality, but I was not concerned with it at all, or really even aware of it, until the effects had worn off.
I look forward to doing this again some day.