DXM and Salvia divinorum

Another unusual combination

Substances: DXM, Salvia divinorum

As background, I should say that my first several experiences with Salvia were rather intimidating and disturbing. I seem to be in that percentage of new Salvia users who are particularly susceptible to the substance, and I had intense experiences from the first time. Almost too intense, in fact. I was at the point of thinking that I might not work with Salvia any more when a list member suggested that DXM might help modulate the experience. I tried it and had very positive results, so the next time I tried it with a higher dose of DXM and had experience described in this 2-part trip report.

I should reiterate Walt's warning that anyone who is not familiar with DXM should read carefully the warnings at the DXM FAQ and the Third Plateau. The wrong cough syrup taken in psychoactive doses can kill you. I use only pure powder, free of other ingredients, obtained from commercial supply houses and carefully measured with a decent scale. Personally, I am finding that the Fourth Plateau, coupled with Salvia, can open incredible amounts of explorative power to me, but the attached report describes an earlier trip to the Third Plateau. However, the Fourth Plateau is not necessarily a place to be visited casually, and your mileage may vary.

The following report falls into 2 parts. The first part is a brief blurb, sent the next morning in the immediate afterglow. The longer report that follows was written about 2 days later, after a second trip.

FIRST REPORT (BRIEF BLURB)

I spent the night with Lady Salvia on the Third Plateau.

I died and was reborn at least twice.

Also, the universe collapsed into a single point of glowing consciousness which reconciled the two opposed forces that had ripped it asunder at the moment of creation, and with that, we all broke through to the other side, and after the blossom of bliss had finished blooming, I returned to this dimension and found myself quietly listening to music in a chair in a house on Neron Place (the entire world as we know it having been made possible by that ongoing, secret act of reconciliation).

During the course of the evening doorknobs and other assorted objects winked or smiled at me or otherwise communicated with me.

People appeared in bookcases and were floating near ceilings, but I went with the flow and gave them permission.

The world turned inside out, and all the furniture and trees and the city and everything became thoughts in my brain, which was a local embodiment of the Mind of the Cosmos recognizing itself in space/time.

The two phrases I remember are:

"People have no idea - no idea at all!"

and

"This is not a test."

Also, I think I may have proposed marriage to Lady Salvia.:)

SECOND REPORT (LONGER EXPLANATION)

I took the trip Thursday night, March 5. I knew I was taking Friday off from work to travel out of town (family matters) and that I wouldn't have to leave until mid-morning on Friday. So Thursday night was like Friday night for me.

Needless to say, it was something beyond words. The earlier report is like a bulletin - the headlines or key things that I carried back with me.

For the record, I took 600 mgs of DXM, waited until it was clearly kicking in and I was beginning to enter DXM space, then smoked a full pipe of Salvia that I had packed earlier. Also, I purchased some powdered Salvia extract from an "Herbal Shamanist" whom I contacted thru the Salvia list. It's powdered leaves suffused with extract to 5 times the normal potency; the method is to put a couple of layers of the powder between layers of leaf material to get more octane in the experience. This undoubtedly made a difference. I found that a few hits on the pipe were enough to give me as intense an experience as my brain could process; then I'd cover the bowl with a piece of cardboard to let the pipe go out and I'd process the experience for who knows how long - 20 minutes? Eons? Don't forget that DXM is a substance characterized by a long, slow, steady groove; I think it is synergistic with Salvia in that it takes the intensity of Salvia, changes it somehow into something less dreamlike and more psychedelic and philosophical, and stretches it out over longer periods. After the Salvia experience had reached its surge and was beginning to slide down, I'd relight the pipe and go off again. In this way the experience peaked and surged for hours - I actually reloaded the pipe a second time. Maybe a third. Time began flowing into eternity after a while and I lost count.

What else can I say? I thought of a musical metaphor: Salvia by itself is like a guitar that goes skittering off on flights of its own that can be hard to follow. DXM is a long, slow, loping bass groove. Putting them together is like anchoring the guitar with the bass, and somehow a whole new sound emerges, almost as if they had created a third instrument. I also thought of this: DXM is like solid ground and Salvia is like rain from heaven. Everywhere it touches the ground, flowers spring up, and the flowers are in your mind. Something about the experience beggars description; I am drawn away from logical analysis into metaphors of flowers and music.

Well I guess I'm an all-or-nothing person. Friday night again I went back to the Third Plateau with Lady Salvia. What can I say? I'm in love.:) This time I added a different element: some trip toy software that I had recently downloaded. Friday night, I spent a couple of hours listening to music as I had on Thursday night and having a similar experience. (Except that on Thursday there was that ONE incredible sequence where I went through various metamorphoses and died and was reborn as a different identity and died and again came back, all as part of some quest or task that I had to perform, and suddenly had the one terrifying moment of self-recognition as both darkness and light, God and Devil, as a result of which the cosmos literally crashed in around me - and suddenly there was utter unity and bliss. I struggled the next day to describe that upwelling of bliss in a few words and came up with the phrase about the blossom of bliss blooming - closest I could get, except that the blossom was IN me and WAS me and was the whole cosmos coming back into existence again in its present configuration. Long parentheses here, but needless to say, THAT experience is irreproducible and didn't happen again on Friday.)

Anyway, on Friday at about Midnight I remembered the software and decided to try it. I had briefly looked at it in my "regular" mind and got nothing out of it except that it was pretty to watch for 5 or 10 minutes.

Friday night, the software was transformative and hypnotic. I spent 3 hours lost in the Sinewave images as galaxies and worlds seemed to come into existence around me. I had all the lights turned out and the whole house faded away. I literally forgot that it was there or that I was a person watching graphics. I became the colors and patterns absolutely. I could no more move or get up than the computer itself could have. When the program would finally end in 30 minutes or however long it was, I literally had the seasick feeling of having been unplugged, or of the world having ended. I shook my head, came to, remembered who I was, and struggled in the dark to remember (in my addled state) how to start the program again. I was also listening to music on headphones (the Jesus and Mary Chain, very pschedelic/trancey), and needless to say the music fused with the colors and patterns and with my brain, so that it was very like one of those "acid test" trips from the 60's, I imagine.

Anyway, both nights were utterly incredible. I think these 2 substances together are much more psychedelic and potent than either of them is alone, at least at high enough doses - Third Plateau plus that Salvia extract and a ready supply at hand to reload the pipe and keep the trip going.

Needless to say, I'm pretty fried today, but it feels good. I'm a little spacey and absent-minded and seem to be staring away and drifting off a lot in the middle of conversations, but I'm also the loosest and most relaxed person around today - a smile with legs. But I'm obviously taking the night off from mind expansion tonight. My brain has been stretched about as far as it can go for the time being. There has been a little too much current flowing thru these circuits. And Salvia, smoked for a long time, is pretty harsh. I'm raspy and everybody thinks I'm coming down with something. So no more trips for a while for this Starship Trooper.

Funny - I just remembered - one of those 2 nights I had the distinct feeling - it was Friday - that a huge wave or surge of awareness was coming at me from beyond, and if I could just "catch it" I'd be carried away forever - maybe into a death experience. I felt like I was standing on a train platform and the Cosmic Express was about to come roaring thru, heading right thru me and into the heart of God. But it came, brushed right by me, and I missed it. I remember being disappointed but thinking not to worry - I'd catch the Express another time - even if only when I died.

At certain points I had to consciously remember that old lesson that if you're going to explore psychedelic spaces you have to let go and go with it. At one point on Thursday night, as beings began to appear, I suddenly said - honest, I think I said it out loud - to a being who had appeared in the built-in book case in the wall, " That's okay, you can stay; you have my permission" - and to someone floating near the ceiling, "And you can too, it's okay". And then to the room at large, which had a tendency to morph and melt and suddenly come to life (and I swear to God, inanimate objects WERE making eye contact with me somehow, winking and smiling) - to the room at large, I said, "Well go ahead, all of you, do whatever you want. Entertain me. I'm yours. Show me what you can do." And after that it was all good.