I bought a 20x extract and smoked it in a homemade pipe. Each dose was a quantity of material about half the size of a split pea. I usually had time to hit the pipe twice and put it down before exiting reality.

I found that I generally would keep my eyes open, but mostly because I wasn’t really aware that I had eyes or that there were concepts such as ‘open’ or ‘closed’. As the effect started to fade the hallucinations would become more coherent and things would be more like a typical open-eyed LSD zone-out. As it continued to fade I had time to ponder the event. After about 4 minutes from putting down the pipe I’d be perhaps 85% back to normal (good enough to walk around and interact with people at a socially normal level, not good enough to drive). After 25 minutes I’d feel nearly normal (good enough to drive, though I would not choose to do so simply as a matter of being careful).

One night I took several such trips over the course of 45 minutes, then went up and watched part of Star Wars. Yoda was fascinating, I kept getting the oddest feeling that he was somehow present during the trips. Minds and self-awareness are weird.

I suppose I should order a few oz before they pass a ban, that ought to be enough to last for the foreseeable future.

Often seeing everything you know from a difference angle will show things you hadn’t noticed before in stark relief. I have had several profound, lasting realisations whilst under the influence (from alcohol to methamphetamine to DMT). They didn’t change my life instantly, but they did give me direction, hope, a change of attitude, new insight into the way I function and react.

Even just by accepting the possibility of change, before you ingest anything perception altering, can allow someone to grow and mature. By dismissing any such possibility you’re closing your mind and almost guaranteeing that you’ll be thinking the same way for the rest of your life.

“It is certainly not a “party” drug. There is no social context when you believe you are a tall marble statue, on the corner of some grand avenue, the sun shining down on your polished, white stone exterior, the birds flying and frolicking around, as you keep silent watch over your domain..”

also: wow, I had no idea you people were such incorrigible druggies. You’re never going to make the varsity squad if you keep this up.

After years of doing drugs and hanging out with druggies, it’s clear that there certain drugs that affect people differently. Some people are not going to enjoy salvia. I suspect I’d be one. Some aren’t going to experience much at all. A disassociative high which makes an introspective person flip out may make someone else just feel funny.

@5 BARDOBEING: Wow, Shamanistic-trolling, that’s a new one.

Help a sister out.

this.

but seriously, research into harmful effects should precede prohibition. i have never tried it, but since i’m mildly interested, what is the down-side? i mean if it really isn’t fun or seems half-assed, two consistent comments i’ve heard, people won’t tend to use it often, so the issue is a non-starter.

Including this lovely and essential chapter from Dale Pendell’s Pharmakopoeia:
http://www.sagewisdom.org/pharmakopoeia.html

Sample:

The Ally: Bridge of Smoke:
Frequently people experience little effect from the leaves in their first meetings. The power of the leaves seems to slowly build toward a climax with successive ingestions. Diaz was the first to comment in print on this phenomenon. He drank the juice of the fresh leaves six times and noticed an “increased awareness of the plant’s effects” each time.

Contrarily, sometimes the ally rolls over and crushes a person without warning, first visit. And a few people seem obdurately immune.

And a caution many BBers may be able to relate to:

The Ally:
She has many epiphanies. Not all of them are shy, and not all of them are “she.” One person encountered the Ally as a giant — an immeasurably ancient giant wearing a belt of human skulls. The giant looked directly at this person. The giant wanted to know why he had been summoned. The giant did not want a trivial answer.

Currently, Salvia Divinorum is popular because it’s legal, and therefore available when other drugs are not. If it became as difficult to get as, say, LSD, I’m pretty sure almost nobody would choose it over other black market drugs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVllL4tNZsI

Definitely recommended viewing.

Second, headshops. Google will turn up online stores as well.

As for the topic in general: what happened to the pursuit of happiness as a universal right? We should be very cautious in taking away people’s rights just because we have out-modeled views of “gateway drugs” and “decorum.” As said above, oh no, people getting high and acting weird!

http://www.everyonedoesit.com/ or similar websites stock it – I’ve bought some from them before.

The weirdest thing I found about Salvia was that I felt no effects whatsoever sitting down, but if I stood and walked around I had a nice little trip (in my head, as well as around the room).

Well…during the few minutes that it’s active, it can be extremely powerful and turn off the external world like a light switch.

There’s a reason experienced folks recommend you have a minder with you…if you try to get up and walk around you can easily fall over and crack your head open because you’ve simply forgotten about things like gravity, the solidity of objects, and the nature of your legs. It’s the kind of effect that could, say, put a college freshman onto the concrete after toppling from a 6th-floor balcony during Spring break. That’s only got to happen once or twice before the legal clamps come down.

IMO, those who claim “half-assed” a) weren’t doing it right; b) got a weak batch or an insufficient dose; or c) weren’t dealing with real salvia.

As far as a “down-side”…it’s potent but the experience is short. However, I believe that anything which crosses the blood-brain barrier with that much punch, however briefly, is going to give your neurochemical soup a good stirring. The kappa opioid receptor (which is what salvia tweaks, pretty much exclusively) works naturally with the opioid dynorphin, and dynorphin has been implicated in the neurological changes that create cocaine addiction. Blocking dynorphin can have anti-depressant effects. It’s an important player in regulating appetite, fat storage, circadian rhythms and body temperature. I’m not saying that messing with your brain’s dynorphin handling is going to turn you into a fat happy crack-head who can’t sleep, but it’s clearly a significant part of your neurochemistry and you should exercise appropriate caution, as with any hallucinogen.

To wrap up this deluge of pedantry: like almost anything else, frequency of usage is probably key. I can’t imagine that frequently punching your kappa opioid receptors with salvia is a good thing over the long haul, but unless you’ve already got some fairly significant neurochemical issues, your brain’s natural plasticity should recover quickly. I found that the subtle lingering effects were pretty much over within a half an hour, tops.

Except for the bats. Still have those.

And sorry to #60, but a water bong is the best way to smoke the stuff. I’d recommend using ice and cold water to make the smoke easier to take.

A number of years ago I went through about a 6 month spiral of depression. Couldn’t get out of bed in the morning, was completely broke, couldn’t face the idea of looking for a job, barely left the house, smoked far to much ganja, etc, etc, etc. The usual sob story.

A friend dragged me out to a party one night where I ate a bunch of mushrooms. I started feeling quite uncomfortable not knowing most of the people (nothing serious, just not enjoying myself at all) and went back to my mates house.
Ended up sitting up with my friends housemate for hours on end (whom I’d previously met for 5 minutes at a time on a few occasions) and poured my mind out onto him. He provided the odd bit of insight and I left his house in the early hours of the morning to walk home with a very different view on my life, whilst still mildly under the effects of the mushrooms. I kind of feared that in the morning I’d wake up and think it was all nonsense and I’d still be depressed and the such but that didn’t happen.

Since then life has pretty much only improved and it all started with a change of outlook provided by some good old fashioned hallucinogens.

It’s simply mystical. It opens the doors to perception.