thetripreport

[thetripreport]

My First Time Doing Salvia Divinorum

Hannah Hirou

-

I was nervous to do salvia because of all the things I had heard about it--

stories filled with terror but also ones with strange fantastic hallucinations. A few people I had talked to said they greatly enjoyed it and had wonderful experiences which left me optimistic. One friend denoted a silly experience where upon closer examination of stationary objects he observed the fabric of his reality to consist of millions of tiny people with hands interlocked, all dancing in place. 

-

These vivid hallucinations were what piqued my curiosity. At the very least I wanted to know why some said Salvia was awful. I thought, how awful could it be? After all, salvia is a notoriously brief experience which left me with some solace that I would be able to overcome even the worst of trips. Time, to me, is always a factor of concern regarding psychedelic so drugs with shorter lifespans have always attracted me.  

-

The day to try salvia came rather abruptly when my two other housemates said they were going to buy some and smoke it to which I expressed my interest in participating as the drug seemed to find itself conveniently in my proximity. So there we sat on a red shag rug, legs crossed in our living room; my housemates Emily Sally and I in a circle in front of the couches with our other housemate Melody sitting on the couch as a trip sitter. 

-

We packed a large bowl and I went first taking a little hit before handing it around. None of us felt much so we passed it around again. At this point the three of us felt a little high as one does when smoking weed. We decided we were doing it wrong and that we needed to hold the smoke in for longer so I took another hit of the bowl holding it in as I passed it to Emily. Sally, remembering the horror of her first trip, decided that she did not want anymore so Emily took the bong and proceeded to take a sizable dose. I decided that I wanted to take more too so I snapped the bowl and took a decently large inhale of smoke which required me to suppress the urge to violently cough. 

|

Immediately I felt terrible. 

|

I was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion. I had absolutely no concept of where we were or what we were doing. I felt as though I had either just woken from a dream or entered a dream, experiencing the same dreamlike notions of visions that contained vague narrative sense. 

-

My brain struggled to propose scenarios to rationalize what was going on. I knew we had all done a drug but I forgot what it was and I forgot what it was I should expect. Surely, something had gone wrong because I felt absolutely insane, insane in the sense that there was a complete breakdown between visual processes and thought. I looked at Emily and Sally and they were covered by a colorful half yin-yang pattern that was quasi fractal-like in appearance. The blue of the carpet that consisted of the majority of the living room besides the red shag rug made me feel like I was in a setting similar to the krusty krab in Spongebob for some reason. I didn’t register mentally that I was in the krusty krab. At the time it just was, nor did I think about spongebob, it all came as a detached observation in my state of confusion. I asked Melody what was going on and suddenly again I felt a re-found terror of not knowing what we were doing there AT ALL. 

|

I tried to remember, but I forgot everything. I felt as though I was very far away, as though I had been stretched back across the room separated from the rest in some distant alternative reality. 

|

In my mind I saw my body being contorted like a photoshop image into the shape of a spiral, limbs stretching and folding. I asked what we were doing repeatedly along with what I had just done, trying to figure out what was happening to me. Was it normal to feel like this I wondered? I felt dread and anxiety. I had reached a breaking point and  started to freak out. I decided I did not like this feeling of dysphoria that saturated my physical body and every facet of my unhinged psyche. 

-

How long will this last, I asked? I wanted it to be over so badly. The nerves in my skin felt electrified with prickling irritation. I suddenly felt as though I had somewhere to be, as though there were so many things that I needed to do but lacked the knowledge as to what exactly that something was. I wanted to run out of the house. I stood up and Emily said she felt the same. We wanted to run, let’s run let’s go I said, let's go to the christmas party (I had planned to go to this after my salvia trip) but really I was just saying this as an excuse to escape and run away. Then I decided we should not do that and to have some self control. At this point I knew we were on salvia. I felt trapped and anxious like I had so much adrenaline and nothing to do with it. Nothing could soothe me. I started to scream. I thought I was going insane. Nothing made sense. 

-

I was on a ship, the fireplace looked like a giant clam in my peripheral. I felt oscillations in the intensity of the drug as I came down from the peak, but the intensity rose again and again…. it felt like torture. The peak in and out of the high felt similar to being held underwaves before surfacing for air. 

|

Was it never going to end? I thought there could be no way my brain could ever return to normal, that I had abused my fragile brain chemistry and that sanity itself was an ungraspable thin layer of oil that had once been sitting on top of a layer of water

|

I envisioned the oil and the water layered upon each other and contained in some object but the object had been shaken and my sanity broke apart into a million little oil droplets forever separated from each other by the water, chaos in a million orientations never to regain their former order nor would they to rise to the surface to reform that infirm layer as salvia would not permit it.

-

I told my friends to take me to the hospital, I needed help or else I would never recover. I thought because I had taken my adderall for my ADHD that I had transgressed by combining the two and the salvia would stay in my brain. I thought that all the anxiety I felt triggered a manic episode or something. I thought that maybe the hospital could help me. I trusted the doctors. I don’t trust these people I thought; they don’t understand my brain chemistry. Then I imagined the cold white lights and scratchy sheets and decided that was an awful idea. I screamed something about how no one liked me...I don’t remember why. 

-

Why had I taken my baseline pysche for granted? I got the feeling that I had experienced this feeling on other drugs and that I should never do them again for fear of something like this happening. I thought what if I took LSD and this is what happened for 12 hours. I ran to my room but I thought it felt small so I ran back into the living room and laid face down in a starfish splay and took deep breaths then flipped over and chanted into a pillow. I don't like this. I don't like this. I don't like this. I felt a surge of nausea which added to my horror, those damned kappa receptors I thought. Fuck this. 

-

I began to feel some relief, but like a wave the terrible feeling crashed down on me again. No texture felt acceptable; the air suddenly felt too dry and cold, the carpet and my clothes all felt so scratchy even soft things felt miserable. It felt that day and night had been combined and that this must be purgatory. I searched my memory for someone who could comfort me… my friends, my family, but all of it felt wrong. I didn’t want to hear someone’s disappointed voice on facetime through my cold metal laptop. I wouldn’t be able to hear them I thought, they would be too far away. My brain imagined calling someone and that if I got closer to the computer that the voice on the other side would only get further from me and would be separated by infinite distance. Finally I opened a can of hard seltzer and began to drink it desperately to calm my nerves. 

|

Within a couple minutes relief hugged me and I laid on the floor suddenly exhausted as I started to return to normal. I still felt a little high but it was warm and sweet,  laced with afterglow.  

|

After I was in such a giggly elevated mood because I was so relieved to be back to normal. I was beaming at the fact that I had returned to my baseline and had not been lost forever in that insane world devoid of joy and filled with anxiety.

-

For the rest of the night I was ridiculously happy and joyous due to the fact that I was myself again. I felt as one does when waking up from some sort of terrible nightmare. Salvia allowed me to appreciate normalcy and the baseline state of my psyche that I had never considered as something to not take for granted. I also found that it was an extremely abstract experience which has helped with my creativity. To this day I do not regret my decision and believe that it was a very beneficial informative experience but not for the faint of heart. However, would I do it again? Highly unlikely.