Salvia Divinorum

The Beginning of Louis Wain's Escape From Reality

The best toy any kid could want for Christmas is their brain. Remember kids, it's not the drug, it's what your brain does with the drug, because, when you get right down to it, it was all in your head to begin with. So... to get the experience, you don't really need the drug, right?


Okay, all preaching about "natural" highs aside, I found an interesting article on Salvia Divinorum. 


This particular phenomenon I have paid only passing interest to in the last few years. I've heard the art children at the college talk about it. Had one or two passing acquaintances mention it. But, seeing as my experimentation phase was some thirty years ago, I didn't pay too much attention to it. 


What? You are shocked that I did drugs? But I came of age in the 1970s. That's when all that shit went mainstream. At least in my uptight white neighborhood. One minute, I'm a jock, running track and field, swimming, playing sports, getting good grades. The next, I'm a doper, but, oh wait, I was still playing sports and getting good grades. (Sorry, no decent into madness melodrama for you). But suddenly practically everybody was trying out the drugs. Is that really such a shock?


Nevertheless,  don't count out coincidences. A few intrusions into your consciousness makes it just that. When the occurrences start to cue up is when the idea of synchronicity starts to kick in. Hmmmm......


So, a colleague gave me a description. Last summer he had a chance to smoke some salvia. He described it as the most intense hallucinatory experience ever. Of, soon after inhaling, his entire body turning into quicksilver, like the Silver Surfer, and becoming "the big magnet in the stereo speaker of the Universe - the woofer". And then just as suddenly, it was over - save for a "pleasant afterglow". Then another colleague mentions her experience, about how "it was like a million needles being pushed into my skin... but they were really good needles". Well, ah, ha ha, ooh-kay!


Like I said, I had my fair share of that, although never like that, never at all like that. But, you know, been there done that. But then there's that article. Here's a quote:

Johnson and his colleagues recruited four volunteers who had used hallucinogens such as LSD or psilocybin in the past. Over 20 sessions, the participants inhaled various doses of highly purified salvinorin A or a placebo while researchers monitored their vital signs and queried them about their experiences.
The effects of the salvinorin A were remarkably strong, consistent and fast-acting, peaking about two minutes after inhalation, and nearly disappearing by 20 minutes.
As doses increased across sessions, volunteers reported stronger and stronger hallucinations, which included cartoonlike images, revisiting childhood memories and contact with an entity. “With this drug, at its peak intensity, people describe popping out and visiting a completely different world. Some people say it seems like another dimension or maybe the spirit world,” Johnson says. “They report these very profound experiences in these highly altered states of consciousness.”

Cartoonlike images? Entering another dimension? Transports you to an alternate reality? I don't think I've EVER been to that intersection in my brain. Gotta admit, sounds intriguing. Actually, sounds pretty damn exciting. Another dimension? There's something about that phrase, that, well, I'll be honest, makes me want to smoke the stuff!

Plus, the study found that salvia is non-addictive, has no apparent health effects,  and, and, allows you to enter another dimension? My fears have been assuaged, and I'm ready!

Wow! Thanks, informative online science magazine article!