The effects of salvia divinorum are curious, certainly an acquired taste. I hadn't really had anything to do with entheogens since my last mushroom trip, especially as there had seemed an element of jealousy regarding my having taken salvia at all! But during a brief moment of nihilism, I uncapped the 20x extract I'd purchased alongside various other just-legal odds and ends.
First bowl was tentative, more of a re-familiarisation exercise. There was the all-body rippling, cushioned by the lake of alcohol and rack of spliffs already consumed. But with the next bowl, I let go: the rippling came rapidly, then... nothing... ; vague bliss... ; the dawning realisation that something was amiss. And being was a Swiss roll, with a wicked wedge of consciousness driving itself into the gooey layer, the better to unroll the whole. As linearity began to re-assert itself, unwinding strictly anti-clockwise, the sounds penetrated 'my' awareness: I previously coined the term "chuggering". These were not sounds of our mere 3D physical world, rather a manifestation of the multi-dimensional possibilities of the sounds, expressed through an ungraspably slippery narrative, always morphing.
"Daum djecka-yecka-yecka yow-wow... Daum daum djecka-yecka yow-wow...", never quite predictable... The overwhelming feeling associated with these sounds, this rhythm, is that of a train. Attempting to grasp an image, I settled on a viciously eager little boy atop a miniature train, bent over the engine with high intent. And, like the sounds made by a train passing behind some feature in the landscape, just appearing briefly, a secondary little tripping arpeggio of well-oiled eels: "tiggy-tiggy-tiggy-tiggy... jecka-yekka-yekka-yekka... chugger-hugger-hugger-wugger...", rising and falling like dolphins breaking the sea's rough surface. All of those variations simultaneously, and more, never being just one thing, all in a peculiarly alien dull metallic tone, like the settling of an ancient submarine wedged in an unfathomable ravine, in response to what unknowable tectonic yawing.
And as the unwinding continued, the now familiar childhood fabrics manifested, the black-flecked dull turquoise and slightly-piled dove grey of the earliest sofa I recall, somehow attached and mixed with the brown PVC of old dining chairs. Tentatively, I opened the eyes and once more perceived the room, tilting only slightly now. The music from the PC at last sounded like music again. For that is what the experience does: any real sound is used as raw material for those inner 'sounds'; in the absence of any, they just occur anyway as a purely internal thing.
The whole was undoubtedly death and re-birth. But what is that strange place where childhood sights and feelings are twisted together with impossible sounds that somehow seem to be giggling at their own tendency to just hint at menace? And who are you, Sally D, who takes me there? Maybe I'll only find out when 'I' am no more...
And perhaps the last? But I race ahead. I refer, of course, to my latest entheogenic psilocybin-based journey. As a follow-on from the last, I considered 'Dialogue with the Divine', but eventually settled on an homage to the McKennas' iconic episode. The intention was to try a lower dose, 1½ ounces (as opposed to the mighty 2½ last time), but the first flush had only generated a scant ounce. I thought to top it up with the equivalent of dried but on impulse, decided not to, a good decision. This was a different sub-species of psilocybe cubensis, Koh Samui from Thailand. Very small caps, mostly stalk, they looked extremely alien. Consumed in the usual salad, the smaller quantity went down easily.
Within an hour, the effects were beginning to come on quite strong: closed-eye fractals that oddly enough required the residual daylight that seeps through the eyelids in order to show. Without, they were like vague etchings against a black background. As the music was changed from whales to dance, the effects began to pick up even more, including compulsive yawning and general all-over fidgeting. The dose being lower, I hadn't thought to require 'sitting': when my partner came back in, she was rather shocked at the state I'd got into, dilated pupils, restless, frightened. Whilst 'in there', I attempted to 'intercede' on her behalf relating to certain ongoing issues. Whether this caused the difficulty will never be known, but I had to hold on tight: at one stage, I felt there was an option, like a check box, to take death at this point. I emphatically chose not to and felt I had to ask to be spared. Now the whole enormity of the trip's high point manifested: the excruciating glory of huge 3D fractal structures morphing, almost turning inside out; the visual plane casually ripped apart and rearranged. Again, I was all there was, yet I was also a piece of tumbleweed thrown about in this ecstatic space. Re-grounding proved impossible, even after a full hour at maximum effect. The music finished and I decided to try silence, though it was scarcely less strong. Time had gone: I couldn't tell whether my birthday (the 12th) had already passed, indeed whether Christmas was done with or not.
As the difficulty slowly subsided, I was left with a curious and extremely persistent effect: it felt as though the mushrooms were showing off, that they had decided to do a salvia simulation with bells and whistles that was almost contained within a floating iframe (I'd earlier been playing with the new version of Adobe Reader which employs such devices). This simulation consisted of sounds of sorts, not sounds that could be isolated, but something both more and less, like the sound of an idea of sound, that also contained visual elements (colours, patterns, even letters) and moods. I coined a word for the structure of these 'sounds': chuggering. And why salvia? you may ask. Well, there were two things that reminded me of its effects: a strong connection to childhood feelings; and the peculiar metallic quality of the sound (one occasion when taken with music seemed to lend this same quality to the sound). To reproduce the sound seemed impossible - it was as though the tighter one attempted to grasp it, the more slippery it became, already becoming something other. Insights included the idea that there are many layers of existence, each having their own rhythm, their own pace, and that one only had to synchronise one's own rhythm in order to tune into any given layer.
In conjunction with the 'sounds', I also had a couple of recurring 'visions' that caused me great amusement. The first was of being in an empty restaurant, bearing more than a passing resemblance to The Gate in Hammersmith, where a small red-faced devil on a tricycle rushed to and fro, stopping with the rhythm of the music to point his trident in a random direction, thereby turning a corresponding triangular portion of the view red. The creature was tremendously excited by his actions and continued with unflagging enthusiasm. Later, there was a rectangular picture of an old-fashioned child's spinning top, itself depicting what, for accuracy's sake, I must describe as an affronted golliwog. The whole thing became irritated by the dust of its own indignation and convulsively sneezed, turning itself inside out to begin the whole cycle again. These effects were still quite strong a full 6 hours after ingestion and showed no sign of letting up.
Somehow, I managed to cook a meal and this forced focus helped things to slowly return to normal, though I was still able to easily re-enter the 'chuggering' soundscape with ease. A lesson learned here: the dosage is very dependent on sub-species. This experience wiped the floor with the previous 2½ ounce dose, yet was only 40% of the weight. Whether I ever take an entheogenic dose again remains to be seen, but I shall certainly approach the little (fun)guys with caution!
As a part of my quest to understand, a certain amount of fieldwork is essential in providing the experiential balance to a growing body of theoretical knowledge. Thus I took it upon myself to engage with another visionary plant, this time salvia divinorum, the seer's sage, whose active principle (considered chiefly as savlvinorin A, a trans-neoclerodane diterpenoid) is quite unrelated to the usual substituted indole rings of the more well-known tryptamines and phenethylamines. Reports of effects seem to vary greatly. My first attempt to obtain some leaf failed: on querying non-delivery with the vendor, I was asked for an order number which, uncharacteristically, I had failed to retain (most internet vendors send confirmatory emails, this one didn't). The second attempt (from a different vendor, I hasten to add!) went without hitch, and I spontaneously decided to add some 10x extract to my order, a fortuitous move.
So, the usual setting was prepared, though not with quite the same attention to detail as for mushrooms: I had no intention of plunging in at a ridiculously high dose. Incense and my now-essential soundtrack of Sasha and Digweed's 'Expeditions'. The leaves were to be smoked in a bong, in order to achieve the high temperature necessary for complete volatilisation of the actives.
The first bowlful of straight leaves just left a residue, a hint, of something different. A second bowl with the addition of just a tad of 10x extract (they were all to have this from now on) gave a very definite sensation: my whole body was pulsing to the music, which was in sync with my own pulse. Part of me was being drawn out towards the closest loudspeaker, in a kind of scissoring motion. In fact, this motion was to become characteristic of my experience. There was also a strong sensation, almost a memory, of childhood, sat outside a kitchen door on steps. This lasted perhaps a minute or two. The next bowl felt as though the physical world was coming at me in wiggly lines, and I could feel these passing through my body. Also a vision of cartoon comic characters, wiggling away... Each time of coming down from the initial rush left a feeling of peace, and any random thoughts that occurred fitted into this framework. Next bowl felt as though the space had now been opened up a little, and the wiggling was less intense, although once again childhood memories were at the fore, a kind of ornamental table/trough that once stood in the hallway of various residences set itself before me with remarkable clarity (I kept eyes closed at the most intense moments as that allowed the visions their full power). I then seemed to enter into the thing, to become a part of it and to experience an earlier memory from its point of view. A final bowl brought scissor-motion visions again, though this time I was able to control them and make them work both ways equally: a rectangular object flattened into an elongated parallelogram, but then back and then the other way - this seemed more aesthetically pleasing. Back in the childhood hallway again, and the mirror above the ornamental table/trough, though also confused with another from my parents' bedroom, all very white and with a frame of white wrought-iron. I was this mirror, and I experienced a clear central division: there was a sensation of turning over and over, right and left sides separately, each towards the middle. On briefly opening my eyes, this feeling seemed rooted in, and mapped onto, my position, hands gently clasped in the lap. Slowly, the turning ceased and there was simply the peace, of summer, fields and festivals. Whilst quite able to engage normally with the world, it was still possible to shut the eyes and return almost as though to a dream, or the aftermath of a dream.
For me, the experience at this level was utterly benign and positive. Everywhere I've researched salvia has emphasised that "this is not a party drug". Yet I feel it would make a very good after-party drug (though of course one must be mindful of possible interactions with the residues of other substances) - the powerful phase lasts under 5 minutes and then normal interaction becomes possible, even desirable.
To dub this a 'trip report' seems rather to dumb the experience down to a category recognisable by a cynical and low-brained public, yet this is how it will be consigned by them. Never mind. I jotted down some notes the same afternoon and now stitch them together the following day. It is interesting to compare with my previous experience: similar elements, but some marked differences, partly brought about by the differences in setting. Summer rather than mid-winter; full breakfast consumed; and a larger dose, about 2½ ounces (60g) of fresh specimens (stropharia cubensis once more, but a different variety), chopped raw in a salad. This was no druggy derring-do, but destiny: there was no choice in the matter, I felt a guiding force from early on.
About 20 minutes in, the beginning announced itself as a general all-body state-of-alert, a hint of butterflies of anticipation. This was going to be big, but there was a brief early intimation that it would be OK. Visuals came on more quickly than before and the feeling of separate identity and of time began to dissolve with alarming rapidity, perceived as a picture's frame melting away to seamlessly integrate it with its surroundings. The early music chosen was some traditional Tibetan: there was a feeling of being in some alien presence in a kind of Byzantine temple, a rather stern but not openly hostile force. The music was then changed for the early Sasha and Digweed classic 'Expeditions': this lent a different mood, more upbeat. The phrase 'glittering seraglios' popped up unbidden and things began to move faster.
Approaching an hour and a half in, and communication became difficult: I was able to pronounce that this was "fractal consciousness". When asked whether the dose was too much, I replied that it simply had to be this way: if the music was still OK, that the notion of "other music" was nonsensical: there was always, only, this music. CD1 or CD2 was also meaningless: there was just what was playing. At this point, the idea that an organic entity had consumed another organic entity was without foundation: this was simply being, not a result of anything acting upon anything else.
The concept of "too much ecstasy" now began to assert itself: here was a mode of being almost too divine to bear, the ecstatic agony of an entity of such absolute power attaining a mode of self-expression through a single concrescence of consciousness within an organic substrate, a power of such awesome magnitude as to consign the totality of material existence to a footnote. Consciousness itself danced: aspects thereof, somehow confined to planes, performed a courtship ritual before drifting away. Thoughts seemed to send spiralling chains of scintillation down the endless vistas of unfolding fractal structures. Once again, the feeling of having been 'here' before was strong: there was a part of 'me' that was aware that I had done this once before, yet that was irrelevant. This is surely a case of re-connection to the matrix (incidentally, aside from the obvious cultural iconism, this is a word whose origins and associations warrant careful consideration: it is steeped in the female principle, which also links into "material" - heighteningly paradoxical!). There was also a feeling of being used as a conduit to enable a flexing of the divine muscle. Again, the true meaning of 'entheogen' was writ large: faced with the overwhelming burden of absolute responsibility for everything, one must do the decent thing and not just shrug: one must look it squarely in the face and declare that it is that it is. To understand this is perhaps to be as close to "enlightenment" as the cosmic dictionary will allow.
There was a brief concern that the organic body wouldn't hold out, yet I decided to hold on as I could now do anything, indeed was everything. There ensued a feeling of bearing witness to the full glory of a universal celebration of being that would eclipse the highest Dionysian revels, as the light of the Sun drowns out the tentative winking of the other stars. 'Coming down' was rather difficult: I wanted out as the intensity had been almost too much, but wasn't able to ground myself readily. There was a feeling of a residual nausea. Before me on the mantelpiece was an image of my vegetable gnosis, a wooden sculpture of mushrooms growing on the fallen stem of another. I considered ruefully this strange destiny of mine with its severe, yet essentially benign master. How I suffer for my art!
After a while, I was able to move outside. This proved the ideal move: things still looked mighty weird, but I began to feel easier and there was a sense of basking in the reward of a service performed. The phrase "re-enchantment with nature" came to mind, even though I never considered myself disenchanted. Grass and plants, stared at, assumed dancing plastic shapes. I was suffused with a fullness of being of the like never previously experienced. I needed nothing else, just to sit and soak in the atmosphere. I felt a tremendous sense of inner power, as though I could alter the weather at will. Would that this could last... but it gradually faded. Catching sight of my reflection in a mirror, I beheld the same old sad smelly sack of shit and wondered at its being a vehicle for such infinitude - a Blakean moment if ever.
The after-effects? I feel both remarkably at peace and full of energy. Life seems, paradoxically, fuller and richer. This time, I feel I could do it again, now, yet simultaneously feel no desire to do so. "Oh Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done..." for now!
Experiencing Universal Unity and the Loss of Ego
(Winter 2005)
Recently, I experienced the most profound alteration of consciousness ever. Despite a predilection for mind-altering substances, I'd never had access to any of the full-on hallucinogens before. But it was something I felt compelled to pursue as much of my recent thinking and research has been pointing in this direction.
Substance
The chosen substance was the psilocybin-containing mushroom stropharia cubensis, much beloved of the brothers McKenna. Available to purchase via spore-laden dried compost bricks, this effectively circumnavigates the grey legal area surrounding these innocent/potent fungi. I had decided to take them raw and fresh for the best effect. Research on Erowid indicated that anything from 2 - 20 mushrooms was considered normal. A fortuitous blind spot prevented me from noting the word 'small' or remembering the recommended weight dosage of 5 - 50g. So I consumed four fair-sized specimens plus one attached baby. My guess, from weighing the remaining specimens, is that I was around 35 - 45g in dosage! I'd wanted a medium dose as I generally have a high tolerance to substances, but probably would have aimed lower if I'd been more careful. Oh, well... Difficult to eat raw, I tried one then chose to chop the remainder, mix with chopped kalamata olives and a little vinaigrette and the mini-salad was quite delicious!
Setting
Perhaps the morning after a large pub-crawl was not theoretically ideal, but everything else was right so I just went for it. Eschewed the customary fry-up for a small bowl of porridge, the coffee for green tea. Read a little of 'The Invisible Landscape'. The weather was ice-cold, but bright. Waited till my partner had completed her morning tasks and set a fire. Lit an incense stick geared towards meditation and played a CD of whale sounds set in gentle ambient electronic music.
Set
In a way, this could be traced back to the whole gradual orientation towards a spiritual quest, but I shall start with what I consider the first real signal. One afternoon walk, we passed a couple of recently trampled fly agaric mushrooms. I was tempted to pick the caps for drying, but my partner expressed misgivings so I left them. Shortly after, I developed a headache, something I very rarely suffer from. So I set out to locate a source of psilocybin mushrooms. When they eventually arrived, I had an unexpected bonus of a second spore brick! The first flush was sporadic, but they shot up quickly. I captured them on camera. On an impulse, I loaded a filter set and applied the first one - the result is shown, clearly giving the 'green light'. So all this gave confidence that the experience would be good, and this 'set' - mindset - is so vital to any such experience. Finally, just before consumption, I set the mood by a small act of generosity.
The experience
After feeling a kind of odd light-headedness immediately after consumption, little happened for about 20 minutes. Then the smoke from the incense seemed particularly beautiful, like watching the birth and growth of a universe. Mushroom motifs appeared in the smoke. Then purples and blues became almost unbearably intense, and the fireplace tiles seemed to bulge. Looking at the large spiral design above the fireplace introduced the next round of visuals - the texture of the paint became pronounced then seemed to resolve into a kind of alphabet, which began dancing around the spiral. The whole then began to look very odd indeed, alien. A shift of perspective towards the window and I had the phrase 'candy store' float through my thoughts. It was like being a child let loose in a sweet shop, and there was a kind of '60s feeling. There was also a feeling of having been here before, either in substance or dreams. The first trip to the bathroom was very strange, it was a kingdom of ice, not actively hostile but indifferent. The walls bulged and the tiles began resolving into geometric vistas. My partner suggested a turn round the garden to see what the outside world was like. The sky was huge, and the relationship between objects strange, like old black and white 3D films made for viewing with red/green glasses. It was Alice in Wonderland, but it was cold and there was a hint of incipient danger, so I chose to return inside. Once more by the fire, the logs were silvery with beautiful patterns, and glowed around fractal arabesques. Behind, there was a kind of corridor of a wonderful sumptuous regency green, and the addition of new logs hardly seemed to disturb the view. Different music was essayed - classical remained rather aloof from the proceedings, dance seemed to provoke a visible unease, so it was back to the whales which had really begun to orchestrate the whole experience. Whilst the open-eye visuals were obviously attractive, there came a time when it seemed necessary to shut the eyes to go deeper. Here were more geometric vistas of white embossed tiles, stretching to infinity, pure white admitting cycles of colour slowly. I began to try to grasp at concepts but everything became slippery. Past and future were without meaning, here there was no time. Scenes from what would once have been described the recent past appeared as snapshots on paper, and lazily spiralled away. I was nothing, and I was everything at once. I was without identity, pure experience, experiencing itself, captured by the refrain which kept returning - "Who is it who is doing the experiencing?" I was witnessing the act of creation, the Implicate Order explicating itself in a kaleidoscopic living 3-way fractal basin boundary. I tried to grasp the concepts of 'before the trip' and 'after the trip', but they meant nothing, there was only the trip, this was the universe finally becoming self-aware, it had already happened and this was it, 2012 would never come, this was all there was now, I, who was having the trip, was no more, I was somewhere beyond time with everyone who has ever tripped, an image of Lennon floated past, how would I ever get out? I uttered the words "seamless reintegration" or some such, but I still couldn't believe it, I contained all possible futures, so nothing mattered, I understood truly the meaning of the word 'entheogen'. Reality became possible by surprising it before it slipped away, then it felt like an incoming tide, gently lapping at the shores of the trip, and then it reversed, the trip was a receding tide, leaving behind warm waves of unreality. Finally, I was able by an act of will to fully re-ground myself. I was ready - it had been the most profound experience of my life, but very demanding.
Afterwards
I seemed to exit fairly suddenly from such intensity, so I tried a little cannabis to extend the effects - mild, but nothing special. Alcohol, on the other hand, had a surprisingly large effect, causing ghost recurrences of the feeling of coming down, a kind of see-sawing of consciousness. I was left with a curious token of the trip - on removing my loosened neckwear and placing it on some books on a table, my hand encountered a small hard object. It was a strange dried dark-coloured bean, too small for red kidney, too large for aduki, and slightly mouldy-looking. This also seemed oddly familiar.
Thoughts
I had wanted to experience a decent trip, not just a few strange visuals, but this most definitely exceeded expectations. I have a feeling that something had guided me to this and ensured that I got just the right dose. It may be argued that all my experiences were just wish-fulfilment as they confirmed what I was already thinking. All I can say is that nothing prepares one for the actual experience of timelessness, or of actual universal unity, or of, effectively, being God. Nothing. Thoughts and words are a child's pencil-sketch of the great oil painting. Did my wish for experience provide that experience, or is it something independent? Does it matter? I'm not entirely sure, but what I am sure of is that, in the words of the Bard, "there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio."