Eclipse of the Soul

So during a time in my life when i was lacking the ability, wisdom, and confidence to proceed, i turned to salvia for help.  The main issue in question was my ability to get something going with a girl that i liked in one of my classes.  We sat right next to eachother, and being with her all the time was driving me insane.  She had a boyfriend and some part of me didn't want to break up their relationship, and another part of me was just too shy.  There were also a number of other things going on in my life pertaining to this, but rather than telling my life story ill leave it at that.

I had told myself that if nothing had happened by a certain date then i would turn to salvia, and see what insights or guidance it might give me.  Well, the time had passed so i was just waiting for the right opportunity to smoke the plant.  One night no one was at my house, and there were no distracting noises from the surrounding enviroment.  I was watching the movie rounders, and after watching the scene where the wise judge tells his student lawyer that 'the last thing that i took from my jewish teachings was that you don't choose your destiny, your destiny chooses you.'  After this i guess i was given the motivation to go and smoke the salvia.  I retreated to my room, closed the blinds and turned off all the lights in my house that might leak through into my room.  I was going to attempt the complete darkness and silence method.  Although i did put a cd in that i could turn on incase the silence became too much to handle.

This was my second time smoking salvia, and my first time smoking it by myself.  The first time i had done it i was rendered quite incapable of moving so i wasn't so worried about having a sober sitter.  I was abstinent from all drugs, any kind of sexual stimulation, or anything of the sort for 5 days either side of the experience.  I beleive that this helps to increase mental clarity.  Still, i was very -- no, extremely -- nervous to hit the bowl.  My first salvia experience was something else.  I have a fair amount of experience with LSD, but lsd does not come anywhere near to the levels of salvia.  My first salvia trip brought me to a level of intensity similar to that of my most intense acid trip, which nothing else has ever even come close to.  After a short meditation session i let go of some of my anxiety.  I asked myself: what are you afraid of!?  The truth?  Why what a silly thing!  Ignorance is a fool's joy!

When i was opening the salvia container it kind of burst open and spilled all over the counter, but still left some in the container.  I just scraped up all of the stuff that had spilled on the counter and packed it into my bong, resulting in an abnormally large hit.  Right before i took the hit i asked out loud for guidance in my life pertaining to the girl i mentioned earlier.  I torched the bowl and inhaled deeply from my bong, and held the hit in for a few seconds.  I let it out earlier than i should have because i was still fairly nervous about tripping salvia again.  At first i wasn't sure if that was going to be enough, but after 5 seconds i started to come up.  I lay back and embraced the drug.

The initial stages of salvia for me are almost always the same.  Reality begins to dissemble into quasi-independent reality frames.  The frames seem to layer ontop of eachother and this lining up of the frames appears to form what is subjectively thought of as our reality.  Although each frame does appear to contain a reality of its own, these frames somehow are all the same but subtly different.  For example there might be one frame for one second and another frame for the second following that.  In this way you might think of the frames as representing different points in time.  However really there is no difference between them at all.  It's like in normal life you experience time linearly, from one moment to the next.  But on salvia you experience time laterally, all moments at once.  So this ferocious stream of reality frames takes over my being, forcing my conscious over and out of them.  I am no longer inside my body, but rather sitting ontop of these reality frames that encompass my body.  I view them flowing by, almost completely helpless to what is happening.  There isn't much going on at this point apart from the abnormal perception of reality and time, and sitting in the darkness is getting quite irritating.  Ok, this is a bit much.  I thought to myself.

I flail my legs and arms around a little bit in an attemp to regain control over my body.  After a few seconds i am somewhat more immersed in my body, and after a few more seconds i was able to get up and enact my emergency plan -- i turned the music on.  It was a nice soothing mix cd with some calming trance songs on it that i had made earlier.  The first of which was 'perfect' by markus schulz.  This should allow me to get more of a grip on reality, and a sense of time.  I had taken the hit in the floor but since i was already up i went over to go lay down on my bed, since i figured that would be better than the floor.

I was very uneasy at this point.  I was regretting even smoking salvia at all.  I was getting no insights, no useful hallucinations, just a completely fucked up altered state of consciousness.  The stream of reality frames was still flowing by, and i was still somewhat outside of my body, but not like at first.  The reality frame perception always hits me the strongest right after i take the hit and completely overtakes everything, after a few minutes i am usually able to get a little more control back.

I was cursing myself for not just finishing the movie and going to sleep.  I was just about ready to have a full-fledged psychological breakdown and freakout.  I wasn't sure if i would ever come down.  I reminded myself to keep it together and that it didn't matter if i came down or not.  I tried to calm myself down and embrace what was happening.  I regained some of my composure and actually attained a fairly calm state of mind.  The song ended, and the next track 'just be' by dj tiesto came on.

Then, something incredible happened.  A few minutes into the song the stream of reality frames that makes up what we would consider reality, began to peel back.  Everything that is, reality, time, my sense of identity, this world, this life, began to peel back.  The reality frames from a distances formed what looked like a long tentacle going upwards in this underlying layer of exitence.  But what this underlying layer of exitence was, was simply the godhead.  Here i was, peeling away from reality into this underlying layer of exitence which contained the godhead.  I was half in reality, half in the underlying layer -- experiencing both simultaneosly -- slowly drifting further and further away from this life.  The strange thing about god is that (he?) was split up into what seemed like numerous different entities in this unerlying existence.  Now i am somehwhat of a pantheist, and i beleive that god is essentialy a more pure expression of ourselves.

My conscious identity of self suddenly jerked to attention as to what exactly was going on.  Whoa, i don't know about this.  It thought.  I pulled back some into this reality.  I signaled to the entity that i simply was not ready for something so profound as having my ego dissolved into the godhead.  It seemed to understand and lessened it's grip on me.  I slowly began to return inside the tentacle containing our reality and back to this life, and eventually completely.  I am not entirely sure that i wanted to know what i had just experienced.  Ignorance it seems, is somewhat comforting.

After the song ended i was very ready for the trip to be over and since it had been about 10 minutes i went downstairs and continued watching my movie.  I figured that would last me pretty much until i returned to baseline.  But i really didn't come down all the way until i got a good nights sleep that night.  I was still tripping very slightly for a few hours after the experience.  I managed to get to sleep fairly easily.

Now let me tell you something about these extra-dimensional 'god' beings.  There is more than one of them, and they demand absolute respect and submission.  You cannot compete with them in the slightest.  You cannot impose your will in their presence.  They will do with you what they want.  Only once you have completely submitted yourself to them, will they let you rise to their level and consider your wishes.  Should you encounter a being such as this, keep this in mind.

The next day i awoke refreshed with a renewed view on life.  I have never been so glad to be alive.  This supreme essence had given me this incredible gift of life, and had then even given me a second chance in it.  However the moment of near-unification was the most incredible thing i have ever felt.  I strive for this, it is our purpose, our meaning, to acheive this unification.  However i was simply not ready for it at the time.  I instantly recoiled at that touch, and begged to stay. The only explanation I can give for that reaction is that the intentions of the soul for this life have not been fulfilled, and the soul is not ready to leave yet.  We must first pass through the void of consciousness.

I also gained knowledge of some of the inner workings of existence itself.  In the way that this reality is really just an inner working of god and his reality, so could god and his reality just be an inner working of an even higher level of existence.  This is the nature of things, i beleive.  Just an infinite series of realities; one encompassing another, with sentient life being born and the bottom and working its way up.  This is sometimes a scary thought.

I felt much better in my everday life for some time but the afterglow soon wore off.  The funny thing is that after this trip i lost almost all of the feeling i had towards the girl that started it all.  It is going to take a long while to integrate all of this into my life, and learn how to accept what i have learned.  Some months later i am still not quite there.  Sometimes when i think about it i remember how incredibly lucky we are to be alive, and it fills me with a warm feeling.  I will enact my destiny and fulfill my soul's karma in this life, so that i may move on.  But in the meantime, i am incredibly happy to be here.

We should indeed cherish our mortal moments.