Salvia facts and myths.
Before anything I have to thank Daniel Siebert (owner operator of http://www.sagewisdom.org ), Leander Valdez (who at his infrequent visits to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SalviaD_Alliance has clarified misconceptions about oral activity ) & equally I thank ChristoSphere aka Sphere (whose extractions are state of the art and have helped support the whole issue of standardized product development and a proliferation of good suppliers http://tinyurl.com/6o3ex ). I am grateful to each of these 3 for their in depth information, and for bringing this herb and its psychoactive effects to our attention. Others have been very generous and intrepid in their actions supporting personal exploration of this as well (the neat alien guy from Just say Once, Slava Oleshensky and the buyers? club, & D M Turner ? I wish his last bath tub journey had waited ? sorry that we never got to meet)
The statements below are informed personal declarations, most are clear facts to me for which I have not bothered to annotate or to attribute sources save the introductory references above. My personal experience with salvia has been limited, a mere 300 experiences in 2 ? years, which is a higher frequency than the norm, but not outrageous since each experience averages only 5 minutes. Thus I have collected only around 60 hours immersed in salvia space, which is less time than most normal persons in the civilized world spends in a single month at alcohol inebriation. Also I qualify my own pedestrian insights by having been a student of Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry and Neurobiology in the 1970?s.
Salvia Divinorum is a plant with psychoactive properties. Among the known Salvias only Salvia Divinorum really has the active ingredient to be psychoactive ? some people have gone on dramatically about how S.Splendens is so great, but it is not a psychoactive contender, while it is quite pretty to look at.
The only psychoactive Ingredient of Salvia D. seems to be Salvinorin?A (other salvinorins exist but are not proven to be psychoactive, and other chemicals in the plant have not actually been proven to augment the action of salvinorin in any way). Standardized extracts using ChristoSphere?s method or something similar will have only true active ingredient added to plain leaf or if the buyer is lucky to de-fatted leaf (which burns cleaner and smokes more gently). Non-standardized or Crude extract can be equally strong but will produce a heavier smoke and tarry dark tinctures. Possibly the vendors of Crude extracted leaf have worked to ehance a mystique about the additional content in the crude extractions, but IMO these impurities do not really add anything positive except maybe flavors.
Salvinorin?A is a waxy crystalline solid that is highly soluble in Acetone and DMSO and somewhat soluble in alcohol, but it is not very soluble in naphtha or water and some other non-polar oils or fats are not good solvents for it either, see http://tinyurl.com/6o3ex to evaluate how using acetone in sequence with naphtha makes very pure extractions from leaf possible.
A gram of dry SD leaf has ~2.5 mg of salvinorin in it, all of it is usually clumped in tiny trichomes mostly on the bottoms of the leaf material but also some are on the stems ? these microscopic bunchy trichomes may represent botanic respiratory excretion or some other accidental formation ? they are pretty unique. The formation of these deposits of the waxy material explains why, in part, well chewed leaf has more effects than unchewed leaf, see below, and why sublingual absorption of plain leaf always fails ? i.e. just holding a leaf under the tongue, as if it were a blotter of lsd (never works).
Biologically active binding sites, which may one day help explain the action of Salvinorin in humans, are the brain tissue?s Kappa-opioid receptors ? KOR ? we do not know what they do in the brain, but KOR may modulate performance of middle brain structures or ganglia, which in turn channel afferent neurons to the cortex using pulsed signals. In particular, these ganglia may be involved in controlling the duration of series of fading pulses to the cortex to enhance memory fixation and recall. The chemical binding tests have been in vitro, vs. in vivo. No work has been done to explain the steep ramp of strong threshold effects and the short duration of these effects, as well as the long smooth ramp of afterglow.
Absorption of Salvinorin (mostly by mucosa) in traditional use has been reported to include oral consumption of quid, oral consumption of pulverized drinks, and smoking (pipiltzintzintli ?which was most likely the Aztec name for Salvia Divinorum - was recorded by the Spaniard Fray Agust?n de Vetancurt in 1698 to have been smoked by Aztecs ? which contradicts what surviving Mazatecs have told more recent researchers. The Mazatecs may not be aware of the smoking or may have been hiding it from the gringos who are investigating their culture). Poultices were also used.
Recently we have added tricks of absorption with alcohol based elixir?s, standardized, and crude extracts, and teas or boiled infusions (and re-extracted the dried leaves afterwards), and DMSO based elixirs have been tested very effectively too (by OTT and myself, and some web colleagues who shall remain unidentified).
Smoking is the most effective and most expedient method of getting the effects, that I have explored. [it is possible that an intravenous or intramuscular injection of non-lethal DMSO containing as little as 100mics or even less of salvinorin would be efficient, but I have not tested this, and am disinclined to any use of needles with powerful psychedelic experiences ? other solvents would not be as effective or as benign to body function]. Oral intake can require 20 times as much material (compared to smoking) to produce similar effects whether it is by quid, elixir, drinks or teas. Oral intake which you swallow with lots of fluid act more quickly than chewing fresh or reconstituted quid leaves especially if attempting not to swallow.
Sublingual ?holding unchewed leaf or chemically prepared blotter under the tongue ? is not effective.
Unchewed leaf has no effect which is not surprising since the waxy crystalline material will not break down or dissolve quickly in the body?s non-polar body fats or in plasmas, it will not diffuse from the leaf or passively enter body tissue.
To explain the different absorptions consider that tiny particles which can lodge on cellular membranes of mucosa will be slowly absorbed. The more surface area exposed, the faster overall absorption will take place, and the smaller the waxy particles are, the faster they will get through the membranes of the mucosa. So the fastest route involves molecular salvinorin vapor or liquid which will absorb instantly when it contacts such the bronchial cell membranes as alveoli in the lungs.
While the fastest absorption involves the smallest particles across the largest surface (smoked salvia vapor over lungs) the slowest is to try to swallow a large particle solid pill - which actually does not work psycho actively at all since it never allows enough salvinorin to be absorbed quickly enough - i.e. the big particle just sits in one spot. Some have erroneously conjectured that stomach acid breaks down salvinorin, but delayed absorption explains all of the reduction of effects via oral intake.
In the middle of the efficiencies there is the munching of leaves, which if done well grinds the particles finely, some can be absorbed at oral mucosa and some are absorbed as they trickle down the throat.
A bit faster action is noticed with Tea, since it flushes the tiny particles through the gut, one gets effects nearly as fast as smoking if one drinks quickly an infusion with small salvinorin particles.
Unfortunately only about 20% of active ingredient gets into the water as a suspension, so tea seems wasteful if the leaves are not extracted after use.
Differences between oral, pharyngeal, esophageal, peptic, duodenal, and bronchial mucosa, are mostly explained by the absorption potential of these surfaces, and how much of these surfaces are exposed to salvinorin containing materials.
Code:
compare the impact of quantity of salvinorin-A:
-------smoking-------oral-------tea----level
mild----150mics------4000mics---10mg---II
medium--300mics------8000mics---20mg---III
strong--450mics-----12000mics---30mg---IV-V
toomuch-800mics-----20000mics---50mg---V-VI
--------------------------------------------
compare duration of each aspect of effect:
-------smoking-------oral-------tea----level
onset----30 secs-----10mins------5mins
rampup---30 secs------2mins------2mins
peak----3-6 mins-----20 mins-----20mins
rampdown--1 min------20mins------20mins
sloppy---60 mins-----120mins----120mins
total less than
---------90 mins------3hours-----3hours
DMSO (an industrial cleaning solvent) which is known medically as a carrier vehicle that assists absorption of drugs to penetrate the skin is a good solvent for salvinorin, only acetone seems to be better.
DMSO can be used for elixirs but usually commercial elixirs are made with alcohol. Acetone burns too much on the oral tissues. Still Alcohol burns way more than DMSO, so if you are in the USA and are interested in an alternative for tinctures do look into DMSO, it will be much more potent than alcohol based elixirs as it is a more powerful solvent and seems to have several good effects on the body. Unfortunately DMSO gives the user have a garlicky or seafood smell, and it is not legal for oral use in CANADA. It is classified as HAZMAT for transport since it is flammable. DMSO can give the most potent elixirs, but it does not seem to hasten absorption as one might suppose.
Some have suggested that other fats and chlorophyll too are concertive to the absorption but this has not proven, Non-standardized extracts are only imagined to be fuller spectrum while they really are just providing a heavier more polluting if flavorful smoke.
What is all the fuss about Butane Torch lighters? Well, more flame per second means more igniting ability and more heat.
Apparently if you try to vaporize pure salvinorin off of a metal or glass plate, you do need the heat of a torch, but if you adjust the micro environment such that the pressure is lowered, then the Boiling Point of the salvinorin is lowered ? this is what happens when smoking a pipe, so, for a pipe, which the person is sucking on one end (lowering pressure ? creating ?draw?), a torch is not required to achieve Boiling Point, or vaporization of Salvinorin-A. This is akin to the phenomenon of water boiling at lower temperatures at higher altitudes, where air pressure is lower.
However to get effects from plain leaf, at least 1/5th of a gram has to be consumed quickly, and for this a torch can help as more will be ignited faster. Personally I advise against this approach since such an amount of heat is damaging to lung tissue. Some salvianauts swear by their torches, and enjoy using them, and have started to use long-tubed pipes and water pipes, this I also do not recommend since up to half the active material condenses on the long cooled surfaces of the pipes. If you do use a torch, then I think it is more healthy for your lungs to have a long stemmed pipe or water pipe or bong, and the gravity bong will also work with the torch. Using the torch and these big pipes will involve some condensation, so it becomes impossible to calibrate dosage, except to say ?this is how much I need with this pipe and this lighter?.
Afterglow ? reported by most users seems to last from 2 to 5 days. Personally I find more afterglow from oral intake than smoked intake, and I think it is a sub threshold effect due to slow release of salvinorin from stickier or fatty tissues in the body. For me it is a feeling of healthfulness, as I am over 50, it is a bit of a fountain of youth kind of thing. Most report it as an Antidepressant kind of effect which is consistent IMO with the lesser effects of all psychedelics.
The following summarizes my personal understanding of a single effect from Salvia Divinorum that can be amplified creating a multitude of results through the whole range of effects discussed elsewhere at length as the S-A-L-V-I-A scale.
Associative thought and memory comprise a study that goes well beyond this overview of Salvia Divinorum, but the salvianaut and indeed all psychonauts will do well to examine the nature of memory and thoughts, as much of the salvia space effect is the interplay of energy in this arena. When experience occurs it is mentally resonant. Things that are resonant together become fixable as memory (engrams), and when similar elements of new experiences arise, stored engrams emerge (by resonance) and memory is said to surface. The mind tolerates tremendous traffic of associative memory recall and engram creation.
Sequences of personality traits and skills are initiated using the same associative process and are learned by engram formation enhanced by repetition and practice.
Resonance is key to all the above, resonance of incoming sensory information and resonance of recalled patterns, all having the nature of signal excitation and gradually fading resonance.
IMO, the psychedelic effect is produced by extending the fading resonance beyond the usual duration (~ 200 milliseconds) to ten and sometimes a hundred times as long.
The delay of fading of mental content supports mental efforts to smooth surfaces, to blend features, and to mix memory and signals of varying types. Visual trails are a common effect, of persistence in vision (slower fading of frames of visual input), and with salvia Gravity is an assumed effect, though it is really persistence of proprioception or body feeling.
One can study this phenomenon (delayed fading of signals) and how it can create the myriad of sensory and psychological phenomena. The extra people in the room, the room being different, being inside of the wall, the Little people, the farms and scenery, Dimensions, and even D?j? vu, can all be seen to be natural occurrences when fading of sensations and memories permit combinations that are not normally observed.
Many visual phenomena are enhancements of previsual sensory data, less processed than our usual ?seamless? visual panorama, but very primal and natural in the brain.
Merging with objects is an amazing and wonderful basic event ? a kind of synaesthesia due to persistence of experiences, but more too, as the experience of inside and outside overlap and persist, cause and effect are sustained and persisted together as one thing mentally, Oneness is eminently comprehensible, even expected.
The lore of salvia is full of anecdotes about the Lady, but also the guy, the little Mexican fellows, family members, etc., which in my opinion are all naturally emergent when a strong effect starts: when the salvianaut turns his head and still sees the view behind him and beside him, when each thought and memory that arises and is sustained in a vast dimensional array or book of life type series of pages, all resonant and persistent and vibrantly alive beyond the expected duration of fleeting glances, and thoughts.
There has been some work (sorry, I kept no references) suggesting that every 3 seconds a self mask is flushed and replaced by a subsequent one (often similar ? usually related). Our normal personality is expressed by series of such routines or masks.
As the chain of thought and chain of masks of personality proceed, we play out our mental expressions with the same sense of merged oneness. Each mental mask or expression is shaped to appeal to a type of person, and, in Salvia space, that person is there as soon as the expression is made. The person may be unseen or seen, usually a kind of constant presence is sensed, the person sensed is most akin to an archetype of the person. I have mostly felt such presences as brothers, or as mothers or wives, and sometimes children, or neighbors, as if my personality is most geared up to address these archetypes.
Often the room fills with unseen presences which may well be the persistence of the other side of the masks played out by personality sequences.
With regard to antidepressant effects from Salvia and other psychedelics, I suggest the analogy of fences. Regular associative thought which runs repeatedly is most prone to running repeatedly again, like the creation of ruts and ditches through fields by usage of any path, or like the fencing in of those pathways.
When the fading resonance of thoughts or images or sensations is prolonged even just a bit (by Salvia), alternate routes can be selected more easily. In this way I like to say, that Salvia lowers fences, you can still easily perform the tasks, and think the thoughts, you are still you, but the habit engine is just a bit less domineering, useful little escape routes are more accessible. Both obsessive behavior and depressive behavior are served by such lowering of fences.
Many report the onset of Fear when using Salvia to Level 5 or more. Fear comes from the immersion into the unfamiliar, or from painful sensations, or from apprehension of bizarre meanings, and it builds by the entheogen extension of fadeout, permitting reactions to arise from secondary and tertiary instances of apprehensions. Since the entheogen enhances persistence, getting into a fear jag is easy. Getting out involves good insight into the workings of associative mentation.
All movement in the mind is associative, or towards. To like something we naturally move towards it, but to fear or hate something that is in the mind, even as we try to move away, we come closer instead, just like Alice Through the Looking Glass.
All responses seem to affirm and intensify mental connections and so resistance seems to build the associations to facilitate future recall. Letting go is the only recourse. Letting go is a different modality than moving away from or moving towards. Letting go is the essence of mental fluidity. Setting up a cascade of letting go when entheogenized is a good goal in handling fear experiences. Understanding the naturalness of entheogen based mental persistence enhancement is important in minimizing impact and the cascade of fear type responses.
Controlling effects via Set and Setting is one thing many have asked about. The secret to this is just to control your life, i.e. to be dignified and well meaning, and to learn to relax and let go. The short little salvia journeys are expressions of your inner self in context. Be good and good luck.
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Edited by redgreenvines (04/28/05 03:43 AM)
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