My personal experience with salvia is limited (2 times, one much more intense than the other), but here are my thoughts.
I don’t think I would want to try to record a salvia experience while it was occurring. While I found the experience interesting, valuable, and rewarding, it was also scary, intimidating, and awe-inspiring. It is not something I would want interrupted by things like conversation or writing. The time dilation might well be too profound for that to even work well. Also, I found noises, light, and rapid changes in sense input to be distracting. Having other people move about the room was… scary. I did not experience the extreme disconnect with reality some people describe, but it was a different mindspace in a way that all other substances I’ve tried were not. Doing anything other than experiencing it to the fullest would seem inappropriate.
(It’s possible many of these problems would fade with repeated use. I would consider such a result disappointing, and have no particular desire to attempt to produce it.)
In contrast, I would be happy to talk with anyone about the experience while on any of the other substances I’ve taken. Depending on mood, I might feel anxious or nervous about talking to someone who was sober, especially if they had no personal experience or were someone I did not know well. Some experiences I’ve had would make writing about them difficult, because of distractability, visual distortion, a tendency to stop and stare at the beauty of the pencil eraser, etc. Others would be easier. DiPT might be easier to write about than talk about; auditory distortion makes conversation difficult / distracting.
Have you read any books on the subject? There are many good ones out there. I could recommend a couple if you’d be interested, though I haven’t read much (or partaken of the substances) lately.
Thanks for the response! :) As you can probably tell, I’m trying to decide whether it’s worth my while to dabble in psychoactive drugs.
I’m not actually very curious about the having the experience itself; it sounds scary and disorienting. I would, however, be willing to endure that scary experience if it’s likely to teach me something interesting and important about myself, which is why I asked about recording it. I’m teaching myself lucid dreaming and meditation in the hopes that I’ll be better aware of my own personal quirks/subconscious obsessions, for example. A sudden, massive shift in perception might help bring things to the forefront which I had avoided addressing before.
In your experience, do drugs as a whole actually help with that, given that I’m not all that interested in the experience for its own sake?
Edit: Actually, real science books would be even better, thanks. I previously avoided drugs because Drugs Are Bad, then because Drugs Are Dangerous, and now I figure I ought to do an accurate cost-benefit analysis. And because I’m biased to think drugs are awful things which awful people partake in, I should explicitly seek out some empirically supported benefits.
I would say my experiences with Salvia were somewhat scary and disorienting, but not problematically so. I’m not quite sure how to describe what I mean here, but “scary” should be a very minor part of the description. I certainly felt no need to do anything about it at the time, or surprise that I didn’t need to after the fact. Think scary as in “I go rock climbing, and looking down makes me a bit nervous”. Except without the adrenaline, and otherwise in a completely different emotional context. I hope that puts it in perspective. Anyway, personally, I would not recommend starting with salvia, though I know a couple people that did exactly that and had good things to say about it.
I would say that drugs can help with what you’re asking about, but that it isn’t guaranteed. Of course, I didn’t go into it hoping for such results at all, so it’s probably far more likely that you’ll get what you’re looking for than not, imho. Set and setting matter a lot. On a related note, if you go into your experience expecting it to be scary, well, you’ll probably get what you wished for. Basically, I think you should do this because you’re expecting to enjoy the experience, and I think that’s an entirely reasonable expectation. I’d also add that my description of salvia as being slightly scary does not apply to any other substance I’ve taken.
For starters on reading, I would suggest Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved (aka PiHKAL) by Alexander Shulgin, and its sequel TiHKAL (Tryptamines …). Alexander Shulgin is a scientist and basically rational thinker, with a strong interest in the human mind. He’s a synthetic organic chemist, and personally invented, synthesized, and took what might literally be a majority of the synthetic psychedelics known.
My personal experience with salvia is limited (2 times, one much more intense than the other), but here are my thoughts.
I don’t think I would want to try to record a salvia experience while it was occurring. While I found the experience interesting, valuable, and rewarding, it was also scary, intimidating, and awe-inspiring. It is not something I would want interrupted by things like conversation or writing. The time dilation might well be too profound for that to even work well. Also, I found noises, light, and rapid changes in sense input to be distracting. Having other people move about the room was… scary. I did not experience the extreme disconnect with reality some people describe, but it was a different mindspace in a way that all other substances I’ve tried were not. Doing anything other than experiencing it to the fullest would seem inappropriate.
(It’s possible many of these problems would fade with repeated use. I would consider such a result disappointing, and have no particular desire to attempt to produce it.)
In contrast, I would be happy to talk with anyone about the experience while on any of the other substances I’ve taken. Depending on mood, I might feel anxious or nervous about talking to someone who was sober, especially if they had no personal experience or were someone I did not know well. Some experiences I’ve had would make writing about them difficult, because of distractability, visual distortion, a tendency to stop and stare at the beauty of the pencil eraser, etc. Others would be easier. DiPT might be easier to write about than talk about; auditory distortion makes conversation difficult / distracting.
Have you read any books on the subject? There are many good ones out there. I could recommend a couple if you’d be interested, though I haven’t read much (or partaken of the substances) lately.
Thanks for the response! :) As you can probably tell, I’m trying to decide whether it’s worth my while to dabble in psychoactive drugs.
I’m not actually very curious about the having the experience itself; it sounds scary and disorienting. I would, however, be willing to endure that scary experience if it’s likely to teach me something interesting and important about myself, which is why I asked about recording it. I’m teaching myself lucid dreaming and meditation in the hopes that I’ll be better aware of my own personal quirks/subconscious obsessions, for example. A sudden, massive shift in perception might help bring things to the forefront which I had avoided addressing before.
In your experience, do drugs as a whole actually help with that, given that I’m not all that interested in the experience for its own sake?
Edit: Actually, real science books would be even better, thanks. I previously avoided drugs because Drugs Are Bad, then because Drugs Are Dangerous, and now I figure I ought to do an accurate cost-benefit analysis. And because I’m biased to think drugs are awful things which awful people partake in, I should explicitly seek out some empirically supported benefits.
You’re welcome!
I would say my experiences with Salvia were somewhat scary and disorienting, but not problematically so. I’m not quite sure how to describe what I mean here, but “scary” should be a very minor part of the description. I certainly felt no need to do anything about it at the time, or surprise that I didn’t need to after the fact. Think scary as in “I go rock climbing, and looking down makes me a bit nervous”. Except without the adrenaline, and otherwise in a completely different emotional context. I hope that puts it in perspective. Anyway, personally, I would not recommend starting with salvia, though I know a couple people that did exactly that and had good things to say about it.
I would say that drugs can help with what you’re asking about, but that it isn’t guaranteed. Of course, I didn’t go into it hoping for such results at all, so it’s probably far more likely that you’ll get what you’re looking for than not, imho. Set and setting matter a lot. On a related note, if you go into your experience expecting it to be scary, well, you’ll probably get what you wished for. Basically, I think you should do this because you’re expecting to enjoy the experience, and I think that’s an entirely reasonable expectation. I’d also add that my description of salvia as being slightly scary does not apply to any other substance I’ve taken.
For starters on reading, I would suggest Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved (aka PiHKAL) by Alexander Shulgin, and its sequel TiHKAL (Tryptamines …). Alexander Shulgin is a scientist and basically rational thinker, with a strong interest in the human mind. He’s a synthetic organic chemist, and personally invented, synthesized, and took what might literally be a majority of the synthetic psychedelics known.