Salvia

(Salvia Divinorum, Ska Pastora, Sage)

TrippyWiki score: 6.2/10

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What is Salvia Divinorum?

Salvia Divinorum is one of the most intense drugs in the world. Even though this drug is classified as a psychedelic, it is not like any other psychedelic. This substance can cause experiences more bizarre than anything you could ever imagine.

Why choose Salvia over other psychedelics?

Salvia Divinorum…

  • Has no lethal dose
  • Doesn’t seem to damage your organs in any way
  • Can give you the most interesting experience of your life
  • Is legal in many places
  • Won’t make you addicted (there is no way it would)
  • Is short-lasting (although subjectively, the trip may feel like it lasts for years)

Long-term benefits & side effects

Many of the benefits will only occur if you follow the tips below.
Most (if not all) of the side effects are preventable and they will not happen if you follow the Safety checklist.

Salvia Divinorum…

  • Is effective for treating depression
  • Can lower your levels of stress and anxiety, including social anxiety
  • Helps you look at your life from a different perspective
  • Might help you cure your addictions
  • Increases neuroplasticity
  • Makes you more creative and open-minded
  • Allows you to heal your childhood trauma and forgive people who’ve hurt you
  • Make you more conscious and loving
  • Can help you transcend the fear of death
  • Gives you insights into the nature of reality
  • …
  • Makes you unconscious but still able to move around – so never trip without a sober trip sitter
  • Has led to self-harm by people who took it in an unsafe environment
  • Might speed up the onset of schizophrenia if you’re genetically predisposed to it
  • Can cause HPPD and physical damage if you combine them with other substances (such as alcohol or stimulants)
  • Could cause you trauma due to bad set and setting
  • Might lead to drug-induced psychosis if you’re predisposed to it
  • Can cause seizures in rare cases
  • Is illegal in some places and you might get arrested for getting involved with the substance
  • …

How to take Salvia

Administration

The best methods to take Salvia Divinorum include smoking, chewing, and using a tincture.

Each of these methods will affect you differently.

Technically, you could also vaporize the drug but you would need an extremely accurate scale and this method could be dangerous.

Salvia is not orally active so eating it wouldn’t cause you anything.

Smoking

You can either smoke the dried leaves or an extract.

The method is going to be the same but an extract contains more Salvinorin A, which is the active chemical. More on this in the Dosage section.

Either smoke Salvia with a pipe or in a bong with cold water.

Hold the smoke in your lungs for as long as possible.

Chewing

Chewing (quiding) is the recommended method. It will lead to a longer and gentler experience.

You can either use fresh leaves or dried leaves. If you go with dried leaves, rehydrate them before you put them in your mouth.

Roll your leaves into a ball, put the ball under your tongue and chew it for at least 30 minutes. Then spit it out.

Tincture

If you use this method, the effects will last for longer but they will be significantly weaker.

Tinctures also contain ethyl alcohol that will cause you pain when you put it in your mouth. Because of that, it is recommended to dilute the tincture with warm water (1:1 tincture:water).

Even if you dilute the tincture, it can still be painful.

If you still want to use a tincture, keep it under your tongue for 30 minutes, then spit it out.

Salvia Dosage Chart

Dosage

Whichever route of administration you choose, it is strongly recommended to start with a low dose and build your way up.

Some people are more sensitive than others while some will need higher doses to notice any effects.

Smoking

The doses below are displayed for dried leaves. If you smoke an extract, multiply them by that number (if your extract is 10x, divide the grams by 10)

  • 0.25 grams = Light dose
  • 0.5 grams = Regular dose
  • 0.75+ grams = Strong dose

Extracts can vary in potency from one vendor to another so if you can, use dried leaves instead. They are also easier to dose properly.

If you are going to smoke pure Salvinorin A:

  • 100 μg = Light dose
  • 200 μg = Regular dose
  • 400+ μg = Strong dose

Chewing

The doses below are displayed for dried leaves. If you are going to chew fresh leaves, multiply the doses by 5

  • 2 grams = Light dose
  • 6 grams = Regular dose
  • 10+ grams = Strong dose

Safety checklist

Salvia Safety Checklist

Also, if you have no experience with psychedelics, don’t jump right away into taking salvia. Start with less intense substances, such as LSD or magic mushrooms.

Maximize the benefits

Keep in mind that integration is even more important than the trip itself. Taking psychedelics would be useless if you didn’t retain any lessons in your day-to-day life.

What will help you the most is contemplating about the experience – be it by journaling, thinking about the trip, or sharing your memories with a trusted friend.

Distracting thoughts can get in the way, which is why you want to spend the day after your trip without TV, social media, and other distractions.

If you can, spend time in silence and solitude. Meditate, go for a walk, contemplate the experience.

Duration

Salvia Trip Duration

Smoking

Onset = 0.5-3 minutes
Duration = 5-20 minutes
After-effects = 30-60 minutes

Chewing

Onset = 10-20 minutes
Duration = 30-90 minutes
After-effects = 30-90 minutes

  • If you use a tincture, the effects will last for a similar amount of time
  • At extremely high doses, your trip may last for even longer

What salvia feels like

At light doses, you will become more relaxed, present, self-aware and the colors around you will become brighter.

At regular doses, you will get strong and realistic closed-eye visuals: geometric and fractal patterns, tunnel visions, etc. You may also hear voices and encounter stranger beings.

It is not uncommon to turn into an object or live a life of another being on this dose. Sometimes, people feel like they’ve been living a different life on salvia for months or even years. That is because time will almost inevitably get distorted.

You may feel sounds, hear the light, smell abstract objects… Litterally anything you can or can’t imagine is what can happen on salvia.

At high doses, you will completely lose sense of your body or the physical reality. It is common to merge with God and universal consciousness. The trip may get so intense that you will not be able to recall anything once you become sober.

The psychedelic affects each individual differently and no two trips are the same. Therefore, there is virtually no way to know what your trip will feel like.

Also, most of these experiences are impossible to describe through human language.

The only way to truly know what salvia feels like is to try it.

Beware that the trips don’t always feel pleasant. Not at all. Salvia is dysphoric and the majority of people who try it don’t want to do it again.

Bad trips

Bad trips are more common than on almost any other psychedelic substance. Even if you do everything right, you may still have an unpleasant experience.

A “bad” trip isn’t always bad though, it can actually be the most healing and insightful moment of your life.

During a “bad” trip, negative emotions are coming up from your subconscious mind. They have always been there whether you are aware of it or not. They have been ruining your life and a difficult trip is an opportunity to process these traumas and unpleasant feelings and let go of them.

So instead of calling bad trips bad, call them challenging.

What leads to a bad trip

The most common reasons for getting a bad trip are:

  • Tripping in an unsafe environment (in public, at a party, even nature doesn’t feel safe if you take higher doses)
  • Facing difficult times in your day-to-day life (a break-up, death of a loved one, …)
  • Rejecting to let go and trying to hold on to your ego and control the state
  • Being afraid of the trip (either because of the stigma around psychedelics or because you are not sure how pure your substance is)
  • Mixing the psychedelic with alcohol, weed, or other drugs
  • Expecting a bad trip (it can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy)

But again – even if you do everything correctly, you can still have a terrifying experience on salvia so prepare yourself for that.

How to cope with a bad trip

  • Do not perceive this experience as something bad, remember that facing these difficult emotions is extremely healing
  • Fully surrender to the experience, do not try to feel good

How to end a bad trip

In case you are not ready to face your inner demons yet, there are a few ways to end a bad trip.

If the trip becomes extremely challenging and there is no one around you to keep you safe, consider ending your trip with a trip killer.

Using a trip killer usually is not the best idea because the bad emotions will stay unresolved and you will get little to no benefits from the experience. With that said, using a trip killer is smarter than harming yourself.

The 2 best options that you have for ending a bad trip are Phenibut and benzodiazepines. Phenibut is generally safer but it can take a few hours to kick in and end your trip.

To end a trip, use benzodiazepines. But again, only do it if there is no other way.

Interactions

  • Qualia Mind
    This nootropic is comprised of 28 ingredients designed to support and maximize your brain function. These ingredients act synergistically and many of them will protect you from the neurotoxic effects of psychedelics. Qualia will also make your trips more pleasant and help you retain more benefits from them.
  • Herbs
    Herbs can help calm you down. Herbal teas (chamomile, lemon balm, valerian root, …) are especially helpful.
  • Green tea
    Tea makes you both more alert and calm at the same time. It also contains neuroprotective antioxidants, such as EGCG.
  • CBD
    CBD has a calming effect.
  • Weed
    Marijuana will significantly intensify the trip. The next time you smoke weed without psychedelics, it will feel more psychedelic if you smoke it before/during your trip.
  • LSD
    The intensity of your trip will be multiplied. Do not combine the two if you suffer from heart problems.
  • Nitrous oxide
    Nitrous oxide multiplies the intensity of your trip.
  • Dissociatives
    Combining dissociatives with psychedelics won’t necessarily cause you harm but it can be confusing and lead to bad trips.
  • Alcohol
    Alcohol minimizes all the potential benefits of a psychedelic experience. It also greatly increases your chance of having a bad trip.
  • SSRIs or MAOIs
    Not only will these antidepressants greatly decrease the intensity of your trip, but they can also lead to long-lasting side effects.
  • Benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax, …)
    Benzos will end your psychedelic experience within 40 minutes but using this method may cause you side effects in the long-run.
  • Lithium
    Combining psychedelics with lithium significantly increases the risk of seizures and psychosis.
  • Stimulants
    The combination can easily lead to heart problems, even if you’re a healthy individual.
  • Tramadol
    Combining the two can cause seizures.
  • St. John’s Wort
    This combination may lead to serotonin syndrome.

Legality

Salvia Divinorum Legality Map

*Since this map was created, some other countries decided to ban salvia.*

Red = Illegal
Orange = Decriminalized
Green = Prohibited to minors

Where to get Salvia Divinorum

These are the ways you can get your hands on Salvia Divinorum, ranked from the safest to the least safe:

  • Become a research subject
    Salvia is being studied in many countries. If you can participate in these studies, it’s probably the best way to take this psychedelic safely.
  • Buy legal salvia
    If you live in a country where the herb is illegal, you can travel to a different country to have the experience.
  • Grow salvia on your own
    It isn’t hard to do. The ideal temperature for growing salvia is 20-30°C (68-96°F).
  • Buy it on a street
    Only buy salvia from a person you trust, it may not be pure.

FAQ

No. In fact, salvia will get more and more intense if you take it multiple times.

You also cannot become addicted to this substance because it is dysphoric.

Unlike any other psychedelic, Salvinorin A specifically affects your kappa opioid receptors.

This means that the effects of salvia are not comparable to anything else.

The only way to truly know what salvia does to your brain is to try it yourself.

It is not about your age, it is about how mature you are.

Teenagers (and younger) generally aren’t responsible enough to take psychedelics but it isn’t always the case.

If you are under the age of 21, your brain is evolving at a rapid rate on its own. This means that when you take psychedelics, there is more potential for growth but the risks are also higher.

If you’re young and you don’t have much experience with other psychedelics, avoid salvia for now.

Only take the drug in a safe, warm place with a trusted trip-sitter. Do not take salvia outside or in a place where there are strangers around.

If you are a mentally stable individual who does not suffer from psychosis or have a predisposition to schizophrenia, it is unlikely you would develop any mental illnesses because of salvia.

However, salvia isn’t nearly as psychologically safe as other psychedelics, such as LSD, mushrooms, or even DMT.

No.

On regular drug tests, salvia can be detected for up to 12 hours.

Some special tests can detect the substance in your system for up to 36 hours.

Salvia cannot be detected in your hair so, after 36 hours, no one can prove you had the herb.

The taste of salvia leaves is unpleasant, almost nobody likes the taste.

The same can be said about smoking the herbs. Some people find it hard to hold the smoke in their lungs for 30 seconds.

Keep the dried leaves in a cold dark place, preferably with no air.

If you have fresh leaves, dry them like you would dry any other herb.

In the spiritual community, there are mixed opinions on this.

You will not be able to retain these states of consciousness unless you put in a lot of work in your “sober” life.

However, that doesn’t mean that psychedelics cannot be helpful. Reaching these temporary states on a substance and seeing that these states are obtainable can be motivating.

This is why psychedelics can help you build a daily practice of yoga and meditation – both of which will help you awaken.

Psychedelics also teach you to let go of your ego which will be essential for awakening.

So psychedelics can help you awaken. Indirectly, but they can.

Salvia doesn’t make people nauseous and it is unlikely you would vomit on salvia. Your trip may get more intense if you use the substance on an empty stomach.

  • New psychonauts (it is much safer to start with gentler substanes)
  • Immature people who are not willing to follow the safety guidelines
  • People who suffer from psychosis
  • People who have a familial history of schizophrenia
  • Those who suffer from HPPD
  • People who are going through a manic phase of bipolar disorder
  • If you’re going through extremely challenging times, you can take psychedelics but the trips might be unpleasant, beware of that

A dried gram of salvia leaves generally costs around $1 but it depends on where you live.

The street price for salvia is not stable.

You may also like:

Thank you for taking psychedelics responsibly, immature psychonauts are the last thing the psychedelic movement needs.

And thank you for being a part of this renaissance. Together, we can change the world!

<- View All Psychedelics

Share this with your friends!
TrippyWiki