(I was with some friends one night a few months ago. We were listening to music and drinking some Scotch. At one point the host indicated the had some legal herb that we could smoke, but that was the only info he gave. He couldn't remeber what it was called nor did he give any WARNING as to its effects, even though he had done it himself prior to this evening, basically making it a sneak attack. I had heard of Salvia but did not know what it could do, so I was completely unprepared for what was about to happen. I figured what he was putting into the water pipe might be Salvia and that it might give a slight "high" so I gave it a try. I took a large hit and passed the pipe. I was sitting on the floor, held the lungfull for a long time since I was skeptical that anything would happen, and grabed my class of whisky. THEN I CEASED TO EXIST. The following is an abstract, poetic interpretation, but it is still as "true" a description as I could manage, considering that mere straight-forward prose Is completely inadequate...............)

In the beginning...

Darkness, only....and then sound. That deafening SOUND! That Singular sound of the fabric of reality ripping, tearing apart. Then the crystaline condensate of existence forming in a brilliant blizzard of shattered mirrors reflecting infinity back upon itself!

--Recursive Avalanches of Conflagration
Saturate the Ferrofluid Anatomy of My Awareness.
Hallowed Decramentalization of Thought.

What has happened? What is happening?

Myriad spiderwebs of astral zippers are unzipping the boiling blackness of cosmic-chaos. There is something familiar, yet inside-out/upside-down clinging onto sanity by a thread of spiraling terror. Ah yes, there it is--an "I", but it is far, far away from this place, this entrance to the underworld.

--Erebus Assailing, Phantoms are Wailing from some Plutonian Shore.

--Osmosaic Reverberations Absorb the Sky--
Masticated Diamonds.
Swollen Internal Organs Escape Their Prisons.
Viscous Light'ning-blades Rape the Night;
My Eyes Commit Suicide.

How hidden the SUN thus so?

--Gears of Being are Straining; Groaning, Moaning, barely Maintaining the Super-structure of Awareness' Core.

Strong are the chill-pallid hands of Lord Hades--Great Pater Dis. Yet one gossamer thread leads back to the light. I perceive the porthole. A pin-hole. The "This." The "Myself"; the central axis of the trillion spiderweb zippers. An empty shell called "Me". Dis-sociative fractals map the root home.

--The Ghastly Greed of Grim Gravity unGlut Groes GarGantuan, and then it wants more.

The "I" is quitting itself. How sullen the SUN thus so?
How curious!, delerious!, how monstrous the Wings of Nothingness Unfurled.

--Persephone Keeps Calling, my Soul Keeps on Crawling on-through that Apalling Dark Door.

--My Soul--a Warped, Red Doppler Moan...
Incestuous Patterns of Emptiness Create
Manifold Cysts of Be-ing...

There is a moment of aweful recognition. Lo! it is horrible! The "I" is comming nearer. It is a grotesque article of gore-soaked apparell. A body bag for the Immortal. A dull instrument for vulgar Sensation.

One main zipper-vortex is leading to that perverse container so moist, hot and tiny. It is the ultimate barrier on the edge of the intangable sea of infitite chaos, the threshold to the solidity of the material world. The pressurized bubble called "reality".

This "reality" is contained in the inside-out glove called Myself. As the bubble draws nearer the glove begins to trun "right-side" out and in upon itself, re-wrapping around the entity that once possessed it. Half in and half out, the "I" and the "non-I" overlap.

A liquid "non-I" pours into the mold of the "I" and begins to gel.

I am mostly myself now, floating on the surface of the pressurized bubble looking in, like a corpse face down in the water. I recognize a room. Furniture is contained inside the bubble along with three people. There is music playing. I still feel the pull of the boiling void that lies outside the bubble, behind the mask of Myself, trying to lift the corpse out of the water and into the sky. I want to relax, to give in and back out of the bubble, to merge forever with the wailing darkness. I strain to become denser...solid....complete, to submerge, to wrap the snug body bag around my astral self and zip up reality completely. It is not easy.

The music seems to be reacting to my struggle. When I relax the music is the boiling blackness of the underword; the voices of the phantoms struggling to pull me back and I begin fading. When I strain to enter the bubble, to seal off the tempest at my back, I hear hopeful voices straining to rhythms that are triggered by the flexing of the body bag. They are pulling me into reality. I strain harder. I become more solid.

As the real world zips up the void behind me I sink into the bubble completely and am now mummified inside Myself. The howls of the underworld spirits grow fainter and fainter as I encase myself into Myself. The barrier has been crossed, and I no longer have to flex my will to escape the void; the door has been barred. I look around the room and realize that I am standing in front of the three people. I recognize them; they're my friends. I also notice that I have dropped and broken a glass of liqour. As the hum that vibrates my whole body ebbs, I become fully aware of what just happened.....

SALVIA DIVINORUM!!!!!

At first I was completely terrified. I was angry that he would sneak something like that on me with no warning. I thought something evil had just happend, and I didn't ever want to be in that place again. But as I adjusted "back into reality", I became calmer and realized something very special had just taken place. And I was actually thankful that I was blindsided by my friend because I had no preconceived Ideas that might have limited my experience. I enjoyed several more lungfulls (I think it was 50X) that night, but the experience was not nearly as dramatic--for which I was a little thankful. That was the only time I've communed with Salvia D, but I am looking forward to the next time.....