Salvia divinorum, smoked · 0:00 to 15:00
What a salvia trip is like, minute by minute
A smoked salvia trip, phase by phase. Clock times from laboratory studies; the lines in italics are composite fragments written from patterns in published reports.
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Featured · Avalon Magic Plants
Salvia Divinorum 10X extract
The 10X extract: according to the shop, ten times as potent as plain dried leaf, for people who already know how salvia feels.
€14.50 View in the shop
Fifteen minutes, phase by phase
Scroll to move the clockSwipe through the minutes
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0:00
The inhale
Salvinorin A reaches the blood within seconds. In a Barcelona study, levels peaked one to two minutes after a vaporised dose. Maqueda et al., 2016
The lighter is still in my hand. The room sounds as if someone has laid a sheet over it.
depth
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0:30
Onset
In 34 uncut videos of people smoking salvia, the first effects often appeared in under thirty seconds. Lange et al., 2010
The edge of the sofa slides to the left, slowly, and takes the light with it.
depth
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1:00
The pull
A force that presses or pulls, often on one side. Volunteers described forces pressing the body down and pulling the legs up. Maqueda et al., 2015
Something takes my right shoulder and pulls, patient and steady, like a tide that knows where it is going.
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2:00
Peak
Drug strength ratings were highest at two minutes. At high doses volunteers often stopped responding to the researchers. MacLean et al., 2013
There is no room. There is a surface, and I am folded into it with the other parts.
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4:00
Elsewhere
Childhood memories, cartoon-like imagery and contact with entities recurred across sessions in the Johns Hopkins study. Johnson et al., 2011
A place I have always known, though I have never been there. Somebody here knows my name.
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7:00
Loosening
In the video study, effects tended to fade within eight minutes. Laughter often arrives here, out of proportion to anything funny. Lange et al., 2010
The planes slide back. I laugh, much too loud for the joke, because there was no joke.
depth
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10:00
Return
Coming back can take effort. One volunteer: "It cost me some efforts to bring my mind back to my body." Maqueda et al., 2015
Hands first. Then the word for hands. The sitter is still on the chair, which feels like an achievement.
depth
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15:00
Afterwards
Definite effects were gone at about twenty minutes. Recall of the middle part is often weak. Johnson et al., 2011
Ten minutes, the clock says. I have a whole story and can only find its first and last page.
depth
A smoked salvia trip is short and steep. The first effects arrive within a minute, often within thirty seconds; the strongest point comes at about two minutes; and in laboratory studies definite effects were gone after roughly twenty (Johnson et al., 2011). Chewed leaves take 5 to 20 minutes to start and can last up to two hours (ADF).
What happens inside those minutes is harder to describe, and this site is about exactly that. People who smoke salvia report a small set of recurring themes: a force that pulls or presses, the room splitting into layers, becoming part of an object or a surface, presences in another place that feels oddly familiar, and laughter on the way back. Most say it was unlike anything else they knew.
How this site tells it
- The minutes. The reel above and the page minute by minute follow the clock from the inhale to the hour after, with the research behind each phase.
- The themes. What salvia feels like takes nine recurring themes one by one, with quotes from study participants.
- The reports. Composite trip reports by strength, from a chewed leaf quid to 40X, and by theme, from the conveyor belt to the bookcase. Plus four difficult trips and what the sitter did.
- The products. The strength guide explains how the shop describes its leaves and extracts from mild to strong, and where salvia is legal.
About the reports
Every trip report on this site is a composite. Each one is assembled from patterns that recur in published experience reports and in what volunteers told researchers at Johns Hopkins, in Connecticut and in Barcelona. None of them is one person's story, and no names, ages or places have been invented to make them look like one. They are labelled as composites wherever they appear.
Salvia is legal in the Netherlands and prohibited in many other countries, including Belgium and Germany. The products shown here are for adults who are in the Netherlands. Whatever the strength, use it lying or sitting down with a sober sitter present.
Composite reports
Eight trips, one at a time
Short composite fragments, each built from patterns that recur in published reports. Open a card to read it, then follow it to the full account.
- 01 Theme: the pull The conveyor Everything in the room on one belt, moving right at walking pace. Open
- 02 Theme: becoming an object Becoming the bookcase Being the third shelf, and finding that entirely reasonable. Open
- 03 Theme: splitting Two halves One half on the sofa, the other somewhere with better light. Open
- 04 Theme: familiar places The cartoon street Flat colours, black outlines, and one house that was clearly home. Open
- 05 Strength: leaf quid The slow version A ceiling with a grain, combed gently from one corner to the other. Open
- 06 Strength: 10X I was a pattern A stripe on a huge piece of fabric, pulled tight. Open
- 07 Theme: presences The waiting room Staff before opening time, surprised by the visitor. Open
- 08 Theme: laughter The laughing fit A chair is a chair again, and nobody else finds that remarkable. Open
Theme: the pull · composite account
The conveyor
The bed became a belt, and the lamp, the window and the sitter were all on it, travelling at the same speed, so nothing seemed to move. Only the pull gave it away. Standing still made the pressure stronger; giving in made it soft. Then the belt folded under, and the room came back up on the other side, the right way round.
Composite, written from patterns in published reports. Not the experience of one person.
Theme: becoming an object · composite account
Becoming the bookcase
Not sitting next to the bookcase, being it: the third shelf, with the weight of the books pressing down in a way that felt right and useful. The shelf had opinions about the books. Afterwards one hand was pressed flat on the floor, quite hard, because the floor had felt like a colleague.
Composite, written from patterns in published reports. Not the experience of one person.
Theme: splitting · composite account
Two halves
A seam opened from the top of the head to the floor. The left half could feel the cushion and wanted to explain things to the sitter. The right half was somewhere bright and spacious and found explaining far too slow. Both were sure they were the real one. The seam closed from the bottom up.
Composite, written from patterns in published reports. Not the experience of one person.
Theme: familiar places · composite account
The cartoon street
A street drawn like a picture book, round windows, a swing that moved with nobody on it. It felt like every childhood street at once. One door was open and it would have been easy to go in, except the drawing kept sliding sideways, out of reach. The black outlines were the last thing to leave the room.
Composite, written from patterns in published reports. Not the experience of one person.
Strength: leaf quid · composite account
The slow version
Fifteen minutes of bitter leaves and nothing, then the ceiling had a grain like wood, and the grain moved. The sofa seemed to be on a slope, with a soft pull to the left. Conversation stayed possible. After an hour and a half the slope levelled out, leaving the sense of having watched something from the side.
Composite, written from patterns in published reports. Not the experience of one person.
Strength: 10X · composite account
I was a pattern
No build-up. One moment the lighter, the next a surface running a long way in every direction, and being one stripe on it while the fabric was pulled tight. Something on the far side was paying attention. The sitter's watch said eleven minutes, four of them without an answer to a name.
Composite, written from patterns in published reports. Not the experience of one person.
Theme: presences · composite account
The waiting room
A quiet space full of attention, and the attention belonged to something, or several somethings, looking up from their work. Not hostile, not especially welcoming. They seemed to wait patiently for the visitor to leave by the right door. One of them said a name, and it was the right name.
Composite, written from patterns in published reports. Not the experience of one person.
Theme: laughter · composite account
The laughing fit
The trip was brief and fuzzy: some sliding, a tilting sofa. Then, at about minute seven, three minutes of laughter at the fact that a lamp was a lamp again. Every attempt to explain made it funnier. The sitter wrote down the times and kept the lighter, and the second turn was postponed to another evening.
Composite, written from patterns in published reports. Not the experience of one person.
If you are in the Netherlands
Salvia is legal in the Netherlands. From mild to strong, as Avalon Magic Plants describes its range. Adults only, one dose per session, with a sober sitter.
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Mild
Salvia Divinorum Leaves
Plain dried leaf, smoked or as a quid
€4.90 Avalon Magic Plants
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Step up
Salvia Divinorum 5X extract
5X, the shop gives 18 mg salvinorin A per gram
€9.50 Avalon Magic Plants
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Familiar
Salvia Divinorum 10X extract
10X, for experienced users per the shop
€14.50 Avalon Magic Plants
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Strong
Salvia Divinorum 20X extract
20X, the shop gives 72 mg per gram
€21.50 Avalon Magic Plants
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Very strong
Salvia Divinorum 40X Extract
40X, experienced users only, with a sitter
€22.95 Avalon Magic Plants
Every layer of this site
- 01 Minute by minute A smoked salvia trip starts within a minute, peaks at about two minutes and fades within twenty. What each phase feels like, from the inhale to the hour after.
- 02 Themes Being pulled, splitting in two, becoming an object, laughter, other places. The themes that recur in salvia reports and studies, each with a composite fragment.
- 03 Reports by strength Six composite salvia trip reports, from a chewed leaf quid to a 40X extract, showing how the strength changes how far the trip goes. Each one clearly labelled.
- 04 Stories by theme Eight short composite salvia trip stories, each built around one recurring theme: the pull, the split, the bookcase, the cartoon street, the laughing fit.
- 05 Difficult trips Four composite accounts of difficult salvia trips: standing up, the second hit, the fear of not coming back, the day after. What went wrong and what helped.
- 06 Strength guide How Avalon Magic Plants describes its salvia leaves and extracts from 5X to 80X, which step suits whom, and where salvia is legal.