Frightening salvia experience

I don't even know where to begin.

I'm a 23-year old male and I have smoked salvia before. My first time (I don't remember the strength) was me laughing uncontrollably for five minutes (I smoked at night, on the beach, with two other people with me). It was hilarious and I felt no danger whatsoever. I did it a couple of times at later times with nothing as memorable except for once in my backyard with some people (I stepped out of myself repeatedly and began to grow paranoid of the people around me and ran into the house, hiding in my room...it eventually wore off).

I spent most of the day yesterday watching a couple of movies and being bored by myself. My roommate had gone out of town that morning. I had smoked salvia out of a pipe the night before with a friend but didn't really have a very impactful trip.

Last night, however, was another story.

After the last movie, around 9:30pm, I was bored and noticed the salvia container on my kitchen table. I thought, eh...what the heck. In the back of my mind, I knew it probably wasn't a great idea and was unsettled by the idea of doing it alone. I looked online and some said they had had awesome trips under those circumstances, so I tried to relax and ready myself to enjoy it.

I grabbed my laptop and cell phone, went to my room, turned on a red lantern and turned the other lights off. I put on "Clocks" by Coldplay (my favorite) to try to relax and feel comfortable (I'm pretty sure a part of me was not all into it and that most likely had an effect on my experience).

I set my phone to record audio and took a hit. I put the bong away and lay in my bed, holding the smoke in.

I exhaled and immediately started to go.

I'm going to try to explain this as best as I can:

Physically I began to feel as if I was everything. It's like, I was detached from my body and even if I could move it, I was not just my body, my arms, my legs, I was everything in the room. I think it might have felt like when you're swimming in water and, in a way, you're part of what's in the water.

After hearing some of the recording, I apparently was saying "I get it. Thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus. I get it."

Which quickly turned into..."I get it...but I don't want to get it. No, no, no, no."

The physical effect of it became a conscious awareness very quickly and HUGELY OVERWHELMING. I began to relate what was happening to me with the theory of only "you" existing and everything else was a product of your consciousness. This was terrifying because I felt so alone.

I was petrified that I would never come out of this form of thinking...that this would be my existence henceforth.

I'm not entirely sure how long the actual "trip" itself lasted, but my thoughts about existence and the possibility of me not existing were terrifying and lasted a long time. I smoked around 10pm and I was unable to fall asleep until around 1:30AM (3 and a half hours later).

I remember going on my computer to try to make sure it was recording in case my phone stopped and all of a sudden I was my computer. My existence was limited to moving programs and opening Quicktime player and quitting and such. This was extremely scary so I decided to rip myself away from the computer repeating "I can do other things" and just going around touching other objects (if I remember correctly).

At one point, I was so panicked from the salvia (but starting to become more aware of my environment) that I grabbed the remaining salvia and threw it out, then I grabbed the slider from my bong and tossed it in the sink (it broke and I didn't feel bad). I remember thinking that I would NEVER do anything that would alter my mind again because it was too overwhelming to contemplate the possibility of another reality (at least at this level of consciousness).

I am normally all for metaphysics and discussing other possibilities and life after death and all that stuff, but the experience made me feel as though I was actually "enlightened" or able to "understand" through experience what the other realities were and the problem...the true source of the fear was thinking it could not be undone...that I would never be the same again (obviously, for the worst).

I remember thinking that I was going to become permanently schizophrenic or something like that. I thought of my family and of how that would be tragic for them and I was so regretting smoking it, that it was not worth it.

I called my friend because I needed to know someone else was there (even though, technically, I guess I could have easily been imagining them...which is probably why I wanted everything recorded...so I had proof).

I kept thinking that I was going to wake up the next day and feel like a complete idiot...and that's what I was praying for, but there was a part of me that looked at the clock and noticed it was like two hours later and still unsure of reality.

My friend reminded me that she had experience an awful trip on salvia that had lasted a long time (this was about thirty minutes to an hour into my trip) and that I should just relax, breathe, and maybe watch some tv...try to do something normal.

I really wanted her to come over to have another physical being there with me, but she couldn't. So I just breathed and turned on the tv. I kept turning on lights to be able to see everything in my room.

I tried to do "normal" things like drink water, watch tv, brush my teeth, even pee to remind myself that I was human and everything was fine but a part of me was analyzing everything from "the other side" and seeing the mundanity of existence and lack of purpose...in a way.

I opened up my window to let cold air in and also put a fan next to my bed (not because I was hot, but because I needed to feel physical stimulus on myself to remind myself, again, that I could feel because I was in a human body).

I eventually decided to take a shower.

All I wanted was to go to sleep but I was scared of sleeping because I didn't know what would happen to my mind and how I would wake up.

I was just praying to God that it would end and that nothing permanent would happen with my mind (I have an aunt who experimented with some drug I'm not sure of only once and has been taking medication ever since).

I spoke with another friend on the phone and I'm pretty sure the trip was coming to an end and I could physically feel better, more connected with reality, coming back, but there was still the lingering feeling of what I had experienced.

I watched some adult swim and played music but everything seemed to apply to what was happening to me and I was reading into it a lot, so I ended up switching the movie off and tuning onto Law & Order (which isn't, obviously, the most pleasant show to watch, but I love it and it was something normal for me) and eventually drifted off to sleep.

Before falling asleep, I closed my window and removed the fan from the side of my bed because I was aware I had just taken a shower and my hair was wet and I would probably get sick.

This gave me a feeling of being normal and back in touch with my existence as a human and my physical body.

I woke up today feeling better. Still jarred and I had that shadow of last night's experience somewhere in my mind. Obviously, I am still thinking about it since I'm writing about it.

It has helped to see some friends, but on the drive there, I felt as though, in a way, I was driving for the first time.

I was really scared that I wouldn't be able to function normally after last night but so far it's going well.

My friend tells me it's going to take a few days before it goes "away" although I'll most likely never forget what happened.

All I want is for it to pretty much disappear. I was petrified and thought I had achieved, in some sense, "enlightenment" or felt what it was like to be just consciousness, but it was REALLY uncomfortable and overwhelming for the mind.

It's like I had been in the matrix, taken the blue pill and been shown something...my response to that being, "I want to throw up this blue pill and take the red one. I want to go back."

Even today the thought occurred to me that maybe I died last night and I am just unaware of it and just pretending to go about reality.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's just weird getting back to normal after that very scary experience.

I do NOT recommend doing it...and if you do, do it with a sitter FOR SURE and be comfortable and relaxed and all that. Seriously, tread with caution.

The simplicity of human life seemed FAR MORE BEAUTIFUL than what I experienced.