Becoming a Zipper

Salvia divinorum (10X extract)

Citation: Trendal. "Becoming a Zipper: An Experience with Salvia divinorum (10X extract) (exp16151)". Erowid.org . Oct 4, 2004. erowid.org/exp/16151

DOSE:

150 mg smoked Salvia divinorum (extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT: 125 lb

After receiving a gram of 10X Salvia extract in the mail, my friends and I proceeded to use the entire gram in one night. Our first two experiments were in the dose range of around 40-50mg per person. We topped the night off by smoking the rest. Three people had 100mg each and the other two (myself included) had 150mg each. I was completely blown away by the result.Setting: My bedroom. Time is 3am. I am with four of my good friends. Good state of mind.Smoked 150mg of 10x extract in two bowls. The last 'normal' thing I remember is exhaling and thinking 'wow...that was a lot of smoke...'Suddenly I became aware of a series of strange zipper-like patterns accross the room, running parallel with the floor. Each line was about a metre in distance from any other line. Then I became aware of the fact that everything I was seeing was loosing its depth and becoming flat, like a piece of paper. Except there were 'layers' of these papers all standing up straight from the floor. I could move around between the layers in my bedroom. It was kind of like walking through a room filled with freestanding cardboard cutouts with pictures of my room on them. One cutout would be my computer and desk, another my bed, and so on. The zipper-lines were becoming more and more pronounced as everything in my vision flattened up.Then I noticed the presence of a few beings around me, whom I thought to be my friends (who were all in the room at the time). Each of these beings was attatched to one of the zipper lines in some way I can't describe. I could see them as human form, and they looked exactly like my friends. But I knew that they were all attatched to the zipper-lines, too. The idea was passed to me, from somewhere, that these people were the heads of the zippers that held reality together.This was, I assure you, one of the most intricate horrors I have ever come across.The idea that these people were all that stood between reality and nothingness scared the living shit out of me. To my complete horror I watched as one of my former friends began to walk along his zipper-line with an insane grin on his face. Reality began to 'unzip'.I don't know how else to describe it. It looked EXACTLY like a zipper being undone. The two sections of reality that were previously joined by the zipper began to spread apart. An infinite blackness was the only thing left between the sheets of reality. My friends, I realized, were only some benevolent conciousness wearing their skin. Each one moved and acted precisely the same way. Each with the same sick grin on their face, they would unzip their zipper while goading me into letting it happen.This led me to the conclusion that I, somehow, was in control of the fate of reality. I fixed the idea firmly in my head that everything would stop, and reality would zip itself back up.This did not work.Now I realized that I had no control over the situation, and never had. The beings wearing my friend's faces changed from goading and sneaky to angry and forceful. I was chased out of my room, into the kitchen. I became aware of the fact that I could not move as I thought I should be able to move. There was some form of resistance whenever I moved, accompanied with a strange zipping sound. I was now a zipper head, and as I ran I was unzipping reality behind me.Panic hit me very very fast. I tried to flee the kitchen, as the other zippers had followed me and were trying to 'catch up' to me for what I thought was some purely evil reason. It was imperative that I stay ahead of them if I were to survive. I made my way through the living room. Down the back hallway of my house. Out the back door.Reality was now completely coming apart around me. Everything had gone quiet, except for the noise of the other zippers following me, and the noise my own zipper made as I moved. All other noise seemed to dissapear as reality was unzipped. I was now in a very real state of panic as I watched in horror as my house unzipped from reality. I was not safe outside, either, I realized. But it was too late to do anything. Somehow I got the idea that I needed to let go. This wasn't worth fighting any longer. I watched with a growing sense of calm as four other zipper lines converged on me.Just as reality was finishing its unzipping, I noticed the presence of one of my friends. He was standing in front of me, looking down at my face (he's taller than I am). He kept asking 'Why are you outside?' I realized that he was my friend from before, not the head of a zipper. It looked as if I was seeing him through a tunnel in the center of my vision. The tunnel widened and reality as I know it came back to me all at once. I was outside, but how? What had happened? What had I just experienced?I allowed myself to be led back into the house, still too confused to do or say anything. A couple hours later, by the time I went to bed, I could remember everything clearly (and still do).I'd have to say that Salvia is by far the strangest drug I have ever come across. It's like a mixture of Ketamine, Dramamine, and shrooms, plus something entirely novel. I would not call it fun at all except at lower doses. Everything I witnessed seemed very real as it happened. I remember having the thought (which scared me) that the zippers of reality had always been there, and I had always been the head of a zipper. It was as if I had been pretending all along that reality was the way it is, and that somehow I had forgotten the nature of my true existence. I was being shown my true nature, I thought.Strangest thing to ever happen to me.