Breakthrough via tincture/quid

[bemeda]

I've had a couple of extraordinary breakthrough experiences through smoking fortified leaf. I've put down the fortified stuff after too many hard-headed failures that did little for me and I've switched over to tincture. If the fortified leaf is akin to strapping yourself to a rocket bound for the middle of an alien ocean, the tincture allows you to wade in at your own pace. I find it a lot more manageable.

I've so far strayed away from very strong doses, opting instead for what Siebert would list as between "moderate" and "strong" - that is, 4-5 droppers of tincture diluted with 2-3 droppers of water. This is my preferred dose, as it allows me to hold control and back off if I find myself in a spot too alien or uncomfortable. However! The experience is exactly the feeling I know so well from the fortified leaf - The "extra-dimensional" motion, the ubiquitous "eyes" upon the stage of your self, the sweating!, the distinctive physical sensations, the warping of time, the feeling that I am utterly wasting my and the universe's time if I'm not engaging these experiences in a meaningful way. It's like I've waded out into the surf up to my knees, even knelt down and allowed myself to dissolve temporarily into the flow, seen ahead to the first shoals of the "breakthrough realms."

So far I have not pursued a breakthrough dose and feel that I will need to build up to possibly 8-10 diluted droppers (staggered) to lose myself completely - at which point I'll have to change the pattern, charter a trip sitter, prepare for what may be an extraordinarily long journey in the Salviaic realms. It makes me terribly nervous just to think about, but it's a journey I want to pursue over the long run.

I very much want to (eventually) work my way up to this while I continue to wade in and learn to swim so to speak.

I wanted to know: Does anyone here have experience achieving breakthrough (or nearly) via the tincture or quidding methods? If so, I would dearly appreciate any knowledge you can impart. I've worked with Salvia between 20 and 30 times and feel that I am only just now beginning to form a relationship with its effects.

Any questions, have at me! I hope to find someone here who's taken this plunge!

 

[gardentoad]

I have quided with 56 matched pairs of leaves. I scrubbed my mucosa with tequila or very strong mouthwash before quiding. I stayed in my experience for about three and a half hours. It was a lovely timeless journey. I felt that I could chew and hold the material in my mouth and as I became comfortable with the different levels I could take the experience higher by adding more material or quiding more fresh material. This was done in a nearly dark room(one small candle burning)and some quiet instrumental music playing. It was very visionary and a surprisingly calm time. The salvia did not seem to force me into hyperspace when I quided.
When I have smoked extract of salvia it has seemed to "flip" me into hyperspace especially if I smoked it while exploring another psychedelic like mushrooms.

 

[Metanoia]

I can't say I've had a breakthrough with quidded Salvia alone...not for lack of trying. I've danced up to the threshold, but it's too easy to back off when you get frightened Smoking doesn't provide that option. You're just thrust into this world and you have to go along for the ride until it's over.

It is much more gentle and manageable, you're right. The only times I've had a breakthrough with the oral route was when I quidded and then smoked some leaf, or quidded and combined it with ayahuasca or mushrooms. If you have access to plain leaf rather than the extracts, I would try taking your dose of tincture and then taking a toke or two of plain leaf. That has always worked for me, and it's not the same as smoking extract or plain leaf on it's own. It seems to deepen the oral experience, but not in a "in your face" unpleasant kind of way like extracts can do.

I would imagine you would have to take a very strong dose, and then redose to get to a breakthrough level with tincture or quidding. Redosing with quids was how I almost achieved breakthrough effects. It gets difficult when you get to that point, however. Tincture would probably be easier to manage redosing, rather than having to stuff rolled up leaves in your mouth while sweating and tripping.

I think you have the right attitude to get there. It does take dedication to really get to know this plant and work with it successfully. Please do let us know how it goes!

 

[InMotion]

In general tinctures don't work .

 

[bemeda]

Thanks for the input! Perhaps once I've reached a point of deeper comfort and understanding with the process of "approach," I'll begin to boost with smoked leaf. I notice what you might call a frequency shift being one of the major differences between tincture and smoke. Salvia is music - it's rhythm. Relationship to time shifts; Moments become repetitive replays of sensory sampling until the entirety of your sensory input has been "processed" into some bewildering salviaic machinery. With tincture the rhythm is slow, groovy, each beat gives you time to react. With extract smoke, it grinds and pulses with a fevered engine that doesn't give a shit if you're following the plot or not.

While oral breakthroughs seem rare, I must believe they are at least possible. And from Seibert's literature:

"Very strong doses totally immerse one in a visionary world and can propel consciousness into the far reaches of transdimensional/transpersonal space. CAUTION! Be careful when using large doses. The effects last considerably longer than when this herb is smoked. An extended high-level Salvia divinorum experience is a serious undertaking."

Here's what's really exciting to me about the concept of breakthrough via tincture. Whenever I dose with the stuff, it feels like ME doing the work as much as the drug. You must not only be WILLING to take the full journey, but you must KNOW HOW to take the full journey. Tincture is more than just a rollercoaster ride, it engages your active mind in a more meaningful capacity. You must first learn how to go further before you can take the steps.

To think that I can approach the visionary states, the breakthrough realms, and understand every step of the journey going in - That your antennae for the other world could be so tuned - This would be the holy grail for me.

Which begs the question for any tincture-or-quid-users:
How do you manage the trip? In words, how would you translate your own experience during the "approach"?

I find there are a few aspects of the path that seem to demand some sort of perspective to be married in order to continue further.

- Contact and the ubiquitous "presence" of entities. Your left brain demands to know. Are they outside or within? Are they both? Are you merely hearing your own echoed subconscious thoughts and processing them as outside voices? Or has a window been opened to a true, flowing, conscious energy that permeates the cosmos? Get stuck on this and go nowhere. It's so amazing to be seemingly in close contact with alien beings that it can floor you before you can hope to swim with them. Acceptance is crucial.

- Soma. Your body must change and ultimately for breakthrough you must detach and let go of your somatic self. I would say that this is the hardest part of the journey and the aspect most likely to bring on fear for people. If the entities be true beings, then this chapter is where you invite Death into the room for a tour. I find one way to "see" the new feel of your changing body is dimensional - your physical sensations are being flattened, like a map, and printed on a 2D sheet, each moment of sensory change being a new "frame" along the printed ribbon, which itself is spooling along a spiral spun by the "salvia energy". As your body changes, the previous dictum still holds: Acceptance is crucial.

- Inhabiting the "Witness consciousness" pilot seat. Combined with somatic death, I think this is the source of breakthrough potential. It puts you squarely into the moment with no past or future to access. I believe the "pure moment" is the true nature of what we call ego dissolution. When you have "forgotten" what came before now, when you no longer have a concern for a concept called the "future" and you float simply "now" on the spectrum of change, your ego and linear self are essentially suspended.

- Salviaic "Atmos." What the hell is this pranic wilderness? People describe gears and vortexes and orbits. And they're damned right. It's like our subtle body becomes our gross body - We consciously inhabit an energy body which itself is highly sensitive to invisible outer forces. Huge moving spinning machinery which can be difficult to deal with - but I find that if you find a vortex-point, a spot in the middle of spinning forces, you can reach a quiet place and allow yourself to go "in" deeper (or "further out" as it were). I feel as though there is a dense atmosphere that you must somehow clear in order to reach the visionary state, which is contained in a more open cosmic space like a void.

There is one particular point of the smoked journey that I have yet to experience through tincture. And this is the seemingly-exponential "splitting" of the consciousness into a multiplicity of selves. When I broke through on smoked extract, only after I had become a billionfold bristling fractal of me's did I find myself somehow "arriving" on the other side. This could conceivably be terrifying on tincture, but perhaps at its speed you could always re-piece yourself together and back out into comfort.

Anyone have some knowledge that helps them contend with the strangeness and go "deeper" into the experience?