My next three journeys were done with smaller amounts, ranging from 400 to
800 mcg. There were three related themes which repeated and developed
throughout these journeys. The first is a seeming interchange that would
take place between myself and whatever I was perceiving. It was as though
the perceiver and the perceived switched places. I would become that which
I was normally aware of The second theme is an apparent identity shift that
would occur almost immediately upon smoking the salvinorin. It seemed that
I was "knocked" out of my identity-with-the-body by an instantaneous
"percussive" force. Perceptions of this event include the sensation of
switching places between my own awareness/identity, and the
awareness/identity belonging to the speck of salvinorin which I had smoked.
The third theme relates to salvinorin being the substance of pure
consciousness, an idea that may have sprung from my amazement at the
experience produced by a tiny speck of white crystalline powder, no larger
than a couple grains of salt. If there is a physical counterpart to
consciousness, memory or identity in humans, and if it could be extracted
from our brains, I think we would find something similar to salvinorin. In
one of my journeys I began repealing the words "becomes the substance that
memory is made out of" The internal sensation was that after salvinorin is
smoked and reaches the brain, it becomes the physical matter or substance
that constitutes memory, and there is a vast increase in the amount of
information which is available to me. I also realized that memory is linked
nearly synonymously with identity, and also very closely with
consciousness. As salvinorin is coming on I gain consciousness and memory.
I never actually lose consciousness, although this was my interpretation of earlier experiences. Ifs simply that consciousness becomes so vast that I lose the perspective of my individual self As the effects of the salvinorin wear off, some protective aspect of the mind censors much of my memory of the experience, as it similarly does to memories of Ketamine and DMT journeys.