Salvia Tinctures

[st.bot.32]

OK so there is a place online (sagewisdom.org) that sells tinctures which are supposed to be similar to the method the mazatecs use to ingest salvia. Also as I understand it the tincture experience is slightly milder, much longer and more euphoric than smoking. So obviously I am very curious to try...

Has anyone had any success with salvia tinctures?

 

[twicon]

whoa this site have pure salvinorin A...?

i believe the tincture is much more enjoyable!!
definately gonna try it myself some time, tell us ur experience if u decide to order it.
Is that site safe tho? cause im interested too

 

[st.bot.32]

Actually it turns out it is available in my locality so I dont even have to order it. I'll probably try it sometime if I feel like risking the funds, especially since I can't find mushies anywhere these days

 

[WetStaples]

If I ever decide to try salvia, I definitely know where to get it, now.

 

[thadivine]

If I ever decide to try salvia, I definitely know where to get it, now.

its fcking expinsive tough =.=

 

[Forkbender]

but who can put a price on a psychedelic experience?

 

[WetStaples]

I guess you're just paying for the legality, accessibility, and convenience. Sounds worth it to me.

Also, the price is like an automatic way to prevent one from using it too often.

 

[jj]

It is very easy to make your own tincture, and fairly economical.

This is for info purposes only, hypothetical.


First, I find the best price on Salvia leaf. Grow it or get a kilo.

If kept cool, dry and in the dark, it lasts a long time.

Second, I get alcohol. Ethanol, the drinkable stuff. 80 proof booze would work, but I like to get the strongest stuff I can. Where I live, that's 151proof = 75.5%.

Next, one could research how much salvinorin a given volume of alcohol will hold and figure out how much Salvia to add to the alcohol. I haven't done that. I just went for the overkill strategy, crushing leaf and stuffing it into the bottle until it piled up nearly as high as the alcohol. This produced maximum strength.

Since there is some water in the alcohol, and since water can break down the salvinorin molecule, I don't mix up more than a month's supply at a time.

I shake it up, let it sit a couple of days. In the dark. UV light destroys salvinorin.

At the time of use, I can dillute it, but I don't dillute it and store it. Water breaks down salvinorin.

One way to dillute it is to mix it with some orange juice concentrate straight from the can. Or I mix it with whatever I like.

I dillute it only as much as needed to make it bearable. The more I dillute it, the weaker it is and the slower it absorbs.

Smoking concentrates, the effects often come on so fast that this is why so many people have problems with Salvia. They get confused. With tincture, it comes on slower. Then, the challenge becomes getting strong enough effects.

However, part of the secret to having a Salvia experience is learning to tune in. It is possible to miss the effects or to tune them out. It's like there's a tv show on, but your tv set is tuned to another channel. You have to tune in. It's a subtle thing, learned by experience. Some people are more prone to it than others. Some find it easily. For others it's hard.

If you learn to enter a mellow, contemplative state, letting Salvia gently lull you into trance, you can have very visionary experiences on fairly low doses. Everything happens at a relaxed pace. Less chance of confusion, more chance of developing insight.

I usually do this in bed before I go to sleep. I go to bed early, trip, relax afterward, then go to sleep. I like the comfort and security of my bedroom, and I like the dark for exploring visions with my eyes closed.

I will probably start dilluting this stuff, but lately I have been using the 151 proof green everclear full strength. I pour an ounce or two into a small glass. I take itty bitty sips. I swish them around my mouth and swallow them. The sips are so small that they are going to absorb before they reach my stomach. The saliva dillutes them so they don't scorch my throat. I put up with a little bit of mouth scorch. I will probably start dilluting the stuff, but not too much because that will diminish intensity severely.

I have tried dilluting the stuff and holding a big mouthful for 15 minutes. Sorry, not for me. I prefer the micro sip and swallow technique. One could use a "dropper." I just reach for the glass sitting on the bedside table and take little sips as I like with my head propped up on the pillow.

After a few sips, I start to feel the effects coming on. While they are not yet super strong, maybe I'm still taking sips, but at some point I want to stop sipping, close my eyes, and see where this trip is going to go. I voluntarily devote my attention to exploring the trip. It never grabs me and hauls me away against my will. I could come out of it if I wanted to, but I have set aside some time in a safe setting for this little journey.

This trip will probably go for 20-30 minutes. On occasion, I have gone into this trip, come back to the surface where I was still affected but aware that there was still more in the glass, taken more little sips, gone back into tripping, surfaced again, finished the glass, and gone back in again, a session lasting over an hour.

I have never, ever used a sitter. I have never needed one because I'm not blasting off with big tokes of strong concentrate. When I ease gently into deep trance, my body is very still. Every time I go so far in that I forget my body, I always come back to finding it in exactly the same position as when I went into that state.

Indeed, the vast majority of the time, I am to varying degrees aware of my setting and body position. I am never blasted into a state where I cannot connect with this information. My entry into deeper states is voluntary. I feel "invited" to relax and go deeper, not forced into it. It's very peaceful and mellow.

A sitter could be good if you really want to be safe and secure, but a lot of sitters do a terrible job and make things worse.

If you watch the U-tube videos where people take these hits of 30x, the tripper often appears "out of it", but they don't really start thrashing around in a potentially unsafe way until people start messing with them.

If you are totally out of it, your instincts take over. Your instincts are going to tell your body that it's probably a pretty good idea not to try to move too much. Unless someone is messing with you. Then the instinct to run will take over.

Which proves that Salvia makes some people smarter. When they are straight, they choose terrible friends. When stoned on Salvia, they try to run from them. If only their experience weren't so confusing, they might bring back some insight and get some new friends.

 

[st.bot.32]

However, part of the secret to having a Salvia experience is learning to tune in. It is possible to miss the effects or to tune them out. It's like there's a tv show on, but your tv set is tuned to another channel. You have to tune in. It's a subtle thing, learned by experience. Some people are more prone to it than others. Some find it easily. For others it's hard.

If you learn to enter a mellow, contemplative state, letting Salvia gently lull you into trance, you can have very visionary experiences on fairly low doses. Everything happens at a relaxed pace. Less chance of confusion, more chance of developing insight.

Well put. That is precisely what I like about salvia.

And precisely what is so difficult to explain, especially if you are expecting a substitute for classic psychedelics or something (and try to use it the same way, to each their own of course, intense salvia trips can still be fun). The mazatecs say if you are quiet and do not move you may see La Pastora, but she is very timid and shy, that is a nice way of putting how subtle (but effective) the effects are when you actually get it right!

How long will such a tincture last for you, and retain its potency? As I understand it in proper conditions salvinorin lasts indefinitely.

 

[jj]

How long does tincture last?

I don't know. However, there is some water in the alcohol tincture solution, and I have been told by those who know more than I that water can "hydrolyze" (split, destroy) salvinorin.

I know that after a month it still seems pretty potent. I would not mix more than a month's suppy at a time, just to minimize chances of potency loss. There is no need. It is such a simple operation to crush some leaf by hand, toss it into some alcohol in a bottle or jar, shake it up and let it sit a couple of days just to make sure the salvinorin dissolves.

Then, you can experiment with how much you use, to get the right effects. I have had to do some trial and error work to get to where I was getting the effects I wanted. I never measure, so that makes it more challenging to "eyeball" the right amount. I suppose a wise person would measure their dosage somehow. You could dish it out with a measuring spoon, or use a dropper, or something. If the effects are too weak, try a little more next time. Work your way up.

I'm sure there's data scattered around the internet about what % of the leaf is salvinorin by weight, and how much salvinorin each millileter of alcohol can hold. You can use that to figure out how much leaf to put in the alcohol. I just trust the "excess" method, putting a bunch of leaf in there. Maybe when I have poured all the alcohol off that leaf and used it, I might pour some more alcohol onto that leaf to get a little more salvinorin out of it.

I never worry about filtering my tincture because I don't mind if it has some leaf crumbs in it. Most of the leaf stays in the bottle when I pour myself a cup, but a few leaf crumbs in the cup don't bother me.

 

[jj]

st.bot.32,

If you make some highpowered tincture and try a good shot, you won't be disappointed.

Other people I've read said hold the stuff in your mouth 15 minutes but I decided I like my tiny sip method better. It seems to bring effects on fast, and there's no having to hold anything in the mouth.

My trips aren't like smoked extract trips, but they are definitely trips with plenty of visionary effects as well as a very contemplative space and some time to appreciate it.

Last time I did this, I put maybe an ounce and a half into a glass, started taking these little sips while I lay in bed reading a book, and then as I got to the bottom of the glass I felt the tingles coming on and saw the colors getting brighter so I closed the book, turned off the light, and in 5 minutes I was in the middle of a very interesting experience. A half hour or so later I was asleep, and the next morning off to work I went.

You can't do that with the mushies.

 

[jj]

Ok, I already posted on tincture. I'll add more.

First of all, you should make your own. It's too expensive buying it. You get a little bottle, and by the time you get good effects, you'll have emptied it.

I just paid $155 for a kilo, including postage. That's a lot of Salvia. If that's too much money, go in with friends.

Rather than repeating what I already wrote, I'll just write about my experiences.

It took me a little while to get it down. I had some experiences that were a bit on the mild side when I first started working with oral absorption, before I mixed up that strong green everclear.

One thing I used to do is use oral absorption to get started and adjusted to Salvia space, and then I'd take a booster hit or two of 5x from the pipe.

If you are one of those people who has a hard time getting effects from smoking, I tend to doubt that oral absorption will rock your world. It might, though. Maybe the slower take-off will be what it takes to get you into Salvia space. However, I suspect that you might need to learn to get effects from smoking, first. Or from the combination I just mentioned.

I like to use my everclear tincture really strong. It burns, but I think absorption is much better when it's strong. I take really small sips. You could dillute it, but I think it might reduce the intensity of effects.

One thing you'll need to do with oral absorption is to learn to relax into a dreamy state. Oral absorption probably won't rip you out of this world the way smoking can. You have to learn to let go and drift.

Generally, I would say that in all of my tincture experiences, it probably would have been possible for me to open my eyes and get up if there had been a need to. However, I was totally intent on experiencing these visionary sessions, so the thought of opening my eyes never occurred to me until I started coming down some and having normal thinking processes.

A couple of my tincture experiences were basically low level 3 experiences, but because I let myself drift with the flow, they took me to some very interesting places. I moved out of my normal sense of being in the body, as though my consciousness were travelling around in my body.

Once, I kind of made a mistake that turned out for the good. I took a big swig of the green everclear, mistakenly thinking it had somehow gotten watered down. Nope. It burnt like heck and caused me to run to the kitchen for a cup to spit it into. I think that even though this wasn't the most prudent thing to do, I must have started absorbing some salvinorin then, cuz as I started micro-sipping the stuff after I spat it into the cup, I took off into a very good level 4 experience.

One highlight was when a bird being as big as me swooped out of the night and embraced me. It looked me in the eyes and communicated nonverbally. The meaning of this visit was sort of personal. I won't try to explain it. I will say that it was highly realistic. It was dreamlike and yet so real. I am not a person who meets many "beings" in my trips, so that was a surprise.

After 20 minutes or so, I opened my eyes and saw that there was plenty in the glass, so I sipped some more. Soon, I was out of my body and in a space that looked kind of like outer space, hovering over something that looked like the sun. I don't believe I travelled the solar system. I believe it was all in inner space, but it was highly realistic and interesting. I seemed to be in some sort of very interesting clear body.

I have had other visions. I always view them as being like dreams, but not just meaningless dreams. I ponder their meaning in relationship to my life. I don't fret about what is "real" or "not real."

All these "visions" were closed eye visions. From time to time I would open my eyes and see my surroundings pretty normally, except that colors were sweeter and my night vision was better. In the deepest part of the visions, there was simply no desire to open my eyes.

I like to do this lying in my bed. It's a safe place. I have used Salvia lying in the forest at night, listening to the crickets, but I get these thoughts about someone or some animal disturbing me, so I like my bedroom best. I think I could do it in the forest if I had a sitter watching over me.
Level 4 effects are definitely attainable via tincture. There are a couple of differences between these trips and smoking, though.

First there is the difference in time span. It takes about 10 minutes to sink into a visionary session. Then, you remain there for 20 minutes or more. You have a certain amount of choice in this. You could come out if you wanted to. However, if it's interesting, you won't want to open your eyes. Also, like I said, if you have more tincture handy, you can take boosters any time that you come down enough to want to go back up again. You can really stretch a Salvia session for awhile like this.

Second, it seems to me that smoking, especially extract, kind of "shatters" normal reality. Maybe that's why there are so many themes of repeating patterns or sounds. Things really bounce around. The oral absorption trip seems to be more about "melting" normal reality. I don't typically see "repeating" patterns.

With respect to ego death, it seems to me that the smoking trip can sort of shatter the ego. It can totally blow away your sense of self identity. With oral absorption, it is as though you feel comfortable just relaxing your boundaries, so that you become more permeable. You kind of expand as you open up. As you let things in, you also seem to move outward, coming into contact with more information.

Also, there tends to be more clarity. Everything happens slower than smoking, so the mind is not bombarded with a rapid succession of images. Rather, a theme of the trip will develop at a pace that you can follow along with, if you just kind of let yourself go with the flow and observe.

Thoughts will tend to be quiet, but there will be thoughts. You can ponder what's going on, but your thinking will be different. It will probably be slower, more reflective, not the rapid thinking of normal experience.

 

[zane]

Has anyone tried to make a supersaturated solution for a tincture? I was thinking you could use jj's method of creating an everclear tincture, first powder the salvia leaves so you can fit even more in and put the whole thing in a pressure cooker. When you heat the alcohol (especially above boiling point), you can dissolve much more in it than when its at room temp or cooler. Once the salvinorin A has dissolved into the hot alcohol it can be placed into the fridge to make a thick syrup... at least thats my guess... Has anyone tired something like this? I was thinking about giving it a shot, but I wanted to hear from some others before I potentially wasted a bunch of leaves...

 

[jj]

Using a pressure cooker doesn't sound like a good idea. It might even be dangerous bringing high heat and alcohol together.

I haven't looked the number up, but there is a maximum concentration of salvinorin that a given volume of alcohol can handle. It's just like if you put sugar into tea. The tea will get sweet, but if you keep dumping sugar in there, after awhile there will be some sugar that will settle back to the bottom no matter how much you stir it. The only way to make the tea any sweeter than the saturation point is to stir it up and drink it fast, before the sugar settles. I don't think a pressure cooker could change maximum saturation.

You could make a maximum strength tincture and then evaporate it down so that it is so thick with salvinorin that you'd have to shake it up to get the salvinorin into suspension. That's an interesting idea. You could even evaporate it down to green tar. However, you risk things like burning the salvinorin or igniting the alcohol.

There are various ways to make Salvia extracts. However, beware that some solvents leave residues in your extracts, residues that might not be fit for human consumption. I can live with the toxicity of ethanol, since i drink plenty of it anyway.

 

[zane]

Using a pressure cooker doesn't sound like a good idea. It might even be dangerous bringing high heat and alcohol together.

I didnt mean very high heat, I was just thinking that a pressure cooker would be a good idea since alcohol has a low boiling point (~78C). That way you could bring the alcohol just above boiling (~80C) without loosing any to evaporation. Of course this should not be done on the on a gas burner or near any open flame.

I haven't looked the number up, but there is a maximum concentration of salvinorin that a given volume of alcohol can handle.

This number will increase with temperature.

It's just like if you put sugar into tea. The tea will get sweet, but if you keep dumping sugar in there, after awhile there will be some sugar that will settle back to the bottom no matter how much you stir it. The only way to make the tea any sweeter than the saturation point is to stir it up and drink it fast, before the sugar settles.

Try this experiment: Take a pan of room temp water, dump sugar into it until you have a bunch at the bottom of the pan that wont dissolve, then bring it to a boil. You will find that most, if not all, of the left over sugar has dissolved into the water. When it cools you will have a thick syrup. This is called a supersaturated solution. I am assuming this will work with alcohol and salvinorin A, however I have never tried it.

 

[karlo0o]

Would smoking from a bong a couple of minutes after I use the tincture boost the effects? Has anyone tried it yet?

The thing is I had some really nice trips with normal leaves (Level 3) but I want to experience Level 5 some day.

 

[jj]

Yes, you can get a boost by smoking after tincture.

I'm not much of a chemist at all. I am satisfied with my crude tincture, and while it might be possible to improve on it, I'm not sure that it would work or that it would be worth the effort.

I have read some recipes for extracting salvinorin. Not especially esoteric chemistry. Anyone, even me, can make crude extracts.

 

[FrigginJoe]

but who can put a price on a psychedelic experience?

People who sell stuff

 

[st.bot.32]

I've done it the other way too.. smoked.. then well not tincture but quid. The smoking gives you a huge head start, and the quid eases you slowly into the next plateau. Quite interesting.

 

[FrigginJoe]

I can see quid first, because the onset is comes on slower.
I had done 4 leaves and once I felt it come on, I took two plain leaf hits, and after that I knew I was in no shape to keep holding the bong.

I have chewed 2 leaves at a time for a few minutes each and found it's more efficient a means for me than rolling 10 or more leaves into one quid. Just figured I'd mention that.