Glaucoma and Salvia Divinorum

[mouthwater]

Abstract:
The point of this thread is to help shed light on the nature of psychedeliks on (partially-)blind individuals. SWIM's friend has glaucoma, and experimented with salvia divinorum once (not recently). This is not a detailed trip report-- it is mostly basic information regarding SWIM's friend's condition and SWIM's basic understanding of his/her friend's experience.

Background:
SWIM's friend is named L, and contracted glaucoma as a child. Glaucoma causes gradual loss of eyesight due to increased pressure within the eyball. SWIM will not go into detail about exactly how L contracted the condition unless asked. However, SWIM will note that, from what L has told SWIM, L's peripheral vision will slowly close up on him/her. So, right before total blindness, L will only be able to see *directly* in front of him/her.

L has three pupils, one was installed via a laser as a child. Out of L's left eye, s/he perceives the world in a very fuzzy manner, just like somebody with terrible eyesight. L sees two of everything out of his/her right eye (because of the extra pupil in the corner of his/her eyeball). So, when L looks at SWIM through both eyes, s/he sees a fuzzy version of SWIM, what is described as a shadow version of SWIM slightly to the side, and what is described as "how the light bends around SWIM" to the side of the shadow figure. Readers should understand this by imagining layers. The bottom layer is a fuzzy SWIM, the middle layer (which is slightly offset to the side) is a shadow SWIM, and the top layer (which is slightly more offset to the side than the shadow SWIM) is a "how the light bends around SWIM" SWIM.

Needless to say, L has adapted to this way of perceiving the world. Because L contracted glaucoma from a young age, s/he still occasionally dreams of things with "normal" vision (but not always). However, since contraction, L has not experienced "normal" vision in his/her waking reality (until salvia).

Experience:
L smoked, what SWIM remembers to be, 15x standardized salvia divinorum extract. L is a regular marihuana smoker (s/he does have glaucoma, remember), so L felt s/he was prepared for the salvia experience (because, well, how different can two smokes be!? Heh.). L ripped the salvia with his/her iron lungs, and held the smoke in for as long as s/he could. From what was described to SWIM, L had an out-of-body-experience (O(O)BE), in which L could see him/herself from above with perfect vision. This experience terribly frightened L, and s/he has not experimented with salvia since.

Conclusion:
So, according to L's experience, salvia has the ability to cause somebody who wasn't born blind-- but who is now partially blind-- to have clear and "perfect" vision during their open-eye-visuals (OEVs).

Commentary:
Perhaps staff should create a specific thread pertaining to sight impairment and psychedeliks (because SWIM noticed there was this mushroom report and this commentary on 4-x-DMT and colorblindness). If there is already a thread for this, please PM SWIM and s/he will move it to the right location.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Very good.