I know...well, maybe I should say 'I knew'...a dude who had one of those fabled 'lived a whole other life in fifteen minutes' trips. I know he had smoked a considerable amount of salvia, but can't rule out any number of other drugs. We knew he was taking the trip, but he pretty much sat in silence for twenty-twenty five minutes. Then he got alert, went crazy(as in both he and us would have ended up hurt), so we pretty much had to restrain him and spend the better part of an hour talking to him to get him to ease up. He eventually said he remembered us, but didn't seem very convinced of it - and he underwent a complete personality change that as far as we know is still intact nearly a decade later. We only got bits and pieces out of him, but he seemed to have lived somewhere around forty years in this other life, including having a family, and then was 'killed' in some sort of car accident - which is when he 'woke up' with us; probably accounting a bit for his super-freakout at the moment. We still thought he was exaggerating or even making it up to some extent, but if so he was pretty damn dedicated - it changed his entire life. All his friendships sagged and ended, he lost his job, dropped/failed his classes, and eventually we lost all contact with him and have no idea what happened to the dude.
Wow wtf. Really intense trips like that are supposed to have a positive change on life. It gives you the sense that anything is possible in your imagination.
Its nice to think that because we like drugs and have good experiences that everyone else will as well. Nice but wrong.
He wasn't exactly the safest psychonaut out there, so we all had always assumed he'd have some kind of really bad trip - just didn't really see this one coming. He was experienced enough to know the risks; and as I said...the guy was probably swimming in any number of other psychoactives at the time. All the same, we felt for him...but how the fuck do you console a nineteen year old with the full(and not terribly pleasant) memories of a middle aged man banging around in his head? As far as we can figure he could never again accept the world as real (and who can blame him?) and pretty much just faded into the ether. Sadly, it's entirely possible he offed himself at some point...or if not, I doubt he's enjoying life much.
I don't know how people can feel this way about it. I guess its an individual thing. Some people can smoke hit after hit and not feel a thing. Some, like you, find some kind of connection with god through it. Others, like me, just feel like our brains lose the ability to make any sense of anything. I've never felt like I connected with something deep on salvia. I HAVE tripped HARD on it may times, but the trip didn't feel significant. It just felt like my neurons couldn't remember how to fire in the right direction anymore and all hell broke loose.
For example. . . on one trip I was in the woods with my friend - was my first time in fact. I was sitting on a log but after I came up it was just my head on that log and tree branches were piercing through my mouth and into my throat and i felt like I was hanging on a towel rack. That and I couldn't remember who I was or what I was or what anything was or that anything could be alive.
salvia makes me go insane. on my last trip i met a group of gnomes moving boxes around, they told me they were in control and that the boxes were my sanity and they could do anything they wanted with it. when i started to argue they started smothering me with the boxes until i came back to reality. so yes i think salvia can make you go insane.
I would think if you or your family have a history of mental disorders, it's completely possible. However, I don't think it can just automatically make you become insane, that's a little off the deep end, even for salvia. I've had a similar experience where I took a hit of 35X white sage extract (sales hype, it was just salvinorin-A on white sage), but I saw myself at an interogation table with so many gods imaginable, and I could pan around the room as a ghost for a better view. Eventually, I came back to my body, almost relieved because I was starting to not be able to handle the intensity and the sweats. I don't think I could go much higher than that strength, cause anything above 40x is strong enough in my opinion
As with most psychedelics I would figure the risk applicable, Keeping in mind that Salvia, set aside psychosis, is an insane experience in itself at the higher extracts.