Chapter 3

AUGMENTATION


During the first two years of my salvia explorations, additional aspects of the experiences were becoming more and more apparent with the passage of time.  What at first appeared to be peripheral occurrences, with time deepened and began to evince a more central role in the trance.

Perhaps the most significant of these aspects was the gradual realization that, at a certain point in the initial entering of the state, there occurred a unique transformation in the area of language.  This was so subtle that only with repeated trials, as well as a deliberate focus on the actual mode of perceptual transformation, did it become apparent that it held not a peripheral role but a central one.

At a certain point after entering the state, the language that would normally describe in an internal, almost unconscious, way the scenes, thoughts, and images that arrive through the senses would change.  It would cease to be English.  This apparent absurdity proved to be not only what might be perceived as an arbitrary adjunct to the experience but an essential component of the change of awareness that entailed so many incomprehensible facets.  It was as if the language itself was inexorably linked to the perceptual changes intrinsic to the state.  It almost seemed as though the rapidity and depth of the experiences necessitated its own mode of communication.

Since the defining modality of these experiences was proving to be the cessation of thought, it follows that the normal process of language would also have to undergo a radical change.  It goes without saying that normal language depends wholly on memor