I few years back when salvia was legal in my state i got really into ethnobotanicals or w/e and grabbed up what im pretty sure was an Oz for like 13 bucks; of dried leaf. To tell you the truth, you can achieve pretty high states just with the leaf, but for convenience i do understand the extracts, just super pricey. I had enough for like atleast 40-50 doses i swear, shared it with anyone interested. I barely touched it actually. Taste like shit and i hated the sweats it gave me, usually every time.
My first experience was with an extract and it really tripped me up. Brain goes kinda blank but your subconscious keep ticking and starts to pop out with questions that you know answers to but it seems like you asked it differently. Visuals were quite strong. Felt like i was in the correct state finally, or that i have felt this place before...real weird.
With the leaf, i never got fully to the way the extracts made me feel, but close enough and in a somewhat different better way, slightly more control over everything. Didnt really like the negativeness it gave me. Always felt like i was getting pushed or pulled by gravity, while lying on a bed of needles. Seemed like a lot of the time people seemed shady and i always felt awkward trying to explain what was going on. Did in a group setting a few times obviously and there almost seems to be some kind of connection when people do it together. Totally experienced some weird mirrorlike line in between me and two other people. It had Pulled me in and reversed me through my buddies. It had felt like i was parallel to where i was at previously, and i could not breath... but in reality i might actually have been. By buddies pulled out of their experience before me and had to help me out. Freaky fucking shit. One time, the only thing keeping me and a tropical beach setting from touching was a fan cord that split my living room up slowly losing touch with reality seeing a line constantly dissipate.
I am also convinced a spiritual essence may exist in salvia, as others think with cacti and other ethnobotanicals. Read the Cosmic Trigger though and thats the thing, its all very subjective to YOU. Seems that a lot of people that i had given it to seemed to just want to get fucked up, so when they experienced something they would just drool and laugh their asses off like monkeys; It was fun like that a few times, but got boring quick, had the bag for like a year. Im pretty sure hallucinatory substances are to be used to cleanse your mind. A lot of self-reflecting, guilt, blame, and weirdness all created by your subconcious to show you a different way of looking at the data. I would say it is overrated for rec use... just stick to shrooms.