I have no experience with the dried leafs of the salvia plant. as far as im concerned in order to achieve the effects you need to smoke an extract of 20x or more, although it has become more strenuous for me to find after it became illegal
A series of one hitters will work better than trying to do a one shot launch on plain leaf.
I've managed total ego loss with about 5 hits as a minimum.
Yep chewing a plug for 15 minutes is a much more usefull experience than the typical overdose received while smokeing. (active dose is something like 60ug, not far away from LSD).
That being said, I like to experience all angles on any substance. I don't see any similarity between it and DMT though.