See lots of winged forms?

[DwayneHoover]

Does anyone else tend to see alot of winged forms tripping? Demonic faces are another, probably due to backend stimulation of our brain circuitry designed to recognize faces. But I wonder why wings seem so common in psychedelic art, like this
[by Bill Brouard United Universal Lightworkers "By recognizing your Divine Nature, you unlock your Universal power." ♥ -We Are Human Angels]
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...634368339.48828.190048441035225&type=1&ref=nf

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

I don't. I've never seen winged forms or demons while tripping. Friends of mine who have seen demons or had things turn demonic while on mushrooms, LSD, or even eating way too much herb said that it happened when they tripped during Halloween or when they had a bad trip.

I do however see Motifs for certain civilizations including both Meso-American, Native American, African, Asian, Maori, and even European while tripping on mushrooms and on LSD if the dose is very high.

I've studied a lot of history, anthropology, and art history so I guess that's why I see those motifs.

I actually have seen faces while on high doses of mushrooms but they looked like African masks or Native American art from the Southwest.

 

[psood0nym]

I think wings are a symbolic embodiment of the majestic and the ethereal themes that peak psychedelic experiences are often graced with. Their intricacy, soft textures -- the way they seem to fade into air at their edges -- and their connotations of freedom are a reflection of the ego as it dissolves into unbridled light.

This thread reminded me of an exchange I had with Jamshyd about this topic as it relates to DPT years ago. Thanks to the magic of statistically improbable phasing my search exhumed its digital grave:

Yes, for me too, peak experiences with DPT seem to have a certain ritual to them. I see a lot of eyes and wings and feathers, and a lot of gold and silver bathed in pure, eternal light, and I get the feeling like I reached the end of a novel and there are no more words left to describe what will happen afterwards.

Yes, I've written of "ethereal visions," "silvered masks," "grand violet plumes," and walking on a path where "each stride sails on spider's silk" about my DPT experiences. The experience is unabashedly yielding and ethereal. I haven't the slightest clue what many are speaking of when they describe it as metallic, rough, and insectoid. It's fascinating that the DPT experiences of the two of us, and I know about your DPT experiences, are counted among our best, are so aesthetically similar, and stand in such contrast to the reports of many. I guess when DPT is for you it's really for you.

When it came to DPT Jamshyd and I were just wired similarly. I'm sure others get similar results from different compounds, but in this exchange you can see the association of winged themes with peak experiences, at least for the two of us. For example, while staring at the threadbare edge of a cirrus cloud I experienced a vision of a wing spun from diaphanous silver silk inset with six eyes opening wreathed in sky blue and golden fire -- a visual poetry I interpret as a "freeing (the wings) and expansion (multiple eyes) of perception in the dissolution of consciousness (a wing that's both see through and reflective [in that it's silver])"; this visual grammar is sort of just understood as it happens rather than being interpreted afterwards during analysis). I don't think there's anything intrinsically ethereal about DPT (though many do describe it as velveteen, which is closely associated with wing texture...). I'm not religious and I don't think Jamshyd is, either, but I have to imagine that the cultural iconography of angels -- in concert with the conceptual and sensational associations mentioned earlier -- has a lot to do with the evocation of winged trends throughout the psychedelic aesthetic.

 

[Happy Trails]

Yes, I personally have had this experience, although only on one occasion. During this particular experience I had ingested mushrooms, and during the peak after vaporizing some cannabis I had this hallucination that I can only describe as having 'wings of energy' (that photo actually depicts the experience very well). I transcended beyond our physical/material world and was absolutely free. It was amazing.

 

[Flickering]

I don't see winged beings, but it's very common for me to see faces in the sky, made of clouds and stars. A few times they've been benevolent and angelic, but usually they're demonic or at least austere.

 

[MyExcuse]

According to The Variety Of Religious Experience, such visions are more directly correlated to growing up in a pro-Christian Western society. The combination of geometric patterning, color distortion and ecstatic state of euphoria may contribute to an impaired processing of the aforementioned effects leading to the deduction that such visions are divine (or imitations of divine). However, the only reason this is the case is due to having been raised with preconceived notions of Christian dogma (eg, angels, god, Christian divinity, etc.)

It's kind of a chicken before the egg conundrum but I'm more inclined to believe that culture dictates visions not the other way around.

 

[any major dude]

many religions/cultures have venerated winged things, so i wouldn't say its exclusively christian/western culture that results in this, though i do think culture has a large effect on such things. Props for citing James though :D

In addition to the cultural aspects, i've certainly had flying & floating type sensations with eyes closed, especially on shrooms, 4-AcO-DMT, etc, and that seems to be not at all uncommon & could contribute to the phenomenon as well. There's plenty of flight related lingo surrounding cannabis & psychedelics as well which i suppose brings us back to the chicken & egg conundrum. I suppose its largely cultural, regardless of which culture one is coming from.

As for faces, i do tend to see faces, but usually not at all demonic (though i can think of a couple notable exceptions). I don't know of any evidence that suggests psychedelics affect the fusiform face area more or less than other visual cortices but they obviously have extensive effects on that region. Our brains in all likelihood use heuristics when recognizing faces & there is likely some inhibitory action that normally prevents us from noticing facelike features all around us and i would not be at all surprised if this (& some other inhibitory action in the visual cortices) is rendered ineffective during acute psychedelic states. There's been some research, IIRC, on psychedelics & reaction-diffusion type processes involved with visual processing. Inhibiting the inhibitory actions may well account for a large portion of the visual (as well as some others, i.e. "oceanic boundlessness" or "absolute unitary being" depending on which terminology you prefer ) effects of psychedelics.

 

[IamMe90]

What have you seen wings on Dwayne?

I saw wings a lot during a certain phase in my life with 2c-e. Almost every trip would produce vivid CEVs of angelic forms with wings of white light, but these angels were almost haunting, but in a terrifyingly beautiful way, not a scary way..

I also had one experience with DOC where I experienced vivid psychedelic CEV and OEV cat faces.

 

[lolusername]

I have seen faces/heads in my closed eye visuals on both 2c-t-2 and a combination of mxe and weed, oddly enough the 3d head I saw looked almost identical on both trips. The trips had generally different visual 'styles', but the head I saw was the same image, and my perspective kind of rotated around it on both trips. Its odd because two very different drugs conjured up nearly the same image in my head.

I also tend to see eyes when I am on high doses of 2c-e.

 

[Ismene]

Never seen any wings or demons.

I do see kind of fractal shapes similar to ancient egyptian or mesoamerican art.

I'll probably see a winged Dwayne Hoover the next time I trip...

 

[zn13bt]

I received this message from some kind of Sumerian sky-god alien entity during a very intense DOC trip, take it for what you will:

"We are older than your current contacts. But there are ones even older than us. The knowledge accumulated by these great beings did not die out with the extinction of the dinosaurs. It survives in the lineages of birds. Dinosaur bones were dug up by your ancestors and reconstituted as gods and heroes. This is why angels have wings."

 

[pharmakos]

"we can't stop here, this is bat country!"

 

[DeeJaySwayD]

love the hunter s..


i have had trips themed with wings and winged things. some sort of symbolism.

 

[Help?!?!]

I often receive eyes in my CEV's. Very similar to the Alex Grey painting styles. I've seen the painting of the tunnel of eyes many times. Usually its brought on by tryps.

 

[toasty_pete]

I've had things "turn demonic" on a bit-too-hefty dose of 25i-nbome... I was convinced that I had a demon inside of me that was part of me and giving me super mental capabilities...

 

[DwayneHoover]

Winged forms I've seen have tended to be closed-eye abstract "bird-like" assemblages of ropes of glowing light... VERY much like this in the wings especially, particularly the criss-crossing lines, also the overall feel and shape, but without the human figure, just more abstract bundles in a generally similar outline. It's flowing and moving and waving as if suspended in brilliant white light, nearly blending into the background, thrumming and alive with energy and telepathic sentience that it can project into me, it seems to have godlike paranormal abilities, be able to manipulate time, and apparently space and matter as well, it sometimes seems to be giving off showers of energetic sparks.... When I saw this poem by Wallace Stevens I was thunderstruck at how much it broght these visions back to mind with an intense emotional immediacy [image below poem]:

Of Mere Being

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze distance.

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

-- Wallace Stevens, 1954

 

[DwayneHoover]

Actually this goes more properly with the Stevens poem above.
Anayses of the poem: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/mere.htm

Image: "Orange Phoenix" by Vitaly Alexius Samarin

 

[Ismene]

 

[TangerinO]

I barely ever get actual faces while tripping, but often a bizarre conglomeration of random features in random positions, each face consisting of like 20 or so features and if I'm lucky the faces flow together as the eyes and noses all connect together in a sort of lattice.
I often get large smiles that have this weird off handed malevolent feel to them as well. This hallucination also often forms a lattice.

I personally have never encountered any wings though, although I would liken it in metaphor to the unique kind of freedom one can feel with aid of the psychedelic experience.

 

[Typewritermonkey]

Never winged forms, but lots of eyes and balls of energy. Spirits sometimes too. Auras all the time when I'm tripping, but only certain times are they more then a visual.