Light and inducing a natural visual psychedelic experience??? DMT

[al-laddin]

has anyone ever had success creating a psychedelic state using one of those machines? Or more specifically with a home made device? If so would you mind sharing instructions on how to build one? These things are quite expensive and I bet theres a way to do it at home. Also visually how would you describe the experience? Is it as profound as actually taking LSD or mushrooms? Does it come with a body high?

From what Ive read it seems that this method activates the pineal gland, thus releasing endogenous DMT, if so would this be the same exact experience of actually smoking DMT or ingesting Ayahuasca? Thanks!

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/lucia-no-3-is-a-mind-melting-psychedelic-art-experience

 

[phuckingnutz]

Years and years ago I heard?, read?, saw a show?...on using a bright light-bulb inside of a spinning tube with slits cut in it to create a strobe effect...it was made with an old phonograph turn-table.
This was to be "looked at" with closed eyes and would produce some trippy CEV's.
Different tubes could have different sized/patterned slits cut in them to achieve differing effects.

In the years since, I have made versions of this and it DOES work...I've even "looked" at the sun...eyes closed....and then fanned a piece of cardboard in front of my eyes and have gotten CEV's that way.

As I remember, most of my CEV's were in earth tones..
It's been a while , but it is VERY cool.

 

[spacejunk]

^You're talking about dream machines?
Invented by Brion Gysin?
...just looking at the link, I see that the OP is not, though i am pretty certain that is what phuckingnutz is referring to;

NSFW:

The theory is that at the right RPM, the flickering light can trigger certain brain waves to trigger "visions" or dreamlike CEVs.
There is a book - and a film - called "flicker" which goes on about this device at length.
From Wikipedia page;

A dreamachine is "viewed" with the eyes closed: the pulsating light stimulates the optical nerve and alters the brain's electrical oscillations. The user experiences increasingly bright, complex patterns of color behind their closed eyelids. The patterns become shapes and symbols, swirling around, until the user feels surrounded by colors. It is claimed that using a dreamachine allows one to enter a hypnagogic state.[4] This experience may sometimes be quite intense, but to escape from it, one needs only to open one's eyes.[1]

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine

While I must admit I find the "vision inducing" premise to be flawed (with the "dream machine" anyway) they are fascinating and awesome for a bunch of reasons.

Firstly, they were referred to at the time of invention as something to the effect of "the ultimate (ie final) piece of art " because it is intended to be viewed with ones' eyes closed (!)
That is pretty cool - and hilarious. The people that pioneered such things (Gysin, William Burroughs) were taking a lot of Moroccan hash, among other things.

Their effect is something akin to a gentle, multi-textured strobe light. I have had dmt and shroom trips in a room with a dream machine and a bunch of mirrors in it, which created something like a sea of moving light sliding around the room at an even pace. I find as background light - for a trip, playing music or as onstage lighting when my band play, they create a calming, trippy ambience - in much the same way as a flickering open fire.

In that sense (and I believe this is mentioned in the book and film about dream machines) there is something about the effect created that is comforting and goes back further into human pre-history than almost any other universal experience - that of sitting around a fire at night.

Apologies for not referring to the product in question, OP , but it seems to rely on much the same principle as the dream machine.
I find such lighting absolutely psychedelic - but not in the sense that it induces any sort of altered state (unless you are susceptible to epileptic fits such as those induced by strobe lights.
I find such lighting to be incredibly synergistic with psychedelics (from memory I have taken shrooms, dmt, LSD and 2c-D in a room with a dream machine running.
Any feelings of altered consciousness I now get from contact with this device is clearly tied in with memories of the experiences I had whilst tripping in that environment - on their own, I have had no incredible experiences using dream machines to induce "waking dreams" but I do find the lighting they produce incredibly stimulating in the midst of a psychedelic experience.

 

[phuckingnutz]

Spacejunk,
Yep, that's it alright, and even though it works to give some good visuals it doesn't induce any type of altered state of consciousness though.

However I've never tried it in conjunction with any psychedelics.
I'm also not sure that the OP's device is much different, in theory, to the "Dream Machine"...just higher tech.

 

[spacejunk]

Yeah.
Don't get me wrong (re: visuals scepticism - you can see all sorts of colours when light shines through the blood in your capillaries and so fourth in your eyelids - which I imagine is a big part of what is at play in the device linked to in the OP) I think these sorts of things are incredible - but I prefer to use them (dream machines, that is) as a sort of atmospheric lighting (and not your hi-tech laser/lightshows as used at raves and stuff, but more of an interesting centrepiece to a party, performance, intimate gathering of people or whatever) - something so simple and not contrived or digital or artificial, yet it paints patterns of light all around the room and everything in it.

The device in the OP reminds me a bit of some of the kinds of "digital, drug-free psychedelic experiences" promoted as "the next big thing by people like Timothy Leary in his twilight years.
I wonder if much became of such ideas - or if, in fact, global communications networks (and the way they are put to use - say in the way bluelight, erowid or the various online drug marketplaces do) is a better way of seeing the "digital psychedelic era" playing out - as opposed to some early 90s vision of "virtual reality tripping" - instead we have networks of psychedelia stretched out across the globe without requiring any physical contact - just a certain amount of curiosity and an Internet connection and you can "tune in" and "turn on" in one way or another.

I don't mean to hi-jack this thread - I'm sure there has been plenty of research into digital forms of consciousness alteration, I just haven't heard much on this front for a good couple of decades. Perhaps the synthesis of so many novel psychoactive compounds has overshadowed the awareness of any such work as it applies to psychedelics.

 

[phuckingnutz]

Well, after reading quite a bit more about the "Dream Machine" and the Lucia No.3 it seems to me that they both stimulate the same wavelengths MOL...both induce a hypnogogic state...and that, Yes, you could build something similar very easily for a LOT less money.

The new Lucia No.3 is just an expensive, and perhaps moderately better, rehash of an old idea.
The intensity of light makes a big difference.

You can make a wheel instead of a tube and use the sun as your light source with good results...I've done that myself, but it's been a while.

Keep in mind that the promoters for this "new" device want to sell these things so their claims MAY be a little....INFLATED. Just like telling you that it releases endogenous DMT like that's the gospel. A claim hasn't even been verified to happen at all, much less with a light show.

 

[spacejunk]

I'm getting so tired of hearing unproven theories about endogenous DMT release being thrown around as fact.
Watched a video online about comedians and psychedelics the other day, and who should pop up but that Joe Rogan clown spouting off 20+ year old theories as fact (the old Strassman musings about endogenous DMT release at birth/death etc) I find it rather exasperating.
No disrespect to Dr Strassman - but he has been taken completely out of context on these matters; repeating something ad nauseam does not make it any more true.

Anyone claiming such things to sell a product like a light that shines onto your eyelids should submit their product to relevant countries' Therapeutic Goods regulatory agencies to prove their veracity IMO.
Things like that are somewhat insulting to people's intelligence (much like Joe Rogan)

 

[Solipsis]

At a psychedelics conference I tried a 10k$ machine that uses pretty complex pattern flashing from a light array. I'm not surprised some people say it stimulates the pineal gland but I think that is total bs. Doing that seems doubtful even with electromagnetically acting dream machines. Yeah supposedly we have a sensor for the circadian rhythm and it involves melatonin secretion, but I think the far more simple and likely explanation for the action of the light array machine is based on the visual processing wetware of the brain.
IMO there are circuits with many feedback loops linked in a way that creates the recursive dynamics of signal transduction and other such patterning effects. I guess like a multi relay computational system. I believe if triggered the right way you can cause a type of resonance or other emergent signals within such a system, and this is experienced as the geometric and fractalizing artefacts just like what I saw using the machine.

 

[phuckingnutz]

At a psychedelics conference I tried a 10k$ machine that uses pretty complex pattern flashing from a light array. I'm not surprised some people say it stimulates the pineal gland but I think that is total bs. Doing that seems doubtful even with electromagnetically acting dream machines. Yeah supposedly we have a sensor for the circadian rhythm and it involves melatonin secretion, but I think the far more simple and likely explanation for the action of the light array machine is based on the visual processing wetware of the brain.
IMO there are circuits with many feedback loops linked in a way that creates the recursive dynamics of signal transduction and other such patterning effects. I guess like a multi relay computational system. I believe if triggered the right way you can cause a type of resonance or other emergent signals within such a system, and this is experienced as the geometric and fractalizing artefacts just like what I saw using the machine.

Uh...?...Yeah...ummm...errr...I totally agree...??? "What HE said!!!
Me speaky English what you speaky?

 

[pmoseman]

Uh...?...Yeah...ummm...errr...I totally agree...??? "What HE said!!!Sol,
Me speaky English what you speaky

Feedback produces pseudo-random signals which could be the start of a dream interpretation.

Feedback is like a mic picking up an amp picking up a mic picking up an amp etc. as long as the volume stays low enough, the sound becomes a machine original.

 

[al-laddin]

Thanks to all you guys that answered my questions, but now I have a new one. I WAS under the impression tht DMT was released at birth and to a lesser extent whilst dreaming. If that's not the case, well when exactly is it released and what function does it have in the body/brain. I don't know of anyones noticed this happen to them but when I wake up sometimes I notice light oev and cevs for about an hour.I wonder if that's the DMT at work.

 

[wayab]

^this is just an idea and not a proven fact.

are you talking about those ligh&sound/mind machines? i have always wanted to try these and plan on getting one when i have a bit more money the dream machine is another one my list but i doubt any of them would be like tripping. will be interesting in combination for sure!

p.s. your nickname is hilarious :D

 

[al-laddin]

Thanks I my grandma helped me with !

 

[phuckingnutz]

Thanks to all you guys that answered my questions, but now I have a new one. I WAS under the impression tht DMT was released at birth and to a lesser extent whilst dreaming. If that's not the case, well when exactly is it released and what function does it have in the body/brain. I don't know of anyones noticed this happen to them but when I wake up sometimes I notice light oev and cevs for about an hour.I wonder if that's the DMT at work.

Well, for me, DMT is released every time I extract it from MHRB....

seriously though, IMO, the release of endogenous DMT is only a pet theory of a few people, and that idea has been exploited by naïve and/or unscrupulous people to further their own ends.

 

[Solipsis]

Uh...?...Yeah...ummm...errr...I totally agree...??? "What HE said!!!
Me speaky English what you speaky?

Sorry it's a bit difficult to explain what I mean.
With the circuits I meant neuronal circuits in the brain. They are hooked up in certain complex ways. I was talking about that they are tuned together, and you can get it to produce abnormal effects if you exploit the way it is tuned.
Just like when you place and point a microphone too close to the speaker or something that makes noise like an engine too close to the microphone, you get an echo or loud howling peep noise. That is just a simple feedback system, but imagine one that is infinitely more complex and built like a computer to produce the visual images we see. I think if you use a 'dream machine' like the one I mentioned to flash patterns in some exact way in front of a person's eyes, those feedback systems in the brain betray the patterns in the ways they are hooked up and tuned, and those patterns themselves are shown as visuals.

 

[phuckingnutz]

Thanks Sol, that makey more sense me...

 

[al-laddin]

Well, for me, DMT is released every time I extract it from MHRB....

seriously though, IMO, the release of endogenous DMT is only a pet theory of a few people, and that idea has been exploited by naïve and/or unscrupulous people to further their own ends.

Wait Im confused , not to hijack my own thread...well ya I am gonna hijack my thread cuz fuck the OP I need more info on this . So what is it speculation? That DMT is even released by the pineal, or even endogenous in humans? I thought that ist an established fact that DMT is a neurochemical that exists the human brain.

 

[spacejunk]

So what is it speculation? That DMT is even released by the pineal, or even endogenous in humans? I thought that ist an established fact that DMT is a neurochemical that exists the human brain.

I'm not sure what the current consensus (if there is one) is on this, but the idea that DMT is released at birth, at death etc etc - is just that; a theory. People can theorise about anything they wish.
How would one prove such a thing in humans?
What bothers me is when people repeat such things as fact...because there is no solid evidence to support them.
If you haven't already, I would recommend reading Rick Strassman's book The Spirit Molecule.
There is a lot of mystery surrounding dimethyltryptamine, but (for a number of reasons) not a lot of certainty.

 

[al-laddin]

yes Ive read it cover to cover...very dry read...some cool trip reports though. Some interesting scientific albeit anecdotal evidence of psychic phenomena to, if I remember correctly

 

[spacejunk]

yes Ive read it cover to cover...very dry read...

Really? That's probably the last descriptor I would use to describe that book.
Dude was the first American to legitimately study (ie with DEA approval) psychedelics in decades. This alone is pretty fascinating, I reckon.
It's all relative to what you are accustomed to reading, I suppose.