Esoteric The nature of hallucinations

[Snafu in the Void]

I've often wondered what hallucinations were. True hallucinations.

There are obviously various types of hallucinations, most of which can be somewhat easily explained.

Let's look at LSD or DMT for example. If you take a low dose you will have some perceptual distortions, aka hallucinations. These are easily explained. A drug is interfering with the external data on it's way to the brain or your consciousness, or cause the brain to interpret it differently.

What about the other "true" hallucinations? If you take a high enough dose and close your eyes you enter a new dimension full of the most interesting and peculiar things you can possibly imagine (and sometimes can't imagine).

I've often noticed these types of hallucinations will be very similar to something I have seen before - yet are entirely unique in their appearance. They're all different, but to me every hallucination I've seen always loosely resembles something I've seen, felt, touched or heard before. Now DMT kinda breaks the rule here but most hallucinations do not seem alien in nature. They seem like a construct of my physical brain. The brain grasping to interpret data that it can no longer understand. These visions that seemingly come from nowhere. How can a chemical produce complex visions on its own??? Is there such thing as the "spirit" of a drug?

What surprises me is the utter sheer indescribable beauty of some things I've seen, yet I always feel like this hallucination has existed before in my brain - an amalgamation of connections which has never presented in my waking reality but always existed.

What are these visions we experience... where do they come from. Within us? Are hallucinations simply brain malfunctions or are they something else?

What is their nature?

 

[TripSitterNZ]

you simply see the true deeper infinite reality and the unfolding of ten thousand worlds.

 

[pupnik]

My cousin reminded me that he is a spiritual person, which I know, and have always known.

He told me this in a synagogue parking lot where I met him 2 days ago to provide some XMG drops (soluble THC that becomes active within minutes - highly equivalent to the smoking experience) which I thought would help him with some lingering pain symptoms. He recently was hospitalized for Covid pneumonia, which he contracted one week after hip replacement surgery.

Anyway, he reminded me that he is a spiritual person after telling me of a dream he had while in the hospital in which the doctor came in and looked at his chart, and discussed a treatment for internal bleeding. Shortly after waking the same doctor came in and looked at his chart and discussed a treatment for internal bleeding in the same way that was dreamed.

I would call this precognitive dream story deja vu. It is a class of mental phenomena in which events are inserted into the stream of consciousness out of order in time. My cousin gets this a lot. In the late 1960's he went to Thailand to be a monk, and there he meditated and also traveled to Sikkim to meet the Karmapa, who has since been re-incarnated and who claims to remember my cousin from this former engagement more than 50 years ago in another lifetime.

I cannot fairly address the story provided about remembering details from past lives but I am pretty certain about deja vu especially in the context of hospitalization and sickness and psychotropic effects of drugs, sickness, and the brief period of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness.

During the brief period of time between waking and sleeping we often get REM sleep - Brain activity surges. If you are lucky and dedicated you can remember the dream for a few minutes before it is lost forever. This sparkly wonderful state of mind that we awaken from has many of the same qualities as being high. In particular, sensations and mental formations fade more slowly when you are high.

If everyday consciousness can be described in terms of a movie, in which one frame of experience is followed by another, providing the illusion of smooth existence, then being stoned, hallucinating, dreaming, etc. can be described in the same terms, except that each frame of experience lasts longer before fading completely, although moments keep beginning at the same rate (approx 15 frames per second overall - some senses and thinking do change a bit more quickly).

This means that when we are stoned, instead of sliding from one frame of experience into the next, the slower fading frames stack up. When the frames stack up, they bleed across into each other ignoring time altogether. Multiple frames of sensation are experienced as luxurious depth and textures, multiple frames of vision engender trails, color enhancement, sex can be divine, etc. This strangeness applies also to movement that can be heavier than normal or amazingly light, as we not only may perceive the stacked frames as thickly overlaid but also we can experience the frames individually, and since many are resonant at the same moment we can jump backwards and forwards in time with hair raising reactions. I have watched the hands of an analog clock go backwards for half a minute while using LSD (when I looked again, it happened again).

So, to summarize, it seems to me, that spiritual experiences, and hallucinations in general, are a byproduct of consciousness that is immersed in a stack of frames, each of which, due to state of mind, is fading more slowly than usual. Our perceptions of bits of those overlaid mental formations is hallucination. Having hallucinations that conform to consensual reality, in my opinion, is a spiritual experience. Combining that with eagerness to learn and act with morality makes all of life more spiritual.

 

[Ismene2]

Psychedelic hallucinations seem vastly different to psychotic hallucinations - in fact ive never had a hallucination (seeing something thats not there) on psychedelics they just enhance your senses so maybe the world can look like a beautiful painting of itself

 

[Zephyn]

Psychedelic hallucinations seem vastly different to psychotic hallucinations - in fact ive never had a hallucination (seeing something thats not there) on psychedelics they just enhance your senses so maybe the world can look like a beautiful painting of itself

They definitely are... I've certainly been in a psychosis a few times but I've seen some shit that I still truly do not believe I was hallucinating yet others seem intent to suggest was a literal visual hallucination (even though they were not there) which to my knowledge I've never had. Still unexplainable a lot of this shit.

As for psychedelic hallucinations, I think they remove some sort of filter that sequences out useless search algorithms that are scanning in the background of our visual cortex to make sense of what we are perceiving

 

[pupnik]

among hallucinations and other experiences, what makes psychotic ones different than non-psychotic is the prevailing character of mental contents: both are mental media, but the director of horror is working through different issues than the director of fairy tales.

 

[Lil'LinaptkSix]

on mobile so bear with please.

My thoughts are:
We see just a fracion of who and what we really are as we are set free from the chains of those who wish to channel our collective for the sake of... ?what exactly?
Problem is the return to someone elses "reality" and it is more like hitting an ejection button and the landing is a little rough re entering this realm of bull shit.
one

 

[4meSM]

Yeah psychedelic visions are very different from true hallucinations caused by things like psychosis, high fever and anticholinergic drugs (ex: datura).
Those are perhaps even more misterious and harder to explain, specially the extreme ones like talking to someone who isn't really there. The fact that an hallucination can appear as real or even more real than what we call reality is pretty odd...
With psychedelics it usually starts with fractals, sometimes they get more and more intense and end up morphing into some kind of entity/object/landscape.


We usually think as ourselves as individuals (one brain = one entity), but the brain has many parts and personalities. Different brain regions are constantly talking to each other and exchanging information.
The prefrontal cortex (the most human and rational part of the brain) can't actually see or hear anything, it has to rely on the visual cortex to know what's going on. The visual part processes the raw data from our eyes and then sends the pictures to the prefrontal cortex which tries to organize them in a way that makes sense (it uses them to create a story).
Psychedelics change the way different parts of the brain communicate with one another, it's not a malfunction, it just makes us perceive the world in a different way.

I have no idea of what is actually happening though, or why we see that sort of stuff while on psychedelics, I hope one day we'll understand it because might teach us a lot about our minds.

This is a representation of what our eyes see before it's processed by the brain. As you can see, there's a wide margin for interpretation. (The real raw data wouldn't even be an image yet, just a series of electrical impulses, but you get the idea).

Spoiler: Picture

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

Psychedelic hallucinations seem vastly different to psychotic hallucinations - in fact ive never had a hallucination (seeing something thats not there) on psychedelics they just enhance your senses so maybe the world can look like a beautiful painting of itself

I've definitely seen plenty of stuff that was (probably) not there on Psychs, including but not limited to:

A 100 foot huge giant hedgehog that chased two of us (yup a shared hallucination) down the beach, dogs driving cars, knights on horseback with lances, a triple headed goddess (all on high dose shrooms)

Last time on high dose lsd saw a hindu god that must've been 1000 foot tall dancing and creating universes...and many incredible things on stuff like dmt etc

Maybe you need to dose higher, or pay more respect to the set/setting axis

 

[Zephyn]

I've definitely seen plenty of stuff that was (probably) not there on Psychs, including but not limited to:

A 100 foot huge giant hedgehog that chased two of us (yup a shared hallucination) down the beach, dogs driving cars, knights on horseback with lances, a triple headed goddess (all on high dose shrooms)

Last time on high dose lsd saw a hindu god that must've been 1000 foot tall dancing and creating universes...and many incredible things on stuff like dmt etc

Maybe you need to dose higher, or pay more respect to the set/setting axis

Oh yeah I saw Moses split the sea (and March a large crowd thru) on lsd. Wandered over to them, it was a bunch of Panamanian fisher men at like 2 am like wtf is this guy doing?

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

Oh yeah I saw Moses split the sea (and March a large crowd thru) on lsd. Wandered over to them, it was a bunch of Panamanian fisher men at like 2 am like wtf is this guy doing?

well that sounds like a classic case of the brain reinterpreting stimuli that were actually present (as often happens with psychosis too btw) as opposed seeing stuff where there is just emptiness, dunno

 

[Zephyn]

well that sounds like a classic case of the brain reinterpreting stimuli that were actually present (as often happens with psychosis too btw) as opposed seeing stuff where there is just emptiness, dunno

No psychosis to go along with this, I knew it was a hallucination but still wanted to get closer to see what it really was. I think it was their flashlights that caused it

 

[pupnik]

I remember several instances in which I could see the components that make up everything.
In these moments I knew everything there was to know, generally speaking, but not specifically.

 

[Asante]

So it was after a christmas, and I had just completed 2x 48 hour days and was cuttig into the third courtesy of way too much Tiletamine HCl.

Tiletamine was a bit nauseating so I premedicated with 50mg diphenhydramine and there was this sleep deprivation.

The darkness of night was, stirring, and when else than during the Witching Hour?

Suddenly I saw African soldiers in full kit with AK47's move through my front room, right past me, into the kitchen. They would cover the area, peering around for enemies and giving each other hand signals, guerillas in the mist They were scouting it out, one stopped to get a cigarette. I started giving them signals and they signaled back that sst! quiet, enemy close! these were friendly troops. One went standing right next to me, like a foot away, towering over me, looking at me, kindly, trying to figure me out as I did the same, this for more than 10 minutes.
Maybe 2 dozen of them passed through, the mornings early light did not dispel them even though they became a bit translucent.

I was FASCINATED and completely aware I was dreaming them up, that I was hallucinating.

They were reactive to me and I was reactive to them.

Absolutely fascinating,. dream figures while awake.

Thats it, dreams, delirium and psychosis are one realm, that is also the Afterlife. We're from there. It is a realm pf pure information and no matter, of spirits unadhered to a body.

 

[pupnik]

it can still be spiritual experience even if it is all body, and not from any afterlife.
uplifting stuff

 

[Asante]

Sure it can, but it doesn't stop there, in my experience.

 

[Zephyn]

So it was after a christmas, and I had just completed 2x 48 hour days and was cuttig into the third courtesy of way too much Tiletamine HCl.

Tiletamine was a bit nauseating so I premedicated with 50mg diphenhydramine and there was this sleep deprivation.

The darkness of night was, stirring, and when else than during the Witching Hour?

Suddenly I saw African soldiers in full kit with AK47's move through my front room, right past me, into the kitchen. They would cover the area, peering around for enemies and giving each other hand signals, guerillas in the mist They were scouting it out, one stopped to get a cigarette. I started giving them signals and they signaled back that sst! quiet, enemy close! these were friendly troops. One went standing right next to me, like a foot away, towering over me, looking at me, kindly, trying to figure me out as I did the same, this for more than 10 minutes.
Maybe 2 dozen of them passed through, the mornings early light did not dispel them even though they became a bit translucent.

I was FASCINATED and completely aware I was dreaming them up, that I was hallucinating.

They were reactive to me and I was reactive to them.

Absolutely fascinating,. dream figures while awake.

Thats it, dreams, delirium and psychosis are one realm, that is also the Afterlife. We're from there. It is a realm pf pure information and no matter, of spirits unadhered to a body.

i hated tiletamine, idk if it was the weird benzo it came with used for great apes or what, but i seriously felt poisoned and 0 euphoria

 

[pupnik]

@Asante , I suppose so if you do, but in my world, I am not supposed to do anything more than I commit.

Very likely, while smoking 50 cigs per day, you have been at least slightly aware of the surgeon general's warnings.
This should not be discounted.
For you in your world, the voice of a spirit, that is not your basic habit is definitely part of how you have come to new commitments, and realizations.
I also learn a lot from characters in my dreams and visions. For me it is more about life, and letting go of preconceived notions, tensions, and postures that are no longer needed.

 

[Elizabeth669]

I have to say - knowing what we now know about quantum physics and the mind bending madness that simply studying it can induce - who is to say that what isn’t there is not actually there? Giant hedgehogs and all? Lovecraft and the angles & colours to unhinge a grown man’s reason… (…bring it on, frankly. Am grown woman with flexible reason!)

(I am currently trawling through the forums looking for posts relating to shared, multiple person events)

 

[Listening]

I remember when I was a kid I was always intrigued with the idea that I could take any person I know and I could hear them, in their own voice, say whatever I wanted them to say in my head. The brain has an uncanny ability to to create "hallucinations" or internally-created external-sensory registrations. An obvious example are nightly dreams. Less obviously, when you walk around throughout the day, the brain is silently "filling in the gaps" in your visual input to make the universe seem cohesive. The resolution of your eyes are somewhat limited (even with 20/20 vision) and the brain is doing a crazy job making use of the data it has to let you see details that you can't really see. Usually it's great, but sometimes it gets it wrong (think moving closer to something and realizing you were totally wrong about what you thought it was).

Given this ability to generate details out of very little data, the question becomes: What happens if this functionality of the brain is used to generate details out of no data. Maybe something like this is happening when you are experiencing CEVs?

As we've all experienced, psychedelics pump up the brain's pattern-revealing machinery. Sometimes we end up with amazing insights that would otherwise have remained hidden. Sometimes we end up in awe of a beautiful conclusion that we later realize was nonsensical. Either way, the brain's ability to make new connections and "see what wasn't seen" goes into overdrive. Obviously the chemical in question is having some effect, but I strongly suspect that it's just a catalyst for an existing process in the brain that is always at work, more or less.