Why do the walls "breathe"; why does the paint on the walls of the toilet suddenly begin to leak, even though major repairs have probably not been done in this communal apartment since its foundation; why do any patterns begin to repeat; why does the image still seem to freeze for a second in the past, leaving its imprint in space; why does symmetry appear at different levels; or does everything collapse into a dimensionless space, where you are a personality, a controlling subject?
In Díaz 2010, the author methodically describes the changes in hallucinations when using classical psychedelics (e.g., LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT). But it should be noted that, depending on the way of use or the initial dosage, the effect will vary:
In Díaz 2010, the author methodically describes the changes in hallucinations when using classical psychedelics (e.g., LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT). But it should be noted that, depending on the way of use or the initial dosage, the effect will vary:
- "Everything is new": familiar scenes and objects look new and people see them as if for the first time; textures and colors are delightful and perceived more intensely; brightness and shades of colors become more prominent.
- Visual imagination intensifies and becomes passive: with eyes closed, visual images intensify, geometric shapes and rhythmic kaleidoscopic movements appear.
- Illusions: motion of objects, vibration at their borders, blurred lines and angles, micro- and macroscopy; pulsation and transformation of objects.
- Hallucinations. Objects, animals, personas are visible and with open eyes, now externalized. Global hallucinations: the scene before the eyes changes completely, reality and hallucinations mix, it becomes difficult to draw the line between "consensual" reality and ordinary reality.
However, the given stages and their contents hardly refer to deliriants such as datura or scopolamine. These are hallucinogens, but specifically singled out as a separate class because of their effects on the psyche and because they block the action of acetylcholine. Deliriants cause real delirium, not just the hallucinations or pseudo-hallucinations familiar from classic psychedelics. In pseudo-hallucinations, the person usually realizes that their state now does not reflect reality, but is a derivative of the substance used.
Under the influence of delirium a person may smoke phantom cigarettes; have hours-long conversations with people he sees but who, of course, are not around; see insects, terrifying creatures, or shadows of people; and experience nightmarish visions. Delirium is accompanied by hallucinations, which the person cannot separate from reality.
Consensus reality
In the context of the psychedelic experience, the reality in which one is before and after it. Perhaps this is for philosophical reasons - the brain always constructs exclusively a model of the world, never reflecting it as it really is. It turns out that people interact with each other, often successfully, because they are aware of certain "arrangements" - what objects are called, how one should behave, and so on.
Under the influence of delirium a person may smoke phantom cigarettes; have hours-long conversations with people he sees but who, of course, are not around; see insects, terrifying creatures, or shadows of people; and experience nightmarish visions. Delirium is accompanied by hallucinations, which the person cannot separate from reality.
Consensus reality
In the context of the psychedelic experience, the reality in which one is before and after it. Perhaps this is for philosophical reasons - the brain always constructs exclusively a model of the world, never reflecting it as it really is. It turns out that people interact with each other, often successfully, because they are aware of certain "arrangements" - what objects are called, how one should behave, and so on.
Hallucinatory images and their cultural manifestations have in one way or another come under the scrutiny of twentieth-century researchers, studying them from both an anthropological and a biological point of view. One of the most fascinating phenomenological observations for the materialistic soul is that visual hallucinations in the first stage of consumption of the powerful hallucinogen Ayahuasca are deterministic and culturally independent. This was suggested by the Colombian anthropologist and archaeologist Gerardo Raichel-Dolmatoff, based on anthropological observations of the Tucano Indians living in Brazil and Colombia. He noticed that the Tucanos decorated their houses and other objects with a repeated set of symbols - it turned out that the Tucanos transform into objects of material culture the visions that came to them under the influence of the Ayahuasca.
Permanent forms
In the late 1920s, the psychologist Heinrich Kluwer investigated the geometric patterns that emerge after the use of mescaline. In the introduction to his work it is written that it is the first monograph in English to consider mescaline in many aspects. Henry Kluwer categorized the simple geometric patterns reported by people on mescaline into groups, and called them "permanent shapes." Permanent shapes are geometric patterns that are periodically observed during hypnagogia (the state between dream and reality), hallucinations, and altered states of consciousness. Kluwer's classification of "permanent forms" consists of four patterns:
Permanent forms
In the late 1920s, the psychologist Heinrich Kluwer investigated the geometric patterns that emerge after the use of mescaline. In the introduction to his work it is written that it is the first monograph in English to consider mescaline in many aspects. Henry Kluwer categorized the simple geometric patterns reported by people on mescaline into groups, and called them "permanent shapes." Permanent shapes are geometric patterns that are periodically observed during hypnagogia (the state between dream and reality), hallucinations, and altered states of consciousness. Kluwer's classification of "permanent forms" consists of four patterns:
- Tunnels (alleys, cones, funnels, and vessels);
- Spirals;
- Grids (stucco, meshes, including honeycombs, triangles, and chessboards);
- Cobwebs.
Modifications of these patterns often follow two paths: (a) repetition, combination or transformation into various ornaments and mosaics; (b) elements such as squares in a chessboard often have borders that also consist of geometric shapes. Sometimes the borders are represented by lines so thin that it is impossible to tell whether they are black or white.
In Walter Maclay's study, artists were given mescaline and asked to sketch their visions. The author is surprised at the small number of publications related to the analysis of images under mescaline and offers two explanations:
1) the inactivity felt under mescaline;
2) the fleeting and ever-changing nature of the visions.
Two theories were struggling at the time: the peripheral theory, claiming that hallucinations are the product of perception of the blood vessels of the eye, etc.; and the psychological, or central theory, claiming that hallucinations are the projection of mental images generated by the brain. McLay comes to the uncomplicated conclusion that the nature of mescaline hallucinations cannot be clearly defined.
The ability under mescaline to see entopian phenomena must be explained by the ability of "sticks and foveal cones to look backward" - so wrote in quotation marks about these peripheral hallucination theories by Klüver in 1942. Indeed, one of the researchers who takes peripheral events seriously, Marshall, writes: "The ability to observe the choriocapillaries requires that the retina 'can look backward. According to him, "assuming that the transition from light energy to nerve excitation takes place in the outer segment of the rods and foveal cones, there seems to be nothing improbable about this hypothesis with sufficient illumination to do so."
Marshall believes that under mescaline one can see the capillary layer of the vasculature of the eye (choriodea) as well as stained granules of the retinal pigment layer. Under normal conditions (i.e., not under mescaline) and under bright light, one can see luminous dots when one transfers the gaze from the light source - these are most likely circulating blood cells. However, this does not fit the conditions under which the mescaline trip occurs. But there is another explanation: physical pressure can be used instead of light - in other words, simply to put pressure on the eyes, and "a small amount of energy will be interpreted as light. Star-shaped dots - another version of images - probably arise from pigment granules that have absorbed light energy, and under pressure (on the eyes) are able to emit enough electrons to produce entopic images.
Marshall does not give up and offers an alternative explanation just in case: due to the increased sensitivity of visual centers under mescaline, the threshold of perception decreases so much that even the light from the eye itself will be enough to manifest retroretinal images. Marshall's "permanent forms" of Klüver are due to their compact and small diameter, the correct positioning of the rods and cones, and the source of light behind them. Hoppe, one of the main proponents of the peripheral theory of visual hallucinations, argued as early as the late 19th century that "central hallucinations" do not exist in the brain and that the "entopic contents of the eye" always produce "hallucinatory material. Thus, these researchers believed that hallucinations are born from the influence of peripheral stimuli, and that the cauldron, as they say, is empty.
1) the inactivity felt under mescaline;
2) the fleeting and ever-changing nature of the visions.
Two theories were struggling at the time: the peripheral theory, claiming that hallucinations are the product of perception of the blood vessels of the eye, etc.; and the psychological, or central theory, claiming that hallucinations are the projection of mental images generated by the brain. McLay comes to the uncomplicated conclusion that the nature of mescaline hallucinations cannot be clearly defined.
The ability under mescaline to see entopian phenomena must be explained by the ability of "sticks and foveal cones to look backward" - so wrote in quotation marks about these peripheral hallucination theories by Klüver in 1942. Indeed, one of the researchers who takes peripheral events seriously, Marshall, writes: "The ability to observe the choriocapillaries requires that the retina 'can look backward. According to him, "assuming that the transition from light energy to nerve excitation takes place in the outer segment of the rods and foveal cones, there seems to be nothing improbable about this hypothesis with sufficient illumination to do so."
Marshall believes that under mescaline one can see the capillary layer of the vasculature of the eye (choriodea) as well as stained granules of the retinal pigment layer. Under normal conditions (i.e., not under mescaline) and under bright light, one can see luminous dots when one transfers the gaze from the light source - these are most likely circulating blood cells. However, this does not fit the conditions under which the mescaline trip occurs. But there is another explanation: physical pressure can be used instead of light - in other words, simply to put pressure on the eyes, and "a small amount of energy will be interpreted as light. Star-shaped dots - another version of images - probably arise from pigment granules that have absorbed light energy, and under pressure (on the eyes) are able to emit enough electrons to produce entopic images.
Marshall does not give up and offers an alternative explanation just in case: due to the increased sensitivity of visual centers under mescaline, the threshold of perception decreases so much that even the light from the eye itself will be enough to manifest retroretinal images. Marshall's "permanent forms" of Klüver are due to their compact and small diameter, the correct positioning of the rods and cones, and the source of light behind them. Hoppe, one of the main proponents of the peripheral theory of visual hallucinations, argued as early as the late 19th century that "central hallucinations" do not exist in the brain and that the "entopic contents of the eye" always produce "hallucinatory material. Thus, these researchers believed that hallucinations are born from the influence of peripheral stimuli, and that the cauldron, as they say, is empty.
Kluwer says that it is unknown which mechanism is behind the emergence of "permanent forms" - central, peripheral, or both; and in the second half of the 20th century this is still very "vague", there is not enough data. He stresses that he only wants to point out one point: under different conditions, the visual system reproduces few "permanent forms. Kluwer believes that any general theory explaining the emergence of "permanent forms" must go beyond the consideration of visual mechanisms.
Thus, fifteen years after the publication of the work on "permanent forms," Kluwer was already interested in another question: is the mechanism of hallucinations in different sensory modalities the same (including the phenomenon of "permanent forms")? And not only hallucinations, but in general, what is the structure of visual experience? Objects - real or imagined - can increase in size, decrease, double, etc. Also, how can polyopia, a condition in which one sees multiple images of a single object, occur? Kluver wonders if it is possible to assume that under the influence of psychedelics, this mechanism of "multiplication" of objects also applies to the situation where one senses that someone is in the room, but this stranger is not visible? Only this time, only one or more of one's own personality is multiplied or split into one or more. However, all the above mentioned transformations of visual objects can occur not only under mescaline, but also in "non-psychogenic" hallucinations, in autoscopic hallucinations - when a person sees his body separately from himself, in perception of real objects, in visual images, in dreams, in hypnagogic hallucinations (in waking), etc.
Thus, fifteen years after the publication of the work on "permanent forms," Kluwer was already interested in another question: is the mechanism of hallucinations in different sensory modalities the same (including the phenomenon of "permanent forms")? And not only hallucinations, but in general, what is the structure of visual experience? Objects - real or imagined - can increase in size, decrease, double, etc. Also, how can polyopia, a condition in which one sees multiple images of a single object, occur? Kluver wonders if it is possible to assume that under the influence of psychedelics, this mechanism of "multiplication" of objects also applies to the situation where one senses that someone is in the room, but this stranger is not visible? Only this time, only one or more of one's own personality is multiplied or split into one or more. However, all the above mentioned transformations of visual objects can occur not only under mescaline, but also in "non-psychogenic" hallucinations, in autoscopic hallucinations - when a person sees his body separately from himself, in perception of real objects, in visual images, in dreams, in hypnagogic hallucinations (in waking), etc.
Hallucinations and differential equations
Klüver was a psychologist, and he offered no explanation on the neural level. A few decades later, however, mathematical models with an explanation of "permanent forms" came along. They are based on the assumption that information from the retina to the cortex is "mapped" nonlinearly.
In turn, Ermentrautr and Cowan (1979) derived two equations that would explain the nonlinear dynamics of retinal-cortical interaction.
These mathematical models assume that the interaction between inhibitory and excitatory neurons is asymmetric with excitation predominating. However, for any system that is spontaneously capable of generating patterns, in addition to the asymmetric mechanism, diffusion is needed to help propagate neuronal activity. To better understand this, however, we can still turn to Turing, who explained the emergence of patterns through the diffusion of two interacting chemicals: an activator and an inhibitor. The inhibitor and activator diffuse at different rates. When the inhibitor diffuses faster than the activator, the latter appears as bands and spots.
Converting the Turing model for nerve tissue, we calculate the spatial constant of excitation and inhibition instead of the chemical diffusion constant. The Turing mechanism in the nervous tissue uses the competition of excitatory and inhibitory neurons as some morphogen instead of activator and inhibitor. One can imagine that "excitation" arises spontaneously in the cortex, leads to excitation bands, and hence to "permanent forms" of Kluwer. Hallucinations are born just as the balance shifts toward excitation.
These mathematical models assume that the interaction between inhibitory and excitatory neurons is asymmetric with excitation predominating. However, for any system that is spontaneously capable of generating patterns, in addition to the asymmetric mechanism, diffusion is needed to help propagate neuronal activity. To better understand this, however, we can still turn to Turing, who explained the emergence of patterns through the diffusion of two interacting chemicals: an activator and an inhibitor. The inhibitor and activator diffuse at different rates. When the inhibitor diffuses faster than the activator, the latter appears as bands and spots.
Converting the Turing model for nerve tissue, we calculate the spatial constant of excitation and inhibition instead of the chemical diffusion constant. The Turing mechanism in the nervous tissue uses the competition of excitatory and inhibitory neurons as some morphogen instead of activator and inhibitor. One can imagine that "excitation" arises spontaneously in the cortex, leads to excitation bands, and hence to "permanent forms" of Kluwer. Hallucinations are born just as the balance shifts toward excitation.
Lior Roseman, a researcher at Imperial College London who devoted his dissertation to simple hallucinations under psychedelics, notes that models related to the activity of neurons in the primary visual cortex, on the one hand, explain only simple images. On the other hand, even more complex images still have a geometric structure. In the case when simple geometric patterns are part of more complex images, this may explain why people see snakes and tigers so often: their geometric pattern is based on the same Turing mechanism. In other words, the stochastic neuronal activity that gives rise in the hallucinating brain to the perception of spots, integrating this into a more complex object, yields a snake at the output.
However, while these models can explain simple visual hallucinations, whether they can do the same with auditory or somatosensory hallucinations remains an open question. If the model with an imbalance of inhibition and arousal is correct, perhaps it is some general mechanism. But such speculative assertions require verification, and, preferably, on a human. In 1998, an experiment similar to the one conducted on a monkey was repeated on a human using fMRI - the results were similar. In this case, there was no need to remove the occipital cortex: the subjects were shown differently oriented stimuli and the cortical activity was calculated.
However, while these models can explain simple visual hallucinations, whether they can do the same with auditory or somatosensory hallucinations remains an open question. If the model with an imbalance of inhibition and arousal is correct, perhaps it is some general mechanism. But such speculative assertions require verification, and, preferably, on a human. In 1998, an experiment similar to the one conducted on a monkey was repeated on a human using fMRI - the results were similar. In this case, there was no need to remove the occipital cortex: the subjects were shown differently oriented stimuli and the cortical activity was calculated.