Visual effects: External hallucinations
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External hallucinations can be described as the experience of perceiving imagined visual concepts and occurrences which display themselves seamlessly into the external environment as if they were actually happening. They can be broken down into 4 basic levels:

  1. Erratic hallucinations - The lowest level of hallucination generally consists of visual snow and static, movement in the peripheral vision, and/or ill-defined, fleeting hallucinations which disappear once a person double takes.
  2. Vaguely defined hallucinations - At this level the hallucinations are visible within one's direct line of sight but are not fully defined in their appearance. This means that although visible, they do not look completely detailed and are often blurry or semi-translucent with little if any colour.
  3. Partially defined hallucinations - At this level the hallucinations increase into a high enough amount of detail and vividness to extend beyond transparent, colourless or blurry manifestations. However, they still remain unconvincing and do not quite live up to the detail of completely realistic and convincing hallucinations.
  4. Fully defined hallucinations - As the vividness and intensity increases, the trip eventually becomes comprised of completely realistic and static hallucinations. These are generally considered by those who have experienced them to be completely convincing in their appearance.

The more unfamiliar with the external environment one is, the more this effect will be likely to manifest itself. Cluttered areas also tend to produce more external hallucinations. As far as lighting goes, either a dark or dim room is optimum. Darkness produces much more hallucinations but the light present in a dim room will result in less (though more detailed) hallucinations.

Autonomous entities

Namaste (Trifoliata Mystica) by Luke Brown - This artwork serves as an accurate example of a generic geometry based autonomous entity seen during a psychedelic experience.

Autonomous entities can be described as the visual experience of perceived contact with entities or beings which appear to be sentient and autonomous in their behaviour. This is a shared subjective effect component that can manifest as a result of both external and internal hallucinations.

Autonomous entities seem to act as the inhabitants of a perceived independent reality. They are generally expectant of the tripper's sudden appearance into their realm and often interact with them in various ways. The behaviour of a typical entity can vary wildly and seems to depend heavily on the tripper's current emotional mind state. For example, although more often than not they will act as loving, kind intelligences, teachers or healers in certain contexts, they are equally capable of acting as indifferent, uncaring or even as malicious tormentors.

Entities can literally take any form but common subconscious archetypes are definitely present and commonly include:

Perfectly ordinary human beings, shadow people, bodiless super intelligent humanoids, aliens, elves, animal beings, giant spheres, insectoids, beings of light, plants, robotic machines, gods, goddesses, demons, fantastical creatures, and more.

Regardless of appearance, there are distinctly different types of entity which one may encounter, each of which represent a particular subsection of one's own consciousness and can be identified primarily through their personality but also their appearance. These are broken down into 3 separate categories below:

  • Representations of the self - The simplest form of entity can be described as a mirror of one's own personality. It can take any visible form but clearly adopts an identical vocabulary and set of mannerisms to one's own personality when conversed with.
  • Representations of the subconscious - This category of entity can take any visible form but adopts the personality of what seems to be a conscious controller behind the continuous generation of the details regarding one's current experience and the management of one's own perspective, personality and internally stored model of reality. When conversed with, this category of entity posses abilities which allow them to directly alter and manipulate one's current experience and to heal past traumas. They usually adopts an attitude which wants to teach or guide the tripper and will operate under the assumption that they know what is best for them.
  • Representations of specific concepts - This category of entity is by far the most varied type in terms of its visual form and immediately perceivable personality. It can be identified as a simulated sentient representation of any internally stored concept and adopts an appropriate personality to fit this to an amazing degree of accurate detail. For example this specific concept could include people you have met throughout your life, fictional characters or symbolic representations of abstract concepts such as emotions or key parts of one's own personality.

When communicated with through spoken word, the level of coherency in which these entities can communicate with is highly variable but can be broken down into 4 distinct levels. These are listed below as:

  1. Silence - This level can be defined as a complete unresponsiveness from the side of the entity and an incapability of speech despite their obvious presence within the hallucination.
  2. Partially defined incoherent speech - This level can be defined as audible linguistic conversational responses and noises which sound like words but do not contain any real content or meaning beyond a vague sense of emotional intent.
  3. Fully defined incoherent speech - This level can be defined as audible linguistic conversational responses and noises which contain fully defined and understandable words but often lack grammatical structure or general coherency.
  4. Fully defined coherent speech - This level can be defined as audible linguistic conversational responses and noises which contain fully defined and understandable words as well as a fully defined grammatical sentence structure and general coherency which conveys its point on a level on par with the tripper's own intellect.

Autonomous entities may also communicate with trippers via a combination of telepathy, visual linguistics, mathematics and morphing coloured structures of different textures. This complex visual language is innately readable and capable of expressing pure meaning in a level of detail far beyond that of standard human English.

Image examples

Settings, sceneries, and landscapes

Settings, Sceneries, and Landscapes can be described as a shared subjective effect component that manifests as a result of both external and internal hallucinations.

These can be defined as the experience of the setting in which the plot of an external and internal hallucination occurs. These settings manifest with infinite variety.

When explored, the geography of these settings is capable of rendering itself as static and coherent in organization but will usually result manifest as a non-linear, nonsensical and continuously ever-changing layout which does not necessarily obey the rules of everyday physics. In terms of the chosen locations, appearance and style of these settings, they seem to be selected at random and are often entirely new and previously unseen locations. They do, however, play a heavy emphasis on replicating and combining real life locations stored within the tripper's memories, especially those which are prominent within one's life and daily routine. Aside from this they commonly include:

planetary systems, galaxies, quasars, jungles, rain forests, deserts, ice-scapes, cities, natural environments, caves, space habitats, vast structures, civilizations, technological utopias, ruins, machinescapes, rooms and other indoor environments, neurons, DNA, atoms, molecules, mitochondria, incomprehensible geometry based landscapes and more.

Alterations in perspective

Alterations in perspective can be described as a shared subjective effect component that manifests as a result of both external and internal hallucinations. This experience can be defined as an alteration in terms of the perspective in which a hallucination is perceived through. In just the same way as literary plots, these can be experienced through four alternate vantage points which are described and listed below:

  • 1st person - This is the most common form of perspective and can be described as the perfectly normal experience of perceiving the scenario from the perspective of one's everyday self and body.
  • 2nd person - This can be described as the experience of perceiving the hallucination from the perspective of an external source of consciousness such as another person, an animal or an inanimate object.
  • 3rd person - This is essentially an out-of-body experience and can be described as perceiving the hallucination from a perspective which is floating above, below, behind, or in front of one's physical body.
  • 4th person - This the least common form of perspective and can be described as the experience of perceiving the hallucination from the perspective of multiple or even infinite vantage points simultaneously.

Scenarios and plots

Scenarios and plots can be described as a shared subjective effect component that manifests as a result of both external and internal hallucinations.

The components which comprise hallucinatory states (autonomous entities, alterations in perspective, and settings, sceneries, and landscapes) are randomly shuffled and spliced into any number of an infinite variety of potential plots and scenarios. These may be positive or negative to experience and are difficult to define in a comprehensive manner in much the same way that we cannot predict the plot of abstract literature and films.

They can however be broken down into extremely basic occurrences which generally entail visiting some sort of setting or a number of them which contain within them interactive, multiple, or autonomous entities. Alongside of these, completely unpredictable plot devices and events force the tripper to become involved within the specific scenario of the particular trip.

These scenarios and plots can be linear and logical with events that occur in a rational sequence which lead onto each other events through cause and effect. They are equally likely however to present themselves as completely nonsensical and incoherent. This means that the plot will occur with spontaneous events which are capable of ending, starting and changing between each other repeatedly in quick succession and as they please. The plots themselves can either be entirely new experiences that are unlike anything experienced within the real world, old experiences such as accurate memory replays or a combination of the two.

In terms of the amount of time in which they are experienced, hallucinatory plots and scenarios usually feel as if they are being experienced in real-time. This means that when 20 seconds have been felt to have passed within the hallucination, the exact same amount of time will have passed in the real world. At other points, however, distortions of time can make themselves present, resulting in plots and scenarios that can feel as if they literally last days, weeks, months, years, or even infinitely long periods of time.

Variations

  • Lucid vs. Delirious - Hallucinatory states can maintain a consistent level of awareness throughout them regarding the fact that none of these events are really happening and that the current situation is simply a result of drug-induced hallucination. In contrast to this, hallucinations can also become completely believable no matter how nonsensical they may be in exactly the same way that we do not have any problem accepting absurd and non-linear plots within our dreams.
  • Interactive vs. Fixed – Hallucinatory states can either present themselves as completely separate in a manner that is similar to watching a video play out in front of one's field of vision or they can be completely interactive. For example, conversing with Autonomous entities or interacting with imagined objects in a fashion similar to lucid dreaming is entirely possible.
  • New experiences vs. Memory replays – In terms of their subject matter, hallucinations can either be entirely new experiences or they can follow themes of normal every day concepts and a replaying of specific memories.
  • Controllable vs. Autonomous – Imagery and hallucinations can be partially to completely controllable. This can be described as the content of their appearance always seeming to follow and fit the general topic and subject matter of one's current thought stream. In contrast, autonomous hallucinations are completely spontaneous in their subject matter and entirely uncontrollable.
  • Geometry based vs. Solid – Hallucinations can appear as completely separate and distinct from accompanying geometry or they can be comprised of and embedded within it.


See also

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