Visual effects: Internal hallucinations
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Parabolic Vehicle of Conception by Adam Scott Miller - This serves as an example of visionary art which attempts to accurately portray and replicate the experience of psychedelic level 5 geometry combined with level 3 internal hallucinations.

Internal hallucinations can be described as the perception of imagery and scenes which are experienced exclusively with closed eyes and not within the external environment around oneself.

At lower levels, internal hallucinations begin with imagery which does not take up the entirety of one's visual field and is distinctively separate from its background. These can be described as spontaneous moving or still images of scenes, objects, people, animals, concepts, places or anything one could possibly imagine. They are manifested in varying levels of detail ranging from ill-defined and cartoon-like in nature to completely realistic. They rarely holdform for more than a few seconds before fading or shifting into another image and commonly include:

everyday objects, living things, plants, animals, insects, architecture, structures, shapes, atoms, molecules, complex mathematical formulae/concepts, linguistic concepts, mechanisms, technology, machine creatures, self-replicating machines, people, faces, eyes, body parts, organs, food, cultural references, fictional characters, logos, religious symbolism, creatures, monsters, demons, mythology, furniture and more.

As these states of imagery become increasingly elaborate (proportional to dosage), they eventually become all-encompassing, fully-fledged 3D hallucinations which surround the person in a fashion similar to dreams. This creates the feeling that one has "broken through" into another reality. The things which occur within this perceived alternate reality can be anything but generally fall under common archetypes such as contact with autonomous entities, imagined landscapes and scenarios that can seem so unlike anything previously experienced that they are, in all probability, untranslatable into English.

The content of these experiences are often described to feel transcendental, mystical, spiritual and religious in nature, regardless of the tripper's theistic beliefs. It is not uncommon for people to report that higher levels of internal hallucination feel infinitely “more real” than anything the person has previously experienced throughout everyday sober living.

Overall, the degrees of intensity can be broken down into five simple levels:

  1. Enhancement of mental visualization - The lowest level of internal hallucination can be defined as a distinct enhancement of the heightened state of mental visualization that one drifts into when simply daydreaming or using the imagination. It can be described as a short-term detachment from one's immediate surroundings, during which a person's contact with reality is blurred and partially substituted by an extremely ill-defined fantasy. The generation of the details of this internal visualization are partially autonomous in nature but mostly controlled by the content of one's current thought stream.
  2. Partially defined imagery - This level of internal hallucination generally consists of partially defined, blurred and faded imagery within one's peripheral vision.
  3. Fully defined imagery - As the vividness and intensity increases, the imagery eventually becomes fully defined and realistic enough in its appearance, detail and size and starts to display itself within the tripper's direct line of sight behind closed eyelids.
  4. Partially defined breakthroughs - As the vividness and intensity further increases, the imagery eventually becomes fully defined, realistic and all encompassing enough in their appearance, detail and size that they begin to display themselves as random flashes of spontaneous scenarios similar to dreams. Although all encompassing, at this level they are partially to completely blurred and transparent in appearance with the tripper's physical body still feeling connected to the real world. These will usually disappear or shift into another hallucination after a short period of time but are capable of becoming fully grounded and long-lasting in their manifestation.
  5. Fully defined breakthroughs - Once the internal hallucinations become sufficiently elaborate they eventually become all-encompassing, permanent, ever-shifting alternate realities which appear completely realistic, extremely detailed and highly vivid in their appearance. They also occur along side of accompanying relevant auditory and tactile hallucinations as well as the sensation of a complete disconnection from the physical body.

Internal hallucinations between level 4 and 5 can be further broken down into four distinct subcomponents which are described and documented below.

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 - Internal hallucinations can maintain a consistent level of awareness throughout them regarding the fact that none of these event 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 – Internal hallucinations can either present themselves as fixed, meaning that they will ignore a person if spoken to and will disappear if one tries to physically touch them. In contrast, hallucinations can be interactive. This means that one may be able to feel a sense of slight pressure if the hallucinations are touched and that they will often respond if spoken to.
  • Controllable vs. Autonomous – Internal 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 – Internal 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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