Multiple theories
If you play a guiding role during psychedelic therapy, tripsit assignments or spiritual psychedelic journeys, you will encounter different people with different ideas about what hallucinations are. Every explanation given fits within the own beliefs that have been created by the circumstances of this person. For some, the hallucinations are another dimension that transmits information to us. There is a large group that thinks they can see the “energy” because everything is “energy”. Connecting with the divine and sacred geometry is also often said. I myself believe more that we create the world of dreams and psychedelic hallucinations based on how our brain is programmed (DNA + circumstances). One theory is not better than the other. In this blog I try to explain how hallucinations work according to my own theory by explaining different concepts.
The world consists of geometry and fractals
All natural patterns have an underlying simple code that creates apparently complex structures. Our subconscious has evolved to recognize these common natural patterns and attach meaning to them. This way, by recognizing geometric shapes and fractals, you can understand the world and protect yourself if necessary. Through evolution, this characteristic has become a large part of us.
Subconscious mind and our visual experience
During a psychedelic state and during dreams, the brain enters a state of hyper-connectedness. The subconscious processes that try to recognize shapes are therefore connected to the visual experience. This may explain why we can start to see geometry with low doses of psychedelics. The geometric shapes are, as it were, a shell that we place over the visual world and the shapes that fit are a recognition of a certain shape and therefore an object.
As soon as we increase the dosage of psychedelics even more, the processes that try to identify objects become even more connected to what we see at that moment, making the geometry and fractals increasingly resemble real objects. To explain how fractals and geometry can resemble real objects, you could look to the gaming industry and computer-animation films.
Read more about this here different dosages and effects
All in all, we can say that when the fractal geometry becomes so complex that the objects in view start to appear very real. The same also applies to our dreams and hallucinations. The more psychedelics the more we see of the geometry that our brain uses to recognize the world and the more we see how our brain uses ancient knowledge to recognize the world. So hallucinations are images of what a certain form could have been according to the functioning of the unique conditioned brain. So dreams and hallucinations always relate to ourselves. It is a reflection of our own (subconscious) identity. The reality we experience therefore says something about the things that we can recognize ourselves in the tangle of information.
Neuroimaging and MRI data
The video below contains great information and images of how a neural AI tries to guess what kind of image is being looked at while it is being measured in an MRI. Doesn't that look “trippy”? Does this video say that we are indeed comparing information with what we already know through fractals and geometry?
What can we do with this theory?
Once we realize that the reality we experience is only an interpretation of a conditioned individual, we can often recognize this conditioning and do something about it during the psychedelic state. It is as if you were to recognize and remove colored glasses. At that moment, a new conditioning of the brain starts that can have positive effects for the person in question. This allows you to break out of old (self-destructive) patterns. All these effects, in conjunction with other biochemical effects of psychedelics, can lead to unprecedented healing results.