Multiple theories
When you act as a facilitator during psychedelic therapy, trip-sitting sessions, or spiritual psychedelic journeys, you'll encounter different people with different ideas about what hallucinations are. Each explanation given fits within their own beliefs, shaped by the person's circumstances. For some, hallucinations are another dimension that transmits information to us. A large group believes they can see "energy" because everything is "energy." Connecting with the divine and sacred geometry is also often mentioned. I personally believe that we create the world of dreams and psychedelic hallucinations ourselves based on how our brains are programmed (DNA + circumstances). One theory is no better than the other. In this blog post, I attempt to explain how hallucinations work according to my own theory by explaining various concepts.
The world consists of geometry and fractals
All natural patterns have an underlying simple code that creates seemingly complex structures. Our subconscious has evolved to recognize these common natural patterns and assign meaning to them. For example, by recognizing geometric shapes and fractals, we can understand the world and protect ourselves when necessary. Through evolution, this ability has become a significant part of us.
Subconscious and our visual experience
During a psychedelic state and dreams, the brain enters a state of hyperconnection. The subconscious processes that attempt to recognize shapes are thus connected to the visual experience. This may explain why we can begin to perceive geometry with a low dose of psychedelics. The geometric shapes are, as it were, a shell we place over the visual world, and the matching shapes are a recognition of a particular shape and thus an object.
As we increase the dosage of psychedelics even further, the processes that attempt to identify objects become even more closely linked to what we see at that moment, causing geometry and fractals to increasingly resemble real objects. To explain how fractals and geometry can come to resemble real objects, you could look at the gaming industry and computer-animated films.
Read more about it here different dosages and effects
All in all, we can say that when fractal geometry becomes so complex, the objects in view begin to appear very real. The same applies to our dreams and hallucinations. The more psychedelics we use, the more we see of the geometry our brain uses to recognize the world, and the more we see how our brain uses old knowledge to recognize the world. Hallucinations, therefore, are images of what a certain shape could have been, according to the workings of the uniquely conditioned brain. Dreams and hallucinations, therefore, always relate to ourselves. They are a reflection of our own (subconscious) identity. The reality we experience, therefore, says something about the things we can recognize in the tangle of information.
Neuroimaging and MRI data
The video below contains some interesting information and visuals showing how a neural AI attempts to guess what kind of image is being viewed while undergoing MRI scans. Doesn't that look a bit "trippy"? Does this video suggest that we are indeed comparing information with what we already know through fractals and geometry?
What can we do with this theory?
Once we understand that the reality we experience is merely an interpretation of a conditioned individual, we can often recognize this conditioning during the psychedelic state and do something about it. It's like recognizing and removing tinted glasses. At that moment, a new conditioning of the brain begins 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.