3 ms·
The geometric patterns are interesting to me because we can generate them as the effect of feedback loops, recursion, and iteration in pretty much every physica
by motohagiography 6y ago
The geometric patterns are interesting to me because we can generate them as the effect of feedback loops, recursion, and iteration in pretty much every physical and logical domain. When you introduce a delay or discontinuity into a continuous process, it causes echoes and periodic patterns we would interpret as "geometric" as well. Think effects pedals on musical sounds, or modelling queues.
The underlying presumption seems to be that there are barriers to understanding a truth that can be "unlocked," which seems like a leap fraught with baggage. Even though using a poison that impairs the ability of our brain to reconcile its sensory inputs with its memory of itself is an out of "self" experience, this idea of viewing it through the lens of an enhancement or impairment yields different interpretations. A functioning society and civilization requires that people can be acted upon by - and respond to - the artifacts of language, so something that impairs that is going to raise hackles among people who think about those sort of things. But to grow it and survive we also need things that originate outside of it, so the insights people get from these trips can also be very valuable.
DMT elves I can't explain, but geometric patterns, just generate interrupts on a signal that has feedback. If they do exist, I'd have to assume they're some instantiation of tech support, as something is going to detect the signal jitter and check it.
- dalbasal 6y agoIf you're interested in these kinds of parsimonies... I suggest looking into traditional and modern "psychedelic art" (especially dmt-related) and machine generated "art." There are similarities here too, some uncanny.
- cameldrv 6y agoInterestingly, many hallucinatory geometric patterns fall out of a simple mathematical model of V1. This is a great paper that is less known than it should be: Geometric visual hallucinations, Euclidean symmetry and the functional architecture of striate cortex https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088430/pdf/TB010299.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088430/pdf/TB0...
- yboris 6y agoOne of my favorite papers! Thank you for sharing!
- zkms 6y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182860/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182860/ this is a neat paper as well -- the hallucinations can be provoked without any pharmaceutical assistance -- just diffuse flickering light.
- meroes 6y agoI've seen geometric patterns and it's very similar to tie-dye fractals that kind of pulse and move among itself. A friend and I had very similar experience of the patterns (no elves wasn't DMT). You'd see them only when looking close up at something, not your entire visual field. They conform to the object you are staring at. A cardboard box wilth all its micro texture and creases "generated" the patterns and your brain would interpret it moving, pulsing, distorting, adding color. (I am not saying this as some kind of allure of the drug's effects, just interesting to think about why and how the perception change happens). I think maybe it has to do with your brain trialing new pattern recognition algorithms. warning more musing below I mean what is to say how any signal from our perception should look or feel internally? Visually the input in just raw EM radiation. And our brain makes this vivid picture out of basically a field of numbers. In this case you could argue that the extra pulsing or moving is not from a signal in reality, but we also can easily be tricked with visual illusions into seeing a static image move while completely sober. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_motion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_motion. There is no "right" perception of reality, or at least ours is subjective to begin with. I think drugs just allow new patterns or patterns recognition "algorithms" a trial run. Our biology ended up as it is to keep us alive; it is not "poison" or wrong to try to re-jigger it temporarily to see what else is possible - as long as you are in a good situation to do so. (Or not, who am I to judge).
- adriand 6y agoYou may find that with enough experiences like this, you can perceive the same type (but not degree) of fluctuations when looking at any kind of textured or patterned material, such as asphalt or a woven rug. Try gazing at a surface in a slightly unfocused, highly “relaxed” manner. I expect that to your point, your brain filters or corrects for this type of perception.
- pea 6y agoI actually have this pretty much constantly, as well as after images on lights and what not.
- 6y ago
- crucialfelix 6y agoI occasionally wake up half way during the night and experience glorious intensely colorful geometric hallucinations. It definitely feels and evolves like feedback. There are sometimes beings and encounters. The colors are hyperreal, impossible to see or display on a monitor. Normal dreams don't have colors at all really. This is a natural part of our brains I guess.
- jjcm 6y agoMy personal explanation for the others is that we are pattern recognition machines. One of the patterns we train to recognize every single day is a human shape and figure. On DMT your pattern recognition goes into overdrive, and you find these patterns out of nothing. What I find interesting though is that almost everyone has nearly identical experiences with this. Almost everyone goes from sober -> geometric shapes -> "the others", advancing between the levels dependent on the dose.