A Depiction of a Visual Hallucination

This is my attempt to visually depict what a psychedelic hallucination looks like. As anyone who has ever seen such images can tell you, they are extremely complex, extremely beautiful, and extremely difficult to capture. As well, they move incessantly. The image above is only a very crude and static representation of what this imagery looks like.

The particular imagery I've attempted to depict above is what is known as a closed-eyed hallucination. That is to say, if you shut your eyes when on reasonable doses of psychedelics, you may see something like the above image.

There are a few features I've tried to capture in the above image:

• A sense of "electric-ness". Which is to say, the images can appear to have a very electric quality to their appearance.
• A tremendous contrast in colors. Colors range from very deep dark black to the most intense and vivid of shades. There are also very subtle differences in hue, which I have not really depicted well above.
• A general lack of form. Closed-eyed psychedelic hallucinations do not have well defined edges. They are extrordinarily complex, and they may suggest a variety of things (such as webbing, gothic or baroque cathedrals, multitutes of bodies intermingled in impossible ways, etc.), but in fact, the images don't really have edges. This is quite significant in terms of ascertaining the origin of this imagery. Because it is now known that Area 17 of the brain (the primary visual cortex) is involved in edge detection, it may be that this imagery is generated beyond Area 17. The fact that this imagery possesses color and motion clearly implies the involvement of both the main higher order visual processing pathways involving the temporal lobe (color and form) and the parietal lobe (motion).
• There is a circular symmetry to closed eyed hallucinations, similar to cyclopean vision. This I have very crudely depicted above.
• There is a definite sense of depth and of "things within things within things" to closed eyed hallucinations, which I have tried to depict above.

Click here to see some comments from Alan Watts about the nature of psychedelic-induced hallucinations.

Last Updated: 4/28/2000