What are psychedelic hallucinations?

Multiple theories

If you play a guiding role during psychedelic therapy, tripsit assignments or spiritual psychedelic journeys, you will have to deal with different people with different ideas about what hallucinations are. Each explanation given fits within that person's own beliefs that have been created by their circumstances. For some, hallucinations are another dimension relaying information to us. There is a large group who think they can see "energy" because everything is "energy". Connecting with the divine and sacred geometry is also often said. I myself believe more that we ourselves create the world of dreams and psychedelic hallucinations based on how our brain is programmed (DNA + conditions). One theory is not better than another. 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 make seemingly complex structures. Our subconscious has evolved enough to recognise those common natural patterns and attach meaning to them. Thus, by recognising geometric shapes and fractals, you can understand the world and keep yourself safe if necessary. Through evolution, this trait has become a big part of us.

Subconscious and our visual experience

During a psychedelic state and during dreams, the brain enters a state of hyperconnectivity. The subconscious processes that try to recognise shapes therefore become connected to the visual experience. This may explain why at low doses of psychedelics we can start to see geometry. The geometric shapes are like a shell we put over the visual world and the shapes that fit is a recognition of a particular shape and thus an object.

Once we start increasing the dosage of psychedelics even more, the processes that try to identify objects become even more connected to what we are seeing at the time, making the geometry and fractals look more and more like real objects. To explain how fractals and geometry can start to resemble real objects, you could look at the game industry and computer-animated films.

Read more here different doses and effects

All in all, then, we can say that when fractal geometry becomes so complex that the objects in sight start to look very real. The same goes for our dreams and hallucinations. The more psychedelics the more we see of the geometry our brain uses to recognise the world and the more we see how our brain uses ancient knowledge to recognise the world. Thus, hallucinations are images of what could have been a certain shape according to the workings of the uniquely conditioned brain. So dreams and hallucinations always relate to ourselves. They are a reflection of our own (subconscious) identity. So the reality we experience says something about the things we ourselves can recognise in the jumble of information.

Neuroimaging and MRI data

The video below contains nice information and images of how a neural AI tries to guess what image is being looked at while measuring it in an MRI. Doesn't that look "trippy'? So is this video saying that we are indeed comparing information to what we already know through fractals and geometry?

What can we do with this theory?

Once we realise that the reality we experience is only an interpretation of a conditioned individual, we can often recognise this conditioning during the psychedelic state and do something about it. It is like recognising and taking off coloured glasses. At that moment, a new conditioning of the brain starts that can have positive effects for the person in question. As a result, you thus break out of old (self-destructive) patterns. All these effects, together with other biochemical effects of psychedelics, can lead to unprecedented healing results.