An explanation for psychedelic visuals

[Hyperdimensional Cuttlefish]

After posting in the HPPD threads, I started looking around and found this wiki article. Fascinating stuff.

Phosphene - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"A phosphene is a phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without light actually entering the eye. The word phosphene comes from the Greek words phos (light) and phainein (to show). Phosphenes are flashes of light, often associated with optic neuritis, induced by movement or sound.

Phosphenes can be directly induced by mechanical, electrical, or magnetic stimulation of the retina or visual cortex as well as by random firing of cells in the visual system. Phosphenes have also been reported by meditators (commonly called nimitta); people who go for long periods without visual stimulation (also known as the prisoner's cinema); or those who are using psychedelic drugs.

Looks familiar, no?

Edit: Per the post #9 below, I offer the following changes:

As I come across further articles and bits that may explain how/why DMT does what it does.

Feel free to jump in and post articles, pages etc as you like.

 

[nen888]

..'phosphenes' is the orthodox, conservative explanation given by neurologists/psychiatrists un-experienced with psychedelic phenomena..

none of this explains dynamic, three-dimensional apparently communicating beings of light flying around the room and described/witnessed by several people..

nor does it explain 'remote viewing'type psychedelic experiences, nor most of what shamans induce and report..or synaesthesia for that matter..

'random firings'..the structure of the retina..?

i don't think so...

 

[universecannon]

yea..it says absolutely nothing about SO many aspects of the experience..like the complexity of these seemingly free standing fully immerse multidimensional vistas that include literally anything imaginable or unimaginable..or how coherent it all can be..or how emotionally charged, meaningful, and relevant to ones life

"
..'phosphenes' is the orthodox, conservative explanation given by neurologists/psychiatrists un-experienced with psychedelic phenomena.."

this

it also says nothing of the shared experiences/visions frequently reported

 

[teaheadskvngr]

Long time lurker, idk if I can even post, one of my favorite blogs, very insightful fellow runs it.

http://countyourculture.com/2011/03/13/form-constants-visual-cortex/

 

[universecannon]

^ again how does that explain full blown visions in any way?

or all the other aspects of the visual experience and experience in general that i mentioned?

no offense, i say this humbly, but a lot of this sort of thing, in my opinion, are just feeble attempts by people who haven't gone deep to explain only the visual phenomena that is typically experienced on lower doses.

Another thing that also became apparent to me is that the visuals provided by these lower doses are almost like a lower dimensional slice of what can be experienced at higher doses- as if the thing hasn't fully surfaced yet and your just viewing it while its still ten feet under water and you can only get but a glimpse

 

[acacian]

sorry to keep droppping graham hancocks name.. but he also covers this in depth in his book supernatural and he takes it a step further than just the patterns and explores the entity contact as well. i guess what im really trying to say guys is i just love graham hancock and reckon people should read his books

 

[Global]

no offense, i say this humbly, but a lot of this sort of thing, in my opinion, are just feeble attempts by people who haven't gone deep to explain only the visual phenomena that is typically experienced on lower doses.

Another thing that also became apparent to me is that the visuals provided by these lower doses are almost like a lower dimensional slice of what can be experienced at higher doses- as if the thing hasn't fully surfaced yet and your just viewing it while its still ten feet under water and you can only get but a glimpse

I agree with this. In the book Psychedelic Information Theory, James Kent identifies two broad categories of hallucinatory phenomena that I tend to agree with, though it can start to blur in the middle. There are the entopic hallucinations. These would include the flicker phosphene phenomena. Under circumstances that enhance and perpetuate visual feedback (which can synesthetically be driven be audio frequency resonators as well - be it from a shaman, your ipod, your own voice or perhaps the various forms of the carrier waves and other auditory hallucinatory phenomena) which can cause the entopic flicker phosphenes to develop into eidetic hallucinations which are what we recognize as the full-blown visuals that can be multidimensional, symbolic, meaningful images and spaces. This is obviously a gross oversimplification in general as well as of Kent's work.

Unfortunately low dose effects seem to be grouped in with higher dose effects because they both share the formality of being initiated by the same substance. This can lead to people jumping to conclusions about the mechanism of action of the substance which would become clear is an insufficient and inappropriate way to go about trying to unravel explanatory models.

 

[Guyomech]

That checkerboard pattern is great, but what it really looks like to me is that old pressure-on-the-eyeballs effect...

 

[Hyperdimensional Cuttlefish]

I thought about this thread after I posted it last night... I intended to compare it to the initial patterns of CEV's, before the true visions occur as part of an ongoing thread to cobble together the best physiological explanation of the trip. I edited the op to reflect my true intent of this thread.

I agree that phosgenes alone do not explain the trip, but merely show part of the neural cascade that DMT generates. Pubmed has some great stuff regarding tryptamines and it's effects on the brain.


Here's an interesting article about DMT's potential effect at sigma-1 receptors.
The hallucinogen N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is an endogenous sigma-1 receptor regulator - PubMed. They are an interesting class and I will post more relevant links as I find them. Hopefully with full text links as I can get it.

The sigma-1 receptor is an integral membrane protein with 223 amino acids. It doesnt match other known mammalian proteins. It does have 30% identity and 66% homology with fungal proteins. Well known re: shrooms, but was news to me regarding DMT.

Sigma receptors effect potassium and sodium gated channels, among other things.

 

[Spes]

it was night time and i closed my eyes. what i saw next were the most beautiful visuals i have ever seen. shapes and patterns made of light began appearing on the wall of blackness / in the infinite void that i normally see when i close my eyes. they weren't very complex, in fact they were quite simple, but the way they moved... it was awesome. have i mentioned that no drugs were consumed?