Appreciation of Depth in Hyperspace

[Global]

I'm sure this topic runs deeper than what I'm outlining here, but I wanted to raise an interesting point I've noticed in contemplation. Not always, but at least in "full-fledged experiences" in particular (not necessarily breakthroughs, but fully immersive experiences nonetheless), there is the austere visual quality and subtle appreciation of depth. Some of the environments can seem practically virtual like being in a living computer and there is depth, and foreground and background...and yet we have this "virtual" quality to it in which everything, foreground and background included, are in focus, and I think this boils down to an intriguing visual mechanism that is always at play in consensual reality, but that doesn't necessarily hold up when viewing certain virtual environments (sober) or certain hyperspace scenes.

What I'm getting at is how our eyes kind of work like cameras in the way that the "lens" is adjusted to allow varying amounts of light in or to focus on particular items from the physical world. As a result, parts of the visual field are in focus while other parts aren't. When viewing a virtual environment (image) all of the visual elements can be allotted equal "focus values" and as such both the foreground and background can be in focus simultaneously. I think this effect essentially translates into hyperspace, and part of the reason hyperspace shares this quality stems from the fact that the eyes themselves essentially aren't responsible for perceiving the images (save for some light/color and intensity).

Now I do think where you decide to put your visual focus is important, and can directly impact on hyperspace by making the focal point more sophisticated or by bringing it forward, and so this development and visual motion is sort of like the trade off for the traditional "blurry" in-focus/out-of-focus visual mechanisms that we're typically accustomed to. The geometric multidimensionality also lends a big hand in creating subtle depth appreciation, but I felt I sort of had a sudden revelation in regards to visual focus and acuity in hyperspace. To conclude, I want to make it clear that I recognize that the hyperspace visual field can be cloudy, blurry and potentially out of focus either when the DMT has not been administered properly or when it just doesn't "connect" for one reason or another, but I find that's neither here nor there for the relevancy of this topic.

 

[anrchy]

I have had some experiences with the oculus rift (virtual reality headset) that made me aware of a phenomenon that I was not aware of as well as a better understanding of how our eyes allow us to perceive depth.

Since our eyes are located apart from each other each one has a different perspective angle on what we are looking at. Stereopsis. This gives us our depth perception. The oculus rift uses the exact same method. This is what sets it apart from other virtual headsets. The depth perception is amazing.

Anyways, one thing I noticed is if the rendering of two objects that are suppose to be far away overlaps with an object that is suppose to be near you get a strange sensation that is hard to explain. It feels uncomfortable and is difficult to look at and messes with your brain.

To stay on topic, I'm curious how depth works in the case of DMT, as you have no eyes and this mechanic is not at play. Also to refer to the above, I have seen things on DMT that are far away and yet near at the same time and did not cause the same uncomfortable feeling as I experienced with the rift.

 

[universecannon]

I think I know exactly what you mean, and you described it better than I ever have. I have a really hard time explaining what I think about it well, so bear with me while I try and wrestle this into language. :d

Just taking a low dose of DMT (or lsd, or mushrooms) and staring readily manifests this for me while still in this reality. Eye contact with others, and in mirrors, seems to do it even better (and interestingly eye contact activates areas of the right hemisphere). For me it is a feature that accompanies a shift in consciousness, but under certain circumstances this feature is more noticeable than others.

With practice I realized that its possible to enter mental/visual states similar to (usually) lower doses of dmt through relaxed staring (or eye contact and/or mirrors, especially), and this visual phenomena you mention is a major feature of it for me. I'm reminded of how Terence recalled a friends (I think Dennis?) theory that DMT is actually somehow involved in staring deeply into things.

Anyways, its like you stare and relax yourself, and then your focus shifts to encompassing the entirety of our field of vision; as if it's starting to all get processed at once instead of there being a specific focal point, and the rest being merely peripheral data. My friend has remarked that this may be related to how autistic savants can process so much visual information simultaneously... For example, immediately knowing the number of dots on a screen the instant they glance at it. Alan Snyder actually did tests on this in normal individuals to see if he could get a similar affect, and it involved inhibiting the dominance of the left hemisphere using TMS, thereby increasing right hemisphere functions. Their guesses of the number of dots then became more accurate, and he's done many similar experiments since.

Back to the experience of it (sober or otherwise).... When I relax I can sort of coax it to go deeper, to the point where everything I'm seeing just becomes this seamless, vibrating sea of energy, which can get very trancey and go a number of places. I've watched myself disappear when staring at my reflection in the mirror, stone sober, through doing this; all I'll be perceiving is the vibrating sea of energy. A mental shift accompanies it that is not unlike DMT at all really, although its more like dmt + harmalas (taking melatonin also seems to bring this on more readily).

Its almost as if, in addition to processing visual reality more fully/directly, you start seeing beyond the surfaces of things, and your consciousness begins to register the underlying quantum energy that makes it all up.

Sometimes, when it happens sober, everything can appear to be completely alien and new, like you're seeing the world around you from an aliens perspective for the first time...This actually used to happen to me as a kid, and it freaked me the hell out to be honest. But its really just like a more direct or full way of processing the energy around us, it seems...although "experiencing" would be a better word here than "processing", I think, since it's more like instead of processing, you are simply by-passing your ordinary mode of processing and tapping your awareness directly into the raw data coming in.

I think this actually relates perfectly to a major difference in left and right brain processing that Iain McGilchrist and countless other researchers have thoroughly documented, generally showing how one side prefers a narrow or zoomed-in take on things, and the other a much more expansive or all-encompassing approach.

Anyways, I agree that it does seem to heavily translate to the hyperspace experience, but I think I've already talked way too much and already sound crazy enough to people. I think its indicative of a kind of parallel processing inherent to that mode of being, which adds to the already multi-dimensional nature of the experience. I'm reminded of the experiences some here have had that involved 360 degree vision while in hyperspace...8)

 

[thymamai]

UC I think you have fairly pinned your subject.:d

I enjoyed reading everyone above.

When I relax I can sort of coax it to go deeper, to the point where everything I'm seeing just becomes this seamless, vibrating sea of energy, which can get very trancey and go a number of places. I've watched myself disappear when staring at my reflection in the mirror, stone sober, through doing this; all I'll be perceiving is the vibrating sea of energy. A mental shift accompanies it that is not unlike DMT at all really, although its more like dmt + harmalas (taking melatonin also seems to bring this on more readily).

This happened to me once, and I can maybe relate to what you term mental shift. I had taken mescaline. And for a long time I could only describe what I remember seeing as something one might imagine if told to envision a painting of a beach. Where, upon that beach, instead of having sun, land, and water all respectively coordinated and rendered against the sea, the sun and endless radiance of sand suddenly merged with it, in a liquid sky of countless worlds and soft incandescent rippling of all time immemorial.

Sober, there are moments where there is a hint of this shift, and I can nearly imagine what I saw again. But it has not truly happened before or since the one time, and I've not again had the luxury of extracting anything. You do this almost at will though, it sounds like.

Envy.

 

[Felnik]

I would concur that the visual quality of hyperspace
Is quite crisp indeed. The virtual quality of it is intriguing as well.
I have long suspected that some of what we experience
Is some kind of program or loop. I have often had the feeling that
Some of these visual and sensory experiences spurred
On by dmt were designed or engineered. Perhaps the entities
We think we perceive sometimes are merely highly sophisticated and automated
Illusions capable of morphing they're output based on input received
From our individual consciousness. Or maybe I'm writing this too early in the morning

 

[Warrior]

I personally enjoy how forgoing contacts or glasses in hyperspace seems to open up a more natural parallel processing of the information-sphere we exist in. I take the focal point lenses off and the information all comes to me at once instead.

 

[Global]

Felnik, I too have gotten that strong vibe that there it is very much like a computer program design.

In regards to "processing" I find that DMT can operate well with both serial as well as parallel processing. It has multiple modes of presentation for most things it can show you it should seem.