Long overdue: Let's illustrate the Hyperspace Lexicon!

[Guyomech]

For far too long the Hyperspace Lexicon has sat mostly neglected. I personally believe that the Lexicon project is at the heart of what we are trying to accomplish here, which is to develop a stronger common understanding of the visionary experience. The Lexicon work thread has had some quality material added to it from time to time, but I think that what it really needs is to be joined up with the artistic efforts that are happening here.

In a nutshell, what I am proposing is that we organize and illustrate the Lexicon in the same way that we did so for the Open Hyperspace Explorer project, which was illustrated very nicely through volunteer efforts by members.

I don't have a specific picture of how we would do this, but it would involve two main steps: first, to consolidate and flesh out the existing Lexicon into a possibly alphabetized encyclopedic format. This would also give all of us a chance to review the terminology, definitions, etc (with the idea that it will always remain open to further editing and expansion). From there we begin taking on the illustration part, which can probably be handled largely through finding existing imagery by members or other willing parties that can be adapted for illustrating each Lexicon entry. There can be multiple images for each entry as well, the more the merrier.

Then there would be a third step of adapting the whole thing into an art gallery with short captions for each piece- the Index Of Psychedelic Visuals. This has never been done properly to my knowledge, and I think we are just the people to do it.

So I wanted to get some feedback on the whole idea before digging in and creating new work threads etc. let's hear your ideas, and then we can move forward.

 

[Mr.Peabody]

I'm in!

This sounds like a fantastic project. For one, it will be great to have an accessible store of knowledge, but it will also push the contributors to stretch their minds and/or art skills.

I'll think on it some more, and get back later with any ideas I have.

 

[Ryusaki]

YES! :thumb_up:
I can draw/paint, render 3D stuff and push pixels around in Photoshop.
Count me in.

 

[Pup Tentacle]

sounds groovy

 

[Guyomech]

So this is the third draft, where I've incorporated Global's comments and some different structuring, plus more from the Wiki. This is a much longer list than the Wiki, and is focused mainly on actual hyperspace elements rather than the harder to illustrate subjective phenomena such as "hyper slap" or "Planting a flag". I've also incorporated a bunch of Hyperspace Fool's entity list and other stuff, and have added dark entities to the list.

Please contribute! Once this has been fleshed out some more we can hammer it into a proper work thread. Anyway, the list:

Closed Eye Visuals

Morphing DMT wall-filling stuff:
JimJam or Plasmatis (seen as organic or sticky, sometimes melted)
Shifting patterns (animations)
Repeated tile patterns- square, triangle, honeycomb
Schnorkel (shifting ornamentation/filigree)
Hyper puzzle pieces
Fractal stuff
Lego-like or cubic assemblages
Self-assembling geometric elements (animations)

Architectural elements:
Domes/chambers
Toroidal spaces
Vaulted or cathedral spaces
Columns/pillars, possibly with animal or deity faces at top
Gateways or entrances
Pyramids
Labyrinths
Infinite receding or grid-like spaces
Folding rooms
Jeweled temples or towers
Mansions
Dollhouses
Castles (think Disney castle but made of neon lace)
Cities
Medieval fortresses
Crawl Spaces
Spires
Space ship hangars
Subterranean rooms with water basins
Statues (i.e. Egyptian Sentinels)
Corkscrew stairwells with velvet carpet
Computer control rooms
Storage closets for inactive DMT things (yes they have this)
Bedrooms

Entities (define different levels?):
Wind-up automata (not appearing to have a strong sense of agency)
Jesters, harlequin beings
Circus ringleaders
Machine Elves
Geniuses or genii
Elf goddess
Morphos or shapeshifters
Fairies, flirty fairies
Goddesses and gods
Angels, archangels, seraphim (beings that seem to control all lower entities)
Hindu-style or Tibetan-style multi-limbed deities
Egyptian deities including animal deities
Tentacled entities
Geometric entities
Serpents
Animal entities, or animal/humanoid hybrids
Entities made of points, pixels, serpents, vapor, fluid, etc
Archetypal golden beings, golden babies
Chandelier-like entities
Plant and object devas
Hyperspace wizards
Dragon entities
Eye entities
Gaian mind
Godhead depictions
Dark entities:
Negative unraveling entities
Shadow people
Baphomet, or other negative energy deities
Entities switching from benign to threatening

Objects, often given as gifts or presented by entities:
Orbs (Faberge eggs from Mars)
Jeweled objects
Hyperspace tarot cards
Memory crystals

Scripts (hovering in space, imprinted in surfaces, etc)
Alien lettering
Heiroglyphics
Runes
High-tech circuitry script
Hologram numerals, where the overlap of elements conveys deeper data, etc

Machinery or technology:
Self-operating, or
Operated by entities
Cogs and wheels (like the inside of a clock but in multiple Escher-like dimensions)
Electric orbs (think of what happens when you look at a light bulb or other bright light source on DMT)
Space ships
Compartmentalized elements
Laboratory settings
Goofy technology (take technological motifs and just get silly with it!)

Wormholes, tunnels, hallways

Mandalas, sacred geometry
"The Chrysanthemum", or glass chrysanthemum

Furniture and other inert objects

Illogical, self contradictory geometric elements

Stylistic variants:
Mayan
Shipibo
Haida
Egyptian
Gothic/western
Islamic/ middle eastern
Asian
Techno/futuristic/fusion
African
Voodoo
Whimsical fantasy
Dayglo
Art deco
Heavenly (think sunset clouds/intricately adorned golden gates)
Chapel-like (stained glass)
Fionacci-esque fanning (think of objects being arrayed in a receding kind of a fashion or like a well arranged chandelier)


Open Eye Visuals

Interior spaces transformed by psychedelics
Nature scenes transformed by psychedelics
"Candyland", or the pristine, polished, "enhanced" open eyed reality

Translucent vector holography
Arching vectors bounding around the room
Floating Buddhist/Celtic interweaves


So... Let's hear your comments. I'll keep revising the list until we have some kind of basic consensus. Then we can start finding and creating visual depictions of them. Ideally, some collaborations could come of it.

In particular we should comment on things that we've actually experienced. This is one way of narrowing down the most universal elements, the ones that a hyperspace traveler is most likely to see. The experience is highly subjective per the individual, but there are definitely things that are mentioned again and again. I think this is too complicated of a question to make a poll from, so one way to do this would be to just copy and paste the things from this list that you've actually experienced, along with any descriptive comments. For instance, in post #8 in this thread, jbark made just such a list. If we could get fifty lists like this that would be golden. Here's mine:

JimJam or Plasmatis
Shifting patterns (animations)
Repeated tile patterns- square, triangle, honeycomb
Schnorkel (shifting ornamentation/filigree)
Hyper puzzle pieces
Fractal stuff
Self-assembling geometric elements
Domes/chambers
Vaulted or cathedral spaces
Columns/pillars
Gateways or entrances
Infinite receding or grid-like spaces
Crawl Spaces
High-tech circuitry script
Electric orbs
Wind-up automata
Tentacled entities (dark)
Shadow people
Geometric entities
Chandelier-like entities
Godhead depictions
Mandalas, sacred geometry
"The Chrysanthemum"
Wormholes, tunnels, hallways
Illogical, self contradictory geometric elements

Let's see all of your lists... and please add to the one here.

 

[Global]

Architecture

Mansions
Doll houses
Castles (think Disney castle but made of neon lace)
Citites
Medieval fortresses
Crawl Spaces
Spires (preferably filled with bird elements on the inside)
Space ship hangars
Subterranean rooms with water basins
Statues (i.e. Egyptian Sentinels)
I know you included columns, but I’d like to note that faces (alien/human/animal…whatever) work well on top in the Egyptian style
Basket/drawers kind of room (we can go over this one in detail)
Corkscrew stairwells with velvet carpet
Computer control rooms
Storage closets for inactive DMT things (yes they have this)
Bedrooms


Entities

You noted the animal deities, and I would note a distinction between the more “pure” animal deities (such as the Bennu Bird which is a giant heron) as opposed to the therianthropes such as how Thoth can be depicted with a human body and an Ibis head). Important to note that many deities were depicted both ways (i.e. Horus and Thoth). I would also like to emphasize Pharaoh figures (think King Tut’s sarcophagus but animated). The way Egyptians presented the splay of feathers is also geometrically important, and offers opportunity for interesting color bands.

Archetypal golden people (like mannequins)
Golden babies
Glitches
Chandelier-like entities
Your entity list is pretty comprehensive I feel

Scripts

Hologram numerals (if you can get a real close up look, you may see as I have that holograms can have tiny alien numerals at the vertices where the vector lines meet. It could possibly be a kind of data-informing element that lets the hologram know how it can assemble itself (like the “DNA” of hyperspace).
Indecipherable mathematical formulae

Machinery

Cogs and wheels (like the inside of a clock but in multiple Escher-like dimensions)
Electric orbs (think of what happens when you look at a light bulb or other bright light source on DMT)
Space ships
Compartmentalized elements
Laboratory settings
Goofy technology (take technological motifs and just get silly with it!)


Illogical, self contradictory geometric elements

Folding/unfolding
Multidimensional geometry (artists should refer to this video for an understanding of how to depict multiple dimensions so they can get as creative as possible with this. If we could then use someone’s 3D rendering abilities, then maybe we can really take this somewhere. To just make tesseracts or penteracts would be as if everything in 3D were just platonic solids. They’re not. Those 3D shapes make up “things” that we recognize as significant in the same way that 4D geometry can make up multidimensional things we see as meaningful. Part of what they don’t show in that video is that a somewhat stronger multidimensional effect can be created when the geometric faces overlap and aren’t simply distanced from each other. This can be harder to achieve, especially by hand, but on a computer with the right software, I’m thinking it could be pretty easy to draw the faces further apart, connect the vectors and then pull them together. Perspective is very important here, as it is in 3D.
Overlap figures (i.e. like my avatar. If we can do something similar with other figures using 3D models, it would be pretty cool.)

Stylistic variants

African
Voodoo
Whimsical fantasy
Dayglo
Art deco
Heavenly (think sunset clouds/intricately adorned golden gates)
Chapel-like (stained glass)
Fionacci-esque fanning (think of objects being arrayed in a receding kind of a fashion or like a well arranged chandelier)

Open-eyed visuals

Translucent vector holography
Arching vectors bounding around the room
Floating Buddhist/Celtic interweaves

 

[Jin]

i'll be working on some of these themes and submitting asap

 

[jbark]

Closed Eye Visuals

"Jimjam", or morphing DMT wall-filling stuff:
Shifting patterns (animations)
Repeated tile patterns- square, triangle, honeycomb
Melted jimjam
Hyper puzzle pieces
Fractal stuff
Lego-like or cubic assemblages
Self-assembling geometric elements (animations)

Architectural elements:

Infinite receding or grid-like spaces
J

Scripts (hovering in space, imprinted in surfaces, etc)
Alien lettering
High-tech circuitry script

Machinery or technology:
Self-operating, or
Operated by entities

Illogical, self contradictory geometric elements


Any other OEVs worth illustrating?

Just to corroborate I have cut and paste the experiences I have had from your list. I left the last question to respond to:

My end of trip OEVs consist of a strange and seemingly paradoxical combinations of the multidimensional and simple primary coloured 2D visuals. For example, a wood latted wall and ceiling becomes a scintillating 2d orange and black outlined cartoon but with a visual sense of the air fractalizing and pulsing between me and it.

In terms of entities, for me they are relatively rare, but appear either as elf or gnome-like diminutive peripheral half-visions that operate the pan-dimensional winding hyperspatial machinery, or as hyper-real visions of people that are trying to pierce through the jimjammy mayhem to impress something upon me and convey some vital and pressing bit of information.

From Global's list:

"Machinery

Cogs and wheels (like the inside of a clock but in multiple Escher-like dimensions)

Open-eyed visuals

Translucent vector holography" (at least as I understand that description - see above)

The rest is as alien to me as it must be alien to you when you see it.

Good thread.

JBArk

 

[Hyperspace Fool]

Cool that you wanna do this. I am guessing that I have put fully 1/3rd of what is on the Lexicon now up there myself.

Terms like:

Hyperslap
Folding Rooms
Mental Backflip
Most of the Spice Slang Stuff
Including Smoalk
Dimensional Elevator
Shut Out
An entire taxonomy of Entities

and much more.

I am actually a tad confused because nearly nothing on your list here is actually up on the Lexicon... and vice versa, nearly nothing that is on the Lexicon is on your list. Also, the Lexicon is alphabetized already.

Perhaps you are not actually dealing with this Hyperspace lexicon - DMT-Nexus Wiki ?

Anyway, nice to see others interested in terminology.

 

[cyb]

The term 'GOO' should really be added to the Lexicon as it is fast becoming a standard term for NN,DMT/NMT mix.

/me ponders how to make Goo in Photoshop

 

[Guyomech]

I guess this could be a list of the more easily illustrative things- actual hyperspace visual elements as opposed to experiences such as "hyperslap" or "planting a flag", which would be fun to see depicted but would be a different kind of challenge. For now I thought we should start with things that we actually see in hyperspace. Since the lexicon itself is such a mixed bag of terms, I thought it might be nice to start with a list like this (much of which was gleaned from the lexicon and the Lets Depict threads) and allow members to reflect on this list as a stand-alone thing. As we start to amass the illustrations themselves they will end up in at least two places: re-incorporated into the Lexicon, and also put together into a gallery (Index of Psychedelic Visuals).

I also like the idea of corroboration- if there were some way for members to click an "I've experienced this" button alongside an illustration and/or description, that might tell us a lot about which visions are the most universal.

These are just ideas; please share yours. Cyb had suggested that we set a basic guideline: Try to limit yourself to illustrating things that you've actually experienced, or are in some way directly inspired by an experience you've had. The exception would be when working in collaboration with other members who have had the experience in question. This is to keep a higher level of authenticity.

 

[obliguhl]

I would also suggest to add audio to make this a a lexicon with true synaesthetic qualities :thumb_up: Only add self-made sounds which actually produce flashbacks or create that state the word is describing. I did that with rainbow yawns ...

Not sure if you want to limit this threads to graphical illustrations only, let me know ...

 

[Guyomech]

Sounds and full audio/video are absolutely welcome! Starting with the carrier wave...


And so the above list has been edited into a second draft, incorporating Global and Hyperspace Fool's lists. I'm asking members to copy and paste elements from the list that they've actually experienced into a new post, so we can compare all of your personal lists and find the elements that are the most universal. My personal list is at the bottom of the second draft, and jbark's list is in post #8. We need to see more!

 

[Jin]

just something i have been working on , i know its crap , i guess it will take me some time to submit something worthwhile , however i am on it people , next time i'll post when i have something worthwhile , for now i am just too eager i guess

 

[Guyomech]

Jin, I really like those, the subliminal structural quality is cool. These could even be superimposed over a regular OEV view of a room or whatever. Hey, any chance you could go through that list near the top of the thread and copy/paste the elements you've actually experienced into a new post? Plus, please mention anything you'd like to see added to the list. The drawings you just posted could qualify as "infinite receding spaces". But it would be really interesting to see what items listed are experienced the most frequently.

 

[Jin]

no list brother..............please forgive

feel free to use whatever i have posted , i will try to submit better work

becoming more empty-headed everyday , i avoid words like a plague now , if i make a list i am not sure anything will get done , my creativity needs me to stay away from language for good

and whenever i think about it i see a grand vision that can hardly be described with words

edit : the words that come to my mind when i try making a list are , infinity , eternity and such which make no sense until i create it graphically

and the list posted above is quite comprehensive , i am not sure i can add something to it

 

[Hyperspace Fool]

Seems like your edited list is rather comprehensive now, Guyomech.

I would add under the "objects given as gifts or shown to psychonauts" section:

Hyperspace Tarot Cards
Memory Crystals

And as for entities, they are so varied and unpredictable, but I suppose we could toss in the Dragons, Hyperspace Wizards, and the various fantasy archetypes that show up from time to time... as well as the ALIENS. (Greys, Reptilians, Lion Headed Dudes etc. etc.)

We can also decide if we want to deal with the Dark Entities and Parasites or not....

Anyway, good work.
HSF

 

[Global]

We can also decide if we want to deal with the Dark Entities and Parasites or not....

Anyway, good work.
HSF

I feel that to not represent them would be kind of like a form of repression or urge for control or something along those lines. I think it would be most "healthy" to represent them here as a necessary form of integration. Take my Unraveling Negative Entities experience as an example. In post #9 I illustrate the alchemical transformation of a negative entity. Now I'm not saying that we include my illustration persay (or perhaps if someone with real artistic talent would like to take a good stab at my rough skeleton of a visual idea, then be my guest), but I simply offer it as an example of how we can be creative in addressing this issue.

 

[Guyomech]

Dark entities are indeed part of the landscape. For my own part would be "shadow people" who beckon and gesture but are just humanoid voids of darkness, somewhat ominous; and I did list "tentacle entities" because I've heard of a few different variations- in my case it was hanging and writhing above me as I glopped around in a hyperspatial sewage tunnel (burnt spice can be icky).

Global and HF, if you guys would be willing to copy/paste items from the main list to make your own personal lists ( including any descriptive notations) that would be very helpful in getting the ball rolling with encouraging other members to share their lists and to add to the main one. I really feel that this work is important. Meanwhile I'll add the dark entities now and will clean up this thread a little later tonight. Gotta tattoo the in-laws today.

 

[steppa]

Just saw this thread. Great! I'm in.

Where to start? Just pick one thing from the list? Or is there something like a "most wanted" scene which I should try to picture first?

On thing: I'm nearly unable to draw. If I draw a horse, it could also happen to look like a rat or a dog or a cow.

But I'm doing at least ok with 3D-Software (C4D) and Photoshop and some fractal generation programs. So this would be my tools of choice then.