On this site we explore the aesthetics of psychedlic, trying to answer the question “what is psychedelic aesthetic?” Recently while i was looking at some videos that I intend to publish on the DPV i realized that we might be doing something wrong. WE gave in to the seperation between form and content which is the exact opposite message from the psychedelic message. Psychedelics liquefy the boundaries between form and content. During the psychedlic experience what you see is often how and what you feel. Abstract figures turn into emotions and thought. In a way the psychedelic experience is one of the greatest supports to the thought that the medium is the message.
This video of Allan Watts might not be considered psychedlic visualy by some, but my opinionis is that it’s visual part is just as psychedelic as the content part. In fact it’s hard for me to seperate the content from the form on this one. The way the nature is filmed, the way that Watts himself is filmed has a psychedelic notion to it. Many times we tend to define fluorescent colors and fractalic shapes as the essence of the psychedelic visualisation, but by that we dismiss the psychedlic visualisation of harmonic nature. Nature that seems to sing in harmony, every leaf in place, every ant in a harmonic order. I think this video captures this side of the psychedelic aesthetics, not only in content but also in form.
How many brain scientists had had the chance of studying a brain stroke from the inside out? Jill Bolt talked on TED about her own stroke, with remarkable openness. What she described may remind a psychedelic trip, so her fluent explanation about the mechanism behind that might shed some light on your own experiences; but the real light comes at the end of this beautiful, funny and touching clip…
some people can’t fall asleep. falling asleep can be the hardest thing to do. most of us have experienced this for a period..
but is falling asleep actually something you do? something you can achieve or fail at? you can not force it – it’s not a matter of will. it’s more like a habbit. (it’s more like a rabbit).
sleep is something that has to be given to us.
when we are falling asleep – falling like Alice in that rabbit hole – we can never put our fingers on it, like: there, you see, the border to sleep. we know, we fell asleep, we know we woke from sleep, but we can never say where or when exactly. this is a fundamental discrepancy of knowledge and experience. we can never say: now!, this is it. just like we know we were born, we know we shall die, but we will never experience it. it’s the limit of ego, the limit of selfconsciousness and certainty. since “i” (ego) can never say it in the present. so this is the limit of the certainty of the ego, that seemed so complete in its cogito or dubito. we never have our death, never have our birth, never have sleep. it is given to us by the others.
sleep transcends consciousness.
sleep is beyond sovereignty.
since the metaphysical entities no longer have the power to make our lifes understandable to us, we hardly have more than consistency to tell us what is real. and sleep – like birth and death – is inconsistency to the absoluteness of consciousness.
as you fall asleep, you become one with the room around you.
how are sleep and psychedelic culture connected?
alice’s story is one of a young girl dozing off in the hot afternoon and it is a common reference point for 20th century psychedelic culture. and let’s not forget all the eating of mushrooms and.. the caterpillar.
but this is merely pointing at a surface.
(alice in wonderland is an exploration into symbolic logics. so it might have something to do with language.)
we can state the similarity of dreams and trips, but what we need is a question that leads us further.
“couriouser and couriouser”
the question is important when we want to talk about (and experiment with) expanding consciousness – or consciousness-expanding practices and substances. the question is: where do we expand our consciousness to? what does this mean or what could it possibly mean?
are we all alone in our trips, like we are in sleep and death? or is it the other way around? is birth, death and sleep, is what transcends the limits of ego “community”: that what is given to us by others only?
but what could “be there” beyond consciousness, what could be there but consciousness to expand to? when we can expand our consciousness to it, how would it be any different from the consciousness we were so eagar to transcend in its absoluteness?
not being able to sleep, not being able to let go is not so trivial a matter. when we have only consistency to go by, who or what guaranties, we will find it again, once we let go?
what we can lose is the “world”, identity.
so that “world” is what we win, when we wake again.
if inconsistency is not dared, consistency can not show, since there is no substance to it, but what is found again.
“The camera won’t catch it” I told J. when we went on our last mushroom trip, overlooking the city from a near mountain. he said that whatever the camera can catch will be enough. It’s true, some home videos depicting people in trips can make one almost share their state of conciseness. maybe it’s because of the DIY feel, a slice of life that is less flamboyant but can be more convincing than any computer generated psychedelic visualization. So call some friends, film yourselves from the other side, just add a cheap effect and dreamy sound and spread your experience to millions of youtube viewers!
Larry Carlson is a highly surreal visionary multi-media artist whose videos are among the most psychedelic I’ve seen in a long time. Mixing esoteric motives with science fiction themes and spooky music, Carlson draws one into a strangely appealing and very suggestive trip. Be sure to visit his site, probably one of the most psychedelic websites in existence…
My first experience with psychedelic consciousness was through psychedelic trance gatherings. It’s been many years since that moment and I had my ups and downs with the psychedlic trance scene, but all in all I still feel a part of this secret tribe. This tribe is diverse, it exists everywhere and at all times. Every summer when the festival seasone peaks the tribe is gathering. People come from all over the world to share this one consciousness this one love.
Felix the Cat has a crazy little trip after going to sleep with a full belly. The video is cued to start near the trip sequence, so if you want to see the whole cartoon, skip to the beginning.
