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Entoptic vs. Eidetic Hallucination


Figure 8 : Fractals generated by computer programs and nature are isoforms of nonlinear psychedelic hallucinations.

Geometric hallucinations, or phosphenes, are considered to be entoptic, meaning they are a product of excitation and destabilization in spatial coupling between neural assemblies in the retina and visual cortex, and produce complex patterns similar to fractal recursion (Fig. 8). Entoptic hallucinations can be contrasted with eidetic hallucinations, which are more fully formed images that appear from visual memory or imagination. Psychedelic eidetic hallucinations are generally more explicitly personal than the abstract geometric forms associated with flicker phosphenes.

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Eidetic hallucination is considered to be rendered photographically or presented as a 3D virtual model. In psychedelic intoxication a strange conversion of eidetic and entoptic phenomena can occur when an eidetic image or symbol reproduces into a marching grid or kaleidoscopic network of repeating symbols with a juxtaposed eidetic image emerging within the repeating superstructure. For example, a subject may hallucinate a geometric grid of quickly spinning colored triangles, and as those triangles flicker across the visual field they suddenly cohere into a 3D wire-frame mesh of a more fully-realized eidetic snapshot of a human body or face. In addition to triangles, the overlaying grid may be composed of dots, circles, honeycomb, spiders, insects, centipedes, worms, snakes, reptiles, lizards, question marks, swastikas, teeth, piano keys, skulls, flowers, leaves, stars, eyes, billiard balls, dice, playing cards, human faces, alien faces, dancing elves, skeletons, clowns, jesters, writhing bodies, branching trees, cells, bacteria, paisleys, DNA, Japanese kanji, Byzantine tile patterns, Mesoamerican brick patterns, Native American totem patterns, Polynesian tiki patterns, and similar repeating archetypal forms.16 The fast flicker rate and embedded kaleidoscopic nature of this type of compound hallucination often defies formal description or the ability to accurately capture in art or memory. The hallucinogenic perception of a complex embedded symbolic grid or kinetic fractal superstructure is wholly unique to the tryptamine psychedelic experience; it may be the visual essence of what makes an experience authentically psychedelic