Trippy Animation Raises Questions

Adam Elenbaas
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Albert Hoffman is known as the "father of LSD." His research of lysergic acid led to the synthesis of LSD in 1938. Hoffman called LSD "medicine for the soul."

In his "trippy" flashback animation music video, "Acid and Shrooms Flashback," artist Danny Gomez attempts to get at the heart of the medicinal effects of psychedelics through intense visuals and trance music.

In the video, a doctor in the likeness of Hoffman guides a patient into a healing shamanic trance to help him find his inner self. Click to watch it below:

 

 

While entertaining, visually dazzling and contains catchy music produced by Gomez himself, "Acid and Shrooms" does raise some questions about the purpose and integrity of such art:

Does the music video accomplish anything other than visual wizardy and some conceptual magic?

For a world that is steeped in the pain of fragmentation, soul-loss, and anxiety, how should we present the utility of psychedelics as medicine?

Is it enough to simply hurl dazzling images onto a screen? Is this any different than an Itunes visualizer?

If so, then how does this presentation of the psychedelic experience differ from the presentation of psychedelics among the practitioners of the plants themselves, among the archaic shamans? Is this sort of art only the feedback loop of a western, opticentric world, or is it more than that?

Is it possible that our glamorization of psychedelics in western art is representative of our cultures lack of shamanic guidance during our time of initiation in the 1960's?

A healthy discussion may be beneficial. Please check out the video and leave your thoughts.

(Check out another intense audio piece featuring the voice of comedian and ex Fear-Factor Host, Joe Rogan)

Comments

A Blip in the Cultural Landscape?

Submitted by Jonathan Talat Phillips on Thu, 07/19/2007 - 15:38.
I agree that the Hoffman/patient dynamic doesn't really add much to contemporary consciousness or healing global wounds (and makes the video start off very slow), but I do think there is an overall psychic effect of introducing new visuals and music to culture and having them circulate. Those black light and day-glo psychedelic posters of the sixties help define a certain era and the zeitgeist of the time just as blinkies, el wire, ayahuasca images (this vid seems more about that than LSD), and digitally-mixed icaros represent what I (and many of my friends) believe is an emergent culture(s). I don't think this video is going to enlighten anyone or resolve their issues with their mother, but it add another blip in a growing cultural landscape.

"I don't think this video is

Submitted by Adam Elenbaas on Thu, 07/19/2007 - 15:45.
"I don't think this video is going to enlighten anyone or resolve their issues with their mother..." hahahaha I like that. I don't think it does either. It's a neat video though. I just wonder if art of this kind, at this time, bears the responsibility of trying to go deeper than being the zeitgeist? Adam Elenbaas

visionary enchantment

Submitted by jack on Thu, 07/19/2007 - 16:59.
In the consumer culture of contemporary American society with its emphasis on external appearances and its obsession with logical analytical left-brain thought processes expressed through alphabetical written language, where image is thought of as decoration and sound is relegated to the realm of background ambience or escapist entertainment, it is easy to mistake such a presentation as this with glamorization. The intro with the fly was a little irritating, but it reminded me of the sense that something just isn't quite right about our way of life. I thought the city skyline and condominium cubicle represented the egocentricity of our society and ourselves as individuals. The box. All rigid definition of hard straight lines and planes in right angle intersections. Not krazy seems to be the way that we deny the insanity of living the way we do. The onslaught of hallucinations seems to be the sudden encounter with a reality far deeper than any we could ever imagine. The doctor speaks as though these experiences are familiar. Familiar not only with regard to what he has heard from his patients, but more importantly in the sense that he is drawing on his own direct personal experiences which have given him the ease and comfort of feeling entirely at home in this world. The drum acts directly on the mind in the depths of the soul, probing a phenomenon far beyond the bounds of psychoanalysis. The drum calls out to the entire depth and breadth of the psyche, releasing the voyager from the constraints of rationality. Rhythm is a vehicle which carries us beyond the world of words. The doctor acts more as a shaman, invoking the sacred mystery. Just as the doctor says there is nothing to fear, he morphs into an otherworldly creature, still anthropomorphic but profoundly transformed. All image that was easily conceptualized blossoms into a right-brain complexity of contour, line, shape, color, texture, and composition. The word fear flanges suggesting a tangible experience unbound by the confines of data and definition. The fear is that we will discover that the world is not what we think it is. This is precisely the point. The cartoonish abstractions of our stick figure reality flesh out into a living landscape populated with creatures that wish to develop meaningful relationships with us. At this point, I'm using "us" to mean the ego in general. Even at this point, the ego itself becomes transformed. An archaic primordial richnes is revealed beneath the surface of what we think we know ourselves to be, and finds itself very much at home within this primal world. The transfigured self steps into a glyph, taking its place as the development in an ancient progression. The meaning of the self is not a simple definition. Some interpret this as the absence of meaning. That is an egocentric misconception. The meaning of the self in this animation sequence is overflowing with unbearable significance. Meaning and purpose are instruments dependent upon and in the service of a deeper reality which is our living presence involved in all its relationships within a living world. The chanting of tribal shamans and tuvan throat singers endow the sonic landscape with a spiritual vitality. These sounds return our awareness to its true center in the soul. The background moves with kaleidoscopic rorschach fractal arabesques, reflecting the depths of the unconscious mind. This use of image is far removed from image as it is utilized in advertising. This would be opticentric if it were not for the soundtrack. Sound and image work together to produce an expression that induces a subjective experience, conveying a communion with something beyond words and numbers. Sure, we live in a culture where tibetan prayer flags are just another form of ornamentation and a dorje is just another coffee table conversation piece. Things like this don't change overnight. We are trained in our education to regurgitate information in speech and writing. Most of us are out of touch with body language, which actually makes up about 90% of all communication. People can use anything as an escape, but I found this piece to be quite meaningful. Psychedelic medicine is far beyond utility. Our culture is only really in touch with about 10% of anything. Psychoanalysts refer to mental illness as "disorder" and "dysfunction," revealing our mechanistic misconception of mind. Psychedelic medicine brings us back to our connection with a significance in existence which is far beyond functionality, utility, and order. Part of our disease is the misconception that our minds ought to be orderly and functional. All utility and functionality are dependent upon and in the service of a far greater reality. The logical, analytical, verbal, and mathematical area of the brain is a rather small region in the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere of our cerebral cortex. Like the ego, it is dependent upon and in the service of something far greater than itself. Psychedelic medicine brings us back to where we belong, in a world where our importance is is not in opposition to others and outer, but in relation to them. Images rich in texture and color as well as complicated, especially curling and curving lines, rounded surfaces call forth the spatial relational right hemisphere. Music invokes the power of the corpus collusum, coordinating and integrating the functions of both hemispheres. This is defragmentation. The alienated aspects of ourselves are brought back into union as we return to union with the world. This journey of restoration places us back where we began in our ego within an egotistical society, yet there is a definite sense that an invisible presence of far greater significance is still with us in this place, subtly guiding us every step along the way. In the middle ages when only a few monks were literate, some cathedrals were carved with scenes from the bible. These images were teachings. This video piece is also a teaching. The difference is that now, we are so absorbed in literacy that we have forgotten how to interpret these other forms of communication. In fact, we sometimes do not recognize that sound and image can be meaningful in any way. In primal cultures, shamans often use sound, image, and dance as elements of ritual. Ceremony engages all aspects of our being. This teaching is alive and can only be understood through participation. The video is to an extent intended for spectators, but I found that it was evocative and engaging in a way that made me feel involved. The DMT experience, in particular, is fully encompassing. Under the influence of DMT, one is immersed and involved in another world. Archaic shamans introduce ritual through storytelling beside a fire. In our computerized culture, we communicate through a digital medium. The video tells a story of an experience. As compelling as it is, it is hardly an advertisement for a sort of tourism. There is a definite sense of the numinous throughout the piece. Something frightening and overwhelming, not to be taken lightly. Although not promotional, the piece suggests that this may be an experience worth having. Shamans from tribal culture which use psychoactive plants often say that the plant spirits guided them to the knowledge of psychoactivity and how these various concoctions ought to be prepared. The plants themselves are teachers. We must invent a new paradigm from within our cultural context. We often borrow from other traditions which return us to archetypes of the unconscious and the spirit world. Shamans are those who receive this guidance. Our guidance must emerge from within our culture. Just as a child learns to speak by first listening and then imitating, so also our culture is drawing on other traditions in order to develop its own. jack

interesting points

Submitted by Adam Elenbaas on Thu, 07/19/2007 - 18:52.

I like the video for many of the same reasons you bring up. I'm just not sure that the video does much to touch on the reality of what a medicinal psychedelic experience with a shaman is like or can be like.

I don't want to play elitist. I certainly want to avoid sounding like I have universal answers or prescriptive statements to make about this cool piece of art. I certainly agree that the intro shows us a patient who is feeling out of sorts while in his everyday, "sane" consciousness.

 

Then I see Albert Hoffman, representing, I guess?, an LSD shaman, hitting a drum very simply and immediately catapaulting his "patient on the couch" into what we then see as the realm of ego dissolution, greater/higher self, whatever deep reality lies behind the curtain that is apparently "medicine."

 

The music repetetively at one point just chants "dmt, lsd"---in the likeness of something like the song "I'm blue if I were green I would die." I think that band was called Eifel 54 or something? I think it's super catchy and fun. So I'm not trying to belittle it. This, alongside dancing mushrooms that appear, seem to suggest that the patient has been transported into the ether of a "one world" psychedelic experience that is mainly visual, filled with interesting geometry and mandalas, etc.

 

In this world, again, the shaman seems to be nothing more than a small elbow gesture towards the scientist who synthesized LSD, perhaps the shaman is just a drug or chemical itself. It also seems to suggest that all you really need is some goa trance music in place of a practitioner.

 

In my experience in both the world of synthesized, recreational, do-it-yourself, set setting, go into yoru backyard with your headphones and guitar psychedelics, and the world of Amazonian practitioners of healing song and Ayahuasca brew making--the differences couldn't be more vast. I really don't want to judge that one is better than another.

 

But I would be lying if I said that one has not been more medicinal for me than the other. I am also not hesitant to say that Ayahuasca medicine with practitioners, brewers, and icaro masters is probably going to offer more in the way of healing and far less in the way of "visual" visions. This video seems to glamorize the chemical and the vision. I sat next to a woman this summer in ceremony who relived 38 rapes in one ceremony.

 

A vietnam vet. Drug addicts. The icaros often kept the mandalas at bay so that she could focus on the sphere of the experience that is often indifferent by nature: the visuals. In Peru, the government is currently trying to regulate the practice of Ayahuasca medicine men across the country because of the income of ayahuasca healing centers--call it tourism if you'd like.

 

I think its pertinent that we examine why we are obsessed with dmt and the visual mandala. In my experiences, the visual mandala explosion is like a red herring. Sure, we can dissolve into it, we can intellectually surf it quite calmly--maybe a few good vomits or a trip to the bathroom here or there. But when it comes down to the medicinal work--it's not goa trance music and mandalas. It's not "dmt" or "lsd."

 

In my experience it's been masters of the energy helping a patient descend into the darkness. Mostly, for me, this involves moving far past the visual mandalas and "trance" quality of the experience. It's not quite a trance dance when you're in hell and learning to forgive and release judgment. All the same, I dig the video. As a "spectator" piece, I think its cool. I just wonder if, for a world of people who may need healing more than "spiritual spectatorship," if our psychedelic ambassadors might do more to represent the power of the experience more than the power of the trance, chemical, or visual. I also think this piece tells a story. I'm just not sure what that story is. I see a lot of stuff that I've seen on lots of trips.

 

You're also right--the plants are the teachers. However, the plants, as I've been taught by Morgan Brent my shaman friends in Peru and others, are often indifferent to human beings. Recently participating in a dieta in Peru, I ushered a host of new plant spirits into my body during my stint of ceremonies. This is far different than ingesting dmt or lsd. It is a daily walk or integrating plant teachers into the physiology and is much much different than a psychedelic trip in many ways.

 

I believe it takes established relationships with the plants in order to perform and conduct as a maestro of a ceremony. In our culture sometimes I think that we think that just because we have seen freedom, just because we know how to jazz and paint outside the lines and trip on lsd and get our minds blown, that anyone is a shaman. This video, to me feels just a touch cavalier to me. If we want shamanic medicine, then we have to train some practitioners. It's an art, like surgery. Just because we like jazz doesn't mean we give Louis Armstrong a scalpel.

 

Perhaps its the incredibly disciplined and long lineage of medicine men I have worked with in the Amazon, perhaps it's that I have troubles with my ego of some sort. I return to drink Ayahuasca every summer because I know this to be true! The work of the medicine is daily. :-)

 

I know for a fact that the Peruvian shamans I've worked with find "dmt" to be very indifferent and non-sensical without a brew, a master shaman, and the guidance of many, many arcanas and plant spirits working in cohort. I would love to see Ayahuasca clinics in our country or Ayahuasca workshops or whatever.

We need ceremonies guided by shamans, the whole thing. I don't think that would happen if our advertisements looked or felt like this video. But--I'm learning as I go with every little precious opinion I have. Your thoughts are iron on iron. peace--adam Adam Elenbaas

point well taken

Submitted by jack on Sun, 07/22/2007 - 14:47.

     Although I do feel that the video gives us a taste of the overwhelming character of an ayahuasca session, it certainly doesn't go very far into the deeply personal experiences you are describing.  It is a flashy piece.  All the same, there is a monstrous, foreboding quality to it that suggests something deeper.

     I thought that the music complemented the eerie otherworldly quality of the strange creatures in the piece.  I enjoyed the blend of tribal music with modern instruments and electronic effects.

     Perhaps this is one way to draw attention to the subject.  Something somewhat incomplete, but suggesting something more.  I'm not sure how to recommend an experience like "when you're in hell and learning to forgive and release judgment."

     That is where the ayahuasca clinics come in.  There are currently a few schools of psychology which are poised for just this sort of exploration.  The influence of anthropology and Dr. Andrew Weil's integrative medicine are breaking new ground for our culture in this realm.

     I've only ever used an ayahuasca analog.  I was with two friends who vomited before they could absorb anything.  It worked quite well for me.  They sat with me anyway, but did little more than simply to be present.  In many ways, that was for the best.

     I'd love to go to Peru to study with healers.  I imagine their guidance is second-to-none.  My understanding of ayahuasca in the amazon comes from a book called _Wizard of the Upper Amazon_ by F. Bruce Lamb.  The book is the transcript of an oral biography by and about a fellow named Manuel Cordova-Rios.  I cannot recommend this enough.

     In some ways I think of this video in the same way as I think of Jose Arguelles' Dreamspell calendar.  Arguelles at least got people thinking differently about time, which, in turn, provides a loose familiarity that creates interest in the more archaeologically accurate work of John Major Jenkins.

     My words aren't quite coming out right.  Arguelles got a lot of attention.  Because of that, a lot of people heard about the Mayan calendar and took an interest.  As a result, people who want to know more have a loose idea and can find out more.

     I think the video could work in a similar way.  It might make people want to know more.

     I have come to believe that the complete ayahuasca experience is really a way of life.  Most of what is crucial takes place in the most ordinary moments.  The true healing takes place in what we do with most of our time which is hopefully sober.

     I feel this has a lot to do with how we understand our relationships with other living things.  I also feel very strongly that there is a need for community.  When I have such experiences without the support of others who share a common interest, I just don't get as much out of it.  I also have much greater difficulty retaining what I've learned and maintaining the changes I need to make.

     I'd love to know more about the practices you've learned in Peru.  I'm very interested in all of it, not just the ayahuasca sessions.  In the book I recommended above, there is a rigorous training process which accompanies the ritual use of yage.  The brew is given after eight week periods of mental, physical, and spiritual discipline.

     Training is also of great benefit in terms of making the most of these experiences.  It is difficult to come up with something like that which would work in our culture.  We would need an entirely different educational system.

     I agree that the piece is a bit cavalier and admittedly somewhat superficial in relation to a profound and complex phenomenon. 

     If you look at how american culture has responded to yoga, you'll see a parallel.  Our culture is competitive and consumeristic.  Everything is an advertisement.

     It's like the 1960's.  Some people feel that not much has changes since then, but most of them really are not aware of what things were like in the 1950's.  When viewed in its historical context, this time period covered considerable ground.  In the 1950's, for example, women were given electro shock therapy for being free thinkers.

     I'm not making the best points.  I just mean, the video is pretty american, but for being american it's better than I thought it might be.  Nothing short of a personal experience will truly do justice to ayahuasca.  A guided experience is definitely preferable.  The icaros would do a much better job than a Paul Oakenfold recording.

     Still, few people will be able to make it to Peru, and now the tourist expectation is probably diluting what they are looking for.

     Jonathan Ott wrote _Ayahuasca Analogues_ to promote an alternative to this kind of tourism.  It's really not good for the indigenous cultures.  Perhaps people like you who have been trained in this way can help the rest of us?  We can make these concoctions from plants that grow in our backyard--or at least a state park--and find a way to integrate these tribal systems into our modern world.

     Well, I guess that's all illegal.  There we have another problem.  Research just can't be done nearly as well under that kind of pressure.  So people end up trying these kind of things at Burning Man and Boneroo or whatever and I guess that's where it stands today.

     I think we are in store for a number of other false starts on our way back to union with the primal mind.  Like it or not, I'm a WASP.  I've been alienated from my own cultural heritage and a more meaningful and personal relationship to wilderness and the sacred.

     This is all within us somewhere, but we will have to adapt it to the world we are a part of in the present.  That involves a lot of unfortunate behavioral conditioning from my upbringing, my education, and the media.

     My attention span is about to snap.  Snap and span have the same letters.  So do pans and naps.  I guess I need to eat and sleep.

thank you for your thoughtful reply.

jack

P.S.

Submitted by jack on Sun, 07/22/2007 - 14:50.
     Perhaps trippy animation can raise an interest that could bring people together in enough numbers to create a movement, of sorts.  That's probably silly.  I don't know, it got me writing with you and that's a start.  Ayahuasca and psychedelic medicine in general really need a lot of people working together in numerous ways to really get the job done.  The animation sequence is like a preview that showcases some of the more attractive features, but maybe some people will stick around for the more important parts of the film.

SHPONGLED

Submitted by mondocane on Tue, 07/24/2007 - 03:40.

Just thought that I would mention that this trip clip is set to Shpongle's song entiltled Divine Moments of Truth. I believe that through a lot of difficult work Gomez is paying tribute to a deeply moving song created by Simon Posford of Shpongle territory. As an artist writer etc.. I feel strongly about the need to use your mind paint in any way possible to attempt to express what can be seen beyond our immediate confines. It is truely liberating to be able to unify the random and create art to share, in the many and varied mediums available to us all. A love of music and the people that make it to inspire themselves and others to do the same is a VERY VERY Healthy intention. To be inspired to create something to inspire others is happiness. I recommend others check out Shpongles work and another wonder that is Entheogenic (Swedish??) their music will urge you to do explore. I was delighted when I found that someone had done this for this track, it is in itself a manisfestation of one dudes attempt to extend the wonder. I think David Byrne of 'Talking Heads' had it right by plastering a small city with Art pieces, to compete out with KFC Adverts and all the like, exposing others to the extraordinary possibilities, Imagine if art installations  became the fabric of our focus. What an interesting everywhere it would be. Art has a giving with no thought of reward sense about it, it doesnt want you to buy anything, If likened to biological intent, it is altruistic, its nature is a catylyst for imagination generation. If you immerse yourself in unusual visual art for long enough, it has a tremendous ability to launch amalgamates in your own mind, breeding transmutations of ideas, and ultimately stimulating a need to produce these ideas into something utterly new. How fucking absolutely wonderful.

Feed your head Art

Dave

You beat me to it!

Submitted by Emanresu on Wed, 07/25/2007 - 22:28.
I was going to post about the music being used as well, but you beat me to it mondocane. Shpongle is probably one of the most influential psybient artists of our time. They have pioneered an electronic movement into the realm of psychedelic ambience. To compare them with Eiffel 65 is, well, unreasonable. I would encourage everyone to hear the works of Shpongle and Ott.