I’m using the following definitions for abstract and eidetic art. There are other ways the term “eidetic” is used. Eidetic memory refers to being able to recall an image so vividly that it appears to be real. I’ve read that it can be found in 2–15% of children and rarely in adults. The other use is in referring to an afterimage that fades after an intense vision, like sunlight and other bright images.
Abstract art is art that does attempt to represent external reality. But seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, form, colors and textures.
Eidetic art is art creating imagery in an attempt to represent vibrant mental images not derived from an external source or memory.
While eidetic imagery as I use it is almost universally experienced by people on psychedelics. The only light I’ve ever seen that approaches the quality of it’s what you see if you look into the rainbow spectrum refracted through a crystal. I keep a few of those around my home. When I see one of rainbows on a wall, I like to go over to it and stand with it shining in my eyes. I move my head slightly to experience the entire spectrum from the edges of infrared to ultraviolet.
I am certain that without the fruits of my hippie life I would never have produced this art. The difference from general abstract art as I see it, is that eidetic imagery is inherent in some deep recesses, usually unconscious part of our brains, and that using psychedelics opens to us; can even takes us into it as we become the light.
Each psychedelic substance has its own unique quality. I think I could tell which one I had on in a blinded test afterwards. During the timeless presence while enmeshed in those kinds of visions, it would never occur to me to ask such a question because there would be no me in a human sense there to be able to think anything much less something so quotidian. There’s usually some brilliant light with all of them that increases as the dosage rises. It can be extraordinarily vivid and indescribably beautiful. It can also be intensely beautiful in more delicate pastel shades. Things may also get real dark; an absence of light. For me, and I believe most of my fellow journeyers would say something similar. In all cases, the experience changes dramatically depending on dose. This said, we’re all different, and I am a visual type more than auditory.
Psilocybin is known for its rich-hued softly intense dancing geometries.
LSD gets sizzling electric when strong and can have beautifully structured pastels as one returns to their normal reality.
Ayahuasca can be very colorful or not. It’s known to provide more varied experiences than the other psychedelics. I’ve only done it twice, as it came along a few decades after my more daring experimental years I’ve experienced it both ways. Once there was little sense of light as my perspective radiated out from the earth at what seemed like a good fraction of the speed of light in an omnidirectional ever-expanding surface of a sphere. The other time there was lovely rich flowing light. Some people have realistic nature visions on it, even taking on jungle animal forms.
2C-B is not as colorful as the others until you up the dose. Once, on a solid trip dose, I was lying with a new partner with my eyes closed. In my internal vision I saw what I was told was her spirit as she journeyed across eons of time and galaxies gathering evermore beauty and love to bring to me. There’s no language for how incredibly beautiful she was. She was like a sparkling Christmas ornament with vast wings. It was all so very precious. Then I opened my eyes, looked into hers, and rushed even stronger.
Peyote and San Pedro are not known for being that visual. Even on strong doses I’ve found that to be true. Although it can get quite magical with the flame of a fire or a shifting light and shade on teepee’s cover.
NN-DMT and 5-MeO DMT are extremely short-acting ones. Before finishing exhaling, one can have left this Universe, only to return 15 or so minutes later that were timeless. While they are both short-acting and have similar names, they are quite different chemically. The 5-MeO is more closely related to psilocybin. NN is known for people seeing strange entities and other oddities. Once on it I felt the presence of another consciousness to whom I asked a question about something in my life. It answered in a language of colored bubbles. It seemed to make sense at the time but I couldn’t remember the content when I came back. Some people didn’t know that the 5 is about twice as potent as the more common NN and took too much. Unlike the other psychedelics, taking too much of these can hurt your mind’s neurophysiology. There are stories. Since we’re talking in milligrams (mg), you want to be sure of the dose. Fortunately, good mg scales are readily available online for $20–30. Pick up a box of lab papers, too. They’re very handy when dealing with powders, as they slide right off of the 3X3 sheets.
I now often experience a kind of light field that I first experienced on psychedelics and then on strong cannabis. I experience this when I am with my precious partner. I experience myself as a vast field of darkness permeated by a soft crystalline matrix of golden or phthalo blue light. It’s like a soft, all-space infusing mist of light. In those moments my lover is having her own unique version of the experience. There’s a quality that, in my experience, can only be experienced when entrained with a lover. It’s a very intimate experience to share.