Form constant

Form Constant

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Form constant

A form constant is one of several geometric pattern

Pattern

A pattern, from the French language patron, is a type of theme of recurring events of or objects, sometimes referred to as elements of a set....
s which are recurringly observed during hallucination

Hallucination

A hallucination, in the broadest sense, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus . In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid, substantial, and located in external objective space....
s and altered states of consciousness. They are also encountered during Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming

A lucid dream is a dream in which the person is aware that they are dreaming while the dream is in progress, also known as a conscious dream....
before the actual dream.

a class="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m5960128",this)' onMouseout='hide("m5960128")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/1926_in_science">1926

1926 in science

The year 1926 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below....
, Heinrich Klüver

Heinrich Klüver

Heinrich Kluver was a German-American psychologist born in Holstein, Germany.After having served in the German Army during World War I, he studied at both the University of Hamburg and the University of Berlin from 1920-23....
systematically studied the effects of mescaline

Mescaline

Mescaline or 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine is a naturally-occurring psychedelic alkaloid of the phenethylamine class. It is mainly used as a recreational drug, an entheogen, and a tool to supplement various practices for transcendence , including in meditation, psychonautics, art projects, and psychedelic psychotherapy....
(peyote

Peyote

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Encyclopedia

A form constant is one of several geometric pattern

Pattern

Hallucination

Lucid dreaming

A lucid dream is a dream in which the person is aware that they are dreaming while the dream is in progress, also known as a conscious dream....
before the actual dream.

History

In 1926

1926 in science

The year 1926 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below....
, Heinrich Klüver

Heinrich Klüver

Mescaline

Peyote

Lophophora williamsii , better known by its common name Peyote, , is a small, spineless cactus. It is native to southwestern Texas and through central Mexico....
) on the subjective experiences of its users. In addition to producing hallucinations characterized by bright, "highly saturated" colors and vivid imagery, Klüver noticed that mescaline produced recurring geometric patterns in different users. He called these patterns 'form constants' and categorized four types: lattices

Lattice (group)

In mathematics, especially in geometry and group theory, a lattice in Rn is a discrete subgroup of Rn which linear span the real number vector space Rn....
(including honeycomb

Hexagonal lattice

The hexagonal lattice or equilateral triangular lattice is one of the five 2D Lattice types.Three nearby points form an equilateral triangle....
s, checkerboard

Checkerboard

A checkerboard is a board on which English draughts is played. It is an 8×8 board and the 64 squares are of alternating dark and light color, often red and black....
s, and triangle

Triangle

A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or wikt:vertex and three sides or edges which are line segments....
s), cobweb

Spider web

File:Garden orbweaver with prey.jpgA spider web, spiderweb, spider's web or cobweb is a device built by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets....
s, tunnels, and spiral

Spiral

In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a central point, getting progressively farther away as it revolves around the point....
s.

Many of these shapes have an intriguing similarity to much of the imagery in Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Haeckel

'Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel' ,also written 'von Haeckel', was an eminent Germany biologist, natural history, philosopher, physician, professor and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including phylum, ph...
's Kunstformen der Natur
Kunstformen der Natur

Kunstformen der Natur is a book of lithography and autotype prints by Germany biologist Ernst Haeckel. Originally published in sets of ten between 1899 and 1904 and as a complete volume in 1904, it consists of 100 prints of various organisms, many of which were first described by Haeckel himself....
.

Precipitants

Klüver's form constants have appeared in other drug-induced and naturally-occurring hallucinations, suggesting a similar physiological process underlying hallucinations with different triggers. Klüver's form constants also appear in near-death experiences and hallucinations of those with synesthesia

Synesthesia

Synesthesia ?from the Ancient Greek , "together," and , "sensation" ? is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway....
. Other triggers include psychological stress, or threshold consciousness

Threshold consciousness

Threshold consciousness is the state of falling asleep or waking up.Physiological phenomenon that can occur in threshold consciousness including lucid dreaming, hypnagogia, hypnopompia, hypnagogic hallucinations, and sleep paralysis....
, hypnagogia

Hypnagogia

Hypnagogia , often misspelled hypnogaia or hypnogogia, is a term coined by Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury for the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep....
, insulin hypoglycemia, the delirium of fever

Fever

Fever is a frequent medical sign that describes an increase in internal body temperature to levels above normal. Fever is most accurately characterized as a temporary elevation in the body's thermoregulatory set-point, usually by about 1?2 ?C ....
, epilepsy

Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizure s. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain....
, psychotic episodes

Psychosis

Psychosis , with adjective psychotic, literally means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatry term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"....
, advanced syphilis

Syphilis

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The route of transmission of syphilis is almost always through sexual contact, although there are examples of congenital syphilis via transmission from mother to child in utero....
, sensory deprivation

Sensory deprivation

Sensory deprivation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimulus from one or more of the senses. Simple devices such as blindfolds or Hood and earmuffs can cut off sight and hearing respectively, while more complex devices can also cut off the sense of smell, touch, taste, thermoception , and 'gravity'....
, photostimulation

Photostimulation

Photostimulation is the use of light to artificially activate biological compounds, cell , or even whole organisms. Photostimulation can be used to noninvasively probe the causal relationships between different biological processes, using only light....
, electrical stimulation, crystal gazing

Crystal gazing

Crystal gazing is a form of divination or scrying achieved through trance induction by means of gazing at a crystal. It is also known as crystallomancy, gastromancy, and spheromancy....
, migraine headaches, dizziness

Dizziness

Dizziness describes a number of subjective symptoms, which the patient may describe as feelings of lightheadedness, floating, wooziness, giddiness, confusion, disorientation or loss of balance....
and a variety of drug

Drug

A drug, broadly speaking, is any chemical substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function....
-induced intoxication

Intoxication

Intoxication is the state of being affected by one or more Psychoactive drug. It can also refer to the effects caused by the ingestion of poison or by the overconsumption of normally harmless substances....
s. These shapes may appear on their own or with eyes shut in the form of phosphene

Phosphene

A phosphene is an entoptic phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without light actually entering the eye. The word phosphene comes from the Greek words phos and phainein ....
s, especially when exerting pressure against the closed eyelid.

Author Michael Moorcock

Michael Moorcock

Michael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy fiction who has also published a number of literary novels....
once observed in print that the shapes he had seen during his migraine headaches resembled exactly the form of fractal

Fractal

A fractal is generally "a rough or fragmented Shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity....
s. The diversity of conditions that provoke such patterns suggests that form constants reflect some fundamental property of visual perception

Visual perception

Visual perception is the ability to interpret information from visible light reaching the eye. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight or vision....
.

Cultural significance

The practice of the ancient art of divination

Divination

Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of a standardized process or ritual. Diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency....
may suggest a deliberate practice of cultivating form constant imagery and using intuition

Intuition

Intuition has many related meanings, usually connected to the meaning "ability to sense or know immediately without reasoning", and is often regarded as a divine or prophetic power, including:...
and/or imagination to derive some meaning from transient visual phenomena.

Psychedelic art

Psychedelic art

Psychedelic art is art inspired by the psychedelic experience induced by drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide, mescaline, and psilocybin....
, inspired at least in part by psychedelic substances, frequently includes repetitive abstract forms and patterns such as tessellation

Tessellation

A tessellation or tiling of the plane is a collection of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps. One may also speak of tessellations of the parts of the plane or of other surfaces....
, Moiré pattern

Moiré pattern

In physics, a moir? pattern is an interference pattern created, for example, when two grids are overlaid at an angle, or when they have slightly different mesh sizes....
s or patterns similar to those created by paper marbling

Paper marbling

Paper marbling is a method of aqueous surface design, which can produce patterns similar to marble or other stone, hence the name. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as sizing, and then carefully transferred to a sheet of paper ....
, and, in later years, fractal

Fractal

A fractal is generally "a rough or fragmented Shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity....
s. The op art

Op art

Op art, also known as optical art, is a genre of visual art, especially painting, that makes use of optical illusions."Optical Art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only blac...
genre of visual art created art using bold imagery very like that of form constants.

Form constant

History

Precipitants

Cultural significance

See also

External links