Entoptic phenomena (archaeology)

In archaeology, the term entoptic phenomena relates to visual experiences derived from within the eye or brain (as opposed to externally, as in normal vision).

In this respect they differ slightly from the medical definition, which defines entoptic phenomena as only applying to sources within the eye, not the brain.

[3] Entoptic Phenomena are interpreted in ways that can be understood, matched to objects or ideas that may be familiar in day-to-day life and may also be attributed to the individuals state such as hunger, sexual arousal, or anxiety and fear.

[6] Placing objects in reality from base shapes seen under influence from psychotropics which link to somatic physical responses lead now to full hallucinations.

[5] "The contemporary Western emphasis on the supreme value of intelligence has tended to suppress certain forms of consciousness and to regard them as irrational, marginal, aberrant or even pathological and thereby to eliminate them from investigations of the deep past.

Tony Berlant and coauthors believe that many of the designs on prehistoric Mimbres pottery , such as this one with characteristic zig-zag designs, are entoptic images from ingesting psychoactive Datura plant extracts. The four spirals are interpreted as representing Datura buds. [ 1 ] [ 2 ]