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Uncoiling The Spiral Of Being: Math, Escher And Hallucinations

September 8, 2010

Last night I had a dream… A spiralling coil of color unfolded its serpentine and slithering body
before my mind’s inner eye. Patterns danced in such an orchestrated synchronicity, so as to
complect into a delicate and balanced interplay of form and function, all actions and reactions –
though it was hard to tell which were which anymore, because of the temporal passage that had
clouded all the previous causes to things – feeding back into the source, creating new snaking
forms of colorful displays… Never ending, never repeating exactly, so interdependent on
everything else around them, looking for nourishment and inspiration in themselves and those
around them, every part of it guided by a wild and beating leviathan heart, a heart that was run
by the only certainty I could ever find… That of uncertainty… That of chaos… An open ended
function that was the only pure motivation for all universal being and which itself, alone, could
only describe and create such a miraculous and highly dynamical order… “I” was a part of it… And
in reflecting all of what “I” saw unraveling around me, this rhythm of chaotic movement began to
shine through my very Being, allowing me to try to define myself in self-similar patterns… Patterns
similar to those that “I” witnessed going on around me, allowing me a vain hope to understand
what “I” is… While providing me with all I needed to partake in this dance of joyous wonderment
before me; understandings were nothing more that rippling imaginations that carelessly skittered
over and through the patterns of consciousness… Shape that had been fluxing within my brain’s
complex and structured form… And still, I could only try to understand why, like almost everyone
else, “I” tried to find similar reasons for Being in the ocean of delusion that swelled and sank
around me… It was the only way “I” had known how to be throughout my entire life… And this
was how the wonder twisted through my living, convoluting flow… A pattern that embraced every
aspect of our Being, clutching “my” particle-like body into the blossom of its infinite totality….
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Perhaps this was what many people before me had decided to call “God…”Mainly because they
hadn’t properly understood its essence and nature… After, the wise mystics of the East followed
the way of this unspeakable, indescribable beast. The Tao, they called it. “The Way.” And still it
remains the only way to be, to dream and to live in harmony with all under heaven. Riddled
with self-similarity, it writhed and pulsed to various rhythms running through its Being, all running
inside and outside of each other, layering into and out of itself, fluxing with such precision that it
might have been a silken fabric so finely woven, that the very threads we but atomic braids of
molecular chains, of which any movement could upset the natural order and cause a mighty ripple
to undulate throughout itself.

In all honesty I can’t remember how long this phantasm of interconnected geometry lasted… All I
know is that I woke with a sudden jolt to find myself in bed with the covers strewn half on me and
half on the floor. In someways I was relieved to find myself back home… But also I had a distinct
sense of underlying melancholy that seemed to underpin my sleepy head… Sort of like when one
departs the company of good friends. Slowly as my mind came back into focus, I found myself
thinking of M. C. Escher‘s work. The seeming parallels that ran through my mind joined my dream
up with Escher’s precise visions of nature’s “natural” symmetry. These in turn linked up with my
own personal first hand experiences with mescaline, psilocybin,DMT and LSD… I haven’t tripped in
a long, long time now. And I doubt I will need to ever again. What I had to learn from these
powerful allies of the plant world, I did. They have kindly shown me all that I need to see. Within
their own tapestries of mind, from the altered states of consciousness that they seem to so
gracefully and naturally induce, I found myself faced with patterns as complex as those that I had
seen on the Alhambra.
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Yes… That’s it. That’s what all this reminds me of… The Moorish architecture of the Alhambra…
There is so much of divine Moorish masonry to be found in Granada… And funnily enough it’s
almost a year ago to the day that I arrived back from there… Perhaps, this is where my dream
came from… Parallels in our orbit around our star, echoing through the structure of my brain.
Perhaps I should provide a brief setting for this slight tangent… Between 710 and 713 A.D., Spain
had been overrun by the Moors(populations of Berber, Black African and Arab peoples from
Northern Africa), and these Islamic conquerors naturally introduced the ornate Moorish, or
Moresque or Hispano-Moresque, style of design to the Iberian Peninsula, and is especially noted in
the architecture of Southern Spain, which is centred and personified in the Alhambra, located in
the city of Granada.

The Moors were not entirely driven out of the Southern provinces until 1610, but in the nine
hundred years intervening, the Moresque style flourished sporadically throughout many portions
of Spain. And one can see why… The splendour of this mode of design brought nearly everyone
who saw it closer to a true sense of wonder regarding the creation of all things than anything else
at the time. During the Romanesque period a large part of the country was still under Moorish
rule… Here the balanced European form mingled with Islamic sensibilities, producing wondrous
Romanesque structures laced with Moresque imagery and pattern. This marriage of form inspired
the late M. C. Escher so much during his first visit in 1922, that he is reportedly to have said, “I
have never before seen such concentrated inspiration in all the world!” After this his works of art
began to take a very different turn. From the Italian country side sketches and etchings, he slowly
incorporated this Moorish symmetry into his designs. While the Moors we forbidden to use any
human or animal forms in their art – mainly because humans and animals were considered to be
the divine and perfect work of Allah, and any human representation could only ever be an
imperfect representation of the creator’s master work, and thus a blaspheme – Escher began to
break this mould and used images of animals and plants in tessellations of wondrous cunning.
These tessellations began to feature predominantly throughout most of the work of his later life.
And rather than limiting them to just the snug, tightly fitting geometries of mathematical
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sensibilities… He opened them up with his imagination into metamorphosing consternations. It

was almost as if Escher had seen the key to the universe, and had unlocked the door, through
which it began to speak through him.

I know… I know… Sounds like a sort of far fetched fantasy derived from a dream I had…
However, I’m going to present an idea in the form of an article that I found on the Twitter vine
not too long ago. It is entitled “Uncoiling The Spiral: Math And Hallucinations” and was written by
Marianne Freiberger.

Uncoiling The Spiral: Math And Hallucinations

Think drug-induced hallucinations, and the whirly, spirally, tunnel-vision-like patterns of

psychedelic imagery immediately spring to mind. But it’s not just hallucinogenic drugs like LSD,
cannabis or mescaline that conjure up these geometric structures. People have reported seeing
them in near-death experiences, as a result of disorders like epilepsy and schizophrenia, following
sensory deprivation, or even just after applying pressure to the eyeballs. So common are these
geometric hallucinations, that in the last century scientists began asking themselves if they
couldn’t tell us something fundamental about how our brains are wired up. And it seems that they
can.

Computer generated representations of form constants. The top two images represent a funnel
and a spiral as seen after taking LSD, the bottom left image is a honeycomb generated by
marijuana, and the bottom right image is a cobweb.

Geometric hallucinations were first studied systematically in the 1920s by the German-American
psychologist Heinrich Klüver. Klüver’s interest in visual perception had led him to experiment with
peyote, that cactus made famous by Carlos Castaneda, whose psychoactive ingredient mescaline
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played an important role in the shamanistic rituals of many central American tribes. Mescaline was
well-known for inducing striking visual hallucinations. Popping peyote buttons with his assistant in
the laboratory, Klüver noticed the repeating geometric shapes in mescaline-induced hallucinations
and classified them into four types, which he called form constants: tunnels and funnels, spirals,
lattices including honeycombs and triangles, and cobwebs.

In the 1970s the mathematicians Jack D. Cowan and G. Bard Ermentrout used Klüver’s
classification to build a theory describing what is going on in our brain when it tricks us into
believing that we are seeing geometric patterns. Their theory has since been elaborated by other
scientists, including Paul Bressloff, Professor of Mathematical and Computational Neuroscience at
the newly established Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics.

How The Cortex Got Its Stripes…

In humans and mammals the first area of the visual cortex to process visual information is known
as V1. Experimental evidence, for example from fMRI scans, suggests that Klüver’s patterns, too,
originate largely in V1, rather than later on in the visual system. Like the rest of the brain, V1 has
a complex, crinkly, folded-up structure, but there’s a surprisingly straight-forward way of
translating what we see in our visual field to neural activity in V1. “If you imagine unfolding [V1],”
says Bressloff, “You can think of it as neural tissue a few millimetres thick with various layers of
neurons. To a first approximation, the neurons through the depth of the cortex behave in a similar
way, so if you compress those neurons together, you can think of V1 as a two-dimensional sheet.”

The visual cortex: the area V1 is shown in red.

An object or scene in the visual world is projected as a two-dimensional image on the retina of
each eye, so what we see can also be treated as flat sheet: the visual field. Every point on this
sheet can be pin-pointed by two coordinates, just like a point on a map, or a point on the flat
model of V1. The alternating regions of light and dark that make up a geometric hallucination are
caused by alternating regions of high and low neural activity in V1 — regions where the neurons
are firing very rapidly and regions where they are not firing rapidly. To translate visual patterns to
neural activity, what is needed is a coordinate map, a rule which links each point in the visual field
to a point on the flat model of V1. In the 1970s scientists including Cowan came up with just such
a map, based on anatomical knowledge of how neurons in the retina communicate with neurons
in V1 (see the box on the right for more detail). For each light or dark region in the visual field,
the map identifies a region of high or low neural activity in V1.
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So how does this retino-cortical map transform Klüver’s geometric patterns? It turns out that
hallucinations comprising spirals, circles, and rays that emanate from the centre correspond to
stripes of neural activity in V1 that are inclined at given angles. Lattices like honeycombs or
chequer-boards correspond to hexagonal activity patterns in V1. This in itself might not have
appeared particularly exciting, but there was a precedent: stripes and hexagons are exactly what
scientists had seen when modelling other instances of pattern formation, for example convection
in fluids, or, more strikingly, the emergence of spots and stripes in animal coats. The mathematics
that drives this pattern formation was well known, and it now suggested a mechanism for
modelling the workings of the visual cortex too.

…And How The Leopard Got Its Spots

The first model of pattern formation in animal coats goes back to Alan Turing, better known as
the father of modern computer science and Bletchley Park code breaker. Turing was interested in
how a spatially homogeneous system, such as a uniform ball of cells making up an animal
embryo, can generate a spatially inhomogeneous but static pattern, such as the stripes of a zebra.
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Turing hypothesised that these animal patterns are a result of a reaction-diffusion process.
Imagine an animal embryo which has two chemicals living in its skin. One of the two chemicals is
an inhibitor, which suppresses the production of both itself and the other chemical. The other, an
activator, promotes the production of both.

Initially, at time zero in Turing’s model, the two chemicals exactly balance each other — they are
in equilibrium, and their concentrations at the various points on the embryo do not change over
time. But now imagine that, for some reason or other, the concentration of activator increases
slightly at one point. This small perturbation sets the system into action. The higher local
concentration of activator means that more activator and inhibitor are produced there — this is a
reaction. But both chemicals also diffuse through the embryo skin, inhibiting or activating
production elsewhere.

For example, if the inhibitor diffuses faster than the activator, then it quickly spreads around the
point of perturbation and decreases the concentration of activator there. So you end up with a
region of high activator concentration bordered by high inhibitor concentration — in other words,
you have a spot of activator on a background of inhibitor. Depending on the rates at which the
two chemicals diffuse, it is possible that such a spotty pattern arises all over the skin of the
embryo, and eventually stabilises. If the activator also promotes the generation of a pigment in
the skin of the animal, then this pattern can be made visible. (See the Plus article How the leopard
got its spots for more detail.)

Turing wrote down a set of differential equations which describe the competition between the two
chemicals (see the box on the right), and which you can let evolve over time, to see if any
patterns emerge. The equations depend on parameters capturing the rate at which the two
chemicals diffuse: if you choose them correctly, the system will eventually stabilise on a particular
pattern, and you can vary the pattern by varying the parameters. Here is an applet (kindly
provided by Chris Jennings) which allows you to play with different parameters and see the
patterns form.

Patterns In The Brain

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Neural activity in the brain isn’t a reaction-diffusion process, but there are analogies to Turing’s
model. “Neurons send signals to each other via their output lines called axons,” says Bressloff.
Neurons respond to each other’s signals, so we have a reaction. “[The signals] propagate so
quickly relative to the process of pattern formation, that you can think of them as instantaneous
interactions.” So rather than diffusion, which is a local process, we have instantaneous interaction
at a distance in this case. The roles of activator and inhibitor are played by two different classes of
neurons. “There are neurons which are excitatory — they make other neurons more likely to
become active — and there are inhibitory neurons, which make other neurons less likely to
become active,” says Bressloff. “The competition between the two classes of neurons is the
analogue of the activator-inhibitor mechanism in Turing’s model.”

Stripy, hexagonal and square patterns of neural activity in V1 generated by a mathematical model.

Inspired by the analogies to Turing’s process, Cowan and Ermentrout constructed a model of
neural activity in V1, using a set of equations that had been formulated by Cowan andHugh
Wilson. Although the equations are more complicated than Turing’s, you can still play the same
game, letting the system evolve over time and see if patterns in neural activity evolve. “You find
that, under certain circumstances, if you turn up a parameter which represents, for example, the
effect of a drug on the cortex, then this leads to a growth of periodic patterns,” says Bressloff.

Cowan and Ermentrout’s model suggests that geometric hallucinations are a result of an instability
in V1: something, for example the presence of a drug, throws the neural network off its
equilibrium, kicking into action a snowballing interaction between excitatory and inhibitory
neurons, which then stabilises in a stripy or hexagonal pattern of neural activity in V1. In the
visual field we then “see” this pattern in the shape of the geometric structures described by
Klüver.

Symmetries In The Brain

In reality, things aren’t quite as simple as in Cowan and Ermentrout’s model, because neurons
don’t only respond to light and dark images. Through the thickness of V1, neurons are arranged in
collections of columns, known as hypercolumns, with each hypercolumn roughly responding to a
small region of the visual field. But the neurons in a hypercolumn aren’t all the same: apart from
detecting light and dark regions, each neuron specialises in detecting local edges — the separation
lines between light and dark regions in a part of an image — of a particular orientation. Some
detect horizontal edges, others detect vertical edges, others edges that are inclined at a 45°
angle, and so on. Each hypercolumn contains columns of neurons of all orientation preferences,
so that a hypercolumn can respond to edges of all orientations from a particular region of the
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visual field. It is the lay-out of hypercolumns and orientation preferences that enables us to detect
contours, surfaces and textures in the visual world.

Connections in V1: Neurons interact with most other neurons within a hypercolumn. But they only
interact with neurons in other hypercolumns, if the columns lie in the direction of their orientation,
and if the neurons have the same preference.

Over recent years, much anatomical evidence has accumulated showing just how neurons with
various orientation preferences interact. Within their own hypercolumn, neurons tend to interact
with most other neurons, regardless of their orientation preference. But when it comes to neurons
in other hypercolumns they are more selective, only interacting with those of similar orientations
and in a way which ensures that we can detect continuous contours in the visual world.

Bressloff, in collaboration with Cowan, the mathematician Martin Golubitsky and others, has
generalised Cowan and Ermentrout’s original model to take account of this new anatomical
evidence. They again used the plane as the basis for a model of V1: each hypercolumn is
represented by a point (x, y) on the plane, while each point (x, y) in turn corresponds to a
hypercolumn. Neurons with a given orientation preferenceΘ (where Θ is an angle between 0
and π) are represented by the location (x, y) of the hypercolumn they’re in, together with the
angle Θ, that is, they are represented by three bits of information, (x, y, Θ). So in this model V1 is
not just a plane, but a plane together with a full set of orientations for each point.
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If two elements (x,y,θ) and (s,t,θ) interact, then so do the elements of the same orientation at
(x+a,y+b) and (s+a,t+b), and the elements of orientation -θ at (x,-y) and (s,-t).

In keeping with anatomical evidence, Bressloff and his colleagues assumed that a neuron
represented by (x0, y0, Θ0) interacts with all other neurons in the same hypercolumn (x0,y0). But it
only interacts with neurons in other hypercolumns, if these hypercolumns lie in their preferred
direction Θ0: on the plane, draw a line through (x0, y0) of inclination Θ0. Then the neurons
represented by (x0, y0, Θ0) interact only with neurons in hypercolumns that lie on this line, and
which have the same preferred orientation Θ0.

This interaction pattern is highly symmetric. For example, the pattern doesn’t appear any different
if you shift the plane along in a given direction by a given distance: if two elements (x0,y0, Θ0) and
(s0, t0, ϕ0) interact, then the elements you get to by shifting along, that is (x0 + a, y0 + b, Θ0) and
(s0 + t, y0+ b, ϕ0) for some and , interact in the same way. In a similar way, the pattern is also
invariant under rotations and reflections of the plane.

A lattice tunnel hallucination generated by the mathematical model. It strongly resembles

hallucinations seen after taking marijuana.

Bressloff and his colleagues used a generalised version of the equations from the original model to
let the system evolve. The result was a model that is not only more accurate in terms of the
anatomy of V1, but can also generate geometric patterns in the visual field that the original model
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was unable to produce. These include lattice tunnels, honeycombs and cobwebs that are better
characterised in terms of the orientation of contours within them, than in terms of contrasting
regions of light and dark.

What’s more, the model is sensitive to the symmetries in the interaction patterns between
neurons: the mathematics shows that it is these symmetries that drive the formation of periodic
patterns of neural activity. So the model suggests that it is the lay-out of hypercolumns and
orientation preferences, in other words the mechanisms that enable us to detect edges, contours,
surfaces and textures in the visual world, that generate the hallucinations. It is when these
mechanism become unstable, for example due to the influence of a drug, that patterns of neural
activity arise, which in turn translate to the visual hallucinations.

Beyond Hallucinations

Bressloff’s model does not only provide insight into the mechanisms that drive visual
hallucinations, but also gives clues about brain architecture in a wider sense. In collaboration with
his wife, an experimental neuroscientist, Bressloff has looked at the connection circuits between
hypercolumns in normal vision, to see how visual images are processed. “People used to think
that neurons in V1 just detect local edges, and that you have to go to higher levels in the brain to
put these edges together to detect more complicated features like contours and surfaces. But the
work I have done with my wife shows that these structures in V1 actually allow the earlier visual
cortex to detect contours and do more global processing. It used to be thought that you process
more and more complex aspects of an image as you go higher up in the brain. But now it’s
realised that there is a huge amount of feedback between higher and lower cortical areas. It’s not
a simple hierarchical process, but an incredibly complicated and active system it will take many
years to understand.”

Practical applications of this work include computer vision — computer scientists are already
building the inter-connectivity structures that Bressloff and his colleagues played around with into
their models, with the aim of teaching computers to detect contours and textures. On a more
speculative note, Bressloff’s research may also one day help to restore vision to visually impaired
people. “The question here is if you can somehow stimulate part of the visual cortex, [bypassing
the eye], and use that to guide a blind person,” says Bressloff. “If one can understand how the
cortex is wired up and responds to stimulation, perhaps one would then have a better way of
stimulating it in the right way.”

There are even applications that have nothing at all to do with the brain. Bressloff applied the
insights from this work to other situations in which objects are located in space and also have an
orientation, for example fibroblast cells found in human and animal tissue. He showed that under
certain circumstances these interacting cells and molecules can line up and form patterns
analogous to those that arise in V1.

People have reported seeing visual hallucinations since the dawn of time and in almost all human
cultures — hallucinatory images have even been found in petroglyphs and cave paintings. In
shamanistic traditions around the world they have been regarded as messages from the spirit
world. Few neuroscientists today would agree that spirits have anything to do with it, but as
messengers from a hidden world — this time the hidden world of our brain — these hallucinations
seem to have lost none of their potency.

by Marianne Freiberger
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For me that article just magically linked up some seemingly random dots that had been lingering
in my mind… Ones that were loosely drifting around on a plane of understanding that seemed to –
only at the best of times – be based on flights of fancy and mathematical musings of divine
symmetry… Could the reason why I, and others, are so drawn to these tapestries of geometrical
wonder be because this pattern is naturally residing in the brain’s architecture? Could the key to
our modes of perception regarding the surrounding universe be found – amazingly enough – in
the roots of our minds? Is the mysticism lying behind the Alhambra’s amazing architecture linked
to the patterns locked deep within the brains structure? Is that where our notions of God and the
divine come from i.e. the imagery of divine knowing and interrelatedness that came to haunt my
dream last night?

For me there is no doubt that there is a strong link between the spiritual ecstasy that I have
experienced in altered states of consciousness and while viewing Escher’s works of art… Perhaps
those followers of Allah, who invaded the Iberian Peninsula and left their indelible mark on the
Spanish people’s cities and towns, saw a similar connection too. Certainly it is mentioned that the
prophet Muhammad experienced visions while meditating within a cave for several weeks every
year. It is here in this cave on Mount Hira, near Mecca, that he apparently experienced a direct
countenance with the angel Gabriel who revealed many things to him. Certainly adherents and
prophets of other religions also recount similar marvels and revelatory experiences (see Aldous
Huxley‘s “The Perennial Philosophy”).

While I am not religious… I am aware of a pattern of mind that links these spiritual experiences
into a similar and all encompassing perennial philosophy. Perhaps the key to this insight lies within
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ourselves through direct experience, rather than in notions and metaphors of an omniscient and
omnipotent god/group of gods. Perhaps it’s time we forgot our differences and looked for the key
to understanding our experiences through consciousness itself… Where we relate to one another
through our patterns of mind and body… A view that would be free from delusion and ‘self’
impossed egocentric understandings… ? Perhaps psychedelics are a type of direct key to seeing
this pattern of the divine… ? And perhaps our notions of an eternal creator is nothing more than
the same patterns we see springing forth in the mind in altered states of consciousness… Perhaps
this direct experience of the divine is so powerful that it leaves us reeling with a deep feeling of
connect… Mainly because it is what we really are at base… And thus we dedicate such intricate,
beautiful and inspiring architecture – a testament to the divine nature of our being – to those
ideals of God that many of us hold so high. Perhaps this is why some many of us find
theMandelbrot set so mesmerising… Perhaps Escher knew this deep down… ?

If you would like to see where I sourced the article, entitled “Uncoiling The Spiral: Maths And
Hallucinations,” from, please click here.

If you’d like to learn more about Marianne Freiberger, then please click here.

Or if you’d like to learn more about M. C. Escher and his life’s work, please click here.

Posted by Karl Richard

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in Uncategorized ·Tags: Allah, altered, brain, consciousness, divine, drug,drugs, Escher, God, Gran
ada, hallucination, hallucinations, math, maths, mind,pattern, patterns, psychedelic, Psychedelics,
Religion, Spain, spiral, states
4 Comments »
4 Responses to “Uncoiling The Spiral Of Being: Math, Escher And Hallucinations”

1. happyseaurchin said

September 8, 2010 at 19:08

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superb article

interesting insights
personally transparent
informative
and all served in a lovely light style

thanks

I haven’t tried anything stronger than grass

and I have not seen too many visuals…
seems I am distracted by other aspects of the mind’s play

the fact that this scientific explanation might underlie shaman insights
would for me seem to indicate that we use such experiences
to gain further understanding of the mind’s working
rather to apply ex hominem explanations

thanks again

Reply

o Karl Richard said

September 11, 2010 at 18:30

Hi happyseaurchin,

Thanks for you comments.

Totally… I agree… This article certainly alludes to processes/patterns with the structure of
the brain that could direct future scientific research into better grooves of understanding
over our brain’s internal processes, so as to unlock the workings that lie presently hidden
behind the brain/mind duality… And, thus, eventually it might well even provide us with
an insight into why we perceive ‘things’ or ‘events’ in the way that we do… Especially
shamanic experiences.

Regarding “ex hominem explanations…” When you say:

“the fact that this scientific explanation might underlie shaman insights
would for me seem to indicate that we use such experiences
to gain further understanding of the mind’s working
rather to apply ex hominem explanations”

Am interpreting your words correctly i.e. that you thought I might have been suggesting
that these patterns of mind give rise to ex hominem explanations of the world in which we
live i.e. religious memes and spiritual understandings… ?

Best regards,
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Karl

Reply

2. The Certainty Of ‘Self’… What Is ‘It’? Could This Be The Greatest Human Delusion Of All!? «
Polynomial said

October 4, 2010 at 17:10

[...] Could the ‘core geometry’/'core knowledge’ of the brain directly be a result of the brain’s
structure/architecture and, thus, preclude its function?? Could the reason that many of us feel that
there is some divine [...]

Reply

3. The Universe ‘May’ Have A Fractal Structure! « Polynomial said

August 24, 2011 at 14:11

[...] even managed to naturally find their way into the experiential textures of my mind’s
dynamic… Textures that the brain seems to weave together through strange attractor like eddies
that [...]