Drifting
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White Wolf Drinking Water by Anonymous - This animated .gif serves as an image example for a very common manifestation of psychedelic visual drifting which is specifically in the form of flowing.

Visual drifting can be described as the experience of objects and scenery appearing progressively warped, melted and morphed across themselves. These alterations gradually increase as a person stares, but are non-permanent and will reset to their normal appearance the moment one double takes.

This effect is capable of manifesting itself across 4 different levels of visual intensity defined below.

  1. Peripheral - The most basic form of visual drifting can be described as a wiggling of straight lines within the external environment. This occurs exclusively within one's peripheral vision and cannot be directly looked at.
  2. Direct - At this level, visual drifting does not necessarily increase in its intensity, but can now be directly looked at within a person's central line of sight. This partially alters the appearance and form of shapes, objects and sceneries within the external environment, causing them to subtly drift, bend and morph.
  3. Distinct - At this level, visual drifting becomes powerful enough to drastically alter and transform the shape of specific objects within one's external environment. This is often to the point where they can become progressively unrecognizable in comparison to their original form assuming one stares at the distortion and keeps their eyes relatively motionless.
  4. All-encompassing - At the highest level of visual drifting, the intensity becomes powerful enough to distort not just specific objects beyond recognition but every single point of a person's vision and the entirety of the external environment in its whole. This creates the appearance of an extremely smudged, warped and blended unrecognizable mass of visual data.

The particular style of this visual effect depends on the specific continuously changing direction, speed, and rhythm of the distortion. This results in a small variety of different manifestations which are defined and listed below.

Morphing

Morphing can be described as an effect of visual drifting which is completely disorganized and spontaneous in both its rhythm and direction. It results in objects and scenery appearing to gradually change, morph and warp in their size, shape, configuration and general appearance.

Breathing

Breathing can be described as an effect of visual drifting which makes objects and scenery appear to be steadily contracting inwards and expanding outwards with a consistent rhythm in a similar fashion to the lungs of a living organism.

Melting

Melting can be described as an effect of visual drifting which results in objects and scenery appearing to completely or partially melt. It begins at lower doses as a gradual liquidization of objects which causes them to subtly droop, wobble, and lose their structural integrity. This gradually increases until it becomes impossible to ignore as the lines, textures, and colour between solid objects melt into one another in an extremely fluid style.

Flowing

Flowing can be described as an effect of visual drifting which seems to occur almost exclusively on textures (particularly if they are highly detailed, complex, or rough in appearance). This results in the textures flowing like a river in a seamless, looped animation and is particularly common on wood grain or the fur of animals.

Image examples


Recursion

When the same image drifts into itself over and over again, it could be described more specifically as recursion. This specific phenomenon might confuse the person experiencing it, as there's no clear distinction between what is and what was.

Image examples:


Variations

  • Intricate vs. Simplistic – In terms of its complexity, drifting can alter the external environment in a way that spreads out in many different complex directions and results in the original piece of sensory input becoming completely unrecognizable in appearance. Alternately, it will be simplistic in nature and stick to simple warping, wiggling and bending even at high dosages of psychoactive substances.
  • Slow vs. Fast – Drifting can manifest itself as something that progresses in its visual alterations at a fast and sudden rate or it can manifest gradually and slowly as a person stares into it.
  • Smooth vs. Jittery – In terms of its motion, drifting can manifest itself as a smooth, fluid and flawless movement or it can manifest as jittery with an extremely slow frame rate that moves in sudden and partial transitions.
  • Static vs. Fleeting – In terms of its permanence, drifting will either maintain its position until one performs a double take or will be extremely fleeting in its nature, meaning that it will reset almost as soon as a person tries to look directly at it.
  • Realistic vs. Unrealistic – Drifting can either look convincing in its appearance or it can look extremely cartoon-like and unrealistic.

Psychoactive substances

Compounds within our psychoactive substance index which may cause this effect include:


Experience reports

Anecdotal reports which describe this effect within our experience index include:


See also

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