The Dissociative Spiral is a term which I borrowed (and modified) from Shulgin's PiHKAL. It describes a particular set of characteristic sensations or internal states that seem to occur as a result of some sort of abnormal temporal lobe functioning. In PiHKAL, Ann Shulgin recounts how she would experience the "Spiral" when she was younger, almost always right before going to sleep. Many people have reported the very same set of effects on DXM (and ketamine), and I suspect that people who experience it naturally may have something interesting going on in the temporal lobes that mimics the effects of dissociatives. Perhaps this is due to release of endopsychosin, or perhaps it's just the way these people's brains are wired. One person suggested it may be complex partial seizures, but I don't think there's any evidence for that.
The Dissociative Spiral seems to have four phases, each phase lasting a fixed amount of time. Not everyone experiences all phases. I have given each phase a name which I think is descriptive based primarily on the experiences of DXM users; I also suggest you consult PiHKAL for Ann Shulgin's version.
Supernova. Ann Shulgin refers to this as "macrocosm-microcosm". There is a sensation that one's "core" is rapidly shrinking, growing ever smaller and smaller, down to the size of a subatomic particle. Accompanying this shrinking sensation is a feeling of one's "outer shell" expanding equally rapidly, until it fills the entire universe. This is generally considered as a pleasant sensation, with a slight characteristic of free-fall.
Lilliputian Hallucinations. After shrinking down to a proton, the Lilliputian Hallucinations begin. Everything that one imagines or recalls seems grossly distorted in size. Human figures alternate between tall and thin and stretched out like taffy, and shrunken and rounded. Many people see long, thin ribbons of multicolored energy.
There is a disturbing sense of Infinity with these hallucinations. Most find this phase extremely grating on the soul, mentally painful, perhaps because one is perceiving objects to have totally opposite characteristics at once. Some people are familar with Lilliputian hallucinations from fevers.
Veils of Light and Darkness. The third phase consists of alternating visual fields of total, thick black and ghostly white or greyish-white. Each visual field gives way to the opposite as if veils were being torn and dissolved. The "black veil" is often described as being much darker than ordinary darkness, since even the phosphenes (the patterns one sees with eyes closed in the dark) are absent. Most people also find this phase extremely unpleasant.
Contact. The fourth phase, and the rarest, is also the most spectacular. After passing through the last Veil, there is a sudden sense of being in the presence of a profoundly powerful, loving, intelligent entity (or occasionally, multiple entities). These typically greet the individual with empathic communication, sending messages of familiarity, joy, love, concern, and occasionally a vague sense of humorous curiosity at finding a human being in this place. This phase is the most profound, and the most pleasant. To my knowledge nobody has ever done an EEG during the Dissociative Spiral, but I have a hunch that the temporal lobes would probably be doing something interesting. Perhaps this is a common occurance, but one that most people are incapable of perceiving. In any case, it is frequently observed with DXM, typically phases 1 and 2, occasionally phase 3, and rarely phase 4.
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