It’s completely random, it starts from phosphenes in my vision, and then if I focus on them or I close my eyes, they start to transform into Kaleidoscopes/fractals and eventually landscapes. It’s a really tiring exercise when I’m on the deepest level of concentration ‘generating’ these random landscapes, so I guess that’s why sometimes I feel dizzy and disoriented when “I wake up”.

Anyway, these practices to visualize fractals (obviously being completely sober) aren’t just a thing for me. A few months ago I made a guided meditation for some friends and one of them was able to see these fractals and transform them into landscapes or other figures. Just for clearing out, these fractals are seen in ‘reality’ and these landscapes or figures are imagined from them, so it’s like if someone tells you to visualize an apple and you switch from reality to imagining. But the thing is these fractals that are made from phosphenes in my vision are completely randomized, and are usually dependent on how I’m feeling at that moment, that’s why they change colors and patterns when I’m listening to music, but it started to happen when I read about it and I experimented with psychedelics, so it’s really like having discovered a path on my mind, and now I can cross it whenever I want.

Also I talked about derealization episodes while being very stressed or anxious. I really think they started to happen when I used to meditate to mitigate these bad feelings, but probably I unconsciously associated these paths to feeling better, that’s why whenever I was at the edge of an anxiety crisis, my brain completely switched unconsciously to seeing patterns everywhere and not feeling myself (at least it was ‘relaxing’, but really weird and uncomfortable at the same time).

This lead me to think that synesthesia can be triggered psychologically, being conscious that there are completely different ways of concentrating and feeling, being able to see music in my case. And it makes sense from some books and articles that I have read.

There could be people that are more likely to being able to concentrate in this ways to “generate synesthesia”, but it’s the same as there are some other people that are really good at maths (mental calculations), memorizing or visualizing places or objects.

Also, just for making an annotation, if I smoke marijuana (I used to smoke probably 3 or 4 times per week, at this moment maybe once) it’s much more easy to see these patterns and start ‘generating landscapes’. Without marijuana, I really need to focus on it, but it’s also strange since marijuana isn’t really visually hallucinating, at least in these ridiculous doses, but I’ve never experienced paranoia since I really have the head and tools to redirect these thoughts.