{"id":267195,"date":"2026-02-21T12:50:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/?p=267195"},"modified":"2026-02-21T12:50:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:50:28","slug":"can-psychedelics-reveal-colors-beyond-ordinary-sight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/blog\/can-psychedelics-reveal-colors-beyond-ordinary-sight\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Psychedelics Reveal Colors Beyond Ordinary Sight?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The universe might be far more colorful than we realize \u2014 not because new pigments exist \u201cout there,\u201d but because our brains may only be showing us a tiny slice of what\u2019s possible. Increasingly, scientists and psychedelic explorers alike are asking a facinating question: could altered states reveal aspects of reality that normally sit outside human perception?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From laboratory experiments to deeply personal journeys, reports of impossible hues, radiant white light, and hyperreal visual worlds are pushing the boundaries of how we think about color, consciousness, and the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White Light Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a brilliant, blinding white light that is so radiant it contains everything within it. You feel that white light with every bit of your body\u2014like you\u2019re experiencing the vibratory pattern of it, the intricacies and infinite nature of it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash<\/mark><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s how Joel Brierre, founder of the Tandava retreat in Mexico, describes the zenith of an 5-MeO-DMT<\/a> experience. The intense psychedelic is known for inducing ego dissolution (often called ego death<\/a>)<\/em> and mystical states where individuals feel deeply connected to something larger than themselves. That could be nature, God, the universe \u2014 whatever you like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Brierre, the all-encompassing white light is a common theme among participants. Others report seeing different hues ranging from “clean blue”<\/em> to \u201csoft pink and gentle pastel\u201d.<\/em> These colours are sometimes linked to what he describes as prenatal regression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne woman, after taking 5-MeO, reported a very visionary kind of experience, where she was in front of a Jaguar, and the Jaguar opened its mouth, and she was taken into its mouth\u2014and then went into this vast universe from there,\u201d <\/em>he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Color, Really?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Experiences like these raise a deeper question: what exactly is color?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientifically speaking, color doesn\u2019t exist as a property of objects themselves. Light reflects off surfaces and enters our eyes as electromagnetic waves. The retina converts those signals into neural impulses, and the brain constructs the experience we call color. In other words, there\u2019s no inherent \u201cred\u201d or \u201cblue\u201d in the world \u2014 just energy interpreted by the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this perspective, what we see is essentially a shared hallucination. Psychedelics may simply amplify or remix that process.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Robert Katzki on Unsplash<\/mark><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How Psychedelics Change Visual Processing<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A 2024 study<\/a> from the Allen Institute found that psilocybin (the active compound in magic mushrooms) <\/em>changes activity in the brain\u2019s visual cortex, the region responsible for visual processing. This shift may help explain why people often report distorted colors, moving patterns, and entirely new textures during psychedelic experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another striking example comes from a 2025 experiment at the University of California, Berkeley. Researchers used lasers to stimulate specific photoreceptors in the eye, allowing participants to perceive a color never previously reported \u2014 one that doesn\u2019t exist in nature or language. They called this mysterious hue \u201colo.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If scientists can create a brand-new color in a lab, it\u2019s not hard to imagine that compounds capable of dramatically altering brain activity might also unlock unusual perceptual experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Different Psychedelics, Different Visual Worlds<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Not all psychedelics affect perception in the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c5-MeO-DMT is not that visual\u2014it\u2019s more so that it\u2019s beyond the five human senses,\u201d <\/em>says Brierre, describing the experience as an ontological shock, \u201ca pure, unadulterated experience of coming into contact with something far more boundless and infinite than the mind can comprehend\u2014what could be considered God, essentially.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With DMT, however, \u201cthe sense of subjective self stays online, so it\u2019s a far more visual experience,\u201d <\/em>notes Brierre, who also co-founded F.I.V.E..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The imagery, he says, is intensely vivid: \u201cBrilliant, brilliant colors\u2014shining beyond what they ever have before.\u201d <\/em>Some people report seeing entirely new hues that feel emotionally meaningful or sacred, while others describe neon geometric landscapes and hyperreal detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Colors Turn Dark<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While many psychedelic visuals are described as beautiful or awe-inspiring, they can also become overwhelming. Especially at high doses or in chaotic environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brierre recalls his own difficult experience with LSD in the 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the \u201990s, I was doing a lot of very high doses of LSD\u201415 to 20 hits at a time,\u201d<\/em> he says. \u201cI once had an extremely terrifying experience, filled with very intense visuals\u2014spiraling, fractaling patterns, complex geometric patterning in the air all around me. It looked like trees were being blown away by wind, like the whole world was coming to an end . . . all of the shadows of my mental patterning were, all of a sudden, represented outside of me . . . There was a lot of red, a lot of oranges and yellows . . . some blue hues . . . swirling with every color imaginable.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It felt, he recalls, like \u201can internal Apocalypse, where everyone was going crazy from the inside.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash<\/mark><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Brain Plasticity and \u201cEnsouled\u201d Colors<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Scientists are still trying to understand why psychedelic colors often feel symbolic or \u201crealer than real.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom research, we know that psychedelics cause plasticity in the brain, and allow our typical neural connections to reorganize in new ways,\u201d <\/em>says Mona Sobhani, Ph.D., a cognitive neuroscientist and author. \u201cFrom a materialist neuroscience perspective, these new neural connections or rewiring[s] might translate into the person\u2019s subjective reality as new or emotionally embedded colors.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why the brain uses color to represent these changes remains unclear. \u201cThat would be unclear,\u201d<\/em> she says. \u201cAlthough there does seem to be a fundamental connection between certain colors and emotional states in humans, as research from psychology testifies.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are Psychedelics Revealing Something Real?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Sobhani believes science may not yet have the full picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe we should stay open to all possibilities, including ones that are non-materialist and outside the usual scientific worldview,\u201d<\/em> she says. \u201cSaying things are just a hallucination is lazy\u2014because if the brain is evolutionarily driven to conserve energy, why would it waste so much [energy] creating meaningless visions? That explanation feels too simple.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She adds that \u201cit is a well-supported fact that the brain is becoming untethered from its normal boundaries on psychedelics,\u201d<\/em> and whether that reveals something hidden about reality remains an open question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut yes, I believe it\u2019s likely that there are aspects of reality that sit outside our perception, and it\u2019s possible psychedelics reveal some of that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Color of Infinity<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Across countless reports \u2014 from encounters with archetypal figures to visions of cosmic landscapes \u2014 one image appears again and again: an impossibly bright white light <\/strong>containing every color at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA flood of brilliant white light that has all the colors of the rainbow inside it . . . merging into the infinite\u2014it rather feels the universe,\u201d<\/em> Brierre says. \u201cIf we try to imagine infinity being expressed in colo<\/em>r, that would be it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Window Into Perception<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Whether psychedelic visions represent purely internal brain activity or glimpses of something deeper is still unknown. What\u2019s becoming clear, however, is that perception is far more flexible than we once believed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By reshaping neural connections and altering sensory processing, psychedelics offer a powerful reminder: the world we see every day may be just one version of reality \u2014 painted by the brain, filtered by evolution, and occasionally expanded into something far stranger and more colorful than we ever imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New research suggests our brains may only be showing us a tiny slice of the colorful universe. Could altered states reveal aspects of reality that normally sit outside human perception?<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":267525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133,88],"tags":[],"topics":[],"class_list":["post-267195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy-and-spirituality","category-psychedelic-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267195"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267449,"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267195\/revisions\/267449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267195"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wholecelium.com\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=267195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}