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Throughout history, humans have sought to tap into an “inner sun” of visionary experience – transcendent states of consciousness that reveal worlds beyond ordinary perception. Today, cutting-edge science is probing the biological basis of these mystic states, even as artists and spiritual practitioners continue to explore them in practice. From the discovery of a psychedelic molecule in the brain to the esoteric paintings of Hilma af Klint and the immersive data-art of Refik Anadol, a fascinating dialogue is emerging between academia and the visionary. Scientists, artists, and yogis alike are converging on the idea that deep within us lies a gateway to extraordinary insight – often called the “third eye” or “inner light.” In this essay, we will balance scientific research with accessible insight, examining how DMT and the pineal gland, visionary art, contemporary media art, and spiritual practices all provide tools to access these inner worlds. The goal is to sketch a constellation of perspectives – part academic, part experiential – on unlocking the creative and spiritual potential of consciousness. Ultimately, this journey invites each of us to ask, in the words of one art exhibit’s title: “What is the world that you dream of?”
DMT, the Pineal Gland, and the Science of the “Third Eye”
Modern neuroscience has begun to validate age-old mysticism about the “third eye.” The pineal gland – a tiny pinecone-shaped organ deep in the brain – has long been enigmatic. René Descartes in the 17th century famously declared the pineal to be the “seat of the soul,” associating it with a spiritual third eye. In recent decades, scientists discovered that the pineal and other brain regions produce DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine) – a potent psychedelic compound. DMT is the active molecule in ayahuasca brews that induce intense visions, and intriguingly, it exists naturally in mammals. In 2013, a team led by Dr. Jimo Borjigin at the University of Michigan detected DMT in the pineal gland of live rats, proving for the first time that this “mystical” compound is made in the mammalian brain. Follow-up experiments in 2019 showed rat brains can even synthesize and release DMT, raising the possibility that human brains do the same. As Borjigin put it, “DMT is not just in plants, but also can be detected in mammals,” overturning previous assumptions. This finding lends credence to hypotheses by researchers like Dr. Rick Strassman, who speculated in the 1990s that the pineal gland might release DMT at profound moments (such as birth, death or dreaming) to produce spiritual experiences. Indeed, a 2018 study suggested DMT can mimic elements of the near-death experience, such as feeling one has left the body and entered another realm. Scientists caution that the role of endogenous DMT in normal brain function is still mysterious – “we don’t know what it’s doing in the brain,” Borjigin admits. Yet the mere presence of this “entheogenic” molecule in our heads is tantalizing. It suggests that biology itself may open doors to visionary states that were once the sole domain of mystics. In other words, the “third eye” metaphor has a biochemical dimension: the brain likely has innate mechanisms to trigger psychedelic or transcendental experiences. Understanding this science of the inner light is a first step towards demystifying how “inner suns” might arise within us, and it provides an empirical backdrop for the artistic and spiritual explorations of consciousness.
Visionary Art Pioneers: Hilma af Klint and the Spiritual Canvas
Long before scientists studied DMT, artists were mapping the landscapes of the visionary mind. A striking example is Hilma af Klint, a Swedish painter and mystic who, in the early 1900s, created radically abstract works guided by inner visions. Hilma af Klint engaged in seances and was deeply influenced by esoteric movements like Theosophy and Rosicrucianism. She believed that through meditation and trance, she could connect with a higher spiritual reality and translate it into imagery. Her paintings were essentially a depiction of spiritual knowledge and experience – a visual record of insights gained beyond the five senses. Decades before the advent of psychedelic art, af Klint produced large, colorful canvases filled with swirling symbols, orbs, and geometric forms that she claimed were communicated to her by higher beings during séances. At the time, she kept these works largely private, fearing they would not be understood; indeed, they predated Kandinsky and others in pioneering abstraction. Only in recent years has Hilma af Klint been recognized as a visionary innovator whose art sprang from “occult ideas, spiritual movements, and her own experiences during séances.” Her series Paintings for the Temple (1906–1915), for example, was ostensibly created at the behest of a spirit guide and aimed to illustrate the unity of existence – a concept af Klint intuited in trance-like states. Hilma af Klint’s work reminds us that art can be a path to gnosis, a way of seeing the unseen. Through symbolic forms and abstract color, she gave tangible shape to the intangible – an inner cosmos of the soul. Many other artists, from William Blake in the eighteenth century to the Surrealists and psychedelic artists of the 1960s, have likewise drawn inspiration from dreams, hallucinations or meditations. Af Klint stands out as a early trailblazer who merged rigorous spiritual practice with artistic creation. In her, the “third eye” of the mystic became the painter’s eye. Her legacy, once under-recognized, now underscores how visionary art can be “one of the first examples of abstract art” as well as an “illustration of various occult ideas… and experiences” beyond the ordinary. By accessing her inner world – her personal inner sun – Hilma af Klint helped pave the way for today’s artists who continue to explore consciousness and transcendence through creative expression.
Contemporary Visionaries: Technology, Art and Altered States
In the 21st century, a new generation of artists is bringing scientific and futuristic sensibilities to the exploration of visionary states. Digital art and multimedia installations now allow audiences to literally see and hear representations of the mind. A leading figure in this arena is media artist Refik Anadol, who uses data and machine intelligence to craft mesmerizing visual experiences. In his 2018 installation Melting Memories, Anadol bridged neuroscience and art by transforming real brainwave data into flowing digital sculptures. He recorded EEG (electroencephalogram) signals from people recalling memories, then fed this neural data into an algorithm that generated evolving images of light and motion. The result was an immersive artwork that “takes viewers inside the human brain” – as one design journal described it – to demonstrate how the brain recalls memories. Towering LED screens displayed morphing, fluid forms based on the rhythms of cognition. By visualizing the invisible workings of mind, Anadol effectively created a controlled hallucination or “machine dream” for viewers. His studio describes the process: EEG data of brain activity provided the building blocks for unique algorithms that output multidimensional visual structures. The effect is both scientific and surreal, inviting the audience into a meditative, hypnotic state. Projects like this put Anadol at the vanguard of a new kind of techno-shamanism – using advanced tools to evoke the awe and introspection traditionally associated with spiritual visions. As one commentator noted, works like Melting Memories comprise “data paintings, augmented data sculptures and light projections” that blur the line between analytical visualization and art, showing the inner workings of the brain in ways that feel poetic. In essence, Anadol and peers are using technology to externalize the inner landscape, giving form to memories, dreams, and psychedelic states through code and pixels.
Other contemporary artists take a more narrative and cultural approach to altered states. Jeremy Shaw, a Canadian-born artist based in Berlin, has dedicated his practice to the notion of altered states and the myriad ways humans pursue them. Working in video, installation, and photography, Shaw often depicts subcultures or future fictions centered on trance, ecstasy, and transcendence. For example, his acclaimed “Quantification Trilogy” of short films (Quickeners, Liminals, I Can See Forever, 2014–2018) imagines future societies that use combinations of dance, ritual, and psychedelics to try to “evolve” or save humanity. In Liminals (2017), a pseudo-documentary style film, a group of people engage in ecstatic movement and a white vapor they inhale, attempting to access a new realm of consciousness that might rescue their dystopian world. Shaw presents these scenarios with a mix of archival aesthetics and sci-fi speculation, compelling the viewer to consider the universal drive behind such practices. “Humans seem to have an almost inherent urge to reach higher states of being,” Jeremy Shaw observes – whether through “drugs, dancing, meditation, religion, [or] technology”. He is fascinated by this “seemingly universal human desire” for transcendence, as well as by scientific attempts to explain it. Notably, Shaw’s interest is not merely fictional; he stays abreast of real scientific and therapeutic developments. “I’m perpetually researching altered states and new developments around them, in neuroscience, the reemergence of psychedelics in therapy, in culture,” he said in a 2020 interview. In one early art piece simply titled DMT, Shaw actually filmed himself and others smoking DMT (the same compound discussed earlier) and trying to describe the ineffable visions immediately afterward. The work juxtaposed footage of people in the throes of the DMT experience with subtitles of their halting, fragmented attempts to articulate what they just saw. This conceptual experiment – a “document of an insular, mind-blowing psychedelic experience with an attempt at analysis” – highlighted how language fails in the face of the transcendental. Shaw’s art, therefore, operates at the intersection of affect and analysis: it recreates altered states for the viewer (through immersive sound or image) even as it reflects on our cultural and scientific frameworks for understanding those states. In gallery installations, he has combined archival footage of religious ecstatics with modern rave scenes, or created faux-scientific displays examining “quantified” ecstasy – always probing the cultural practices and scientific mapping of transcendental experience. By toggling between ecstasy and observation, Shaw mirrors our dual approach to the mystical today: we seek the experience itself, but also attempt to measure and rationalize it.
Meanwhile, artists like Haroon Mirza bring yet another perspective, blending futuristic technology, ecology, and hints of psychedelia. Mirza is known for art installations that are self-powered and immersive, often involving electronic circuits, synthesizers, and flashing lights. While his work is not explicitly about drug-induced visions, it resonates with themes of expanded perception and speculative futures. In a recent exhibition “For a Dyson Sphere” (2022), Mirza explored the sci-fi concept of building a megastructure around a star to harvest its energy. He built a spinning array of solar panels and blinding lamps to simulate this idea, effectively creating an artificial “sun” inside the gallery. What’s intriguing is that Mirza populated this installation with living components: arrangements of succulents and fungi – including hallucinogenic species – were integrated into the symphonic circuit. These psychoactive plants, disconnected from their natural ecosystem, hint at the overlap of sustainable technology with altered states (a subtle nod to humanity’s longstanding co-evolution with hallucinogens). The installation flooded the space with pulsating light and sound, creating a sensorial environment that visitors physically experienced as much as observed. One could imagine it as a modern “ritual space,” where the power of the sun, the circuitry of electronics, and the presence of psychedelics all converge. Mirza’s work doesn’t overtly preach about consciousness, but it invites the viewer’s active participation in meaning-making, almost like a meditation. In fact, a recent group show he is curating (Finding My Blue Sky, 2025, Lisson Gallery London) was described as “an exhibition conceived as a constellation” where at one level it was a personal narrative, and “at another, it invites viewers to… dream of their own aesthetic politics” – the Arabic title of the show asking, “What is the world that you dream of?”. That question perfectly encapsulates the goal of visionary art: to spur inner vision. Whether through algorithmic data or immersive light and sound, today’s visionary artists extend an invitation to each of us to engage our imagination – to peer inward and co-create the meaning of what we perceive. In doing so, they stand on common ground with the scientists mapping the brain and the mystics mapping the soul.
Yogis, Breathwork, and the Awakening of the Inner Vision
Not all journeys to altered states require external technology or substances – spiritual traditions have long developed inner technologies for opening the third eye. Yogis and meditators, for example, train for years to achieve heightened states of awareness and vision. Paramahansa Yogananda, the renowned 20th-century Indian yogi and author of Autobiography of a Yogi, often spoke of the “spiritual eye” – a luminous point of divine perception at the forehead which can be perceived in deep meditation. According to Yogananda, intense concentration at the point between the eyebrows can lead the meditator to literally see an inner light. He described the experience in detail: first a “steady opal-blue glow” encircled by a golden halo, and eventually a tiny white star in the center – the “perfect formation of the spiritual eye.” With deeper meditation, this point becomes a gateway through which consciousness “passes to attain oneness with Spirit.” In his teachings, Yogananda indicated that penetrating through the star in the spiritual eye leads to union with Christ Consciousness or Krishna Consciousness – in other words, a direct experience of the divine as omnipresent light. It’s noteworthy that Yogananda deliberately uses terms from both Western and Eastern faiths (Christ and Krishna) to describe this state; he suggested that devoted practitioners of any tradition might envision the form of the deity they love when their inner eye opens. Yogananda himself had visions of luminous figures – there are accounts of him seeing Lord Krishna and Jesus Christ together in cosmic light during his meditations in Boston. In one anecdote, he yearned to see Krishna and Jesus hand-in-hand and was granted a radiant vision of them on a sea of astral light – a personal confirmation of the universality of divine forms. Such experiences, in yogic terms, are signs of “Cosmic Consciousness,” a state of ecstasy where one perceives the entire universe as made of light and feels unity with all existence. Importantly, these states were achieved through years of disciplined meditation, breath control (pranayama), and devotion – essentially, using the mind and body as the laboratory. The parallels with psychedelic experiences are striking: descriptions of a bright inner light, a sense of oneness, visions of deities or archetypal beings, and ineffable bliss are common to both the yogic samadhi and the DMT trip. It suggests that the human nervous system, whether via endogenous chemicals or meditative stillness, is capable of generating the classic “mystical” experience.
In the late 20th century, psychiatrists and psychologists in the West began to explore non-pharmacological methods to induce these visionary states for healing purposes. One pioneering approach is Holotropic Breathwork, developed by Dr. Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof in the 1970s–80s. After LSD and other psychedelics were made illegal, Grof – a leading researcher of psychedelic therapy – sought a safe, drug-free technique to achieve similar results. The method he devised is deceptively simple: accelerated, deep breathing combined with evocative music and a supportive setting. This intense hyperventilation can, after some time, lead participants into non-ordinary states of consciousness akin to a psychedelic journey. Practitioners report vivid imagery, emotional breakthroughs, spiritual insights, even out-of-body sensations. As one participant described, “Holotropic Breathwork is a powerful breath-oriented approach to a psychedelic experience for self-exploration and personal growth.” It often leads to positive transformation and heightened creativity. In a typical guided session, individuals lie down, don eyeshades, and breathe rapidly and deeply for an extended period while rhythmic tribal drumming or trance music plays loudly. The result is a natural alteration of blood gases and neural activity that can unlock buried memories or catalyze cathartic release. Stanislav Grof found that holotropic sessions sometimes allowed people to re-experience birth trauma, encounter archetypal visions, or transcend their personal identity – in his view, accessing the “transpersonal” realms of the psyche similar to high-dose LSD sessions. Over the past decades, thousands have participated in these breathwork workshops, often reporting mystical or visionary episodes that are remarkably similar to those induced by psychoactive plants. The key revelation here is that the human body itself contains the switches and levers to shift consciousness into extraordinary states. Through fast breathing, the brain’s chemistry and rhythms change in a way that can unlock an inner kaleidoscope. This lends further support to the idea that visionary consciousness is a built-in faculty – under certain conditions, we can activate our inner sun at will. Whether by the controlled hyper-oxygenation of holotropic breathwork, the focused stillness of meditation, or the ingestion of entheogens, the outcome seems to be a access to deeper layers of mind and a feeling of connection to a greater reality. And interestingly, modern science is beginning to study all these avenues: clinical research on meditation shows changes in brain waves and even structure; breathwork is being examined for trauma therapy; and psychedelic research is in renaissance for mental health. The lines between the scientific and the spiritual are thinning, as each offers insights into that elusive state of oneness and vision.
Conclusion: Accessing the Inner Suns
From molecular biology to immersive art to ancient meditation, we find a common thread: the pursuit of visionary states is an enduring and multifaceted human endeavor. Science at the frontier is validating that our brains are wired for extraordinary experiences – containing compounds like DMT and capabilities we are only beginning to understand. Artists on the frontiers of culture are synthesizing those findings with creative intuition, giving us new ways to see our inner worlds, whether through the bold abstraction of a Hilma af Klint or the data-driven dreams of a Refik Anadol. And long-standing spiritual disciplines remind us that with sufficient practice, the doors of perception can be opened from within, yielding personal insight and perhaps even wisdom. In balancing the academic and the experiential, we appreciate that neither approach alone has all the answers. The neuroscientist’s lab and the shaman’s ceremony are exploring the same mystery through different lenses. Indeed, as Jeremy Shaw’s work exemplifies, the cultural, scientific, and mystical practices surrounding altered states are converging into a richer understanding of our consciousness. We live in a time where a dialogue between scientists and sages, artists and analysts is not only possible but necessary to fully grasp these phenomena. The implications are profound: visionary states can inspire innovation, heal psychological wounds, and perhaps rekindle a sense of the sacred in modern life. They allow individuals to “participate in the creation of meaning” in their lives – to re-enchant a world often flattened by materialism. As one curator put it, it invites us “to dream of [our] own aesthetic politics”, to imagine new ways of being.
All the tools are at our disposal – ancient breathing techniques, meditation, psychedelic molecules, VR headsets, music, art installations – to explore consciousness and shine light on our inner suns. The remaining question is a personal one: what will you discover when you turn these tools inward? Or, phrased differently: “What is the world that you dream of?” Each journeyer might answer in their own way. Yet collectively, as we integrate the insights of science and the inspirations of art, we move closer to understanding the full spectrum of the human mind. In doing so, we honor both rational knowledge and visionary wisdom – an equilibrium that can guide us into the future with eyes wide open, both outward and inward. The third eye, it seems, is beginning to wink, bridging our inner and outer worlds in a shared quest to find “our blue sky” of expanded consciousness.
Sources: Supporting citations are provided in the text, referencing scientific studies, art exhibitions, and interviews with practitioners and artists that illustrate the points discussed, among others. These sources range from academic research findings to museum and gallery publications, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of this exploration.