A Psychonaut's Guide to the Invisible Landscape: The Topography of the Psychedelic Experience

(Paperback)

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Journeying into the invisible world revealed by his use of the dissociative psychedelic DXM (dextromethorphan), Dan Carpenter found that what he experienced was not simply subjective sensations and psychological states, but an objective world of familiar if, inordinately odd, landmarks and characters. The running diary he kept of these voyages recounts impressions of a landscape charted by other travellers into this Inner Space and includes descriptions of many of the same phenomena recorded by such mind travellers as Terence and Dennis McKenna, Alexander, and Ann Shulgin and others who have experienced the hive mind - the pool of all consciousness. Into this territory where expression is like chaos theory, where oddly symmetrical order manifests out of the seemingly anarchic swirl of images and events, the author ventures with the mind-set of a naturalist, accepting whatever might be rather than what he hopes he might find. What emerges is not a location crafted by subjective experience, but a landscape that embodies the Other and that represents a conscious state in which the barriers between the self and the not-self dissolve.

Reviews

Dan Carpenters forays into the fractal hyperspace and hive minds of the DXM realms offer a serious contribution to contemporary psychedelic thought. His work follows in the tradition of inner-space investigators such as Coleridge, Antonin Artaud, Aldous Huxley, and Terence McKenna. This will be a must-read for every serious psychonaut. * Daniel Pinchbeck, author of Breaking Open the Head *
Like that of the intrepid scout who surveys the fantastical geography of new worlds for others too timid to venture first, Carpenters service will be honored and remembered. * Charles Hayes, author of Tripping: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures *
Whether or not what he describes has an ontologically distinct existence, or if the imagery is merely psychological apparitions, the project remains valuable. Not only does it provide pharmacography with a uniquely imaginal dimension, it relates to the reader a landscape that can be explored by anyone. * Psychedelic Press UK, October 2012 *

Author Bio

Dan Carpenter (1963-2005) took thirteen high-dose, closed-eye trips using DXM between January 2003 and July 2004, which he has documented in this book.