Milos Beran
Altered Consciousness...
When and how did your experimentation with 'altered consciousness' begin?
My first experience was at the end of 1993 in one of Prague's pubs. I was already over 30 that time. Before “the velvet revolution” in Czechoslovakia in 1989, which finished the communist system, hallucinogenic drugs including marihuana were almost unavailable here. The velvet revolution started a huge boom of many psychotropic substances here (including the many negative aspects as you know them from your country).
My first experience with marihuana was really astounding. I was gradually losing my consciousness in regular periods, sitting at the table. All I perceived was a gradual return of consciousness to my body. When I regained normal consciousness, it slowly started to leave my body again. It repeated many times in a sinuous dynamic. I had no chance to influence the process at all. It was threatening but fascinating at the same time. Some visual hallucinations were also connected with it, as I realized later. Since then, I have smoked marihuana many times. The most intensive experiences were during the first encounters, before my body started to adapt to THC. I experienced many positive and “absolute” ecstatic states of mind. But a lot of words have been already written about it. Since then, I have also tried LSD, magic mushrooms, ketamin and ayahuasca. However I take about one such a trip a year or two, not more. Without exaggerating, hallucinogens change all my perspectives - I believe in a positive direction. But I know that there are a lot of dangers connected with them. They can be an excellent servant but also a terrible master.
Do you have a favorite 'place' - a favourite psychotropic environment that you create from?
Yes, nature is essential for me. I prefer mountain wild landscapes. Large stones are my gates to “the alternative realities” on LSD trips. I perceive continuous motion and inner breathing in the stones. It reminds me of living cell tissue, metabolising an “eternal astral substrate”. Visual perception becomes much deeper and subtle. Reality is perceived like a velvet net of very subtle but extremely sharp fractal geometric patterns, inert and motionless for a while, living and moving in eternal dance at another moment. I feel immeasurable energy, extremely powerful but friendly and subtle at the same time. I fuse with the whole environment in a joyful and ecstatic harmony.
What, in your opinion, inhibits artistic expression? What are some of the obstacles you face as an artist, from both the inner and the outer world?
The main obstacle is me, in person. Rationalism is struggling with the irrational part of my mind inside me. I believe in intuition. When our leg slips off and our body is falling into an “empty” space suddenly, something in our mind starts to work automatically and the body reacts in a proper way (at least sometimes). Our mind is working without our rational control at the moment (and all the time in reality) even before we are able to realize the situation. Intuition or inspiration emerges from our mind in a similar way. I try to paint in a trance, to let my mind to do its work and to minimize the rational control. The more rational effort, the less natural and more convulsive results usually arise.
PS: Also very interesting: psychedelic experiences seems to trigger synchronicities (a term according to C.G. Jung for “meaningful coincidences”). I have a lot of such stories. Maybe, it could be interesting to start a discussion about this phenomenon…anyone??
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"Evening
Ocean"
2000
37" by 29"
Wax on Paper Board
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