Flicker Drive

The world vibrates like a crystal in the mind; there is a frequency at which terror and ecstasy are the same and any road may be taken.
Russell Hoban, The Medusa Frequency

Contents

Overview of a Flicker Run
Introduction: A Note On Flicker Drive
The Pre-Flicker
Preparation of your phone & positioning it in the headset
The Flicker Run
Flight duration
Frequency of trancework
Timing of flicker runs
Transcendent music
Synergy with psychedelic drugs
EMDR
Breaks
Re-entry
The Launch Sequence
Adopt a comfortable launch position
Find the strobe mandala
Relaxation mantras
Visioning mantras
Float along the tunnel
Enter the luminous mist
Flicker Jumps
Star Fusion

Overview of a Flicker Run

Introduction: A Note On Flicker Drive

It’s the flickering that gives the excitement. Being is not a steady state but an occulting one; we are all of us a succession of stillnesses blurring into motion with the revolving of the wheel of action, and it is in those spaces of black between the pictures that we experience the heart of the mystery in which we are never allowed to rest.
Russell Hoban, Fremder

The term ‘Flicker Drive’ comes from Russell Hoban’s visionary science fiction novel Fremder (German for stranger), where flicker is a means of intergalactic space travel — a way to jump through the gaps in flickering space-time and cover vast distances in the twinkling of an eye. I have borrowed, or perhaps appropriated, Hoban’s concept as a metaphor for the techno-mystical journey induced by ganzflicker meditation whereby rhythmic light and music propel us through shifts in consciousness toward states of trance and transcendence.

Flicker drives the electrical rhythms of the brain into amplified synchrony, and when at alpha frequencies can boost the alpha rhythms of the brain by neural entrainment. In the sci-fi Hobanesque universe this is the carrier wave propelling us forward on our trip into Flickerspace.

And to continue the sci-fi metaphor further by appropriating some contemporary neuroscience we might say that our Spacecraft journeying through Flickerspace is the Fingelkurts triadic Selfhood made up of Observer, Narrator, and Embodier:

The Observer is the Captain on the bridge, the witnessing executive agency, watching and making decisions. The Embodier is the Engineer, channelling the propulsion drives from the deep emotional brain through the visceral felt-sense of the body into consciousness. The Narrator is the Navigator, steering our craft by the inner recitation of mantras or running commentary.

The self-discipline of ganzflicker meditation is the cultivation of a passive effortlessly-sustained awareness of the Visuals (Observer — watches the flicker screen), the Viscerals (Embodier — stays in touch with the felt sense of the body), and the Verbals (Narrator — inwardly recites a mantra script). That is our craft. And on a successful mission the Observer progressively expands, while the Embodier and the Narrator shrink.

To stretch, and perhaps over-stretch, our sci-fi metaphor yet further we can liken our strobonautical exploration of the deep inner world of the brain and unconscious mind to a voyage into outer space. The hallucinatory progression from elementary to complex levels of visual imagery becomes a journey from launchpad to fusion with destination star.

Region 0: The Launchpad — Blank Screen
Region I: Ignition — Central Focus / Mandala
Region II: Atmospheric Exit — Patterns / Tunnel
Region III: Orbit — Luminous Mist / Shadowy Shapes
Region IV: Interplanetary Space — Scenes, Settings
Region V: Interplanetary Space — Filmstrips
Region VI: Interstellar Space — Numinosum
Region VII: The Destination Star — Mystic Bright Light

A more detailed star chart is given here:

We start the music playlist, don the headset, set off on a flicker run; and when we get back and take the headset off, we find we’re somewhere else. The trip has shifted us into a better state of consciousness.

Here’s the rest of ‘A Note on Flicker Drive’. It’s all right as far as it goes but it doesn’t tell you what it’s like to flicker: you hit the switch that disappears you and if everything goes all right you reappear somewhere else.
— Fremder

The Pre-Flicker

Preparation Of Your Phone

• Ensure that the screen of your phone is clean.
• In Settings have Display / Brightness turned up to 100%.
• If the phone has an ‘Adaptive Brightness’ or ‘Auto Brightness’ feature, turn this off.
• Start the music playlist or other audio through earphones or headphones.
• Open the Strobonaut app. With many smartphones, Strobonaut only lifts off from a launchpad that is perfectly horizontal in relation to the gravitational field of the planet or space station you are on. Have your smartphone laid flat on a table or hold it horizontally when you open the app. It opens in Eye Movement mode. Tap the screen once to switch into Flicker Drive.
• When putting the phone into the headset, align the central line in the flicker screen to the centre of the headset before you close it.
• If using the Destek V5 headset for EMDR, test that clicking on the touch button switches between Flicker Drive and Eye Movement Mode.

If using the Destek V5, the screen of your phone needs to make contact with the centre pad for the touch button to work. There is an adjustable support for accommodating different sizes of phone:

We’d done the pre-flicker and we were ready to go. I set the frequency. . . . Everybody always tries to look as if it’s nothing special but no matter how many times you do it you can’t help wondering if you’re going to come out of it the same as you went in.
— Fremder

The Flicker Run

Flight Duration

Strobonaut trips might initially be short, lasting only 10-20 minutes, with perhaps one or two flicker jumps to increase subjective brightness and facilitate the emergence of visions. Keep the trips positive and enjoyable and build up their duration gradually.
With practice they are built up to somewhere between 40-90 minutes, with perhaps four or more flicker jumps.
Use flicker jumps whenever the screen appears to go dark. The use of repeated flicker jumps to increase perceived brightness by alpha rebound, in combination with uplifting music, keeps the sessions experientially positive and enjoyable.
The length of a flicker run can be preset by using the duration of a music playlist.

So far there are no known adverse effects of too long a session of ganzflicker meditation using the relatively gentle level of light intensity emitted by the screen of a smartphone.

Frequency of Trancework

As with learning to play a musical instrument, ideally one practises every day, or almost every day, at about the same time each day, in the same place each day, and in the same body position each day. The three R’s — Ritual, Routine, Repetition — are essential for effective trancework. One builds an altered state of consciousness by Regular Repetition of an established Routine of Ritual so that it goes onto automatic by auto-conditioning.

Ritual is merely the conscious and intentional arrangement of set and setting, which are the major determinants of any altered state of consciousness.

Ralph Metzner, Sacred Mushrooms of Vision

Timing of Flicker Runs

Flicker visioning is a form of liminal dreaming similar to hypnagogic imagery and tends to be most vivid when occurring close to nocturnal dreaming. Trips first thing in the morning before becoming fully alert (“Flash start your day !”) and in bed last thing at night will often be found to be most productive of visual imagery.

However potential problems with the latter option are: (1) Over-tiredness so that you cannot maintain concentration and fall asleep during the trip; and (2) You might have enjoyed a drink or two of alcohol that evening. Alcohol is counter-productive to visioning and generally it is a waste of time to do a flicker run if there is any alcohol in the system.

As well as morning and evening sessions, an afternoon siesta in a recliner also works well as a regular time for a strobonaut mission.

Transcendent Music

As she sang wordlessly the flickering 1/f music counter-pointed her song and the pixels changed colour and pattern in a visual continuo.
— Fremder

The human brain has evolved over aeons of fire-gazing at night around campfires and hearths, seeing visions while immersed in the resonance of music and flames flickering at alpha rhythms. The immersive absorption of ganzflicker similarly puts the strobonaut into an altered state of consciousness, a trance state, but the trajectory of that trance can go in any direction, positive or negative, depending on context. Transcendent music acts as a powerful contextualiser, analogous to a stacked script of powerful positive hypnotic suggestions, ensuring a positive trance trajectory. The right music ensures that after the flicker run you feel better and have become better. Choose your Night Tracks well !

Music is the numinosum! It is absolutely of spirit! It is much more important than reading psychology!

Gerhard Adler, The Numinosum in Everyday Life

Brain imaging shows that flickering light stimulation enhances the emotional response to music in a manner similar to psychedelic drugs¹.

1. Montgomery, C., Amaya, I. A., & Schmidt, T. T. (2024). Flicker light stimulation enhances the emotional response to music: A comparison study to the effects of psychedelics. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1325499. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1325499/pdf

There was a drowsiness, a droning in the golden afternoon, a vibration in my mind or in the air, an ineffably sweet, honeyed sound that was seductive and demanding, a music not of any instrument. It enveloped and overwhelmed me, I felt myself surrendering to it . . .
— The Medusa Frequency

Synergy with Psychedelic Drugs

Stroboscopic stimulation is strongly synergistic with psychedelics. A sub-perceptual mini-dose of a psychedelic drug gives a full-blown peak experience of the visionary cosmos when combined with ganzflicker. A trip becomes fully controllable — in other words the combination of a ganzflicker headset and a mini-dose of psychedelic drug gives the facility to switch the psychedelic drug effect off simply by taking the headset off, and re-starting the trip by putting it back on.

EMDR

Concentrate your awareness and focus on the breath.
Through different eye-gazes and concentration practices,
Discipline your mind until it rests naturally.

Oral Instructions on Mahamudra given by Tilopa to Naropa
on the Banks of the Ganges River, circa 1040

The touch button on the Destek V5 headset switches the app into Eye Movement mode when used for EMDR therapy or self-therapy. The rapid horizontal sweeps of the eyes abolish the trip’s alpha rhythm build-up and act as an immediate emergency landing back on planet Earth.

Breaks

Taking a break for a cup of tea, or whatever, halfway through a long flicker run is sometimes helpful, perhaps surprisingly, in raising the level of visioning. The visions often become more vivid and flow better after a break.

Use the re-entry procedure before you break, and the launch sequence on re-starting the mission. One advantage of taking breaks is that you get more practice of the launch and re-entry sequences and so progressively build up a more solid Tunnel.

Re-entry

Use the reverse of your launch sequence to close a session and float back down a Tunnel. So if your launch mantra is Heavy . . . Warm . . . Clear . . . Light for re-entry use Light . . . Clear . . . Warm . . . Heavy.

Take a deep breath and have a long leisurely stretch of your whole body when taking the headset off at the end of a trip. Stretch all your muscles to ground yourself firmly back into your physical body and the external world.

The Launch Sequence

Adopt A Comfortable Launch Position

‘I’m going to go deeper than before,’ said Pythia. ‘Just let yourself go loose and floaty, think of all the nice flickering we’ve had and all we’re going to have. Are you lying comfortably?’
— Fremder

The traditional meditation posture in both Western (dream incubation) and Eastern (yoga nidra) practices of liminal dreaming is to lie supine in a straight, symmetrical, and slightly spread-eagled position.

Adopting the same position each time helps cultivate a habit of deep stillness in mind and body, an auto-conditioned response.

Psychology research has shown that visual imagery emerges more readily in the lying down position as compared to the sitting position. Study of physiological responses comparing sitting and lying postures for meditation shows that the lying posture elicits stronger relaxation responses, with greater meditation depth and increased parasympathetic activation. And a VR headset rests more comfortably when lying back.

Practise ganzflicker meditation in bed, on a couch, or in a recliner. Make the trip into Flickerspace as comfortable and as enjoyable as possible.

Find the Strobe Mandala

To the conscious mind the mandala appears first as an unimpressive point or dot, and a great deal of hard and painstaking work as well as the integration of many projections are generally required before the full range of the symbol can be anything like completely understood.

C.G. Jung, Aion

The strobe mandala is like a light coming on on the dashboard, the first instrument reading that confirms you’ve actually ignited the engine, the first projection by the brain. The flicker screen is still a red colour. The craft is still on the launchpad.

Just as you might practise focused meditation (samatha) by fixing your gaze on the flickering flame of a candle, so when using the Strobonaut app in a Virtual Reality headset you practise ganzflicker meditation by fixing your gaze on the centre of the flicker screen WITH YOUR EYES OPEN.

It might seem surprising to practise flicker visioning with your eyes open rather than shut. Click here for quotes about dreaming with open eyes:

As with the hallucinations induced by any type of psychedelic agent there is a central focus to flicker visions, a dot or central circle of light. The strobe mandala is not present objectively in the flicker field of the phone screen. It is a subjective phenomenon, a phosphene, projected by the brain. It comes about as a result of the concentric arrangement of the retina and visual system, an entoptic phenomenon.

The strobe mandala is similar to the phosphenes which are seen with closed eyes in the hypnagogic state and in states of deep relaxation, e.g. when practising autogenics.

Though it may appear unimpressive, the mandala is highly significant. Your brain has begun projecting subjective illumination into the screen and that projection can now develop into complex and elaborate visions. Ignition has been successful.

If you have difficulty finding the strobe mandala at first, slowly jiggle your head a little from side to side looking into the distance beyond the centre of the screen. Look for a faint dot or blob, slightly brighter or darker than the rest of screen, non-flickering and remaining absolutely stationary, a fixed reference point which ignores the movement of your head.

As you move your head, imagine the headset is a set of goggles like diving goggles. Notice that the Flickerspace around you does not move with your head; it is stationary and fixed, a virtual outer world surrounding you. Right from the start, begin developing a sense of being immersed in Flickerspace.

On the screen the circles were widening, growing larger, becoming great eyes of becoming that became vast nodes of possibility and archipelagos of being constantly expanding and mutually annihilating as they slowly faded into blankness.
— Fremder

Relaxation Mantras & Visioning Mantras

The phenomenology of ganzflicker meditation shows considerable overlap with that of the hypnagogic state. As in hypnagogia, a key for strobonautical progress from the elementary mandala image into complex dream-like imagery is relaxation, both physical and mental.

A feature of deep relaxation is the enhancement of interoception, signals from the interior of the body. Current research in neuroscience is showing that amplifying interoception facilitates access to visual imagery. Autogenic training is a well established method of relaxation which amplifies interoception by the inner silent repetition of body-oriented mantras.

Relaxation Mantras:

The four elements are not a conception of much use to modern chemistry — that is, they are not the elements of nature. But earth, air, water and fire are still the four elements of imaginative experience, and always will be.
Northrop Frye

REM Autogenics uses a series of relaxation mantras to bring on the sequence of body-feelings associated with the four elements of imaginative experience:

These body-feelings align with the two dimensions of up versus down, and inside versus outside. These two dimensions are central to the esoteric psychology of the Western mystical tradition^1,2.

1. In the Tractatus aureus . . . cum SchoIiis Dominici Gnosii (1610) there is a drawing of the “secret square of the sages.” In the centre of the square is a circle surrounded by rays of light. The commentary gives the following explanation: Reduce your stone to the four elements . . . and unite them into one and you will have the whole magistery – a quotation from Pseudo-Aristotle. The circle in the centre is called: the mediator, making peace between enemies, or [the four] elements; nay rather he alone effects the squaring of the circle. The circumambulation has its parallel in: The circulation of spirits or circular distillation, that is, the outside to the inside, the inside to the outside, likewise the lower and the upper; and when they meet together in one circle, you could no longer recognize what was outside or inside, or lower or upper; but all would be one thing in one circle or vessel. For this vessel is the true philosophical Pelican, and there is no other to be sought for in all the world.
   Jung, 1944, Psychology & Alchemy, CW vol.12 §167n
2. His disciples asked: Shall we then enter the kingdom by being children? Jesus said to them: When you make the two one, and make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below — and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female female; when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image — then you will enter the kingdom.
   Gospel of Thomas, saying 22

Work initially with the limbs bringing on each elemental sensation in turn:

Then combine them and move in to the body core:

Or just use a single relaxation mantra breathing into each body area in turn:

A more detailed discussion of autogenic relaxation mantras can be found at:

Visioning Mantras:

Relaxation and Visioning mantras can be combined as an induction at the start of a session to launch the flicker run. During the launch sequence you may find it effective to inwardly recite each of these combined mantras many more than just three times. Repeat them as many times as is necessary to activate visual imagery. If the visual imagery is different from your autosuggestions, that’s fine. Just go with whatever your brain needs to release.

On the screen the circles were widening, growing larger, becoming great eyes of becoming that became vast nodes of possibility and archipelagos of being constantly expanding and mutually annihilating as they slowly faded into blankness.
— Fremder

Float along the Tunnel

Let us consider, for instance, the form constant for which “funnel,” “tunnel,” “cone,” or similar descriptive terms are used. This form occurs again and again in mescaline hallucinations; it also appears in hypnagogic hallucinations, in entoptic phenomena, and in the phenomena arising when flickering fields are viewed under certain conditions.

Heinrich Klüver, Mechanisms of Hallucination

The shaman’s journey starts with the experience of going down a Tunnel …The concentric circles of a mandala often resemble the ribbed aspect that the Tunnel frequently presents, and meditation with the mandala can lead to an experience resembling the entrance into the Tunnel … The concentric motif seems characteristic of the visionary experience itself and stands for the aperture through which the shaman penetrates the Underworld or Sky, by means of which he transcends the physical universe.

Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman

Look for the 2-D mandala developing depth and perspective and becoming a 3-D tunnel down which you float. Repeated practice of this imagery over time builds the solidity of the tunnel.

The word Tunnel is used here in a very broad sense. It covers any space, enclosed or only partly enclosed along its length, that recedes into the distance with a strong sense of depth and invites movement along its axis: a tree-lined avenue, a sunken lane between high banks, a city street, a railway cutting, a forest path, a gorge or a glen, a canyon, a vaulted crypt, the nave of a great church, the passage of a chambered cairn, a corridor, a cloister walk, or the aisle between bookshelves in a library.

The Tunnel need not be walled, and it need not hold still. A funnel, a cone, a whirlpool, a spiralling vortex — all belong to the same family. What matters is the felt sense of being drawn along, and, very often, an aperture of light or of darkness at the far end. This form of visual experience is well recognised as accompanying entry into an altered state of consciousness¹, acting as a portal into an alternate reality.

1. Dronfield, J. 1996 Entering alternative realities: cognition, art and architecture in Irish passage-tombs. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 6(1), 37-72. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300001591

Use a visioning mantra for developing this type of visual imagery:

And use the General Relaxation Mantra if you experience tension or anxiety in your body:

Enter the Luminous Mist

I opened myself to her voice, closed my eyes, held the white mist on the water with my inner eye. It was good to see nothing but that, it was restful, I didn’t want to see more. There was music in the Omphalos now, The Art of Fugue.
— Fremder

As you float through the tunnel, the red colour leaches from the flicker screen to leave a greyish white luminous mist.

The mist, also called ‘blank-out’ or ‘fade-out’, is a well recognised feature of the ganzfeld experiment and has been consistently described in neuroscience research studies since the 1950s. It is the brain’s response to sufficiently prolonged exposure to an unstructured visual field. There is an increase of alpha waves to a level midway between eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions¹. The increased alpha suppresses and uncouples² sensory input from the outer world to the primary visual cortex. This allows for the release of visions from the deep brain.

Keep using the General Relaxation Mantra to stay afloat in the mist and waiting for visions to emerge as shadowy shapes:

And maintain the flow of propulsion with a General Visioning Mantra to help the images become vivid and clear:

1. Miskovic, V., Bagg, J.O., Ríos, M. and Pouliot, J.J., 2019. Electrophysiological and phenomenological effects of short-term immersion in an altered sensory environment. Consciousness and Cognition, 70, pp.39-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2005.09.002
2. Schmidt, T.T., Jagannathan, N., Ljubljanac, M. et al. The multimodal Ganzfeld-induced altered state of consciousness induces decreased thalamo-cortical coupling. Sci Rep 10, 18686 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75019-3

Flicker Jumps

‘You’re shaking,’ she said as she smeared me all over with electrolytic cream.
‘Don’t take any notice of it – it’s just something I do between flicker jumps.’ She was very thorough and although I was feeling more and more nervous about the Pythia session it was evident that my body was getting interested.
‘See,’ she said with a big smile, ‘you’re feeling better already.’
— Fremder

Whenever the screen appears to become darker than usual, implement a flicker jump. Or use them routinely whenever there is a pause in the flow of visions and nothing much seems to be happening.

Use Flicker Jumps to increase the subjective brightness projected onto the screen and facilitate the emergence of visions — close your eyes for a period of deep rest, doing nothing other than merging with the music, then re-open them, and wait for a delayed effect.

When your eyes are closed the alpha rhythms in your brain are approximately double the size of when your eyes are open. When reopened onto an unstructured ganzflicker field, there is alpha blocking for 20 to 40 seconds and then alpha rebound occurs, and Flickerspace becomes noticeably brighter.

Adrian and Matthews (1934) reported that when subjects open their eyes in a uniform visual field (illuminated or completely dark) a short time after the usual α-blocking effect synchronisation reappears. Lehtonen and Lehtinen (1972) examined the effects of a uniform visual field on α rhythm. The authors found that eyes open in a uniform visual field (sheet of paper placed in front of eyes) or ganzfeld (translucent hemisphere) led, after an initial delay, to reappearance of α activity that is comparable to the eyes closed level.

Putz Braeunig & Wackermann, 2006, EEG correlates of multimodal ganzfeld induced hallucinatory imagery

The rebound effect is cumulative over the course of a session. In other words the effect tends to become stronger each time you repeat it. The brightness enhancement of the luminous mist gets progressively greater each time and tends to come sooner. It might come after 30 seconds in the first jump, after 20 in the second, and after only 10 seconds in the third. So aim to do at least three or four flicker jumps in a session. As they say down in the pilots’ mess: “Four jumps a day, keeps the shrink away”.

Each time, as the brightness enhancement fades, visions tend to emerge within the mist. A series of flicker jumps therefore advances the level of visioning towards greater complexity and clarity.

During the period of eye closure, rather than just resting doing nothing, try practising the autogenic relaxation mantras described previously.

After some minutes of rest and relaxation, open your eyes slowly and gently. Observe whether the screen is its objective red colour or whether you already have the greyish white mist and are in orbit. If your practice of the autogenic mantras has been precise you may find the screen is already a bright white. The colour and brightness give you feedback about your practice.

Keep the spotlight of your attention on the level of brightness you perceive at the centre of the flicker screen and:

Begin counting slowly, at about one count per second, waiting for an effect. This usually comes at 15-20 seconds, but initially you may need to count up to thirty or forty before you get the brightening.

Instead of counting, try using mantra recitation to help keep your concentration on observing the brightness of the screen.

Once you have become confident of the brightening effect, you may find it more fun to use a very slow rocket countdown:

While I am enjoying the spectacle of this light, every sadness and pain vanishes from my memory so that I am again as a simple maid and not as an old woman.

Hildegard of Bingen, 12th century

Star Fusion

Bathe in the luminosity and numinosity of the blazing burst of light. Absorb the light into every pore and fibre of your being. Let the blaze vibrate, clear heal and positivise every pore and fibre of your being. Feel the heat of the blaze at your body core.

Sometimes you may find the light so affectively intense that your body starts trembling or that it wants to move about. Allow that to happen. You may also find yourself making random gibberish noises or saying things out loud. Offload random noise and random movement as much as you need to.

The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neurosis but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology.

C.G. Jung, Letters

Surf the brightness onwards and upwards, brighter and brighter, sustaining an empty mind, pure awareness, peak immersion.

As the brightness fades, use a Visioning Mantra to maintain propulsion, while you watch for visions emerging from the mist:

Or to help visionary ascent to the numinosum you may prefer to use a Cosmic Mantra from your spiritual practice .

The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream

The Diamond Sutra

Contact portal: strobonautinfo@gmail.com

© Copyright REM Autogenics – All rights reserved