This is a Mandala I drew while on shrooms.

The images is a little skewed because I took the picture at an angle and then tried to crop/rotate it straight.

ah, so thats what that is. Excellent work joe!

Nice joedirt! I love seeing the artwork and hearing the meaning behind avatar selections. Great thread.

'cause I'm hawt like that.

And these are his kicks:

Word.

I could have revived one of two threads but the original post for this one was more thorough. I don't see why such a thread should ever die... new members shall come, old members change their avatars from time to time.

I'm surprised I didn't post! This one is from an old painting of mine. I recently changed it back. DMT and the Nexus inspired me to create, and doing so was easy all those years ago when I had almost infinite free time on my hands. It reminds me of good times and many deep journeys. Very much a reminder of who I was back then. Then with age comes responsibility, trials of life, some deaths... some challenges. Tempering of the spirit is a good thing but in some ways a distraction from direct connections to the ineffable. A connection I can't forget, despite how infrequent journeys may have become because of all this.

Recently I've felt the pull, back to those realms. It seems fitting to bring this image back for more than just the nostalgia.

Awesome. That reminds me of Zdzisław Beksiński. Very nice.
Hey. We both quote Art Van Dlay in our signature.

Mine evolved a little while ago

I was just messing around It's a new members' seedling icon grafted onto nan0tech's old avatar, with added DMT oxalate. Then I overlaid my previous longtime avatar because I like it - the Ouchi illusion.

@downwards I always liked your old one

Actually I was thinking of changing it back, or perhaps putting a new illusion in its place. The Ouchi is good because, thanks to its simplicity, it still works on the scale of the avatar. Other, less simple illusions suffer from aliasing problems which detract from or completely eliminate their effect.

The day that I decided to become a new member of the DMT-NEXUS, I was at a loss for what I was going to use a an avatar.

All I knew was that it had to be something pretty damn psychedelic, considering the huge influence psychedelic substances/experiences have had over this lifetime of mine, but somehow just another fractal image was not going to really cut it for me (no offense to any of you out there that use fractals for your avatars!)

I was browsing The Nexian that day and came across an article on the seminal artist, Alex Grey. There in the article was a picture of the latest project that he was working on, a sculpture of a building that he called "Entheon". The image deeply grabbed my soul immediately and seemed to sum all the myriad psychedelic experiences I have had been through in my life.

I decided right then & there that Entheon was going to be my avatar. My DMT-NEXUS membership was maybe 3 hours old or something close to that.

My how time seems to fly by...

As far as I know, by now there is supposed to be an actual life-size building, that looks exactly like the original sculpture, that Alex Grey & his wife Allyson, along with a bunch of other peoples' help and funding built somewhere on the planet! Crazy cool!!!

My avatar is a picture taken from the exact same location where I dislocated my shoulder on LSD three years ago, where my Trip to the ER began. Beyond the mangroves, on the other bank of Sammy's Creek, one pavilio, two green plastic park benches and a local trying his luck at catching some snapper for supper. Although by no stretch an encore, this picture shall forever more ignite a fiery passion to live which still dwells somewhere, someplace, within my Atom Heart Mother's memory vaults.

As you can see, I've come up with a new one. It combines the "Cafe Wall" illusion with the Ouchi illusion in a sense that the central circle of the latter is applied to the former. I then decided to play with the colours a bit, first swapping out the black and white for red and blue, then adding green in diagonally - thinking I'd adjust the distribution of the red and blue to match. But I stopped at that because the effect is quite cool, I think.

The difference between looking at the image in small or large size is also quite interesting. Large version attached:

It looks awesome as an avatar, crisp and poppy.

My avatar is a photo I took a while ago of an apricot being decimated by a swarm of beetles that spring up out of nowhere in February here.

My avatar is the late great chemist Albert Hofmann portrait by Alex Grey.
His art and the lsd that laced the paper were/are of the highest quality.
The reason. On my 18th birthday i managed to aquire 25 of these, I'm not sure of the exact dosage but man.. they were strong. Definitely changed the lives of my circle of friends. One of those came to me over 10 years later and she said those trips saved her life.
Funny how little decisions lead to such big ramifications
Unforgettable times.

Thanks for helping provide the inspiration to make some artwork!

I remember puzzling over what your avatar was for quite some time , until you finally explained what it was another time. An intriguing picture!

I'm ashamed to say that I don't know who I should credit for my avatar. Sorry unknown artist.

I chose it because it reminds me of lessons that our teacher plants have taught me. Becoming/knowing that we are one with nature, being in the moment, a peaceful observer.

It has been a long journey of exploration of my inner world through music, nature and, more recently, drawing. Some motifs emerged and I found a lot of them in this present image. I found it fooling around, looking for Nagas on the World Wide Web, somehow I got to see a serpent the very same day - I had actually never touched a serpent. This depiction can be found on the website which hosted the image, which they sold as tapestry:

"""Giant Size Pha Yant Nak Giaw (Nagas Entwined), with Purely Buddhist Sacred Naga Serpent, Yantra Designs and Ancient Khom Agkhara Lettering, composed of Classic LP Tim Lineage Master Yant Spells.
The Main Image within the Sacred Geometry of the Yant, is the Paya Nak Giaw Maha Amnaj (Naga Serpents of Bhodala), which is composed of a Pair of Naga Serpents entwined as an eight loop knotwork design.
The eight loops are partitioned into different sections, which each make up a separate kata or Incantation, but when all of the separate Yant contained within the Knots are placed together as the Image of the two Nagas, it forms indeed, also, the image of the Buddha in the form of a sacred Geometry image (Yant Ongk Pra).
The eight knots which compose the Buddha which is hidden within the nagas, represents the Eightfold Path. The five loops of the bottom (torso) of the Buddha actually formk the Yant Nam Dtao, (gourd yantra) which says 'Na Mo Put Taa Ya', invoking the Five Buddhas.
The Next Loop above forms the head of the Buddha, and has the famous Gunstopping 'Yant Maha Ud' which is in truth, not just a Kong Grapan Klaew Klaad Protection, but also a Powerful Maha Pokasap Spell for Great Wealth and Priceless Treasured assets. The Kata 'Ni Dti Dti Ma A U' is inscribed with the Kata for the 4 Elements 'Na Ma Pa Ta'.
The double Topknot has the Yant Putto Inscribed (Buddho), and the syllable 'Ang'
The Nak Giaw is thus, in Truth, an Enlightened Buddha Image in the Coded Language of Sacred Geometry, and at once, also a Naga Protective Deity.
Increases Prosperity, Luck, Health and Happiness, and Eliminates Causes of Future Mishaps. Dissolves hate and Induces Metta, Compassion, Generosity, Helpfulness and Equanimity in the Hearts of those around You. Auspicous Blessings, Lucky Fortunes, Protection from Dangers and Misfortunes"""

Have you seen this new research where a deep neural network has been trained to recognize moving visual illusions? One of the authors has an interesting website (one example below).