being outside the dominion of time

By Benny Shanon, Department of Psychology

The Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel ([email protected])

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48

s explained in previous contributions to the MAPS Bulletin (Shanon, 1997a,

1998a and 2000a; see also Shanon, 1997b, 1998b and 2000b), for almost a
decade now I have been engaged in the systematic phenomenological investigation of the
special psychological state induced by the Amazonian psychotropic brew Ayahuasca (for
general background information, readers are referred to the
previous publications cited above). My investigation is based,
on the one hand, on extensive firsthand experiences with the
brew (at this point, I have partaken of it more than 130 times)
and, on the other hand, on interviews conducted with almost
200 individuals. Amongst my informants were indigenous and
non-indigenous persons from various places in Brazil and Peru
as well as foreigners (that is, persons residing outside of South
America). These individuals differed in the levels of their
experience with Ayahuasca and with respect to the contexts in
which they partook of the brew. My investigation examines all
aspects of the Ayahuasca experience - general atmosphere and
feelings, hallucinations in all perceptual modalities, ideations,
spiritual and mystical experiences, modifications in peoples
overall state of consciousness, transformations of personal
identity as well as non-ordinary overt behaviors and performances. A full report of the investigation is presented in a
forthcoming book titled The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the
Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience. In this short
communication I discuss one aspect of the Ayahuasca phenomenology that has to do with radical modifications in the
experience of temporality.
The study of temporality is of special significance because,
as noted by many thinkersphilosophers and psychologists
alike (see Kant, 1781/1953; James, 1890/1950; Bergson, 1944,
1950; Heidegger, 1962; and Merleau-Ponty, 1962; as well as
Shanon, 1993 and Shanon, 1998), temporality is perhaps the most fundamental
constituent of human cognition. Thus, any modification in temporality is of significant
cognitive import, empirical as well as theoretical. Various such modifications are
encountered with Ayahuasca. Like other psychotropic agents (for reports related to other
such agents, see Mayhew, 1961; Watts, 1962), Ayahuasca can induce marked changes in
the experience of time. Here I would like to consider those changes that are so radical as
to induce a feeling that is altogether outside the dominion of time; for further details and
a more extensive theoretical discussion, the reader is referred to Shanon (2001).

Perhaps the most

marked, and the most
common, modification in
the temporal experience
encountered with
Ayahuasca has to do with
changes in the rate of
time's flow....it is as if in
brief moments a person
can accommodate what
are experienced as long
stretches of time.

49

Changes in the rate of times flow

ln especially strong visions, drinkers may feel totally immersed in

these scenarios and even act in them and engage in interaction with
the objects, people and creatures that they encounter in them.
has passed, whereas in the other, non-ordinary frame one
seems to have traversed a very long duration. In other
words, it is as if in brief moments a person can accommodate what are experienced as long stretches of time. In
general, it seems to me that the more powerful the
Ayahuasca inebriation is, the more pronounced is the
discrepancy between the two frames of temporality.
Theoretically, in the limit, experiences of timelessness
associated with unbounded duration may be experienced. In this sense, the Ayahuasca drinker will find him/
herself to be, in effect, outside of the dominion of time.
The state of affairs noted here is, I think, exactly that
recounted in the Bible in conjunction with the war the
Israelites had with the Amorites (Joshua 10: 12-13):
Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when
the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the
children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,
Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou,
Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood
still, and the moon stayed, until the people had
avenged themselves upon their enemies.
Impressively, the Maharal of Prague, the Jewish
rabbinical sage of the 16th century famous for his Golem,
explained this event by means of the coupling of two
distinct frames of references. Specifically, the Maharal
(see Mallin, 1979) proposes that whereas the Amorites

adventures of children who passed through a wardrobe

and entered into magical lands. The childrens adventures in these other lands lasted hours, days, perhaps even
longer; yet, as far as the ordinary world was concerned
hardly any time elapsed at all. Thus, when the children
returned to the wardrobe and into their house, they
realized that the adult members of their family thought
that they were absent for only a moment or two.
The meeting of two frames of reference

Another non-ordinary pattern involving the contrast

between two frames of time has to do with non-ordinary
anchoring of temporal reference. Normally, we are situated in the present: The past is gone, not to be retrieved,
the future is not yet and still unknown and we, human
beings, are confined to the now. This holds both the
definition of our own being and that of whatever we
perceive. Thus, if nowTuesday, 13:15I am in my
home in Jerusalem, what I perceive through the open
window is taking place nowthat is, Tuesday, 13:15
as well. This seems to be trivial, but with Ayahuasca
people may encounter patterns that violate this scheme. It
is quite common for drinkers of the brew to feel that they
are here, in the now, observing states of affairs happening
in other places, at other times. For instance, once I found
myself looking through the hut in which an Ayahuasca
session was held and saw a scenario which I interpreted as

number 2 fall 2001

maps volume XI

Perhaps the most marked, and the most common,

modification in the temporal experience encountered
with Ayahuasca has to do with changes in the rate of
times flow. Specifically, time may be experienced to run
faster or slower than it normally does. The prevalent
experience is that in what objectively (that is, as measured
by the clock) is a short period of time, much can be
experienced. The contrast is especially appreciated when
drinkers of Ayahuasca consult the watch and discover
that even though so much has happened to them experientially, in reality very little time has passed. What we
have here may be conceived of in terms of two frames of
reference. In the ordinary frame of time hardly any time

were in the ordinary frame of reference, the Israelites were

in a non-ordinary one. When only a moment passed in
the ordinary frame (and hence, it seemed that the sun did
not move), an extended duration was experienced in the
non-ordinary frame, thus enabling the Israelites sufficient time to fight their enemies. The similarity between
this account and the phenomenon encountered with
Ayahuasca is striking. I shall further note that the
Maharals proposal probably presents the first employment of the conceptual distinctions which, at the beginning of the 20th century, became the core of Einsteins
special theory of relativity.
Interestingly, similar observations are found in the
fantasy tales of C.S. Lewis in his The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe (Lewis, 1950) in which he recounts the

maps volume XI

number 2 fall 2001

50

taking place in ancient Egypt.

Even more powerful are cases in

which Ayahuasca drinkers feel that
they cross the boundary and enter
into the scenes of their visions. In
such cases, drinkers feel not only that they have seen or
witnessed scenarios taking place in other times, but that
they have actually been present in such scenarios. Experiences of this kind involve both non-ordinary space-travel
and what may be regarded as time-travel. In especially
strong visions, drinkers may feel totally immersed in these
scenarios and even act in them and engage in interaction
with the objects, people and creatures that they encounter
in them. Transformations of identity may be experienced
as well. Since these experiences involve various facets
which extend beyond the topic of temporality, I shall not
discuss them any further here.

..Mozart was said to have been able to

grasp an entire symphony in an instant.

The realm of the eternal

Still more radical is the experience in which one feels
that one is situated in a point of reference where one can
observe everything that has ever happened as well as
everything that will ever happen. This point of reference
defines the eternal, with respect to which all events have
an equal temporal status. In a certain sense, they are all
there and one only has to look at them. From the
perspective of the eternal, the temporal may, in a fashion,
be reduced to the spatial. This, note, is reminiscent of the
view presented by Spinoza (1670/1989, 1985) with
regards to both determinism and the nature of time.
Experiences of this kind are described by Alex Polari
(1984), a Brazilian intellectual who is currently a leader of
the Church of Santo Daime, a syncretic religion that uses
Ayahuasca (referred to as Daime) as a sacrament. The
following are insights Polari gained during the course of
his own firsthand experience with the brew:
The Daime, simply, delivers us to all the Times.
Overcoming the difficulties of our consciousness, which still has to establish differences between what was, what is and that which will be.
(p. 70)
In conjunction with this, a useful analogy is to be
found in Mayhews discussion of the non-standard experience of time he had with mescaline (Mayhew, 1961):

When we read something, we are aware of one

word coming after another. But when we detach our minds from the sense of the words and
look at the page as a whole, this impression fades,
and we are aware that the words all exist together
at the same time. (p. 298)
Knowledge and the realm of meaning
I would approach Mayhews observations from a
somewhat different perspective, focusing not on the
written words but on the content they express. The book
is there - everything described in it is in front of the reader
at the same time, now. The story that the book narrates
progresses in a certain sequence in time. Yet, we the
readers (especially if we have already read the book or
heard the narrative) can open the book and read it in any
order we wish. One can start by reading an episode that
took place in the middle of the sequence, then turn to an
episode towards the end of the book, and later to one at
the very beginning.
Related to this is the epistemic status of the knowledge readers have of the narrative recounted in the book.
A book takes time to read. It is also the case that if enacted,
all the episodes in it would take time. However, the
information contained in the book is all there at once.
And so is the knowledge readers familiar with the book
have. Actually, this pattern is quite general. Think of a
body of information you know well: a novel, a scientific
theory, a piece of music. I ask you to think what it means,
to appreciate what it conveys, to assess your understanding of it. How much time did it take you to do so? A few
moments, I presume. At any rate, much less than the time
it would actually take to read the novel, to retrace the
theory, to listen to the musical piece. Ones appreciation
is, in a way, instantaneous. And the more knowledgeable
or competent one is, the stronger the effect. For example,
Mozart was said to have been able to grasp an entire
symphony in an instant (Ghiselin, 1952). But in truth, all
of us know this feeling: When one knows something well,
the grasping of this knowledge (as distinct from specific
demonstrations of it) seems to require little or almost no
time.
Taking a more general perspective still, we note that,
by its very essence, semantics transcends time. We can all

51

The past is gone, not to be retrieved, the

future is not yet and still unknown and we,
human beings, are confined to the now.

There are periods of peace and periods of war, times of

success and times of failure. Kings reign and exercise
great power but eventually they die. Likewise, entire
civilizations rise and fall. In grand Ayahuasca visions
one may be privy to a special perspective, by which one
observes such historical events with the detachment of
distance (which does not mean lack of empathy). With
this, one savors a little bit of the taste of the eternal and
appreciates the perennial meanings of life and Existence. As the Biblical sage Ecclesiastes (Kohelet in
Hebrew) said There is nothing new under the sun.
(1:9) In line with all this is another insight reported by
Polari (1984):
I understood that this truth is absolutely immune
to any historicity....A truth that is not relative nor
relativized by anything, which entered and
syntonized within a dimension of eternal
permanency....Above and beyond a finite consciousness depending on matter and ending with
it. (p. 61)

In the European civilization, the locus classicus for

linking atemporality and semantics is Plato. According to
Plato, meanings and regularities in the world are due to
the Ideas. The Ideas are abstract entities that embody all
true knowledge - everything that is not affected by time

Nirvana-like experiences
Usually, the experience of eternity associated with
Ayahuasca does not entail the abolition of movement.
Phenomenologically, time ceases to be relevant, but
motion, progression and change remain. Specifically, the
scenes one observes from the perspective of the eternal do
manifest motion, progression and change. Much rarer
with Ayahuasca is the experience of cessation, in which
atemporality is coupled with stillness. In this case, people
do not feel that other realms are revealed to them. As
pointed out by mystics in many traditions (for pertinent
information and discussion, see Forman 1990, 1998),
being in this state, one feels immersed in the very ground
of all Being. There, neither language nor reflection apply,
and hence no semantics.

number 2 fall 2001

and change. Thus, the realm of the Ideas both specifies

meaning and transcends time. Several informants with
academic education explicitly told me that with
Ayahuasca they felt they contemplated the Platonic
spheres. Observations along similar lines were also made
by Huxley (1971) in conjunction with his experiences
with mescaline.
Interestingly, the association between atemporality
and meaning is also encountered in Amerindian mythologies. Overing (1985a, 1985b) reports that in the
cosmology of the Piaroa, a tribe from the Orinoco basin
of Venezuela, in the world of the Gods relationships
between beings is defined in a manner that defies ordinary logical and temporal relationships. Overing explains
this by noting that in this world relationships pertain to
the world of meaning. Analyzing the cosmology and
metaphysics of the Piaroa,
Overing also noted that the
world of the shaman, and that of
the Gods, is outside of time.
Indeed, instead of being defined

by linear temporal contiguity,

this world is defined by relationships of meaning. Overing (1985a) further reports that
according to the Piaroa there is a realm which is before
time in which the special powers of the Gods are guarded
in boxes of crystal. Inter alia, these powers include
rationality and the words of songs. It shall be noted that
the knowledge pertaining to this realm is directly associated with plant-induced hallucinatory experiences (in
this case, however, not Ayahuasca).

maps volume XI

appreciate this when reading literary texts of past generations, inspecting old photographs, or looking at works of
art from ancient civilizations. The child or the young
enamored couples that appear in them are long, long
dead. Yet for the reader or the viewer the persons in
question are forever children, adolescents or young
adults. Babyhood, adolescence and adulthood are not
just moments in biographical chronology, they are also
chapters in a story. It is the story of human life, that which
we all enact in the course of our own individual lives. The
particular manifestations of this story evolve in time, but
the basic patterns of the script transcend the contingencies of the temporal. These pertain to the domain of
eternal meanings.
With Ayahuasca, similar appreciations are gained
on a much larger time scale - that of human history.

52

maps volume XI

number 2 fall 2001

Concluding remarks
Our survey presented various states of mind experienced as being outside of the dominion of time. The very
encounter of such states counters the general statement
with which this paper opened, namely, that human
psychology is grounded in time. This also contrasts with
my own basic view of cognition. Indeed, for me, the
discovery of the atemporal was intellectually most unsettling. Throughout my professional career as a cognitive
psychologist and a philosopher of psychology, I have
come to maintain that human cognition is embedded in
time and that all cognitive performance is achieved
through action temporally unfolding in the real world.
This, I have argued (see Shanon, 1993), is not merely a
technical constraint but rather it is an essential, most
fundamental, feature of human cognition. Theoretically,
one could perhaps envision intelligent systems that operate in a different fashion, but these would be radically
different from the human one. Ayahuasca revealed a
totally different picture to me: It presented me with a
cognitive mode which, in a fashion, defines a world
outside time. The question as to how to reconcile these
new discoveries with my general view of cognition perplexed me quite a bit.
Full discussion of this question is outside the
scope of this paper. Here, let me confine myself to
a brief summary statement.
It could be suggested that human beings have
the ability to operate, and exist, in two different
states. Metaphorically, these may be conceived in
terms of the shifting of gears. The first state is the
ordinary one, and it is fully grounded in time. The
other, non-ordinary state consists of the freeing of
the mind from the ordinary temporal constraints.
That such freeing is possible is a major feat of the
human psyche. The study of the dynamics of the
shift between the two states is, I think, a cognitivepsychological topic of great interest. A theoretical
framework that shall account for it will encompass
both ordinary consciousness and non-ordinary
consciousness and view them as specific cases obtained by
means of variations in a common, general structure.
Thus, the enterprise in question is, in essence, the development of what may be regarded as a general theory of
consciousness.
Theoretically, the main moral of the present discussion is the linking of atemporality and semantics: The
realm of atemporality is the realm of meaning. In essence,
the underlying principle governing the experiences of

atemporality is the following: The more meaningful

something is to us, the less bound by time it becomes. It
seems to me that in one way or another, all of us are
familiar with this pattern. One does not have to be in
non-ordinary states of consciousness in order to appreciate this, but, obviously, in such statesas with
Ayahuascathe effects are by far more radical and their
impact much more striking.
Finally, let me underline the fact that in this discussion, I have not alluded to any considerations of paranormality. In this, I radically differ from many, perhaps
most, of experienced Ayahuasca drinkers. In the various
contexts of Ayahuasca use phenomena like those cited
here are usually conceived either in terms of time travel (it
is said that Ayahuasca allows one to actually go to the past
or even the future) or in terms of visits to other nonphysical worlds. Thus, in both the indigenous
Amerindian context and in the modern syncretic religious sects employing Ayahuasca, the brew is said to bring
its drinkers to other, separate realities. In the doctrines of
all the modern Brazilian religious sects that use Ayahuasca
as a sacrament these are referred to as the astral; often,
the notion of reincarnation is invoked as well. I have had
those experiences which are characterized as pertaining to
the astral and I think I know what the protagonists of

The realm of atemporality is the

realm of meaning. ln essence, the
underlying principle governing the
experiences of atemporality is the
following - The more meaningful
something is to us, the less bound
by time it becomes.
spiritualism are referring to. Yet, I do not subscribe to the
parapsychological, supernaturalistic view. Instead, I
would propose that what is referred to as the astral be
conceived of as the realm of meaning.

53

Bulletin
Announcements

Congratulations to Jon Frederick, moderator of

the MAPS Forum, who has completed his dissertation and passed his oral exam. His dissertation,
EEG Coherence and Amplitude Effects of Rhythmic Auditory and Visual Stimulation with an emphasis in Computational Methods, can be
browsed (in Adobe Acrobat format) at: http://
web.utk.edu/~smiile/diss/frederick-diss.pdf
Jon has moved to Houston, Texas, where he
will be working as a post-doctoral fellow in the
center for computational Biomedicine, University
of Texas-Houston Health Sciences Center. Jon has
agreed to continue to work as the Editor of the
MAPS Forum, a position he has held for the past
four years.
MAPS donated $1,000 toward the cost of creating the book Ibogaine: Proceedings of the First
International Conference (KR Alper and SD Glick,
Eds., Academic Press, San Diego, California 2001).
Information about the book can be accessed at:
http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/
bookinfo.asp?theisbn= 0120532069&vm=m
A scientific paper about ketamine by Dr. Evgeny
Krupitsky, Dr. John Krystal, et. al., has been
published in the on-line edition of
Neuropsychopharmacology and will also appear soon
in the print version. The article is entitled: Attenuation of Ketamine Effects by Nimodipine Pretreatment in Recovering Ethanol Dependent Men:
Psychopharmacologic Implications of the Interaction of NMDA and L-Type Calcium Channel
Antagonists and can be found at: http://
www.acnp.org/citations/Npp080701161

number 2 fall 2001

MAPS is extremely proud to announce the publication of Sherana Harriette Frances new book,
Drawing It Out: Befriending the Unconscious (A
Contemporary Womans Psychedelic Journey),
with introduction by Stanislav Grof, MD, and
Prologue/Epilogue by Tanya Wilkinson, PhD.
The incredibly powerful drawings in this book
reveal the inner workings of Ms. Frances psyche
after undergoing LSD psychotherapy in the early
60s. Sheranas works have been used in countless
training sessions and seminars since then by
Stanislav Grof and others and have been exhibited
internationally. They are now available with a
complete narration by the artist. Cost $19.95.
Advance orders taken: [email protected]

maps volume XI

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