The Déjà Vu of Eternity: Dr. BRIAN KELCH on Time and Mind
Brian Kelch recently completed his Philosophy PhD at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) with a concentration in Asian and Comparative Studies. His dissertation is entitled Dimensions Unbound: Time and Timelessness in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy and Psychedelic Catalysts to the Omnitemporal. He also holds degrees in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness from CIIS and Pure Mathematics from Pomona College.
Dr. Kelch grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, and now resides in Sonoma County, practicing permaculture design, building numerous functional art installations, and writing psychedelic electronic music under the moniker Circus of Mind. He has released two solo albums, a collaborative album with Grammy nominated composer Silvia Nakkach, and numerous singles over the past twelve years.
Dr. Kelch was kind enough to answer some questions about his academic and artistic work.
In your work, you explore psychedelic substances as means of accessing “radical variations of temporality,” such as temporal contraction and dilation, states which transcend our everyday experience of time as a linear flow from past to future, and even an “omnitemporal awareness” which the Dzogchen tradition calls dus bzhi pa or “fourth time,” which you’ve described as “temporality-as-such” or the “nonduality of time and timelessness.” Was this line of thought inspired by your own psychedelic experiences, and if so, could you describe some of the most revelatory such experiences?
Yes, various high dose psychedelic experiences over the last couple of decades have definitely inspired much of my research into these topics. Temporal contraction and dilation are fairly common experiences for anyone with even a rudimentary familiarity with psychedelics. However, high dose psychedelic experiences are notoriously difficult to describe, as words tend to collapse such states into a “this” and “that” dualistic temporal structure. This innate ineffability of transcendent states may invoke a special kind of language.
For example, there is the poetic language of the Dzogchen tradition versus the more analytic language of Tsongkhapa. Buddhist philosophers tend to be much more precise in honing in on these types of experiences, as they have a technical vocabulary that has been developed for centuries to help map these subtle inner states.
I say all this to resist the temptation to “accurately” describe my psychedelic experiences, as such descriptions are ultimately misleading. With that caveat, I’ve often experienced an omnitemporal psychedelic realm, where all time seemed co-present, yet it was not the stillness of “no time”. It appears familiar, yet alien, dripping with meaning as vines of temporal possibility wrap and twist into aesthetically pleasing architectures of profound revelation. The weird display of paradox and the inability to encapsulate with concept leaves the ordinary mind quietly awestruck. Returning to such realms on “subsequent” trips is not a temporal return, but is the exact same moment, the déjà vu of eternity. Linear time of the mundane is often seen as a tiny tendril in a sea of expanded possibility, where the “self” is blinded by the cage of temporal constraint.
You also specialize in the study of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist teachings and practices which facilitate “experiential realization” of temporal transcendence. Have you deployed any of these in your own spiritual practice, and if so, have you found any to be effective for “moving beyond time?”
My primary spiritual practices are within the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition, one that warns against speaking about one’s personal practices and many of these practices are esoteric and secret. So, to speak more generally, moving beyond self, beyond ego, and even beyond “experience” in a strict sense of subject/object duality is the path of most Buddhist traditions. Because of the strong correlations between self and experienced time, the movement beyond the dualities of self and other through Buddhist practice is exactly the path toward a dissolution of temporality. Similar to your previous question about experiences of time in a psychedelic state, a person can easily experience dilation and contraction of temporality applying basic samatha or vipassana meditation techniques. How far might this dilation expand?
Perhaps the best way to think about your questions is to pose a couple questions myself. What might we measure experienced temporality against when detached from external experience? Is the rate of inner thought calibrated, such that we can only have so many thoughts in a certain amount of time? How much temporal “space” might exist between moments of thought? Meditation is an effective way to hone one’s awareness into the subtleties of these questions, which in turn experientially reveals the plasticity and ultimate emptiness of time.
Image: Elastic Astral Peel by Milton Melvin Croissant III (2017).
Have you ever combined Buddhist practice with a psychedelic catalyst, and if so, what were the results? What do Buddhist practice/doctrine and entheogenic experience have to offer each other?
Buddhist practice is ideally applied to all situations of life, whether within formal sitting meditation or by simply applying “right view” to all experience. Oftentimes within intense psychedelic spaces, one uses whatever tools available to either navigate or find a place of mindful awareness in the maelstrom of mind. Buddhist techniques have certainly helped me in these situations. For example, non-attachment to either terrifying or blissful experience can provide a potent point of refuge. Similarly, turning awareness back onto itself is often the only “ground” in a psychedelic experience, as awareness is always diaphanously accessible. For example, the common advice to follow your breath may not be a safe target of awareness as temporal flow can be so radically distorted that an exhale may seem to extend into eternity.
In terms of formal Buddhist ritual practice, I find the addition of psychedelic substances to be either unnecessary or possibly unwise, as these practices are specifically working with a subtle awareness that psychedelic substances may overpower with physiological intensity. Though I’m not one to judge, I know there are communities that combine psychedelics with formal Buddhist practice with reportedly positive results.
Much has been written on what the psychedelic experience may offer Buddhist practitioners. One important insight is the possible revelation of anātman, or the lack of inherent self (ness). Similarly, one may realize emptiness, non-duality, or the dependently originated nature of all phenomena. The psychedelic experience also may show the plasticity of the felt sense of what is real. For example, a common description of the psychedelic state is “more real than real”. This sort of ontological parallax can reveal variability in structures of reality once thought unwavering.
You’ve warned against a false equivalency between psychedelic peak experiences and Buddhist enlightenment—the two are not the same. Could you please elaborate?
The simple answer is that enlightenment, which is described as unconditioned (asaṃskṛta), is by definition uncaused (ahetu) and thus cannot be the result of psychedelic catalysts. Similarly, meditation also is said to not cause enlightenment. Though psychedelics have the potential to catalyze so-called mystical experiences, these are still marked by a subtle sense of self and time, and thus one may still be attached to these experiences. The self experiences that they are one with the world, thus this apparent unity has an observer. Buddhists often dismiss radical and powerful mystical ecstasies as mere experience (nyams), a dependently arisen display, ultimately empty. However, all experience has the potential to be realized as such, and thus serve as a basis for liberation.
“The Buddhist Kalācakra cosmology maps in detail many of these internal and external cyclic patterns.”
You make a theoretical distinction between omni- or hypertemporality (Dzogchen’s “fourth time”) and atemporality (or “no-time”). What’s the difference between the two, and does one have more liberatory or “truth” value than the other?
Being unconscious might be an example of atemporality correlating to the dissolution of temporal experience. There is no experience, and thus no experience of time. The same might be said of certain Buddhist meditative states of cessation (nirodha samāpatti). Yet, what I call omnitemporal could be described as a realm where all temporal frames of reference are co-present and equally accessible. This may be associated with rigpa, the inexpressible nonthought of awareness, free from grasping and fixation. Buddhists are careful to explain that rigpa is not an experience (nyams).
In Dzogchen there is a description of the primordially pure ground or basis (gzhi) untouched by the constraints of time, which appears (gzhi snang) as either saṃsāra or nirvāṇa. Saṃsāra arises when consciousness grasps appearances as other, and thus the manifestation of a temporal experience of self. Thus, the nontemporal basis appears as atemporal correlation (the “fourth” time), making possible the temporal structuring of past, present, and future.
In your research, you’ve discovered an intimate, entangled relationship between sense of time and sense of self, between temporal distinctions and subjectivity — they arise together and they disappear together. What’s more, you claim that time is not only subjective but intersubjective, that “time is contagious” and that a shared, synchronized sense of temporal flow arises from living together in groups and societies. Could you elaborate on this, and its implications for both group and solitary spiritual practice?
In terms of the contagion of time, one can look at the research on entrainment, which is simply the harmonic synchronization of proximate cycles. This was first explored after it was noticed that pendulum clocks on a wall tend to lock together in synchrony. This study expanded to better understand how natural periodic cycles such as the flashing of fireflies and heart cells in adjoining Petri dishes tend to synchronize. If we take a big step back, we notice that all temporal reality is composed of nested fractals of cyclic movement both internally and externally, from radioactive decay rates and the procession of the equinoxes to brainwave frequencies, respiration, heartrates, and rapid eye movement (REM). The Buddhist Kalācakra cosmology maps in detail many of these internal and external cyclic patterns.
There is a propensity of these cycles to spontaneously synchronize with each other in harmonic resonances. For example, we entrain to the cycles of day and night (known as circadian rhythms), to rhythmic music, and even to each other as evidenced by the syncing of menstrual cycles amongst roommates and the synchronization of brainwaves amongst participants in group rhythmic chanting. Furthermore, cultures themselves tend to move to certain rhythms. Recent studies on emotion and temporality suggests that individuals adopt other people’s rhythms and frame of temporal reference. In other words, time is contagious. Colloquially, we talk of being in sync or harmonious with one another. Being beyond time is the ultimate ontological synchrony—empty, everywhere and every when, and thus harmonious to all.
Given your deep interest in music, especially electronic music, does your awareness of the enormous range of temporal experience inform your appreciation for music and its possibilities? How?
The philosophical link between music and time has been discussed by such thinkers as Bergson and Husserl, who both used music to understand temporal characteristics. As much as art is an ornamentation of space, music truly is an aesthetic of time. I find that music can reveal the plasticity of subjective temporal experience as well as being a powerful tool for inducing group trance states for moving beyond a normal sense of time and self. For me, electronic music events can specifically be a powerful ceremonial container which has resonance to shamanic rituals that have existed throughout history. As a participant, this is particularly true, but I also find writing music to be an avenue to really hone and trace the abstract contours of time. Now that I have finished my PhD, I look forward to returning to my music projects to see how my research may influence the crafting of these sonic time tendrils into music that displays the rich diversity of temporal experience.
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