{{Short description|Media recreation of the effects of a hallucinogen}} {{Psychedelic sidebar}}
A '''psychedelic replication''' is an image, video, or audio recreation of the sensory effects of a hallucinogen.<ref name="EffectIndex-Replications">{{cite web | author=Josie Kins | title=Replications | website=Effect Index | date=15 July 2017 | url=https://www.effectindex.com/replications | access-date=18 March 2026}}</ref><ref name="Reed2019" /><ref name="Winslow2026" /> They are most frequently recreations of the perceptual effects of serotonergic psychedelics, for instance LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, or dimethyltryptamine (DMT).<ref name="EffectIndex-Replications" /><ref name="Reed2019" /><ref name="Friedler2022" /> However, replications can also be made of the sensory effects of other hallucinogens, such as salvia, deliriants, and dissociatives like ketamine.<ref name="EffectIndex-Replications" /><ref name="Sterling2025" /><ref name="Friedler2022" />
Examples of psychedelic visual effects that have been turned into replications include open-eye color enhancement, visual drifting, tracers or after-images, visual geometry like form constants, environmental texturing and patterning, and pareidolia, among many others.<ref name="EffectIndex-Replications" /><ref name="Reed2019" /><ref name="French2023" /> Additionally, replications can recreate the closed-eye mental imagery or "internal hallucinations", as well as entity encounters, of psychedelic drugs.<ref name="EffectIndex-Replications" /><ref name="French2023" />
Replications are created by digital artists, who are sometimes known as "replicators", and posted on the Internet.<ref name="EffectIndex-Replications" /><ref name="Reed2019" /><ref name="Winslow2026">{{cite web | last=Winslow | first=Henry | title=🫠 Psychonaut POV: [5-min read] Q&A with Josie Kins, Phenomenologist & Engineer | website=Tricycle Day | date=1 March 2026 | url=https://www.tricycleday.com/p/josie-kins | access-date=27 March 2026 | quote = [Kins:] Text is helpful for describing the behavior of the visual experience, but to actually show what it looks like, you need to replicate it. The concept of "replications" existed long before I put a term to it. [...] [Kins:] There are now people who've made actual careers out of psychedelic replications, like Loka Vision and Symmetric Vision, and their work is pretty incredible. For open-eye stuff, it's typically standard video editing. For high-level stuff like breakthrough geometry, these artists use 3D modeling and animation. And increasingly, I've been using generative AI to replicate high-level states, because it can do things that simply aren't practical otherwise.}}</ref><ref name="Sterling2025" /><ref name="KinsDiNardo2025" /> Some major professional replicators include Symmetric Vision and Loka Vision.<ref name="Winslow2026" /><ref name="Sterling2025" /> Replicators use methods such as image editing, video editing, 3D modeling, and animation to create psychedelic replications.<ref name="Winslow2026" /><ref name="Sterling2025" /> A major community for posting and sharing replications is the r/Replications subreddit on the social media website Reddit.<ref name="EffectIndex-Replications" /><ref name="Reed2019">{{cite web | last=Reed | first=Graham | title=Hallucinations and the Psychedelic Visual Experience | website=Psychedelic Science Review | date=23 April 2019 | url=https://psychedelicreview.com/hallucinations-and-the-psychedelic-visual-experience/ | quote = There is a wealth of gathered scientific research available on PsychonautWiki and EffectIndex regarding visual phenomena. EffectIndex, in charge of Reddit's /r/replications, exists to serve as a collection of artistic recreations of the hallucinogenic experience. As an example, one of the most scientifically validated visual effect due to psychedelic intoxication is after-images (Figure 3).18-22 [...] Artists are now replicating hallucinogenic experiences. However, it is important to remember that visuals alone cannot fully characterize a psychedelic experience.}}</ref><ref name="Friedler2022" /><ref name="Sterling2025" /> It was founded in 2015 by psychedelic phenomenologist Josie Kins, who also notably coined the term "replication".<ref name="Winslow2026" /><ref name="Friedler2022">{{cite web | last=Friedler | first=Delilah | title=AI Can Now Generate DMT Visuals, Thanks To This Online Community | website=DoubleBlind Mag | date=15 June 2022 | url=https://doubleblindmag.com/ai-can-now-generate-dmt-visuals/ | quote=In recent years, a Reddit community called /r/Replications has coalesced around the goal of "replicating" such visuals and sensory experiences with the aid of modern technology. These efforts reached new heights with a video uploaded this year by Josie Kins, a psychedelic researcher who is an administrator of /r/Replications, and founded a related project called the Subjective Effect Index. [...] The mesmerizing video features a reel of computer-generated images of faces and "entities" that strongly resemble the beings many people report encountering after taking DMT. These images were produced by an AI model that Kins and a team of collaborators created using the StyleGAN v2 network. [...] The team "trained" this model by feeding it a data set of more than 4,000 works of psychedelic and visionary art sourced from all over the Internet. [...] StyleGan v2, the machine learning network Kins' team used to create this DMT art, was superseded by StyleGan v3 in November 2021. The team is already hard at work on building a new model with this updated framework, which Kins expects to be an "exponentially" more powerful tool for generating replications.}}</ref><ref name="Sterling2025">{{cite podcast | url=https://tripsitter.substack.com/p/22-mapping-the-ineffable-josie-kins | title=#22: Mapping the Ineffable: Josie Kins on Documenting Psychedelic States | website=Tripsitter Podcast | publisher=Tripsitter | host=Taylor Sterling | date=18 September 2025}}</ref>
In addition to founding r/Replications, Kins and her collaborators subsequently developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model using StyleGAN to create rigorous and realistic replications of psychedelic visual effects in 2022, for instance "breakthrough" DMT experiences including entity encounters.<ref name="Friedler2022" /><ref name="Bilderbeck2022" /><ref name="Rosa2022">{{cite web | last=Rosa | first=Tomáš | title=Jak člověk vidí svět pod vlivem halucinogenů? Vědkyně vytvořila přesná videa | trans-title=How does a person see the world under the influence of hallucinogens? Scientist creates accurate videos | website=Deník.cz | date=25 November 2022 | url=https://www.denik.cz/veda/halucinogeny-drogy-uzivani-video.html | language=cs | quote=[Translated:] American Josie Kins is a professional researcher into psychedelic substances. In her work, she uses subjective effective documentation to create visual images that correspond to psychedelic experiences. That is, a situation when a person is under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. She then publishes the videos publicly on her YouTube channel. In one of her latest videos, she sought to create a comprehensive intensity scale to measure seven different levels of psychedelic experience, all in accordance with the terminology established within the scientific Subjective Effect Index and in collaboration with artists from the replication community.}}</ref><ref name="BrownHuntley2025">{{cite book | last1=Brown | first1=D.J. | last2=Huntley | first2=S.P. | title=The Illustrated Field Guide to DMT Entities: Machine Elves, Tricksters, Teachers, and Other Interdimensional Beings | publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear | year=2025 | isbn=978-1-64411-920-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BFUJEQAAQBAJ | access-date=3 February 2026 | pages=32–33, 35, 44–45, 108, 110, 113 | quote=According to DMT researcher Josie Kins, whom I interviewed for this book: [...] In Kins's video "The 6 Levels of DMT," she describes these levels of the DMT experience [...] There's even an artificial intelligence (AI) program now that solely generates DMT visuals and entities, with incredible, uncanny accuracy. Josie Kins and a team of programmers trained an AI program "by feeding it a data set of more than 4,000 works of psychedelic and visionary art sourced from all over the Internet. After processing this art and identifying its common features and patterns, the AI—which initially only seemed to output geometric and patterned visuals—began creating artwork with facial features resembling DMT entities.24 Kins created a wonderful video showcasing these extraordinary images: "AI-Generated DMT Entities."25}}</ref><ref name="KinsDiNardo2025">{{cite conference | vauthors = Kins J, DiNardo D | title = AI Models Driving the Next Generation of Psychedelics | conference = SXSW | date = 2025 | url = https://schedule.sxsw.com/2025/events/PP149956 | quote=The explorations of consciousness that started in the 1960s with early psychonauts' attempts to articulate the psychedelic experience have now been rocketed into something entirely new with frontier AI models. Artists are using image and video models to express the ineffable frontiers of human experience, and biotech researchers are using large language models to calculate psychonauts' "trip reports" and create novel altered states of consciousness that are now being tested in human trials. AI is now pushing the boundaries at the cutting edge of human experience.}}</ref> The model was trained on a dataset of more than 4,000 works of psychedelic art from the Internet.<ref name="Friedler2022" /><ref name="BrownHuntley2025" /><ref name="KinsDiNardo2025" /> Kins started a YouTube channel in 2022 and periodically posts her team's replications on the channel, with these videos having received popular media attention.<ref name="Blacker2024">{{cite book | last=Blacker | first=David J. | title=Deeper Learning with Psychedelics: Philosophical Pathways through Altered States | publisher=State University of New York Press | date=1 June 2024 | isbn=978-1-4384-9814-0 | doi=10.1515/9781438498140 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6XkCEQAAQBAJ | pages=14,112–114,117–118}}</ref><ref name="Friedler2022" /><ref name="French2023">{{cite web | last=French | first=Kristen | title=What Hallucinogens Will Make You See | website=Nautilus | date=2 June 2023 | url=https://nautil.us/what-hallucinogens-will-make-you-see-308247/}}</ref><ref name="Bilderbeck2022">{{cite web | author=Poppy Bilderbeck | title=Video shows 'most accurate' representation of what psychedelic visuals look like | website=UNILAD | date=23 November 2022 | url=https://www.unilad.com/news/most-accurate-representation-psychedelic-visuals-20221123 | quote=Within her research, Josie Kins uses subjective effective documentation to create visual imagery to make sense of the psychedelic experience. In one of her latest videos, she tries to 'establish a comprehensive intensity scale for measuring the seven distinct levels of the psychedelic experience, in accordance with the terminology laid out within the Subjective Effect Index and in collaboration with various artists from the 'replications community'. Viewers have been left astounded by the video and have flooded to the comments to say how accurate it is. Kins explains she's created the video in order to try and describe the 'intensity of psychedelic experiences ranging from sub-perceptual micro-dose to the complete obliteration of your ability to remain conscious and process information'.}}</ref><ref name="Rosa2022" /><ref name="BrownHuntley2025" /> Other creators have also used AI to make psychedelic replications, for instance artist Sara Phinn Huntley.<ref name="Magee2023">{{cite web | last=Magee | first=Tamlin | title=DMT Users Are Using AI to Draw the Strange Beings They Meet While Tripping | website=VICE | date=24 April 2023 | url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/dmt-users-are-using-ai-to-draw-the-strange-beings-they-meet-while-tripping/ | access-date=15 March 2025}}</ref><ref name="Al-Sibai2023">{{cite web | last=Al-Sibai | first=Noor | title=Psychedelics Researcher Enlists AI Artist to Draw Beings They Met While Tripping on DMT | website=Futurism | date=29 April 2023 | url=https://futurism.com/the-byte/psychedelics-researcher-ai-artist-dmt | access-date=27 March 2026}}</ref><ref name="BrownHuntley2025" /><ref name="KinsDiNardo2025" />
Psychedelic replications have additionally been created by scientific researchers for use in virtual reality (VR) environments.<ref name="Reed2019" /><ref name="SuzukiRoseboomSchwartzman2017">{{cite journal | vauthors = Suzuki K, Roseboom W, Schwartzman DJ, Seth AK | title = A Deep-Dream Virtual Reality Platform for Studying Altered Perceptual Phenomenology | journal = Sci Rep | volume = 7 | issue = 1 | article-number = 15982 | date = November 2017 | pmid = 29167538 | pmc = 5700081 | doi = 10.1038/s41598-017-16316-2 | bibcode = 2017NatSR...715982S | url = }}</ref><ref name="KaupVasserTulver2023">{{cite journal | vauthors = Kaup KK, Vasser M, Tulver K, Munk M, Pikamäe J, Aru J | title = Psychedelic replications in virtual reality and their potential as a therapeutic instrument: an open-label feasibility study | journal = Front Psychiatry | volume = 14 | issue = | article-number = 1088896 | date = 2023 | pmid = 36937731 | pmc = 10022432 | doi = 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1088896 | doi-access = free| url = }}</ref><ref name="D2023">{{cite journal | last1=Kaup | first1=Karl Kristjan | last2=Vasser | first2=Madis | last3=Tulver | first3=Kadi | last4=Munk | first4=Mari | last5=Pikamäe | first5=Juhan | last6=Aru | first6=Jaan | title=Psychedelic replications in virtual reality and their potential as a therapeutic instrument: An open-label feasibility study | journal=Frontiers in Psychiatry | date=2023 | volume=14 | article-number=1088896 | doi=10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1088896 | doi-access=free | pmid=36937731 | pmc=10022432 }}</ref><ref name="McMillan2023">{{cite web | last=McMillan | first=Tim | title=New Free VR Program, Psyrreal, Lets You Experience Psychedelic Trips Without Drugs | website=The Debrief | date=20 April 2023 | url=https://thedebrief.org/new-free-vr-program-psyrreal-lets-you-experience-psychedelic-trips-without-drugs/ | access-date=27 March 2026}}</ref><ref name="Glick2023">{{cite web | last=Glick | first=Molly | title=Psychedelic Therapy May Be Coming To A VR Headset Near You | website=Inverse | date=27 July 2023 | url=https://www.inverse.com/health/psychedelic-therapy-in-virtual-reality | access-date=27 March 2026}}</ref> One group has studied psychedelic replications in VR for potential therapeutic purposes in treating psychological disorders such as depression.<ref name="KaupVasserTulver2023" /><ref name="D2023" /><ref name="McMillan2023" /><ref name="Glick2023" /> They have named this Psyrreal and described it as a psychedelic-inspired VR experience.<ref name="KaupVasserTulver2023" /><ref name="D2023" /><ref name="McMillan2023" /><ref name="Glick2023" /> It is freely available online and runs on VR headsets such as the HTC Vive Pro Eye.<ref name="KaupVasserTulver2023" /><ref name="McMillan2023" /><ref name="Glick2023" /> There is also interest in combining VR and psychedelic drugs as part of psychedelic therapy.<ref name="Glick2023" /><ref name="SekulaDowneyPuspanathan2022">{{cite journal | vauthors = Sekula AD, Downey L, Puspanathan P | title = Virtual Reality as a Moderator of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy | journal = Front Psychol | volume = 13 | issue = | article-number = 813746 | date = 2022 | pmid = 35310225 | pmc = 8931418 | doi = 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.813746 | doi-access = free| url = }}</ref><ref name="Rony2026">{{cite web | author=Alexander Rony | title=Using virtual reality and psychedelics to restore brain function | website=Letters & Science | date=26 March 2026 | url=https://ls.berkeley.edu/news/using-virtual-reality-and-psychedelics-restore-brain-function | access-date=27 March 2026}}</ref><ref name="NYCToday2026">{{cite web | title=AI Simulations Aim to Replicate Psychedelic Experiences | website=National Today | date=12 March 2026 | url=https://nationaltoday.com/us/ny/new-york/news/2026/02/15/ai-simulations-aim-to-replicate-psychedelic-experiences/ | access-date=27 March 2026}}</ref>
==See also== * Psychedelic art * Psychedelic experience * Trip report * Psychonautics * Subjective Effect Index
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://www.reddit.com/r/replications/ r/Replications - Reddit] * [https://www.youtube.com/@josikinz/videos Josie Kins Videos - YouTube] * [https://www.youtube.com/@SymmetricVision/videos Symmetric Vision Videos - YouTube] * [https://www.youtube.com/@LokaVision/videos Loka Vision Videos - YouTube] * [https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Replication_index Replication Index - PsychonautWiki] * [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSKjM-JDM9Mcwqoz6wl0vO_B_SFvTaVtK Replication Tutorials - Josie Kins - YouTube] * [https://qri.org/blog/replication-contest Replication Contest - Qualia Research Institute (QRI)]
Category:Digital art Category:Effects of psychoactive drugs Category:Psychedelia Category:Psychedelic art Category:Virtual reality