crysTao_timE_worKs: Clinical Psychedelia and Cinematic Imagery in Deleuze

PSICODELIA CLÍNICA E IMAGÉTICA CINEMATOGRÁFICA EM DELEUZE

Abstract

Historically marginalized by medicine and psychology, non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) have been revalued in the so-called "psychedelic renaissance," which regards them as legitimate modes of experience and sense-making. In this context, psychedelic imagery is understood as a sensitive event, a singular expression of a transforming subjectivity, which calls for open forms of listening and expression. The concept of time crystal, associated with the idea of an ontology of vibration, proposes a reality that is not static but rhythmic and processual, in which being manifests as flow and oscillation. Just as time crystals challenge Newtonian stability, psychedelics break the rigidity of brain connectivity, opening space for reconfigurations of the self and temporal experience. Cinema, in turn, emerges as a privileged technology for exploring the relationship between movement and time. The cinematic image — particularly Deleuze's crystal-image — does not represent reality, but instead sets it vibrating within its temporal multiplicity. There is, therefore, a convergence between cinema and psychedelia: both operate as time machines, disrupting ordinary perception and exposing the subject to an intensive and deterritorializing experience. In this way, the psychedelic image presents itself as an ontological expression of difference, inviting a philosophical listening attuned to its transmutative power. This article proposes an interdisciplinary reflection on the dimensions of mental imagery in clinical psychedelia, drawing together neuroscience, contemporary philosophy, and cinema.