The Epic of Gilgamesh, one the world’s earliest known texts, “exemplifies the profound human need for an immortal ideology — a body of beliefs that anticipates the survival of some aspect of the self in the life hereafter.” (1) The exploration of the self and realms of the hereafter, or states of consciousness outside of reality, is a central discussion in Sleepr’s artistic practice and can be seen in his body of work. In descriptions of the artwork offered by the artist, he describes his works to be akin to artifacts smuggled back from explorations in alternate dimensions. Like early Naturalists, his sentiments echo Durkheim’s reflections on the totemic functions of art within society’s “collective effervescence,” (2) taking the viewer on an ontological quest, prompting fundamental questions of life, death, and the human condition.

In conversations with the Artist, he stated, “All roads lead to Rome,” (3) meaning there are many paths, such as meditation and prayer, to entering what the Greeks called Elysium, or in Ancient Egypt, the Underworld. Sleepr, however, has been granted access to such realms through the consumption of ‘the spirit molecule’, DMT. DMT (N, N-dimethyltryptamine) is a powerful psychedelic compound found naturally in various plants and animals, including humans. Dr. Rick Strassman, author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule — whom the man behind the Sleepr mask briefly worked with in the past — suggests that DMT, located in the pineal gland of the human brain, is released during profound experiences such as birth, death, and near-death experiences, or the transition from life to death. DMT, in this way, could be the pharmacological key to producing mystical and transcendent experiences as recorded throughout history. (4)

On his psychonautic explorations, Sleepr collects data by experimenting on himself by ingesting plants containing DMT. In his homeland, Australia, the Acacia tree, colloquially known as the golden wattle (the national plant of Australia and a symbol of unity, with hundreds of sub-species growing wild), contains a high percentage of DMT. Acacia acuminata is also a plant that has been associated with use by First Nations peoples of Australia and could have links to their Dreamtime mythology due to the similarity of visions described. (5) “Man is what he eats” (“Der Mensch ist, was er ißt”) is a statement attributed to the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, who emphasized the importance of sensory experience and the material world in shaping human identity and consciousness. (6) Through the lens of the common misinterpretation of Ludwig’s statement to mean, “You are what you eat,” we can analyze other influences on Sleepr’s work. (7)

Contemporary anthropologist Jeremy Narby writes about visiting Peruvian shamans who ingest plants containing DMT in his book, The Cosmic Serpent. Narby delves into the idea that the Cosmic Serpent, a prevalent symbol in global cultures, represents the source of life and the underlying unity of all existence. He suggests that serpentine symbols mirror the double helix structure of DNA, implying a profound connection between biological life and spiritual or cosmic forces. Narby takes the position that indigenous illustrations of serpents follow naturalist ideologies, which suggest iconography is functional and serves to decode and document physiological phenomena. (8)

These ideas are supported by many researchers who have described the use of entheogenic substances as — spiritual sacraments or plant teachers; used as tools to facilitate existential intelligence and cognitive instruments serviced for cosmological understandings of the world. (9) Visionary plants have been used historically in many cultures across the globe for centuries; “often mediating the world of immediate experience and the infinite spiritual realms that are believed to permeate all existence” and are “endowed with intelligence and are considered to be sources of deep and mysterious knowledge, instruments of the divine.” (10) Many have found that by consuming psychoactive substances, the visions one receives in trance consciousness are often identical without external influence. (11)

Sleepr’s artistic journey follows the same trajectory as Narby and many other researchers, following in the footsteps of the works of early Naturalists like Ernst Haeckel and Maria Sibylla Merian. Inspired by their methods and insights, Sleepr seeks to portray realistic interpretations of his metaphysical findings and continue his sociocultural anthropological studies. (12) He aims to uncover connections between different life forms and the mystical realms perceived by narrative artists like Pablo Amaringo. (13) Artwork that functions “as a source of environmental facts and symbols” or cartography; mapping out new perceptions of ecosystems. (14)

Sleepr’s concealment of his real identity allows him to act as a conduit, channeling knowledge from other realms while also having motivations reminiscent of Venetian masquerades, where “allusion assists in the construction of identity.” (15) Sleepr achieves the “highest form of self-actualization” (16) through his performance art and abstract renderings, inviting comparisons to the avant-garde pursuits of Wassily Kandinsky, who embraced non-traditional forms to express deeper truths. Kandinsky’s exploration of spirituality through abstraction, as he aimed to engage with the viewer’s inner emotions rather than their analytical mind, and advocacy for art that touches the “spiritual triangle” elevates the viewer’s consciousness. (17) We may find a resonant parallel to Sleepr’s practice, not only in his use of complementary colors or abstract techniques but also in his fascinating understanding of the universe and search for deeper cosmic truths.

American artist Alex Grey, known for painting psychedelic interpretations with anatomical precision, (18) has influenced Sleepr’s artistic development, which takes a scientific approach to beauty. Aristotle, in his Poetics, emphasized the significance of causality in art, asserting that the events depicted should not be arbitrary but interconnected in a logical sequence, leading to a specific outcome, that art should strive for universality by representing general truths about human nature and morality while also acknowledging the importance of particular details and context within narrative. (19) To quote Carl Jung,

“Time and time again I encountered amazing coincidences which seemed to suggest the idea of an acausal parallelism (a synchronicity, as I later called it).” (20)

Sleepr ventures into what might be considered “zero form” — a concept where form, as traditionally understood, is absent, giving way to pure abstraction and interaction. The abstraction reaches a point where the form ceases to dictate the art’s meaning, inviting viewers to impose personal interpretations. (21) Sleepr pushes the boundaries of “zero form” further, creating a space where art exists in its potential state — ever-changing and evolving with each interaction, unbound by the fixed identities and forms that define traditional art. Sleepr’s fusion of spiritual exploration with cutting-edge communication in the NFTs format propels discourse into the digital age’s materiality quandaries. Challenging conventional paradigms of art’s ephemerality and permanence while renegotiating the digital agora’s triadic relationship between creator, artifact, and observer.

Elizabeth Forrest is an independent consultant specializing in creative industry operations and artist management and holds an M.A. in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, University of Manchester, U.K.

© Elizabeth Forrest 2024

Notes

1. Ernst Becker, “The Denial of Death,” (New York: The Free Press, 1973), quoted in The Humanistic Tradition, by Gloria K. Fiero, 7th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2015), 41.

2. Émile Durkheim, “The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life,” trans. Joseph Ward Swain (New York: Free Press, 1965).

3. Conversations with the Artist Sleepr, December-April 2024.

4. Rick Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule (Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2001).

5. Conversations with the Artist Sleepr, December-April 2024.

6. James A. Massey, “Feuerbach and Religious Individualism,” The Journal of Religion 56, no. 4 (1976): 366–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1201995.

7. Melvin Cherno “Feuerbach’s ‘Man Is What He Eats’: A Rectification,” Journal of the History of Ideas 24, no. 3 (1963): 397–406. https://doi.org/10.2307/2708215.

8. Jeremy Narby, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge (New York: TarcherPerigee, 1998).

9. Kenneth W. Tupper, “Entheogens and Existential Intelligence: The Use of Plant Teachers as Cognitive Tools,” Canadian Journal of Education / Revue Canadienne de l’éducation 27, no. 4 (2002): 499–516. https://doi.org/10.2307/1602247.

10. “Visions That The Plants Gave Us,” Exhibitions/Installations, 1999. https://jstor.org/stable/community.34510371.

11. Rebecca R. Stone, “General Recurrent Themes in the Phenomenology of Visions,” in The Jaguar Within: Shamanic Trance in Ancient Central and South American Art (University of Texas Press, 2011). http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7560/726260.5.

12. Marc G. Blainey, “Forbidden Therapies: Santo Daime, Ayahuasca, and the Prohibition of Entheogens in Western Society,” Journal of Religion and Health 54, no. 1 (2015): 287–302. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24485257.

13. Pablo, Amaringo, Howard G. Charing, and Peter Cloudsley, The Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo, Illustrated edition (Inner Traditions, 2011).

14. Javier A. Arce-Nazario, “Landscape Images in Amazonian Narrative: The Role of Oral History in Environmental Research.” Conservation and Society 5, no. 1 (2007): 115–33. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26392874

15. Jonathan P. A. Sell, “Venetian Masks: Intercultural Allusion, Transcultural Identity, and Two Othellos.” Atlantis 26, no. 1 (2004): 73–86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41055137.

16. Conversations with the Artist Sleepr, December-April 2024.

17. Wassily Kandinsky “Concerning the Spiritual” in Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 82-89.

18. Jason S. Sexton, “Jesus on LSD: When California Blotter Acid Got Religion,” Boom: A Journal of California 5, no. 4 (2015): 78–84. https://doi.org/10.1525/boom.2015.5.4.78.

19. M. F. Heath, “Cognition in Aristotle’s ‘Poetics,’” Mnemosyne 62, no. 1 (2009): 51–75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27736295.

20. Harold Coward, “Taoism and Jung: Synchronicity and the Self,” Philosophy East and West 46, no. 4 (1996): 477–95. https://doi.org/10.2307/1399493.

21. Malevich, Kasmir Malevich, “Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The Realism Painting,” in Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 173-183.