Shamanic Diffusions
Jonathan Weinel · 2018
Abstract This chapter explores how electroacoustic music takes the listener on a journey through unreal, imaginary, or hallucinatory sound-worlds. The chapter commences with a general explanation of electroacoustic music, and how it may allow illusory representations of real and unreal sounds and spaces. Following this, various compositions of electroacoustic music are discussed, which are explicitly based on altered states of consciousness such as dreams, shamanic visions, and hallucinations. It is proposed that the typical listening experience of these compositions can be characterized as introspective or meditative in form. The analysis of these works is also used to inform a conceptual model, which defines possible approaches for sound design related to altered states of consciousness according to several dimensions. In particular, this model considers approaches through which sound may either ‘represent’ or ‘induce’ altered states of consciousness—functions that are considered as distinct, yet related.