# The Psychedelic Image **Opening (not a real abstract):** The Psychedelic Image Introduction This paper explores the relationship between aesthetic experience and psychedelic experience. Intuitions might pull either way here. On the one hand, people who have taken psychedelics will very often speak about their experiences in aesthetic terms. On the other, one might place LSD, magic mushrooms, in the “mindless hedonism” category: tripping is not, in and of itself, aesthetic, in the same way that getting drunk is not, in and of itself, aesthetic. A skeptic might try to make their complaints more acute by asking us to consider two connected questions. First, what are the objects of an aesthetic psychedelic experience? We typically think of the targets of aesthetic appreciation as shareable (you and I can both appreciate the same painting or landscape, for example). But