Also referred to as lattice, fretwork, filigree, honeycomb, and grating. All six terms were introduced in or shortly before 1928 by the German-American biological psychologist and philosopher Heinrich Klüver (1897-1979) as more or less synonymous terms denoting one of the four * form-constants of * geometric visual hallucinations occurring during the initial stages of mescaline intoxication. Klüver uses the term form-constant to denote certain visual forms and elements which in his view "appear in almost all mescal visions". As he maintains, "many 'atypical' visions are upon close inspection nothing but variations of these form-constants." The examples of the chessboard design given by Klüver, based on the observations of different test persons, are rendered by him as follows. "'Soon there grew up an extremely beautiful architecture before my eyes. Hexagonal small honeycombs hung down from the ceiling...'; 'stripes which formed a sort of fretwork...'; 'somewhat later I saw shadow-like gratings....; 'incessant play of filigreed colors....; 'in the face of B., I saw a lattice of yellow-greenish horizontal stripes...'; 'ornamental fretwork'." Klüver designates the remaining three form-constants as * cobweb figure, * tunnel, and * spiral.
References
Klüver, H. (1966). Mescal and Mechanisms of hallucinations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Dictionary of Hallucinations. J.D. Blom. 2010.