Earlier cartography - Psychia - blockchain of dreams

Mapping what refuses to remain

When people first try to map Psychia, they usually make the same mistake.

They assume the world is waiting to be measured.

So they draw coastlines, roads and borders, then become disappointed when the next observation refuses to agree. Older maps differ drastically from modern ones. Landmasses shift. Distances collapse. A region may return elsewhere, or appear in several places at once.

Psychia map — One of the many maps of Psychia preserved in the REMSEARCH Institute archives. Landmasses and structures appear to shift with each observation, and no map has ever been confirmed as definitive. **Archive reference:** REMSEARCH-CART/01427

Observations and explanations

There are explanations, of course.

The observer was mistaken. The record was corrupted. The dream changed.

All of these may be true.

Or perhaps observation changes what is being observed.

A modern cartographic representation of Psychia, depicted here as a spherical celestial body. Despite advanced methods of measurement, its exact nature remains uncertain, as no map has ever been confirmed as definitive. **Archive reference:** REMSEARCH-CART/02156

Loosening the knots

The ever-perceptive Alan Watts liked to loosen the knots we tie around reality. Psychia does something similar, only less politely.

It moves the edges.

It asks whether the dream belongs to the dreamer, or the dreamer to the dream.

That does not make the old maps useless. A map need not remain accurate to remain valuable. It may show us what Psychia was willing to become at a particular moment – or what a particular mind was capable of seeing.

One of the earliest known maps of Psychia, created by an Oneironaut in the 17th century. It reflects an early attempt to give the landscape a fixed form, though much of its geography has since proved mutable. The map is one of many in the REMSEARCH Institute archives illustrating how Psychia has resisted cartographic certainty throughout history. **Archive reference:** REMSEARCH-CART/01472

Opening the doors

There are maps you study, and there are maps you enter. I do not say that entirely as a metaphor.

The works shown here are not steps from ignorance toward accuracy. They are traces of different encounters with the same unstable continuum. Some are technical. Some symbolic. Some seem closer to ritual than geography.

After years of looking at other people’s attempts, I turned to my own work.

Not to make a map.

I painted what remained when direction stopped helping.

What you see here is Psychia, oil on canvas, 1972.

I cannot tell you where it is.

I am no longer certain that is the right question.

While I was painting it, there were moments when the canvas seemed less like a surface and more like a boundary.

And I no longer believe every boundary is meant to be observed from the outside.

Psychia
Oil on canvas, 1972
Lyra Beaumont

* Lyra Beaumont, a Los Angeles oneironaut of the 1970s, was known for her fascination with the realms of dreams and cosmic symbols. Her art explored the depths of consciousness, the cycles of time and the mysterious connection between dream and reality. Her name, Lyra, inspired by the constellation, reflected the celestial themes and dreamlike visions that shaped her work.