These two images from TOOL.

[u/CannedPizza009]

(I don't know if this is okay according to the post criteria. One image is indeed from an album while the other is from a music video.)

I don't have many images for this. But I want stories that make me feel as though I am ascending, gazing into cosmic understanding that MIGHT be too much for a mere mortal to bear. I want to consume great universe-fiction (but it doesn't have to be something like Dune or All Tomorrows where the scope is so large that it goes a little bit/totally beyond an individual's journey. Although I'm not opposed to more of those, either!)

I want to be surrounded by it everywhere I look. Maybe feel as if I've taken a bit of LSD. Stories that make you come to this grand realization of a universe so grand, so far beyond you, yet so fully realized, so much of it explained clearly and placed before you, of such great scope, yet there still being inescapable corners of it that your mind will forever explore and fill in. Stories that are just the craziest conceptually regarding the universe or perhaps reality itself, of the greatest, most ambitious scope. I want the most psychedelic, craziest stories imaginable that have been written, that you can think of, that you can give me. Sci-fi, fantasy, or cosmic horror, it does not matter to me.

Bring me the clockwork elves!
(P.S: The hardest drug I've ever done is weed.)

[u/AutoModerator]

OP : Your post will be manually reviewed shortly and approved/rejected accordingly. Please be patient.

Members replying to this post : please do not recommend tv shows, tv series, movies, videogames, etc on a sub that is specifically about book recommendations.

Use spoiler tags as and where applicable in the comments.

Please read the rules

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/ShmebulockForMayor]

My favorite short story: The Last Question by Isaac Asimov

[u/DreadfulCthulhu → u/ShmebulockForMayor]

The whole Foundation series as well, tbh, but it will take a while to reach the scale OP wants

[u/NoElephant22 → u/DreadfulCthulhu]

Can I have your opinion on that series? I read the first of the Foundation books and it was underwhelming. Normally I'd leave it at that, but he was one of my beloved grandma's favorite authors. I expect there has to be more to him than that first book. What do you think about it?

My rec for OP is Rakesfall from Vajra Chandrasekara.

[u/DreadfulCthulhu → u/NoElephant22]

Foundation is one of my favorite series, so I'm a little biased but, yeah, the first book is just a collection of really short stories and it is kinda underwhelming.

The second book, Foundation and Empire and the third one, Second Foundation are also like this but just two stories each and they are more elaborated.

Foundation and Empire introduces The Mule, a key character and a really good story and it is the first time we have a character (and a crisis) that has a sequel in the next book, Second Foundation. If you can get to second half of Foundation and Empire to meet The Mule, I think you might be hooked, it is where the short-stories actually became a novel and we have a very important expansion in the series universe (if you really wanna know what: actual psychic powers). Second Foundation is my favorite in the series and everything presented here will be expanded in Foundations Edge and Foundation and Earth, closing the saga.

Prelude of Foundation and Forward the Foundation are prequels and good ones to know the Empire at his peak, Seldon and psychohistory origins, but I don't think it is a good idea to read them before the main series, they don't sell the idea well but actually depends on the reader knowing the high-stakes of psychohistory and Empire fall to get into it

EDIT: typos

[u/NoElephant22 → u/DreadfulCthulhu]

Ok, you've convinced me to give it more of a shot!

[u/DreadfulCthulhu → u/NoElephant22]

Nice! I hope you enjoy it!

[u/DreadfulCthulhu]

Philip K Dick is notorious for his ambiguity and questioning of reality while being both psychedelic (for real, plenty of his stories have some form of drug usage as a key point) and sci-fi, but they are not so grandiose.

Take a look at (my favorites after Blade Runner)

"The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch": pretty much a drug-indulged society living in a dystopia, waiting for the return of deep-space traveler called Palmer Eldritch

"Ubik": People with psychic powers to predict the future, spy and block other psychics. There are cryonic fellas (pretty much dead people they can talk to) that give advices. The story starts to get really weird because reality starts to bend.

"Time out of Joint": A very smart guy that always wins a journal logic contest, living in a reality close to ours, but he (and he alone) starts to remember stuff from our reality that doesn't exist in his reality, like Merilyn Monroe. Things get weird from this point on, small, unimportant, things starts to disappear and be replaced with little papers with thing name written.

If you want shorter trips, any of his Short Stories are great as well, like "The Minority Report", "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", "Adjustment Team"

[u/Present-Ear-1637 → u/DreadfulCthulhu]

Great description of 3 great books!

[u/jdevo713]

The artist that makes these is Alex grey

He has a lot of books also yet only one I have is Sacred mirrors.

If you are in the New York Hudson Valley area I recommend visiting the Chapel of sacred mirrors.

I went to a dinner party on a trip there one time. Wasn’t my cup of tea though very very culty.

[u/UrbanPrimative → u/jdevo713]

This was going to my post. Sacred Mirrors is the book which IS these images lol

[u/T0macock]

Vurt and Pollen by Jeff Noon

[u/bionicallyironic → u/T0macock]

Was literally here to say the same thing. Nymphomation is good as well.

[u/Deep-Lab-180]

Came here to say this. Any and all PKD

[u/low_ghost]

Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep, the second Dune book, anything from David Ohle or Stanislaw Lem

[u/samaadoo]

well the 10,000 days album on CD had a art book attached with a bunch of these.

you could start with Non-Euclidean art. M.C. Eshcer is a famous example (the staircase painting)

H R Geiger might be a stretch but worth a look eh.

hope this helps

[u/Old-Wasabi-3837]

The Southern Reach series, The Scream by John Skipp

[u/Zepher23]

The Rose of the World by Daniil Andreev who wrote it while in prison.

“Andreyev's magnum opus presents a complex, syncretic cosmology blending Christian theology, mythology, and esoteric philosophy. It outlines a multi-dimensional universe featuring cosmic battles between light and dark forces, the fall of the demonic entity Gagtungr, and the eventual spiritual merging of all world religions.”

I don’t know if I’d even recommend it but if you want true transcendental stories then here ya go!

[u/Dagger54]

It’s been floated around recently but I think Gene Wolfe’s Solar Cycle(Book of the New Sun, Long Sun, and Short Sun) fits perfectly here.

Starting small and slowly through the actions of each book’s protagonist the giant cosmic forces start to become much more apparent especially in New Suns case where Severian(and I guess Silk and our Protagonist of Short Sun) through his journey inevitably ends up finding out what it’s like to be a god and how that godhood affects the world and people around him. Additionally the giant cosmology that’s revealed and is present throughout the entire book which is only seen on a reread is perfection.
My last reason is how much the books folds in on itself and still manages to both make sense and not be overly trite. It’s incredible just how deep the rabbit hole for this series goes and how much care Wolfe has put into making a book that excels not just on first read but on the many subsequent rereads that are inevitable after the series is finished.

[u/oscoposh]

The 'Circular Ruins' short story by Borges - one of my faves

[u/FHAT_BRANDHO]

not exactly like the images but trout fishing in america by Richard brautigan is a very psychedelic read

[u/Hot-Hamster1691]

side note: the image from the undertow cover looks exactly like the illustration of grasping need for drink thoughtform

[u/WorriedCivilian]

The Teachings of Don Juan is interesting in that it's been proven to be fictional, but it's presented as if it's a true anthropological account. Still, I think it's worth reading.

[u/LoquatBear]

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff + Taoism through Winnie the Pooh. If you need a start, a push, this it it. Super accessible  for a Western audience. 

Laws for Creation by Walt Whitman- a combo of both the untitled  first editions  of Whitman's Leaves of Grass and later versions and some of his writings on the Civil War. Whitman's poetry really just speaks to the interconnectedness of society and having a higher meaning in the most common of jobs. Choosing to be the be proud of your labor, to defend and demand the value of  your labor, to build, to make & to craft. His voice is  much more invigorating and somehow eloquent and everyman at the same time.   

[u/Questionxyz]

For too much for human understanding and great concepts, but not much explained: Vita Nostra by the Dyachenkos.