Narnia gate into Phish

Some people can do Magic Eye on origami paper or wallpaper or anything that repeats and call up the extra dimension more or less at will. Others see only the field of jumbled particles and not the image beyond the page. But a simple rote action makes the secret picture available to all: by holding the book up to one’s face and pulling it back slowly, one can trick one’s eyes into focusing wrongly, and the Magic Eye dawns upon whatever unicorn, dollar bill, ice cube, or hovering ball has been hidden within the matrix of static. Is there a parallel action one can perform to become attuned to the worlds described in the jams of Phish (& are the objects found there as trivial as ones hidden in stereograms)? Is there a physical exercise that results in finding one’s body in the space behind this music, communicating with friendly beings? Is there some way to show your friends this world is real, an objective property of music, and good? Dancing? Yes. Smoking pot? No—people who don’t like Phish still don’t like it when they’re stoned, no, it makes them feel like shit, and the parts of the music they find pleasurable are the ones they hate the most. Besides, many fans preferred to see them sober (though for some, Phish and pot are metaphysically equivalent; they are of the same substance and refer to the same things). Is it like Christian music, where you have to be a Christian to get it?

My practical advice to non-believers is this: listen to Fishman. Follow the hi-hat when it is played by the foot as an extra tick between beats. Listen to fills that go down the tom-toms evenly. And listen for breakouts of syncopation on the bell of the ride cymbal late in some jam, for if a friend refers to “the best Ghost” or “the best Reba,” they are probably thinking of one that has the cymbal thing.