Alien Dreamtime: Terence McKenna, Spacetime Continuum, and the Rave That Blurred the Future

Before Alien Dreamtime became a legendary artifact of the early ‘90s underground, it was a live experiment: a collision of rave culture, psychedelic philosophy, and multimedia spectacle unfolding over 48 feverish hours in San Francisco. As scholar Graham St. John recounts in a fascinating article for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), the two-night event fused Terence McKenna’s cosmic oratory with the ambient techno of Jonah Sharp, a.k.a. Spacetime Continuum, the deep resonance of didgeridoo, and immersive live visuals.

It was a moment of pure convergence—barefoot ravers and future tech moguls, bound by hallucinogens and shared revelation, moving together in a swirling, ecstatic dance. The energy was so charged that police twice attempted to shut it down, only to be met with a sea of camcorder-wielding protest and bodies refusing to stop moving.

Now, more than 30 years later, a recording of this singular 1993 performance is finally making its debut on vinyl. Originally released on CD by Astralwerks, then a dominant force in U.S. electronica, the reissue arrives via Sound Metaphors, which describes it as “blending ambient, technoid sounds, spoken word & didgeridoo.”

At the time, McKenna was something of a shaman for rave culture, even as he dismissed MDMA as an “unnatural” chemical in contrast to plant-based psychedelics like DMT, psilocybin and peyote. (As St. John recounts, Alexander Shulgin, the chemist who rediscovered MDMA, was once in the audience when McKenna voiced this opinion. “But Terence, I’m as natural as they come,” Shulgin shot back.)

McKenna’s certainty could be a bit much, and his faith in technological utopia feels naive now that billionaire tech bros keep proving how ugly and fascistic algorithmic solutions can be. But his ideas on creativity and exploration are spot on.

My notion of what the psychedelic experience is, for us, that we each must become like fishermen, and go out on to the dark ocean of mind, and let our nets down into that sea. And what you’re after is not some behemoth that will tear through your nets, follow them and drag you in your little boat, you know, into the abyss; nor are what we’re looking for a bunch of sardines that can slip through your net and disappear… You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is in danger by the absence of good ideas.

On Alien Dreamtime, McKenna dives into consciousness, psychedelics, and the power of human imagination, delivering his signature monologues over Sharp’s sweeping electronic compositions. For him, psychedelics weren’t about escape—they were tools for insight, a way to push beyond the limits of ordinary perception.

Around the same time as Alien Dreamtime, McKenna’s voice was popping up in electronic music, most notably with the Shamen and Zuvuya. On the Shamen’s 1992 track “Re:Evolution,” he delivered a monologue about psychedelic consciousness over a pulsing dance beat, turning the song into a kind of rave-era sermon. A year later, he teamed up with Zuvuya on Shamanic Nights: Dream Matrix Telemetry. More than just guest spots, these collaborations turned his words into something hypnotic, weaving his psychedelic philosophy straight into the music.

Alien Dreamtime is available now via Juno: https://www.juno.co.uk/products/spacetime-continuum-withterence-mckenna-alien-dreamtime-vinyl/1069918-01/