Today’s article examines our decidedly limited mental representation of the world, and how it is fundamentally linked to the systems of meaning available to us, to our perceptual constructs. It lays out incredible data to show just how much and in how many ways our perception can be manipulated, and the role we often take in our own delusion. It goes on to explore the broader semiotic power of deeper levels of consciousness and how they could play an important role in communications with alien realms.