
Hack your brain: How to hallucinate with ping-pong balls and a radio - makimaki
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/graphics/011109_hacking_your_brain/
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drcode
I used to be able to do this when I was like 4 years old, just by having my
eyes closed for a few minutes. I told my mom that I was seeing things when I
closed my eyes and asked her what it was. She acted very worried so I never
mentioned it again.

By a year later the effect went away and I've never experienced it since- But
I kinda remember what it was like.

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eru
I tend to hallucinate (mostly classical) music when I am about to fall asleep.

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river_styx
This happens to me as well. Sometimes I also hear random disconnected sounds:
a bell, pots clanging, voices, etc. There have been many nights where I've
actually struggled to sleep through all the cacophony.

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yan
In "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman", Feynman went over a few experiments he
did to notice what happens when you're falling asleep when he was an
undergrad. He concluded that your thoughts become more and more random and
flooded as you get closer to actual sleep, until your brain gets overwhelmed
and passes out.

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ph0rque
>He concluded that your thoughts become more and more random and flooded as
you get closer to actual sleep, until your brain gets overwhelmed and passes
out.

At one point when I had trouble falling asleep in less than 1/2 an hour, I
used the reverse to fall asleep quicker: I'd guide myself into thinking
outlandish things, then my brain would naturally progress in this fashion
until I fell asleep.

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Shamiq
This has worked for me in the past. Though I can never repeat it reliably.
Given enough stress for the following day, my thoughts will gravitate back to
what needs to get done.

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martythemaniak
None of those look fun or useful. Talk to your friendly local dealer and he'll
be able to provide something better.

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DaniFong
You'll learn more about sober, typical perception through these than you will
on drugs, the carpet bombing approach to psychedelia. And it's that
exploration that's most interesting for me.

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time_management
::Grabs popcorn and dons flamewar armor.::

I don't disagree with you, but "carpet bombing" is going a little far. I don't
think psychedelic drugs are the best way to explore one's mind for most
people, but they are interesting and can be valuable in some circumstances.
Unfortunately, we as a collective know very little about how to use them, and
individuals generally know less.

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kirse
_explore one's mind_

This is the big lie of psychs, that they allow you to "explore your mind" as
if somehow you're not fully understanding it while sober (and through
meditation).

Psychs rewire how the brain handles and deals with sensory input, so that when
you do them you're not exploring the mind you have while sober, but entering
into a completely different "mind" based on distorted perception.

It's like thinking you're exploring new rooms in your own home when in fact
you're 9 blocks away checking out a house that's entirely different in
structure and form. Of course that adventure will bring in fresh new
perspectives, but in no way does that help you discover more about your own
home.

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DaniFong
I don't think that's correct: one can still be mostly lucid while having the
drug affect some part of their mind. You _can_ sometimes bring things back.*

Often it's not really sensory at all; it seems to work at a higher, conceptual
level. For example, I once looked in a mirror and saw myself, but recognized
different people, with different personalities, my mother, my siblings, my
different personalities.

I looked out into a room, and I saw all the elements, but my experience of it
was flat, as if someone took a picture and laid it out on paper. Then the
shading in the picture implied lighting, which quickly implied depth. Objects
rotated into consciousness. I saw a tree, and then suddenly the existence of
leaves and branches screamed out to me, as if to say "we are entities too! we
are not simply parts of the tree! we are objects of our own." A friend of mine
was standing near, but still. At a conceptual level, my perceptual experience
of her was of an extremely accurate _statue_ of her. As in "my, what a life-
like Sarah __." And then she moved, and she was animate again, a real person.

A friend of mine studies perception. He tells me there's a lot of evidence for
these kinds of 'perceptual layers,' and that a lot of the subconscious visual
classifications that I was experiencing. Self, not self. Person, not person.
Animate, not animate. Object, not object. Flat, not flat. One expects it's the
sort of thing that we do naturally, for many other sorts of things. Male,
female, old, young, intelligent, dim, aware, tired, happy, sad, etc. And it's
the sort of thing that neural networks can do, too.

So I definitely think that there are things that you can bring back. I think
if you try hard, you can hold on to the experience, and see how much of it
makes sense in the real world. But I'm not sure this is the experience of most
people. I hear lots about people seeing pretty colors.

* Note, all this happened on half a hash brownie, alone. This experience suggest that I stay away from anything harder.

 __Name changed to protect the innocent.

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jgrahamc
I hallucinated after pulling two all-nighters in a row in college. I ended up
being awake for three days and two nights and ended up seeing that the world
was just _beautiful_. Spent hours in a park looking at blades of grass and
then a long time examining the surface of an orange.

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nihilocrat
I think I remember seeing a much better set of procedures, involving a special
set of glasses and maybe some other equpiment that you had to build, which
would actually lead to something that wasn't just a fun party trick.

Oh, this is it: <http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MSBM>

Also, if you want a much more painful way of achieving hallucination,
experience a traumatic situation repeatedly, which is clearly preceded by a
distinct sound. From personal experience I can say you will occasionally
hallucinate the sound in situations where it would never sensibly occur.

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time_management
You can buy "mind machines" for about $100. Or you can use get the sound
component, at least, out of your computer using an online beat generator.

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innernode
Just go to the App Store and buy a Binaural Beats app for a couple of bucks
instead

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bd
Ah, ganzfeld. It reminds me of _Altered States_ , a movie about sensory
deprivation that went horribly wrong. I was fascinated by this movie when I
was a kid.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_States>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbYT3UclhNY> (trailer)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTqFXfn3kdo> (few scary scenes)

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johngunderman
I'm trying this as soon as I get home.

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biohacker42
Is there anyone who doesn't know this?

Who hasn't relaxed with some classical music and their eyes closed, while
their brain fires off pseudo random pretty imagery?

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time_management
There's nothing special about the ping-pong balls and radio. These are the
effects of sensory deprivation, which can be intense if it's done right. Most
interesting states of consciousness involve sensory deprivation or overload at
root, including those induced by psychedelics. For example, sleep occurs most
readily in partial sensory deprivation, and many forms of meditation likewise
involve sensory deprivation.

Regarding the role of the radio static in this experiment, it's there to
produce white noise. It's nearly impossible to drown out all noise. At 15 dB,
you'll hear your heartbeat. However, the brain at rest cancels out white noise
up to about 70 dB, so you can create essential soundlessness in a moderate
quiet environment.

Sensory overload can be fun, too. I recommend listening to music on headphones
around 80-85 dB, with your eyes shut and a blindfold on. You want the music to
be just loud enough that it sounds like it's coming from within your head, but
not so loud as to stimulate adrenal responses (or damage your ears).

Also, binaural beats are pretty cool. You can induce altered states of
consciousness pretty easily with these technologies.

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nfg
> Also, binaural beats are pretty cool. You can induce altered states of
> consciousness pretty easily with these technologies.

For anyone interested in this see sbagen: <http://uazu.net/sbagen/>

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captainobvious
beware looking for this on youtube; youtube is mono =)

