Mind's Eye

[Avatar]

But, as far as I know, it was the analysis of it that produced the synthetic Lysergic acid molecule.

--A

[Prebe]

You are right Avatar. The lysergic acid part was isolated from Claviceps purpurea, the ergot fungus, and later chemically enhanced by adding two ethyl groups (di-ethyl). I had forgotten.

[Avatar]

Aah, the miracles of modern science. Dr Hoffman and Sandoz Pharmeceuticals.

--A

[The Laughing Man]

It seems he "discovered" it when some of the "substance" got on his hands, and he started to trip? Now thats what I call "noble curiosity".

[Avatar]

He followed that up with a "controlled" experiment in which he ingested what he believed to be a fractional amount, .25 of a gram. Little did he know that effective dosage would turn out to be as little as 150 thousand millionths of a gram...

Plenty of accounts of his first deliberate trip, and the experiences totally unclouded by expectation that he had.

Very interesting.

--A

[Plissken]

Did he write in his diary about the conectiveness of everything and then draw many drawings of checkerboards that extend to the horizon? If not, I want some of what he got.

If so, I'll continue to avoid LSD on the grounds that it allows only one type of each Art to be produced.

[Avatar]

Not aware of any drawings, but I'm sure he mentioned some form of holism. Will dig out one of my books, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream, and look it up.

Interestingly, there was a section that dealt with experiments in LSD on artists...can't remember the details or the results though. (And I read it recently too... )

--A

[Prebe]

LSD was used for a while in psychotherapy in Denmark (in the early 70's I think). It was discontinued, because it seemed (not clinically tested unfortunately) that it didn't help very much, and that some people actually got worse.

I believe it was mainly used in connection with regression therapy.

[Avatar]

Altered State!

Oh, it's been used in countless therapies... especially mental disorders like "schitzophrenia."

Problem is that it's so individual in its effects, it's impossible to present some sort of unified theory of LSD.

--A

[The Laughing Man]

Altered State!

Oh, it's been used in countless therapies... especially mental disorders like "schitzophrenia."

Problem is that it's so individual in its effects, it's impossible to present some sort of unified theory of LSD.

--A

AWESOME movie! That rocked my world!

[Avatar]

Yeah, it was pretty good. Especially on acid.

--A

[Avatar]

10 years later, researchers have finally realised this is a thing.

Thanks to Syl who sent me the links.

Picture This? Some People Can't

Certain people, researchers have discovered, can’t summon up mental images — it’s as if their mind’s eye is blind. This month in the journal Cortex, the condition received a name: aphantasia, based on the Greek word phantasia, which Aristotle used to describe the power that presents visual imagery to our minds.

--A

[Zarathustra]

Interesting. Maybe Donaldson has this to some extent? I know he says he's not a visual writer. Maybe that's because he' doesn't visualize.

I had a professor (my phenomenology professor, come to think of it) who said he doesn't think in images, but in words. I'm not sure if he couldn't visualize, or just that the didn't, but it's bizarre to me.

I can visualize in fairly high detail. When I was a teenager and having a tan was important, I would play visualization games while I was sunbathing. I'd imagine things like my entire bus route from my house to my school, back and forth, trying to make the images transition as smoothly as possible.

Can these people not conjure up images of their loved ones? They don't know what these people look like until they see them? I can't imagine that.

I do know that our power of visualization isn't as powerful as we sometimes think. In Daniel C. Dennett's book CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED, he shows an illustration of several "random" shapes of jagged and straight lines. He challenges the reader to rotate them in one's mind's eye. Given such a complex and random shape, it's easy to dismiss this test as simply too hard. But when you rotate the book around 90 degrees, one of the shapes is obviously Texas. It jumps out at you. But I couldn't see it in my mind's eye, couldn't rotate it in my imagination. (Perhaps if it had been by itself, it would have been more obvious, but it was in the middle of other vaguely similar shapes, conditioning the viewer to think they're all similarly random.)

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Visualizing shapes, especially with rotations, is a staple of high-IQ tests, at least as far as conceptual/spatial reasoning is concerned.

I can easily imagine not being able to do something--what's that, you say? translate a conversation from Korean? yeah, right--but I cannot easily imagine not being able to visualize things since I can do so with ease. If I have driven somewhere, even only once a decade ago, I can almost always find my way back there by retracing the route mentally.

[Avatar]

Can these people not conjure up images of their loved ones? They don't know what these people look like until they see them? I can't imagine that.

It doesn't work like that Z. I can't conjure up an image of my loved ones.

But I still know what they look like. I can recognise them, describe them, pick them out of a crowd. I just can't "see" an image of their face in my "imagination."

--A

[Zarathustra]

Wow, that's fascinating. Reminds me of experiments I've read about where people have their connection between hemispheres (corpus callosum) cut surgically.

So you can't even imagine simple shapes like a circle or square? Not even a color?

What is really puzzling is how you're able to describe people you can't mentally visualize. Is it more like a verbal list of characteristics that you always associate with that person?

Can you imagine smells or tastes? Sometimes the tastes of hops, or the 'ghost' of that taste, hits me a few days after I've had any beer, like a memory with a flavor to it. The same thing happens with sushi ... I crave a particular taste/flavor/aroma almost as if I can taste it right now. The memory of texture is also quite vivid.

What about sounds? Do you get 'earworms' (songs that get stuck in your head)? Can you imagine how a particular song goes right now?

[Vraith]

Wow, that's fascinating. Reminds me of experiments I've read about where people have their connection between hemispheres (corpus callosum) cut surgically.

So you can't even imagine simple shapes like a circle or square? Not even a color?

What is really puzzling is how you're able to describe people you can't mentally visualize. Is it more like a verbal list of characteristics that you always associate with that person?

Can you imagine smells or tastes? Sometimes the tastes of hops, or the 'ghost' of that taste, hits me a few days after I've had any beer, like a memory with a flavor to it. The same thing happens with sushi ... I crave a particular taste/flavor/aroma almost as if I can taste it right now. The memory of texture is also quite vivid.

What about sounds? Do you get 'earworms' (songs that get stuck in your head)? Can you imagine how a particular song goes right now?

It does seem similar effect to the C.C. severing things I've seen.

Me, I can visualize things, and in great detail---but I have to expend willpower and singular focus to do it--no multi-tasking. I can't even really think the word "red" and visualize the color "red" at the same time very successfully most of the time.
99.99 percent of the time, my brain is running pure words. Even in my dreams. Even if I happen to be writing/thinking about something purely visual, no picture unless I stop and make one.
[[though something weird happened for no reason about a year ago, and I find it easier nowadays to sense/visualize space, scale, shape]]

Only certain smells are imaginable---most of them spices, some herbs [cloves, hops, sages, cinnamon are easy---I can't imagine any flower smells at all---not even lilac, which I like a lot, and completely permeates and engulfs my house every spring.

On my rare trips back to my hometown, I will often not recognize people that I grew up with by sight---but if they speak, memories start flowing, which brings me to...

Earworms. I can resurrect/imagine songs at will [and am randomly infected by them involuntarily constantly]. And they're complete and exact...total radio in my head. And if [for instance] I get bored 'listening' to the "Signals" version of Subdivisions, I'll listen to a live one or the Jacob Moon cover. [I'd bet, considering all things musical you've posted, that is no biggie for you, either---nor for several other folk around here].

H---those test visualizations kill me. It takes me a long time and a handful of them...and then something "clicks" in my brain, and I just zip on through the rest of them. But those first few are HARD. [even when they're fairly easy]...

And on "Altered States." [that's a pretty old post...] yea, I saw it, and went to see it again in an altered state. Loved that. And even simple pot seems to make "picturing" easier for me.

[Avatar]

So you can't even imagine simple shapes like a circle or square? Not even a color?

Nope.

What is really puzzling is how you're able to describe people you can't mentally visualize. Is it more like a verbal list of characteristics that you always associate with that person?

Yes, that's pretty much exactly what it is, for everything. But it's not a list I need to assemble. It's a list of the things I know without having to think about it, if that differentiation makes sense.

Can you imagine smells or tastes? Sometimes the tastes of hops, or the 'ghost' of that taste, hits me a few days after I've had any beer, like a memory with a flavor to it. The same thing happens with sushi ... I crave a particular taste/flavor/aroma almost as if I can taste it right now. The memory of texture is also quite vivid.

Nope. I know what it tasted liek, but I can't "recreate" the taste. If something tasted or smelled bad, I know that it did, but I don't taste or smell it again.

What about sounds? Do you get 'earworms' (songs that get stuck in your head)? Can you imagine how a particular song goes right now?

Interesting one. I do get ear worms. But I don't "hear" the music...it's more like a lyrical loop that runs over and over and over. Nor does music really trigger memories for me, with very rare exceptions.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

You're a weirdo.

[JIkj fjds j]

:huh: