From: dit@sybase.com (David Trumbull)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Re: LSD - After effects
Keywords: LSD, Acid, flashback, Ren & Stimpy
Date: 28 Jul 92 16:43:47 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Sybase, Inc.

In article <1992Jul22.050412.14481@u.washington.edu> gmarter@shelley.u.washington.edu (Guerren Marter) writes:
>In article <1992Jul21.211036.19517@cco.caltech.edu> slr@cco.caltech.edu (Steve L. Rhoades) writes:

<Chomp we've seen it before Chomp>
Following is a couple of letters sent to me by R.Raby on a similar topic. 
Permission to post these has been given by him. Oh yeah, this was preceded by
a discussion of 'invoking breathing walls' and other perceptual changes.

From: rraby1@ub.d.umn.edu (Richard E. Raby)
To: dit@frenzy.sybase.com
Subject: Re: invoking breathing walls
Status: OR

Try looking at your computer screen and humming. Try raising and lowering the
pitch of your humming until you see the screen slowly oscillate. This is due
to your head (and, of course, your eyes) moving up and down nearly in sync
with the scan frequency of your monitor. This is nearly the same effect that
causes spinning wheels to appear to stop or turn backward. Except in the case
of the spinning wheel, you're noticing a sync in the angular frequency of
rotation of the wheel and the frequency with which your visual cortex
processes the imagery. Try looking for stuff like this in altered states of
mind, and you may learn a great deal about your body, mind, and nature. THEN,
try looking for stuff like this when you're normal, and you'll realize that
the drug only allows you to operate in different areas of your brain. Soon
you will realize what a drug is and that you can see anything in any manner
you wish simply by entering that state of mind. For instance, I can see very
long trails right now when I wave my arm, even though I'm "normal".

BTW, the first thing I noticed last trip, about 30 minutes in, was the red
digital LED numbers on the cable box. I said "wow".

What other visual phenomena can we look for? I'd like to notice something
new. Is there anything neat a tripper might notice that centuries of
physicists might not have observed? There's got to be something right in
front of our faces that's never been discovered. Or are most new discoveries
in the realm of our own minds?

Repost this if you like, as I cannot post right now.

Rich Raby		rraby1@ub.d.umn.edu

Begin second message..

From: rraby1@ub.d.umn.edu (Richard E. Raby)
Message-Id: <9203172216.AA24832@ub.d.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: invoking breathing walls
To: sybase!dit@Eng.Sun.COM (David Trumbull)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 92 16:16:18 CST
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Status: OR

> > Repost this if you like, as I cannot post right now.

Curious. Did you ever post that article on visual stuff? If you're
interested, I wrote a little more in response to a poster in
alt.psychoactives. It's somewhat farther out, but I think it fits the thread.

In article <1992Mar2.160802.10078@jsp.umontreal.ca> you write:
>I've extracted the following from a file concerning "Mind Machines".
>
>>
>>Q:  What are these "brain wave frequencies" you've mentioned?
>>
>>A:  While only the most science-ignorant fool thinks that the entire brain
>>pulses in time to one frequency, EEGs show that at any given time, your brain
>>produces distinct waveforms in four frequency groupings, called beta waves (14
>>to 30 Hz, pronounced hertz, meaning cycles per second), alpha waves (8 to 13
>>Hz), theta waves (4 to 7 Hz), and delta waves (1 to 3 Hz). When we say that
>>you are "in beta state" (which you normally are), what we're saying is that
>>that's the dominant set of frequencies, the ones with the highest amplitudes.
>>Beta is associated with alertness, with the highest frequencies in that range
>>often described as "fight/flight" mode. Alpha frequencies have long been
>>associated with meditation and relaxation. Theta waves are considered by some
>>to be associated with a dreamy, creative states.  Delta waves are generally
>>strongest when you're asleep.
>>
[ stuff deleted ]

I was talking with a regular poster of alt.drugs about "Invoking breathing
walls", and the topic I raised was that you see much more than visual
contortions like breathing walls and "trails" when you're tripping. When you
trip, you begin to operate in different areas of your brain, and thus you
acquire the ability to notice things in your environment, moving with respect
to time, that you normally wouldn't see. Psychoactives like LSD enhance your
awareness of your surroundings, including your own mental processes. Thus you
may become aware of the speed at which your brain processes information,
primarily visual information (as reported). This causes your mind to take a
different perspective on things in motion. You stop ignoring the continuous
fluidity of things in motion, and you begin to see moving objects as if they
were smooth brushstrokes painted on a canvas.

The ability to gain a deeper resolve of the meaning hidden in these visual
overlays is part of what brings such insight and revelation to the observant
tripper. Perhaps you've wondered why it's possible to judge the period of a
swinging pendulum, or the speed of a turning wheel. Most everything you judge
with respect to time is done relative to the processing speed of your brain
when it is observed (e.g., "Time flies when you're having fun"). If you are
very relaxed, and your concentration is on your visual canvas, your are in a
good state of mind for observing trails left by things moving in your view.
However, if your concentration lies on something internal to your mind, you
might be totally oblivious to what's happening in your field of vision.
Similarly, you might not notice visual activity if you are listening
carefully to an interesting piece of music.

About processing speed. Most people have noticed how a spinning spoked wheel
will appear to slow, stop, and reverse direction when observed in a specific
state of mind. Usually you will notice this change when the wheel is changing
in its speed of rotation. But you may also notice this change even when the
wheel has continued to spin with constant speed. The change is observed when
your mind has shifted from one processing speed to another, or said to have
changed states. A spinning wheel will appear to have stopped when a multiple
of the angular frequency at which it spins comes in sync with the image
sampling frequency of your brain. I suppose it would be possible to determine
a person's mind state from their report of a spinning wheel's appearance.

Trippers seem to easily adjust to the mind state of eachother because they
often report seeing exactly the same visual effects when together, whereas a
non-tripping observer sees nothing, nor can rationalize that anything is in
existence where the tripper may be looking.

This brings me to an argument in favor of mentally telepathy. I firmly
believe that people communicate regularly through a medium other than speech,
visually observable body language, or any other traditionally recognized
medium of communication. I don't know for certain what the medium is, but I
have witnessed, and regularly experienced, mental communication. It may be
impossible for someone with a life of skepticism to see the rationality of
this, but I believe that LSD can open the mind of an individual to the
possiblility of such an art. I have experienced trips where my partner and I
sat observing a picture without looking at eachother and described all the
same visual contortions. Similarly, we spent several hours lying in bed,
tripping very hard in total darkness, and were later able to describe almost
exacting images. The problem with description is the fact that words are
merely tokens attached to numerous associations of life experience for an
individual. No two individuals share the same experiences, not even
genetically identical twins. The ability of one to understand another's
description of something is left to imagination. Understanding is acknowledged
with a smile or laughter. When a person tells a joke, the success of the
transmission, indicated by laughter, is dependent on the assumption that a
general enough scenario is used so that the recipient can make the proper
associations from his/her own experience to understand the joke. Telepathic
messages, however, usually carry such an element of vagueness that they are
rarely understood. That is not to say that humans are incapable of accurate
telepathic communication. It merely implies that both the sender and
recipient almost always lack the training to precicely convey and interpret
telepathic messages. Modern culture and society have neglected to raise
individuals in environments that promote telepathic development. This is the
reason for its sparse existence.

>-- 
>Pierre Gaumond.                                 |
>Services Informatiques, Universite de Montreal. | gaumondp@ERE.Umontreal.CA
>C.P. 6128, Succursale "A", Montreal,            | gaumondp@JSP.UMontreal.CA
>Quebec, Canada.   H3C 3J7                       | gaumondp@centrcn.UMontreal.CA
cowsonthemooncowsonthemooncowsonthemooncowsonthemooncowsonthemooncowsonthemoon
Richard Raby						rraby1@ub.d.umn.edu
							FAX: (218) 728-3128
"It's like a dream, no end and no beginning" -Madonna
cowsonthemooncowsonthemooncowsonthemooncowsonthemooncowsonthemooncowsonthemoon

--
  Superhigh            \       Lookin for that good stuff... 
 dit@sybase.com        /        ...better tighten up on your backstroke. 
  Backstrokin'        /		    
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