From: aankrom@nyx.cs.du.edu (Anthony Ankrom)
Subject: Re: Fried Brain on Acid
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Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 17:47:44 GMT

In article <ringo.724435790@craft.camp.clarkson.edu> ringo@craft.camp.cla
kson.edu (Ringo) writes:
>bierbach@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>
>>The question is, is is possible for people to literally fry their 
>>brains on LSD, and if so, is it permanent? I have heard several 
>>theories on this, the most common being that it is not caused my 
>>impurities in the acid, but rather that these people have taken an 
>>amount of acid that has caused them to somehow finally snap.
>
>1) You'd find it very difficult to *literally* either fry your
>brain or snap. 
>
>2) Knowing a fair bit about neuroplasticity and learning, etc, I can
>tell you that trippy can and I'm sure does 'rewire' the brain to a 
>very limited extent. During the X hours of dosing you are very liable
>to 'learn' something. Connections are made, broken, strengthened and
>weakened. Doing a lot of learning in this state can lead to a perfectly
>functional, if rather strange individual.
>
>Is this what you mean by frying? By snapping? What are you talking
>about bierbach?
>
>
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>| replacing youth's allegro, yet still it reflects |         clarkson.ed
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 While reading this post I got a silly idea: What if during the process of
tripping, one encountered a stimulus or stimuli that, induced the brain
into rewiring itself in a random way? (By brain, I mean the cortex) I mean
these stimuli are certainly elusive, but conceivably thewy could exist.
And what might it take to rehabilitate a victim of this hypothetical
affliction. By no means am I suggesting this as a proscription against the
use of LSD or any other hallucinogen. But it judst seemed an interesting
possibility. It wouldn't necessarilly have to be random either. Some
overwhelming stimulus may ber able to render a tripper vegatative. I have
no idea how frequently such an event could occur. (Please no flames on
this, just discussion. I'm not out to spread myths and fear...) 
 A friend of mine's brother once had a syndrome following an acid trip
that seemed a hybrid of post-traumatic distress and schizophrenia. He
couldn't carry on a coherent conversation or sleep. He eventually recovered
and is perfectly healthy now, but it makes me wonder what induced this. It
was NOT like he was still tripping. It was like an odd aftereffect...
St. Anthony

--
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         |   \ |  || Ph               chlani izbrani
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Xref: sparky alt.drugs:19574 alt.dreams:4373 sci.med:22509