The blind and CEV'S

[Horus]

Having "heard about" some very lurid closed eye visuals I was curious to know what blind people experience if for instance they smoked some V.good DMT. Do they "see" stuff?

I would imagine if they did "see" anything they would be the biggest users of psychedelics just for the oportunity to see anything even if it is "Mckenna's Elves".

What do they experience?

I have not seen any report/study on this topic.

Thanks Guys.

[Thelema]

not an answer, but a related question: what about blind people's understanding of "space"?

We think that space is a visual concept, but is it really? I mean living in a world of touch must surely generate a notion of space..

[gerbil]

ah i have been meaning to post that exact question for a while, thanks for doing it.

I think a quick way to find out basics, would be to actually ask a blind person that you know, or maybe even just run into on the street.

What i'm curious about is people who are born blind, and people who go blind during life. Seeing if there is a large difference within the visuals, since one has actually experienced vision before.

The person born blind may even have an advantage, their mind hasn't been filled with images like we see every day, kind of like when a young child paints, not a care in the world and their thoughts are more 'pure' or innocent i suppose you could say.

[Horus]

Yes Gerbil.Those are the sorts of things i've been pondering. Are trance visuals in the mind's eye,like a dream? So,do blind people "see" stuff

in dreams?Or is all sight eyeball based.

People prefer to trance out in a dark environment so light does effect the visuals.

People who have lost their sight would have the visual memory to construct their hallucinations.

Wouldn't it be a big treat if a blind from birth person was able to see wonderful mandalas and stuff.

We know how hallucinations are generated,by changing brain chemistry and patterns.But what are the mechanics of how we percieve them.

And what physical atributes do we need.

Is the brain sending this psychedelic information to the eyes which is sending it into the brain as normal.

Or is there like a hallucination filter or generator going which can inform the brain without the assistance of a set of retinas?

The only blind people i meet are up the club on a Friday night.

[occidentalis]

I recently read Oliver Sacks' 'The Island of the Colour Blind' which deals with the issue of perception and asks some similar questions to these. It's about his experiences on the island of Guam with people with congenital achromatopsia - total colour blindness (ie see in black and white). The main question that comes up is "is the experience of life for these people any less than it is for 'normal' people?" It seems that congenital achromatops perceive tonal variation in far more detail than 'normals' and experience intense beauty and aesthetic appreciation of things that we would not see as interesting. They also had much better night vision including the ability to see and spear fish on a dark night.

Another question that is asked is similar to those here: "If a congenital achromatop was enabled to see colour, what would their experience be?" The opinion of Sacks and most of the achromatops interviewed was that they probably would not be able to make any sense of the perception of colour.

Sacks also relates a story about a blind person who is surgically enabled to see and after a while chose to become blind again because the experience of sight was an extremely unpleasant one.

An interesting read.