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Do Psychedelics affect the Blind?

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Benp2312

Greenlighter
Joined
Jan 5, 2016
Messages
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Would psychedelics affect a blind person? I imagine the headspace would change, but would they experience CEV?
 
If they have been blind since birth they have no real reference to sight in the true sense. Their memories, dreams etc are creations of how they perceive the world using the other senses. Perhaps if the centres of their brain normally responsible for sight are stimulated they may experience something in the way of colours, but without a reference to actual light stimulation that a normal person has I imagine it would be different than a swirl of fractals.

I'd be interested to hear otherwise from some one more knowledgable though

Edit. https://mindhacks.com/2009/11/18/do-blind-people-hallucinate-on-lsd/

There you go, it seems only those with a previous history of sight had hallucinations
 
One Thousand Words said:
If they have been blind since birth they have no real reference to sight in the true sense. Their memories, dreams etc are creations of how they perceive the world using the other senses. Perhaps if the centres of their brain normally responsible for sight are stimulated they may experience something in the way of colours, but without a reference to actual light stimulation that a normal person has I imagine it would be different than a swirl of fractals.

I'd be interested to hear otherwise from some one more knowledgable though

Edit. https://mindhacks.com/2009/11/18/do-blind-people-hallucinate-on-lsd/

There you go, it seems only those with a previous history of sight had hallucinations
Click to expand...

That's right... People who suddenly gain sight at later age have to start from scratch with no reference and everything is just a visual soup to them. They can't even associate seeing you properly, having to learn what kind of human shape to couple with hearing your voice... so I guess they would have visual agnosia until they calibrate depth perception and all the other parts of it. It can be a real nightmare to them, so careful what you wish for.
 
See the "Blind People on Psychedelics" thread for more, but I think it's highly plausible that even congenitally blind people experience "visual" alterations on psychedelics. Though the visual cortex of a person blind from birth is substantially different than that of a sighted person's their genes still instruct facets of its development that are presumably sufficient to undergird a sort of nascent visual perception. For example, see “'Visual' Cortex of Congenitally Blind Adults Responds to Syntactic Movement.'” Spatial metaphor is seemingly utilized pre-linguistically, such that we don't even recognize it as a kind of poetics.

Previously sighted people who become braille readers report that they visualize the bumps spatially when running their fingers over it, and fMRI data confirm activity in the visual cortex as they read tactually. (indicating subjective visual experience). Insofar as we inherit the physiological capacity for subjective visualization we can plausibly suspect that psychedelics would alter its expression even in congenitally blind persons (though it would be difficult for such experiences to be articulated/understood). Only in those who owe their blindness to the destruction of the visual processing areas of the brain might we expect a complete obliteration of psychedelic drugs' “visual” effects.
 
Interesting ^.
It's only limited by the neurological ability of someone to perceive something if properly stimulated. Forms of synaesthesia should be a great place to start, it would at least provide some opening for visual cortex involvement - but it all depends on whether there are intact pathways, and whether potential pathways can be recovered. The above mentioned 'visualization' should increase chances of intact pathways present (there appears to be something responding if it works) or development / reinforcement of the pathways.
A psychedelic could provide temporary stimulation whereas electromagnetic stimulation might as well, or surgery might permanently if it helps overcome a sever?... The eyes have little to do with this, of course psychedelics push the buttons very directly.

I think it is only cortical blindness that may not even respond to psychedelics, the eye has proper function and reflexes etc but the visual cortex is damaged / unable to process properly. There are various possible causes.

Both the chance of recovery and the chance of responding to psychedelics probably depends on the nature of that cause, the severity and what intact pathways remain - otherwise the typewriter is just fubar so pushing the buttons is likely pointless.

I doubt that things like braille visualization would actually translate to development of visual processing. Psychedelics have no strategy in their way of 'pushing buttons', if they introduce 'artifacts' it is our visual cortex (and other parts of the brain/mind that get involved) which uses visual processing to try and make sense of the button pushing. Much like reading gibberish and trying to detect and recognize words in it, I imagine.
If you don't have a frame of reference / vocabulaire, wouldn't it be insanely hard for a person to basically have to learn 'how to read' on the spot? So yeah.. soup..
 
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Where is are resident blind psychonaut? Surley there is a blind person that does psychs on bluelight. I would like to hear it from there words.
 
Aww man I wonder what DiPT would be like for someone completely deaf since birth?
 
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