Your new hobby: brain hacking
Posted at 6:33 AM Jan 13, 2009
By Sharon Steel
The eff? Never thought we'd see this lede in a Boston Globe story. Then again, who doesn't want to learn how to hallucinate with a discarded ping-pong ball and a busted radio?Do you ever want to change the way you see the world? Wouldn't it be fun to hallucinate on your lunch break? Although we typically associate such phenomena with powerful drugs like LSD or mescaline, it's easy to fling open the doors of perception without them: All it takes is a basic understanding of how the mind works.Ummm, yeah, good morning to you, too.
Suggested self-inflicted brain hacks include the "Incredible Shrinking Pain" (staring at your bloody hand through inverted binoculars makes it feel better); "Purkinje Lights" (close your eyes, stare at the sun, wave your hand, and wait for the "beautiful figures"); and, our personal favorite, the aforementioned "Ganzfeld Procedure." This supposedly produces a bizarre set of sensory distortions ranging from "horses prancing in the clouds" to "the voice of a dead relative."
You force this to happen by lying in a room with the radio tuned to a static station and halved ping-pong balls taped over your eyes.
No, seriously. We couldn't make this stuff up. Enjoy your lunch break.
[Boston Globe via BoingBoing]
