leafing:
Quote:
if it is your nerve receptors in the back of your eyeball creating those fractal like images when on lsd how does it form patterns of images..like a picture you've seen before that you thought was "trippy" suddenly forms into patterns of it..?
It's not technically your the nerve receptors of the retina that cause the patterning. It's worked inside the brain through interference with the chemical you've ingested. Though I just skimmed through this, someone here spoke of the V1 of the visual cortex and edge shape detecting neurons. That's on the right track, but we've got V2 and V3 and controversial V4 and V5, and all the "blobs" and "stripes" that make them up down to magno and parvocellular neurons (we don't need to discuss that). These handle color, brightness, depth..., and include a few other types of neurons we needn't get into besides just edge detecting neurons. Plus, in light of that person discussing about neurons firing (though perhaps he said this and I should've read), the most common and very important type of neuron doesn't even have the capability of firing (called local neurons) and works on a broader sense, but let's stay on topic. There are many aspects of the brain that make up your vision, and are influenced by hallucinogens. There include, and I quote, spiral and bullseye detecting neurons (only seen in primates, humans), and face detecting neurons. Often you can make connections to these type of visuals being stimulated when they shouldn't be. I have to mention since you brought up the fractals that when I'm sober, occasionally with my eyes shut I'll see these temporary spinning visuals sorta grouped together. This works cause there is no input to the neurons that process spirals. An example is that common spiraling animation that makes everything look distorted when you look away from the screen. You tire out the neurons processing the particular spiral direction and the neurons working the opposite direction kick in. It's known as the "waterfall effect" and appropriately works if you look at a waterfall for a few moments, though lengthwise (when downflowing stimulus is removed, vision at that spot appears to flow upwards). Atleast I think what I see and these effects are similar, but I often see a bunch of vague colors and the such with my eyes shut. Anyway, when I'm coming up, these spiraling visions frequent and are replaced by those fractal type hallucinations, but cause I'm just coming up, these fractals are mostly stationary. After some time, the fractals are prominent, but I don't see the "spiraling things." The fractals, though, are radiating and I believe consist of the spirals. It seems spiral detecting neurons and fractal hallucination disposition play a key role. I'd ramble on with guessing many connections, but I don't want to waste our time. What I'm getting at is that your retina picks up the information, but it's free for these visual processing levels to play with, and when you imbibe such a chemical, it's stimulating these processes rendering them with abnormal activity. This abnormal activity will distort what you see, and on top create its own visuals. I couldn't say exactly where the fractals originate, but we all continue to give our theories on it.
-------------------- ...hypothetically speaking of course.
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