Good points polytrip.
Quote:So to me this seems to sugest that certain parts of the visual system like the parts specifically responsable for seeing horizontal lines or vertical lines, are associated with peticular colours: the logic behind this is the other way round: if a black/white optical illusion makes certain shapes emerge and in this specific optical illusion a particular colour emerges as well, than the part of the brain that is responsable for this type of shape or elements of it apparently sees these shapes in that particular colour.
Maybe those parts involved in seeing the shapes and colors are being over stimulated or inhibited? So they can dominate your visual experience or your brain can't put together the whole image.
Ever look at optical illusions on psychs? SWIM has but everything was moving at that point so it didn't make much of a difference.. Would be worth trying again though perhaps with low to high doses of dmt? Was only tested with acid thus far.
Quote:Like pictures in a comic book, pictures our visual system makes consist out of different elements. In a comic book the outlines of this picture are always black on white. The brain also has a system that's responsible for seeing outer lines but this system exists out of several subsystems: seeing vertical lines, horizontal lines, curved lines, etc.
So i think that the brain gives all these different systems their own colour to be able to decode the total picture when doing complex visual tasks, when for instance you have to look for predators in the jungle, etc.
Yes and perhaps the color perception is built up in a similar way as shapes. With simpler subsystems to recognize basic colors and their shade linking to more complex systems to wring together all the shades of color into the range of colors we see in the world around us.
It would be difficult to imagine that something with as many connections as the brain would have a "module" for every object you have ever seen. Its been proposed that the brain has like you said simpler subsystems to make vertical lines etc as well as shapes etc. When you look at an object you put that all together and your memory of course would be involved in recognizing it etc.
If psychedelics effect these sort of systems there effects make lots of sense even if we don't entirely know how they work.
Quote:So i think that the brain gives all these different systems their own colour to be able to decode the total picture when doing complex visual tasks, when for instance you have to look for predators in the jungle, etc.
Than the brain can quickly determine where in the comlexity of the whole picture, something is changing or something irregular occurs.
Yes and it seems psychedelics can influence these systems in such a way as to overemphasize certain patterns. Like for example if one looks at a small part of a wall and notes the pattern that pattern then covers the entire wall. Or when looking at a pile of rocks and a pattern of one section of the pile of rocks becomes the entire pile of rocks. I am sure many users would confirm these kinds of visual effects. Its like your awareness is dominated by the pattern you hone in on even if only for a moment and then that comes to dominate your conscious experience of what you are seeing.
Quote:So i think that both hallucinogens as these optical illusions, simply disturb one of these little machines in the brain. Make it run slightly out of it's normal context, and that the brain normally doesn't see all these different coloured lines, because it is completely used to having them fully integrated in the total picture. If one of these lines is no longer perfectly integrated...it becomes apparent that there is a coloured line.
That seems logical to me. Since the ability to see those colours must have a function that normally is totally integrated in the whole system.
Yes excellently put.