My friend asked:
Do you find lsd actually improves your eyesight? I'm a bit short sighted in my left eye, but when on lsd I cant tell the difference between left and right eyes, and everything looks so... Clear. Maybe people experience this with other substances as well. But i've only had it with lsd.

It may be that I tend to do lsd outside, and other psych's in doors, pref in low light or the dark. And things may appear sharper or whatever... But I dunno, lsd just seems to improve my eyesight rather than being a noticeable 'visual' affect of the substance.
So just throwing it out there and want to hear your own experiences.
Peace.

Actually, I have pretty much perfect vision to my knowledge and I think everything looks nicely finished on LSD. The pixel like effect that comes on especially when your eyes are tired seems non existent with LSD. Mushooms make everything look gooey and distorted and DMT makes everything shiny and smooth in the weirdest of ways that I've never been able to put words to.

I don't know about improving sight, but LSD definitely has an effect on your vision, so I suppose there's some possibility... I have had amazing moments on acid where my field of vision has expanded along with my awareness, especially in parks and forests and places with a lot of life, there are moments where all of a sudden, you notice a peaceful park is actually full of life and so much going on, and then if you look in a mirror you notice your eyes are as black as pitch.

The first threshold effects I notice on psychedelics are sharper vision, more saturated colors. I guess from my eyes dilating. I have an old prescript of glasses and I noticed once while tripping i could see better in my weaker glasses than my contacts. Atleast it seemed like it. Maybe my contacts were just dried out ect.

Yes friends, those are more what my friend describes as visual effects.
But even after the peak, and things are getting back to normal, eyesight seems improved.
I've often wondered much about the whole pupil dilation thing... Your pupils dilate to let in more light so why aren't we all walking around tripping with our sunglasses on. ;-)
There's a good and simple explanation i'm sure.

SWIM has very many different types of trips on DMT. Sometimes things take on a ragged edged look, like old worn out clothes. Sometimes there are shiny, segmented patterns overlayed into things, like walls. Sometimes flesh looks like wax,
I really think its too much of a sweeping statement to say 'dmt makes everything shiney'. Its more obviously more complex than that.


I'd like to point out though that LSD and other psychedelics while they do improve edge detection, they also leave alot of 'residue' in the visual field. That could actually be a disadvantage to your seeing ability. no?

At psychedelic doses yes, but I believe this thread was leading more towards general effect on the physical eyes, rather than the actual hallucinogenic effect. Though I know there's probably not any difference between the two, there's a difference between how it can enhance certain things at lower doses and how it can completely distort things at higher doses.

Obviously I'm not smoking DMT and sitting there saying "ooooh... shiny"

Well that's funny actually you should check out that my recent fmri thread and that recent newscientist issue because it talks about the subject, I haven't actually finished reading it because I only got it today but it talks about something a lot of us have already concluded, less stimulation from the senses causes the brain the fill in the blanks, and it turns out your brain has the ability to project the sense of self away from the body, these states are induced when stimulation is reduced... also surprisingly it seems humans have dedicated machinery in the brain for cartoon like illustrations... and this may explain the graphical nature of hallucination visions, also humans affinity for 2d images on flat surfaces, books, art, lcd screens, cave paintings... you can imagine an evolutionary basis. I think with sunglasses on you've given the brain enough data to project a realistic image, but I'm sure you've read about isolation tanks, or even people in darkness for longs periods, they do start tripping.

with the LSD vision thing I think of it like overdriving or overcharging something.... the signals that go between your eyes and your brain processor are effected somehow by the drug, so I can imagine my vision being pushed beyond it's normal limits, or reduced resolution (I've experienced the feeling of both) but at the fringes data gets lost or corrupted, and maybe that's where the reality machines kick it. The physical effect can be from the eye exercise, I mean isn't weed generally accepted to be very effective for eye disorders like Glaucoma?.. not thats there is any correlation with acid, but shit, acid has been linked to epigenetic changes so I guess anything is possible.