How to hallucinate with ping-pong balls and a 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.
The first thing to know is that the mind isn't a mirror, or even a passive observer of
reality. Much of what we think of as being out there actually comes from in here, and is a
byproduct of how the brain processes sensation. In recent years scientists have come up
with a number of simple tricks that expose the artifice of our senses, so that we end up perceiving
what we know isn't real - tweaking the cortex to produce something uncannily like
hallucinations. Perhaps we hear the voice of someone who is no longer alive, or feel as if our
nose is suddenly 3 feet long.
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