When swim drinks, he sometimes gets OEVs. Nothing too strong, but it's enough to make swim come here to ask about it.
He was sitting in front of his T.V. and noticed that it started expanding. Like a small dose of LSD. It would go from |---| to |------| to |----------| and then to |-|. Usually that's the kind of visuals he gets. Things just expand and contract a lot.
Swim has only experienced alcohol releated visuals once and that was while detoxing after a serious week long alcohol binge. Swim believes visual effects are a side effect of alcohol withdrawl.
Swim has only experienced alcohol releated visuals once and that was while detoxing after a serious week long alcohol binge. Swim believes visual effects are a side effect of alcohol withdrawl.
but swim only drank once, and it was during the late-peak/comedown.
Getting visuals from alcohol seems ridiculous, but SWIM has experienced them once. Te morning after heavy drinking while some alcohol was still in his system SWIM lay in bed and looked at his bedroom wall (which was right next to him). His wall is painted so the plaster is visible, and as SWIM stared at a small crater in the plaster it seemed to slide across the wall vertically for almost 10 minutes, though it never actually got anywhere. It was mesmerising, but nothing like a true psychedelic experience or anything; the closest experience SWIM has had to such a phenomenon are hallucinations caused by zopiclone.
Lizard wonders if OP was so drunk at the time of visuals that he lost a degree of motor contol of his eyes. If so, in addition to double vision, the degradation of the eyes' ability to focus could well produce results as described.
This isn't a stretch at all, and is a very interesting topic; the more that ethanol is studied, a wider and more diverse activity is progressively revealed. Attached is an article discussing a couple mechanisms by which ethanol might induce visual distortions. Here are some relevant snips from the discussion, towards the end:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin D. Johnston, Brian Timney
Findings of the present series of experiments support the notion that alcohol acts to reduce lateral inhibition in human visual processing. Taken together, these findings of the photopic and mesopic experiments suggest that alcohol increases increment thresholds in the Westheimer function in a manner consistent with an alcohol-induced lateral inhibition... The scotopic experiment demonstrated that alcohol produced minimal effects on the Westheimer function under conditions at which lateral inhibition, and thus alcohol, would be expected to produce only minor effects.
As we mentioned previously, alcohol has been shown to interact with a number of neurotransmitters known to be involved in visual processing including glutamate, GABA, acetylcholine, and dopamine. Glutamate and GABA in particular have been implicated as being of great importance in centre-surround interactions. It seems plausible to suggest that the psychophysical changes we observed here are a result of alcohol-induced changes in the balance between these processes. This contention must remain speculative, however, as we know of no studies that have directly investigated this link.
In sum, they found that ethanol induces lateral inhibition in visual receptive fields - which might contribute to the progressive discrepancies between what each eye (and eventually, what each retinal cell) is signaling. They also feel compelling evidence towards an interaction of ethanol in visual processes through the neurotransmitter systems GABA and glutamate, given their central role in center-surround visual systems.
Cellular center-surround disruptions of receptive-field circuits would absolutely be anticipated to generate the 'breathing' or 'growing' distortions akin to those generated by psychedelics. Since such cellular systems are crucial to contrast perception, size characterizations, and spatial relationships - there is the possibility for a variety of hallucinations. They contribute to the nuances beyond fundamentally whether light is hitting photoreceptors or not - this is how our eyes can be sensitive to light and color gradients; at different wavelengths, light will elicit different frequencies of retinal activity due to these intricate receptive-field interactions. Since these interactions are mediated by GABA and glutamate inhibition and excitation, and ethanol interacts with the release of both neurotransmitters, this is probably a pretty realistic explanation.
Lateral Inhibition: when central visual cell becomes excited by stimulation from the environment, it becomes more difficult for surrounding-neighboring cells to fire. This increases visual acuity and precision.
Mesopic/Scotopic Vision: Simply visual processes in high, medial, and low levels of light, respectively. Mesopic processes are predictably an amalgum of photopic and scotopic processes.
Westheimer Function: Psychophysical measure mediated by lateral inhibition.
Slightly off topic: these effects on the mutually-inhibitory relationships comprising components of the visual system would likely be generalized to the auditory and haptic sensory modalities as well. This would manifest as minor changes in the way music is heard, sound is perceived in general, and physical sensations are perceived. Since the activity of ethanol is almost incomparably wide, it's reasonable to anticipate common disruptions of some of the relationships between cells that are consistent among different sensory systems; mutual inhibition is one of these consistent relationships, and if ethanol exerts activity at one sensory modality (vision) through such fundamental neurotransmitters as GABA and glutamate, it's only logical that it would have similar effects at different sensory systems.
Last edited by Gradient; 22-08-2009 at 22:24.
Reason: Getting rid of wiki
Found an additional study that lends credence to the idea that ethanol exerts its primary disruptive effect on visual processing in photopic conditions. They suggest that ethanol's visual effects are selective for cone function, rather than both rod and cone function. Here are some interesting snippets from the study:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pauline Pearson (PH.D) & Brian Timney (PH.D)
These results imply a selective effect on alcohol on cone function. In considering the possible mechanisms of such a selective action, we suggest that this effect may be an indirect one.
When we consider the effects of alcohol, there are again clear differences for photopic and mesopic viewing. While performance at photopic light levels was significantly affected by alcohol at all locations, performance at mesopic light levels, with the exception of the slight decline for central viewing, was not affected by alcohol ingestion. Thus, the present investigation suggests that alcohol may act selectively on cone mechanisms while the rods are largely spared.
It seems unlikely that alcohol exerts its differential effect directly on the photoreceptors themselves. There are no data to suggest that alcohol has any influence on photopigment chemistry.
Taken together, these data are consistent with the proposal that the differential effect of alcohol on rod and cone CFF may arise indirectly as a consequence of alcohol's modulation of neural inhibition.
When considering the suggestions posed in these two studies, it seems clear that the effects of alcohol on vision are likely mediated by the compound's interaction with GABA and glutamate upstream of visual processing. This also helps to explain the wide range of effects that alcohol is able to elicit. While the hallucinations that might be experienced on alcohol wont be constant, and will vary between individuals - the distortions experienced are most likely to mirror dissociative-style hallucinations (as opposed to psychedelic).
Closest to alcohol visuals one can get are when alcohol is combined with some paranoia-inducing substance(excessive caffeine,cannabioids, weed etc) or sleep deprivation.
SWIM has had alcohol visuals but he does not attribute it to the alcohol alone, but rather a combination of an excessive dose of hard liquor (to the point of vomiting), trying cocaine for the first time, and smoking a blunt of marijuana.
He was so drunk he had convinced himself he had taken LSD and remembers saying to the person's house he was staying at "I took too much LSD". @ that point he was seeing colorfull tactile patterns and extremely blurred vision while being semi-incoherent to his surroundings from being so drunk.
17-07-2009, 17:48
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