Science & Tech

Scientists have created a video that will make people hallucinate

Picture:
Picture:
YouTube/Joel Pearson

Warning: The video in this article contains flashing images.

Researchers claim they have discovered a way to induce visual hallucinations in health people without the use drugs.

It's with a video.

Lead researcher Joel Pearson, in the study by a team from the University of New South Wales Australia, said:

We have known for more than 100 years that flickering light can cause almost anyone to experience a hallucination.

However, the unpredictability, complexity and personal nature of these hallucinations make them difficult to measure scientifically.

The new technique, which uses a flickering white light against a black backdrop, triggered almost 100 healthy student volunteers to 'see' pale grey blobs that weren't actually there.

See if you do too.

Watch the video, below:

Pearson said:

With our technique we get rid of the unpredictability.

People don't see windmills, lines, or different colours; they just hallucinate grey blobs. Once the hallucination is stable like this, with just the blobs, we can start to objectively investigate the underlying mechanisms.

Nobody has been able to do this before, because they haven’t been able to overcome this key challenge.

The next step is to test the new technique on patients with Parkinson's disease, to attempt to find out more about the hallucinations the conditions causes, something the team will be investigating shortly.

HT Mashable

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