Synesthetic hallucinations induced by psychedelic drugs in a congenitally blind man
Section snippets
Background
Hallucinations induced by psychedelic drugs often cause synesthesia-like experiences (Luke & Terhune, 2013), in which a sensorial stimulus in one modality will consistently and involuntarily produce a second concurrent experience in a different one (Ward, 2013). Acquired synesthesia (Proulx, 2010, Proulx and Stoerig, 2006) or that attributed to drug ingestion, convolve sensory experience from multiple modalities and elicit phenomenon that are not experienced solely in the ‘mind’s eye’, but
Case report
BP gave informed, oral and written consent for the interview and publication of the results, with the research approved by the departmental ethics committee for the study of multisensory cognition in the visually impaired. BP was born in 1948, two months premature. Due to an over-saturation of oxygen at birth, he suffered from premature retinopathy causing him permanent, congenital blindness. From a young age, he listened to popular composers of the time and attempted to imitate their melodies
Discussion
This case study is, to our knowledge, the first qualitative account of the phenomenological experience of LSD use in a CB subject, and implies that psychedelic drugs may induce temporary acquired-synesthesia, sensory aphasia and distortion of time perception in this population. BP's personal experience allows us to comment on three main points. Firstly, the absence of visual hallucinations; second, the quality and intensity of the experience, and finally, the relationship between LSD induced
Acknowledgements
This work was funded in part by an EPSRC grant (EP/J017205/1) to MJP. We thank members of the Crossmodal Cognition Lab for conversations about this case study.
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