Why is it that many people experience an improvement in their vision after taking psychedelics? In this article we look at possible explanations for this phenomenon.
People who have ever taken a psychedelic trip recognize the phenomenon that they can suddenly see everything at an unprecedented level of detail. One of the most noticeable effects of psilocybin is the sudden visual clarity it gives individuals shortly after taking it.
Microdosing psychedelics
This phenomenon is also reported when individuals take low doses psychedelics microdosing. Typically less than 1 gram, as higher doses may lead to stronger subjective effects, such as hallucinations. This increase in our visual acuity allows us to see more clearly and notice small details better.
A small shift in perspective can make even the most mundane objects fascinating and the beauty of nature even more spectacular. Psilocybin changes the way the thalamus processes and transmits stimuli. When this happens, our visual system may receive more stimuli than normal, causing objects to become more detailed.
Psilocybin also binds strongly to 5HT2A receptors, making our visual cortex more sensitive to visual stimuli. Our visual cortex has a large concentration of 5HT2A receptors that bind to psychedelics. A possible reason for this phenomenon is psilocybin's interaction with the thalamus, the part of our brain that receives sensory information and transmits it to different brain areas for processing.
The thalamus can also filter or exclude stimuli that it classifies as irrelevant to make information processing more efficient. Some of these stimuli may be minute visual details that limit our perception of an object. Psilocybin disrupts the functions of the thalamus, preventing it from properly filtering stimuli and causing it to send more information than necessary for normal functioning.
This phenomenon requires further research to determine its potential. A recent case report studied a case of one patient with color blindness, who reported an improvement after taking a 5 gram dose of psilocybin mushrooms.
The subject had taken the Ishihara test, which consists of 21 pictures of colored dots arranged in patterns to form numbers, before taking his first dose. There is still much to learn about how low doses of psychedelics can improve our vision, and future studies could compare the visual acuity of people taking low doses of psilocybin with that of placebo. Fortunately, research into psychedelics is progressing rapidly.
Source: psychedelicsspotlight.com (EN)
