A team of scientists in the UK
say they have built a machine that can allow people to hallucinate without
taking potentially dangerous drugs like magic mushrooms. Researchers used
virtual reality headsets and artificial intelligence technology to create the 'Hallucination
Machine' in the hope of learning more about consciousness and how the brain
processes what we see. Employing Google's Deep Dream technology, scientists at
Sussex University's Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science were able to
create 'cyberdelic' images which overemphasise certain recurring details to
make the brain work in overdrive.
One experiment saw a group of 12
volunteers shown an altered panoramic video of the team's university campus. The
participants were then asked whether they felt disoriented in anyway, and
whether they saw patterns and colours. They reported experiencing visual
hallucinations similar to those brought on by psilocybin, the active ingredient
in magic mushrooms. A second experiment, this time involving 22 volunteers, saw
no evidence that participants felt any sense of temporal distortion, or a
warped sense of time, suggesting the machine is unable to replicate all the
effects of a psychedelic drug 'trip'.
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