5-MeO-DMT sometimes cancels the Ebbinghaus illusion

drcongo

> But then I notice that when I move my attention to the centre of the picture — to the space between the two groups of circles — their apparent sizes begin to rebalance[...] This works for me without DMT.

throwup238

Some family recently visited from out of state and we went to Venice Beach, where there is now tons of stores selling “magic mushrooms” along the boardwalk. To my knowledge shrooms haven’t been legalized in California so I was curious what they sold (but not enough to try it). Turns out California state regulators have been surreptitiously testing the product from time to time and most of it is 5-MeO-DMT… and they don’t do anything about it despite being schedule I. Venice Beach, leading the way in “medical” research!

axblount

It's really hard to take stuff like this seriously. 5-MeO-DMT helped you see something you knew was true? (the red circles are the same size) Shocking. I'm really confused by the idea that we're at some kind of evolutionary local minimum and psychidelics are going to push us out. I'm not up on the biology, but don't our bodies produce DMT (I realize that's not the compund from the article) and/or analogues? If psychdelics allow us to see the truth, why isn't my brain upping the dose?

cj

I can also eliminate the illusion by covering up the blue circles and only looking at the orange circles. Maybe that's what the DMT is doing? ... perhaps it gives you tunnel vision (or tunnels your attention) such that you only "see" (or are paying attention to) the orange and blocking out the blue from your mind.

thewillowcat

> QRI is a non-profit building a new science of consciousness. Its central bet is that: Consciousness is a relatively simple property of our universe — simple enough for evolution to discover it. Consciousness has useful computational properties — otherwise evolution would not have come to rely on it. My brother, that is philosophical position, not a "bet".

functionmouse

I mean. So would looking through cardboard tubes. In this context, cardboard tubes are at least as cool.

Gys

I want to try this myself and was disappointed the test was not online (anymore). So I vibe code one: https://ebbinghaus-effect.greulen.workers.dev (a one shot in DeepSeek, with only manual adjustments for the sizes)

bawolff

my assumption is that psychedelics affect how different parts of the brain communicate. On that hypothesis, it doesnt really surprise me that illusions based on context clues are interpreted differently.

mmsc

The "I measured my own susceptibility using an app I vibe-coded with GPT-5.6 Sol: I dragged a slider until the two circles appeared equal in size." is available on IA: https://web.archive.org/web/20261008201251/https://heart.qri...

tim-star

i find this whole blog very dubious, with apologies to the author. a bunch of people did psychedelics and then found that reality seemed more inclined to listen to their volition and respond to their intention or attention. this was an n of some small number, and the original person who reported it could not reproduce it. i don't believe this is good science. the test is self made by the subject while under the affect of the drug. the subject has a bias as well. this is a trip report.

ForHackernews

They should make a law against giving psychedelics to Bay Area rationalists.

suoloordi

Substituting one illusion for another.

waffletower

This sentence, from the article, is one of the most conceptually broken sentences I have ever encountered: "Consciousness has useful computational properties — otherwise evolution would not have come to rely on it." If you grant evolution teleology, a serious chickenegg emerges, and the recursion shatters the "logic". And the other reading... how does a computational property manifest as an abstract goal on to itself without the pre-existence of consciousness? Another chickenegg. I wonder if this article was originally translated from another language or was created with inference. The author conflates design and evolution without providing any projection for their orthogonality. In other words, you need some kind of God to infuse a priori consciousness onto this evolution process. Otherwise consciousness is simply emergent.

kouru225

Well I guess I have to do the most powerful hallucinogen now. How else am I gonna save myself from the devious Ebbinghaus illusion?