The Ganzfeld Effect and Ganzfeld Hallucinations

I'd first heard of the Ganzfeld Effect and Ganzfeld hallucinations several years ago. Basically, it's an effect that's the product of sensory deprivation: you deprive yourself of visual and auditory sensory input. We're more interested in the "induced" hallucinations, though, as it's a means to hallucinate without using drugs or subjecting yourself to sleep deprivation or anything that might be dangerous. It only takes 20 minutes to an hour or two, depending on the person, how patient they are, and how long they wish to experience the hallucinations for.

You'll need to cut a table tennis ball in half, rounding the edges so that each half fits each of your eye sockets. You'll need white noise, provided by static from a radio or a white noise Youtube video. You'll also need earphones or headphones and, finally, a brightly lit room where you won't be interupted. Tape each half of the ball over each eye, listen to the white noise, and lie on the floor or a bed and relax.

Here's my account:

At first I saw nothing but the uniform whiteness. Eventually, after what I'm guessing was about 10 minutes, abstract, diffuse shadows with a purple hue began to slowly move around my field of view. It took about half an hour before the real hallucinations began, though the transition from formless shadows to specific visions was gradual. At first I saw a pack of wolves running through a wooded area, mouths open with sharp teeth, chasing what looked like a sheep or lamb. It was fleeting and ephemeral--as all of the hallucinations are--lasting mere seconds, but, like dreams, seeming to last a lot longer. Throughout the hour or so I saw a beach lined with plam trees, planets floating in the ether, expressive faces, orbs of purple with text in some sort of Greek script, along with countless other small, transient visions.

Others have seen more vivid, lucid visions. Here are a few quotes from an article on Mindhacks:

For quite a long time, there was nothing except a green-greyish fog. It was really boring, I thought, ‘ah, what a non-sense experiment!’ Then, for an indefinite period of time, I was ‘off’, like completely absent-minded. Then, all of sudden, I saw a hand holding a piece of chalk and writing on a black-board something like a mathematical formula. The vision was very clear, but it stayed only for few seconds and disappeared again. The image did not fill up the entire visual field, it was just like a ‘window’ into that foggy stuff.

A clearing in a forest [Lichtung], a place bathed in bright sun-shine, and the trunks of trees around. A feeling of a tranquile summer afternoon in a forest, so quiet, so peaceful. And then, suddenly, a young woman passed by on a bicycle, very fast, she crossed the visual field from the right to the left, with her blond long hair waving in the air. The image of the entire scene was very clear, with many details, and yes, the colours were very vivid.

A friend of mine and I, we were inside a cave. We made a fire. There was a creek flowing under our feet, and we were on a stone. She had fallen into the creek, and she had to wait to have her things dried. Then she said to me: ‘Hey, move on, we should go now’.

In the right side of the visual field, a manikin suddenly appeared. He was all in black, had a long narrow head, fairly broad shoulders, very long arms and a relatively small trunk…. He approached me, stretching out his hands, very long, very big, like a bowl, and he stayed so for a while, and then he went back to where he came from, slowly.

I'd highly recommend that you try this. Give yourself an hour or two tomorrow. It's not only extremely interesting and rewarding, but very relaxing and meditative. If you do try it, or you have tried it before, please post here with your experiences. For more information Google is your friend; a search for the phrase "ganzfeld effect" will produce hundreds of websites which go into far more detail that I have here.

Waestrel

Will give this a try and report back. But where to get the Ping pong balls?

Waestrel

Waestrel wrote: »

Will give this a try and report back. But where to get the Ping pong balls?

I bought a six back for €1 in a local toyshop/newsagents. You'll want to cut one so it looks something like this:

Waestrel

why a bright room, and eyes open or closed?

Waestrel

Waestrel wrote: »

why a bright room, and eyes open or closed?

You need a bright, evenly lit room so that when your eyes are open you just see a diffuse white light, no details or specific shapes or objects. This brings about apparent blindness, a state known as "seeing black" (though you don't see black, your field of vision is just nothing but uniform whiteness.) You'll need your eyes open, though after a period of time it doesn't feel like your eyes are open. It's difficult to explain, it's just something that has to be experienced.

Waestrel

cutting ping pong balls is near impossible, as they are a hard brittle plastic. Other ideas?

Waestrel

Waestrel wrote: »

cutting ping pong balls is near impossible, as they are a hard brittle plastic. Other ideas?

The ones that I bought aren't too brittle — perhaps because they were cheap — so were easy to cut. I used a hacksaw to cut one in half, and then a sharp scissors to shape each half to fit each eye-socket. There are alternatives to ping-pong balls, I'm sure. You just need something that will cover your field of view completely, allowing only a diffuse light to reach your eyes.

Waestrel

how about painitng a pair of swimming goggles white?

Waestrel

Waestrel wrote: »

how about painitng a pair of swimming goggles white?

Hmmm ... I'm not sure that'd work. When your eyes are covered, you have to see just diffuse white light, you can't see any lines or corners or edges. Swimming goggles have sharp lines, and the paint would have brush strokes, so I'm not sure that would work.

Here's a guide with instructions on how to use a piece of white paper instead of ping-pong balls.

thiarfearr

I've always been interested in this but never actually done it. Do you have any good links to a good white noise recording? On the ones on youtube I always a slight 'click' when the loop starts again

thiarfearr

thiarfearr wrote: »

I've always been interested in this but never actually done it. Do you have any good links to a good white noise recording? On the ones on youtube I always a slight 'click' when the loop starts again

I've always used this one without problem. Perhaps there is a periodic click when the loop ends and begins again — I'm not aware of one — but you won't notice it for long: once you begin to relax and fall into the quasi-hypnotic state you won't be consciously aware of slight clicks in the track.

Leadamp

Sounds very interesting. I will definitely try this over the weekend. I've heard of this Ganzfeld effect before but never tried it because I was afraid of having a bad experience with it.

alphabeat

i use one of these :

http://www.meditationsuk.com/meditation_machines/procyon.htm

rain on

www.simplynoise.com is great for uninterrupted white noise.