I just read something that made me wonder. Someone attributed "(the ability of) enhancing colours" to being under the influence of mushrooms. For me, it's a permanent ability though, and not even a mental one as how well it works is dependent on the position of the sun/amount of sunlight/type of light (old fluorescent lamps with a worn out filter coating have a nice uv/ir component that allows "enhancing colors" just like sunlight). The ability is completely conscious for me, I can make it happen at will... I could also do it months/years after what was at that point the last time I had taken entheogens/psychedelics/hallucinogens. Is it just coincidence or are my ideas of what's "normal" slightly twisted? I'm not really worried about that, my grasp of reality (tunnels) is just fine (it's all too real! ) just curious. Can anyone else "enhance colors" without taking anything (without meditation even) at will?

Ps the ability (for me) is also functional. I can use it to find anything and everything of the same colour in an environment (outside too! great for finding amanitas in the forest though it works a little too well, I went to the forest a little too early before there were any amanitas and I don't even want to count the amount of red plastic bottles, shirts, pans, ribbons, pieces of wood painted red and so on I found...)

I don't know that I can "enhance colours" per se, but I certainly know that a well trained mind with some experience can enhance the perception of stimuli. For example, I can do this quite well with my hearing, through focus I can isolate a single sound among a sea of noise. When I do, I can hear only that sound with any definable clarity, the rest becomes white noise. For me, the enhanced sight is more experiential, what I mean is, when I'm digging for acacia roots I can always pick the maidenii from anything else almost instantly, even when everything coated with thick soil. My other senses (taste and smell especially) are more related to memory, rather than the cognitive brain.

It's an amazingly powerful and complex structure, is the human brain, so I have no doubt about your ability to enhance your perception of. The colours in the world around you. Was it an ability you learned? Or have you always been able to do this? The inner workings of the human brain and mind fascinate me. It's baffling at the best of times and, though we may not fully understand it, it works in wonderous ways to create/experience/perceive our whole world and everything we are.

And just think, it all started at our feet.

It's not an innate ability! My colour perception/good vision are innate, but this ability is definitely not! I just noticed at some point that I could do it and started experimenting. It's important to note that although I had meditated for years, I didn't have this conscious ability until after I had smoked cannabis, salvia divinorum, and taken psilocybe mushrooms, so I think there's a connection. (Otherwise why didn't I achieve it through meditation alone? I had plenty of time.)

I believe it's something you can achieve through meditation (of course) but I gave up on meditation after a while, so for me what brought it on were psychedelics. I have no doubt though that if I hadn't stopped meditating, eventually I would have gotten this ability through meditation too.

The sound thing is interesting! I have it with sounds to a very limited degree. It seems that for you, it's the hearing that's the most open to being "stimulus enhanced" while for me it's vision (especially colour vision)

Ps. Thank you for what you wrote to me. I appreciate it a lot. I believe I would have much to learn from you (and perhaps there is something for me to teach too, consciously or subconsciously, it's like you said, every encounter...) I would rather reply in PMs but I'm still waiting for the promotion to full membership. I wish the ability to send or even reply to PMs wasn't reserved for full members. It seems silly to prevent communication/passively encourage people to fill the forums with their private conversations!

Are you familiar with the idea of neuroplasticity? Basically, it refers to changes in neural pathways and synapses due to changes in behavior, environment, neural processes, thinking, and emotions, as well as to compensate for physical injuries (after a stroke or loss of a limb, for example). That is to say, the brain can actually learn about itself, from itself to change itself.

If we follow that principle, it seems reasonable to assume that by subjecting ourselves to the right conditions with the right state of mind, we could train our brain to enhance its perceptive abilities. This is quite interesting to me, because it's yet another great example of how our brain and the way it perceives stimuli creates the world we live in. By extension, though specific neuroplastic training, we could change our world though ourselves.

Yummy, this is some tasty brain food

That is indeed some "tasty brain food"

This subject is intriguing, to say the least. It seems to me through dedicated practice, one could train the mind to do virtually anything. I mean, our brains are the mother of all super computers so what is stopping us from programming them to achieve, what seems like, "the impossible?"

The only limitations we face are directly related to what we can imagine. "Oh the things you can think..." I find it very fascinating that amandanita can enhance colors simply by focusing. The human brain never ceases to amaze me!

Yes, I'm familiar with it I also know that psychedelics (as well as meditation) promote the growth of new neural matter and new pathways/connections between neurons

I believe you're right, I don't see the process of neuroplasticity induced changes and the creation of new neural pathways as mindless. On the contrary, it's very purposeful (response to a specific need, for example the need to adapt to the loss of a limb or the loss of vision (blind people experience heightened other senses like heightened hearing thanks to neuroplasticity induced adaptations). There is nothing to suggest that a conscious intent couldn't be the specific need/stimulus that would lead to the specific changes in the neural network of the brain!

For me, the conscious colour enhancement was the result of random (or "random" new neural pathways being created. When I became aware that I could enhance my colour perception at will while completely sober, I started to experiment with it and see how it works. That's when it became conscious! (haha ) But it happened on its own, I wasn't trying to get "enhanced colour perception abilities", I just did.



Yum yum! haha Personally the further I journey, the less I believe in hard limits. It's possible "anything is possible when you put your mind to it", quite literally I've been interested in consciously affecting change/inducing abilities (as in, abilities that can be observed by others in this shared physical reality like the colour enhancement, not abilities that are "just in my head" The colour enhancement just happened on its own. Next, I'd like to decide on an ability (nothing unrealistic, something I believe is possible for the human brain/body without an overly wild imagination) and then meditate on it, go on an entheogenic journey with the intent of inducing that ability (while being open to the possibility of other abilities or lessons to learn first) and see what happens! I think here a key would be to choose an entheogenic that allows you to control the direction of the journey to an extent. I don't mean "being aware of your surroundings and lucid (low/normal doses of lsd for example), I mean something that will let you have some limited input even if you go on a level 4/5 journey. Entheogens like that should exist but I'll have to confirm for myself before naming any... Experimenting ahead! (But first I have to do a journey for something more useful that I need more immediately in my life. Though *fake coughs at the Universe* i wouldn't mind getting two birds with one stone if that's not too much to ask

We'll see what happens

If you want to know more about the colour enhancement, it is... kind of like focusing my eyes, except if focusing is back-forth, the colour enhancement is lateral/sideways... Like, "widening my pupils sideways". I mean, that's probably not what actually happens (never tried it in front of a mirror), it's just how it feels like. Also, for any "visual enhancement" thing (sometimes I'm just really tired and doing a thing similar to the colour enhancement thing helps me see normally) it seems to work much better if I engage certain muscles in my forehead, temples and ears (and I think my scalp to an extent too). No idea why, just something I discovered while experimenting.