To RELAYER: That's a respectable position to take. I'll always wonder if it's possible for the world to achieve harmony through acid. Or rather, if it'll ever happen on this planet. Society IS a fuckin' joke and people are dumb. Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it's just sad. Anyways I could never do acid at a party or a concert, in fact, I'll only ever do it with one other person. You're right, it's just too overwhelming and unpredictable.
I've always been fascinated by Nikola Tesla, but I had no idea he had what we know as "hppd"...makes perfect sense though, really does. I don't think he achieved this via psychedelics either, I believe that he just "stepped outside the box", and observed reality from an associative and unassuming perspective...as say, a plant would. (which is really just a constant state of meditation) ...as in, he removed his belief/perceptive filters.
oh no, tesla wasn't a psychedellic user, he said he had the issue from birth. So it really isn't HPPD.... but I suspect both HPPD and teslas affliction are bumping into the same mechanism in the brain, the visual hallucinatory function. Alex Grey once said in an interview, "how a musician always hears music, a painter always sees paintings". So I suspect he also to some degree has the same function of the brain under some control, and certainly he opened it up with psychedellics.
I read that his brother had a similar problem, to a lesser degree. it could be attributed to genetics, the way they were raised, or both. I like that Alex Grey quote...musicians hear music, painters see paintings...but you could also mix it up and say that musicians see music, and painters hear paintings, and it would still be within the realm of possibility (thanks to psychedelics and/or meditation)