The Huichol tribe living in the hills of Mexico can communicate with the spirits and in this task they are helped by a small green plant.
This plant is called 'peyote' by the local people. When it is cut into small pieces and chewed, it releases a substance that takes you into a state where you see things that aren't really there.
Before chewing this plant, there is a feeling of intense happiness and devotion, in the later stage the surrounding sounds and noises become more audible and then those who eat it enter into a world of hazy dreams.
Anthropologist Barbara Meyerhoff has eaten this plant, 'peyote', and when asked about the experience, she expressed it in the words quoted above.Peyote contains a substance called 'mescaline' which produces a drowsy state similar to narcotics.
According to Barbara Meyerhoff, it tasted bitter and sour, after which she lost track of time and started having one blurry dream after another.
"I couldn't move but I was calm because I knew no harm would come." She wrote that the experience was not scary but left a deep impression on her.Such narcotic substances have been used for centuries in Latin America for religious rituals, pre-war or recreational purposes. For example, the syrup called ayahuasca has been used by indigenous peoples during religious rituals or traditional healing rituals for nearly a thousand years.
The Mayan people of Mexico also used narcotic substances and believed that they could communicate with their deceased ancestors by consuming small amounts of these substances, as high doses could be fatal.
Why were these ingredients used in rituals? It is quite possible that the reason for this is the situation in which the user becomes surprised. A moderate or high dose also provides a sense of spiritual relaxation.In the 1950s and 1960s, there was considerable interest in such ingredients and attempts were made to find treatments for depression, alcoholism, and schizophrenia.
Experiments were conducted in the US called Project MK Ultra and MK Delta in which the feasibility of using LSD as a stimulant was tested. When LSD was decriminalized in the 1960s, these experiments were halted, but in recent years, interest in ketamine and LSD has grown again.However, eating such ingredients is not the only way to cheat the imagination. It is a type that is experienced by people who suffer from migraines or severe headaches. Such a situation can also be encountered in fever, especially in malaria.
Ophthalmologist Professor Prem Subramaniam at the University of Colorado, USA says that dementia, schizophrenia and some eye diseases also cause visual hallucinations.
In addition, severe grief has also been reported in cases where a few people report hearing or seeing the voice of their deceased partner, but a few also experience this when suddenly exposed to very bright light. fallWhy does this happen? The real reason for this is still a mystery, but now the mystery of what is happening in the brain is being revealed to some extent.
For example, the glare of the snow makes some climbers feel as if someone is following them. Sir Ernest Shackleton recounted the same experience during the 1919 expedition to the South Pole, 'during the long and arduous march of thirty-six hours over mountains and glaciers I often felt that we were not three but four men.'
This particular optical illusion may be due to the 'Gainzfeld effect', in which when exposed to a continuous stimulus such as a uniform light, the brain provides information that is not present in an attempt to understand the signal.
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