# Lucid Dreaming > General Lucid Discussion >  >  Ganzfeld hallucinations

## westonci

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/1...llucinati.html

At first this sounds like a bad practical joke. Begin my turning the radio to a station playing static. Then lie down on the couch and tape a pair of halved ping pong  balls over your eyes. Within minutes, you should begin to experience bizarre set of sensory distortions. Some people see horses prancing in the clouds, or hear the voice of dead relatives.

It turns out the mind is addicted to sensation, so that when there's little to sense -- thats the purpose of the ping pong balls and static -- your brain ends up inventing its own. 

maybe it can help in Lucid Dreaming especially if you can do it before you go to sleep, or it can help you concentrate while hallucinating.

You can simulate the Ganzfeld procedure in your own home by taping two half ping-pong balls over your eyes and listing to the radio tuned to static in an evenly lighted room.

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## Captain Sleepalot

I've done this before and I did start to see vague, morphing shapes in my field of vision but the way the ping pongs felt around my eyes started to irritate me a bit so I stopped.

I saw this posted on Digg and thought about going to Wal Mart to buy some ping-pong balls later, to give it another shot!

One thing, when I did it before I didn't use any radio static, but I am going to listen to binaural beats this time to see if there are any enhanced effects.

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## The Scrybe

interesting... will try as soon as I can
what are binaural beats?

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## Shift

These sound like they are worth trying all for themselves, though the effects sound significantly different from a lucid dream.

I think, even cooler than this, is Ramachandran's mirror box's ability to help reduce pain, rather than cause it  ::tongue::  Or when they use it on those people who feel like their limbs don't belong to them. Damn, I can't remember what that's called  :Sad: 

The Pinocchio illusion... how does a person even discover something like that?  ::shock::

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## Bonsay

Argh! What a cool website. Thanks for showing it. 
Also... I'm gona try the ping-pong balls and purkinje lights hallucinations. I'm tempted by the hand smashing thing though as well.

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## The Cusp

Are the ping pong balls essential, or could you just blindfold yourself? I'm assuming you're supposed to do this with your eyes open, and the ping pong balls allow just enough light to create as sort of visual "static"?

I love the shrinking pain technique.  I discovered awhile ago that pain in RL is exactly like pain in dream.  The more you pay attention to it, the more it hurts.  If you can ignore it completely, there is no pain.  But that's easier said than done.  The binoculars are a nice visual focus technique.

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## Bonsay

I think you can pretty much replace the balls with something else, white and transparent. So it diffuses light. Maybe just closing your eyes might do the trick.

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## Abra

I wonder if closing the eyes would work? It is white vs. black. I think our minds are used to seeing our eyelids...

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## Bonsay

Well I have a "white-ish background", even when looking at my eyelids when a lightsource is present.

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## Lusense

Ya, this looks sweet, I'm going to give it a try later. Seems kinda like HI from a dream.

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## Robot_Butler

My old roommate just sent this to me the other day, because he knows I am into this stuff.  I used to meditate with a ganzfeld device when we lived together.  It definitely works.  The hardest part is getting a good seal around the ping pong balls and your eyes.  It works on the same fundamental principles as sensory deprivation, only the opposite.

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## Lusense

Ya, is that kind of why you dream? I know there are a number of reasons but I was thinking there is hardcore sensory deprivation from you just lying there and doing nothing so your mind creates those images.

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