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Comment by netsharc | Hacker News Reader

It's a weird feeling to realize how we're all just hardware, and it might be possible to wake up someone who's "brain dead"/vegetative by LSD (the paper mentions how psychedelics affect this cortical electrodynamics, and as this old article[1] mentions the LSD).

Imagine someone flipping a switch (in the future where tech to control the electrodynamics exists) and you're awake and aware of your surroundings again.

[1] https://therooster.com/blog/scientists-want-to-give-psychede...

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> “The first report of a zolpidem awakening came from South Africa, in 1999. A patient named Louis Viljoen, who, three years before, was declared vegetative after he was hit by a truck, had taken to clawing at his mattress during the night. Thinking he was suffering from insomnia, his family doctor suggested zolpidem to help him sleep. But 20 minutes after his mother ground the tablet up and fed it to him through a straw, Viljoen began to stir. His eyes, which normally wandered the room, vacant and unfocused, flickered with the light of consciousness. And then he began to talk (his first words were “Hello, Mummy”), and move (he could control his limbs and facial muscles). A few hours later he became unresponsive. But the next day, and for many days after that, zolpidem revived him, a few hours at a time” - https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-...

Is this what the house coma guy story was based on?

> The idea of using LSD as a treatment has floated around the Internet for decades. There are rumors — totally unconfirmed — that an astronomical dose of LSD — "a quarter of a vial," or 25 hits — woke up an unresponsive dude and, after a few days, he was able to speak. It's entirely possible those stories are true.

“Unresponsive dude” lol. Interesting descriptor.

It doesn’t sound like anyone has tried it yet.

> “Unresponsive dude” lol. Interesting descriptor.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Ambien has been known to rouse people out of a coma and help with other brain disorders: https://www.verywellhealth.com/ambien-for-coma-dystonia-and-...

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