3 Cups of Coffee Increases Hallucinations 628
PearsSoap writes "The Telegraph and other sources are pointing out a study on 200 students which has found that a high caffeine intake can cause visual and auditory hallucinations, and can make people think that others are 'out to get them.' The abstract (and full version if you have access) is available.
'The volunteers were questioned about their caffeine intake from products including coffee, tea, energy drinks, chocolate bars and caffeine tablets.'"
South Park (Score:5, Funny)
The study consisted of watching every episode of South Park featuring Tweak.
Re:South Park (Score:5, Funny)
I got fr1st p0st!
course I have had twenty nine cups of coffee, and my screen looks like a bad knockoff Picaso painting.
Re:South Park (Score:5, Insightful)
I got fr1st p0st!
course I have had twenty nine cups of coffee, and my screen looks like a bad knockoff Picaso painting.
Keep drinking until it looks like a Dali.
Re:South Park (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, if you think you got first post and it was a REPLY to another post, then that isn't coffee you're drinking. :-)
Re:South Park (Score:4, Funny)
Did it just get draftier in here?
Hey...where did my underpants go?
Re:South Park (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, I bet if you got 200 sweet old ladies to drink three cups of coffee a day, there would be no phantoms or voices floating about in their heads.
Now, get of my porch you young whipper snappers!
So (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a big difference between feeling anxious and hallucinating. I'm just surprised it took only 3 cups.
RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
...200 students...
They clearly just haven't built up adequate resistance yet.
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Interesting)
Once upon a morning a long time ago, at an ISP now long since defunct, I drank 4 espressos, 6 double cappuccinos and a full pot of my regular strong coffee. I also had a "coffee bean" candy bar in addition to a couple really rich chocolate eclairs. I actually got a nose bleed, but no hallucinations.
OTOH: My sister and one of her friends once drank 3 cans (each) of Jolt cola, a 2L of Mountain Dew (each) and then split a few full 1lb bags of Plain Chocolate M&Ms. The hallucinated for at least an hour until they crashed - and hard. Probably needless to say: they both felt sick for a full day afterward.
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
He's right. We haven't noticed any such behavior as we secretly watch him through his window.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
M'self, I drink 2 3-liters of Dr. Pepper a day... and have yet to have seen a darn thing...
Must be doin' it wrong.
Re:RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
The reason you haven't seen a darn thing is because the diabetes has destroyed your retinas.
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
You must stop this now. Consider my experience. I used to love Coke as a kid. My parents limited it, but I still drank more than I should have. Once I became an adult, there were no more limits. I drank as much as I wanted, when I wanted. I was tall and skinny (6'5", 185lbs) and ran 2 miles a day so I thought I could get away with it.
10 years later, I weighed 300lbs. I finally decided to do something about it. So like a good analyst, I did a quick inventory of what I was drinking and eating. I had never done this before. I was astonished.
I could eat an entire 5lb chicken, or an entire large pizza by myself. My typical day started with a visit to the clown for a #2 with a large coke. I didn't drink coffee so I replaced it with coke. I'd drink another can before lunch. Then 2 or 3 of those mugs of coke a chili's. Then another can or two in the afternoon. Then maybe dinner out with something similar to the 2 or 3 chili's mugs. If we ate at home, it would be a large glass or maybe 2 cans of coke in the evening.
If you add all the ounces up and divide by 12, I was drinking the equivalent of 13 cans of coke a day. This is 1800 calories. It's the same as 196 of those white sugar packets. Just coke.
When you consider that both my parents are diabetic, and diabetes killed my grandfather, you can see how dangerous this is. Now, I drink maybe 4 cans of coke per year. I'm now 260 which is 20lbs more than I usually am, which i'm in the process of losing.
All soft drinks are evil. They cause insulin spikes, which contribute to obesity. They cause insulin resistance long term. And the phosphoric acid leaches calcium from your bones causing brittle bones in old age. Diet soft drinks are no better. Stop drinking them before it's too late.
Re:RTFA (Score:4, Funny)
All soft drinks are evil. They cause insulin spikes, which contribute to obesity. They cause insulin resistance long term. And the phosphoric acid leaches calcium from your bones causing brittle bones in old age. Diet soft drinks are no better. Stop drinking them before it's too late.
Sorry, it's not the "insulin spikes" that contribute to obesity. It's when your body is so used to sugar that you build up an insulin resistance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_resistance [wikipedia.org]. Believe me, I rely on insulin spikes after my workouts. It allows me to ingest a bunch of protein immediately after and use the insulin spike (from eating fruit) as a quick way to pump the protein into my muscles.
I haven't drank a soft drink in years, haven't touched a fast food joint in over a year, and keep sweets to a minimum. It's really sad to see the same guys at the vending machines every day, drinking a coke, eating a bag of chips and a chocolate bar for their lunch. It's really sad seeing so many people uneducated that eating 6-8 meals per day can actually LOWER your body fat.
Be a patriot! Smoke and die for your country! (Score:5, Interesting)
You're being sarcastic, but several years ago I was living in Japan, and saw something awfully close to what you describe.
The government in the US at the time was trying to figure out what to do with the settlement of the Big Tobacco lawsuit, and many states were putting together anti-smoking campaigns. I don't know if you've ever been to Japan, but folks there are big smokers.
So some mid-level bureaucrat in the Ministry of Health and Welfare was interviewed on the evening news, and asked if the government in Japan would also be engaging in anti-smoking efforts. With a level of candour unthinkable on the other side of the pond, this fellow plainly stated that no, Japan's government would not, because smoking would help reduce the aging population and thereby limit the ultimate public expenditures required to care for a large elderly population.
Japan. What else can I say. :)
Cheers,
Re:Be a patriot! Smoke and die for your country! (Score:5, Informative)
The Japanese government, when it comes to tobacco control, has a severe conflict of interest. Japan Tobacco, the major (more than 60% of the market) supplier of cigarettes in Japan, is 50% owned by the government -- it used to be two-thirds government owned.
Given the degree of tobacco use in Japan, I'd wager that the profits earned through tobacco sales more than compensate for the consequent heath-care costs in the population. Further, the long incestuous relationship between government, public service bureaucracy and industry is most definitely expressed in the connections between the Ministry of Finance and JT: as far as I know, every president of JT has come from the top end of the Ministry of Finance, in the amakudari tradition.
The mid-level bureaucrat in question I doubt was expressing an honest opinion on the aging demographic, but rather was trying to justify a very cozy but entirely medically irresponsible government relationship.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I would tend to agree - I drink more coffee than that before 9am. I drink coffee all day long, even into the night. I have done so for more than 25 years with no...baseless paranoia
So what kind of paranoia did you experience?
Caffeine and Alcohol often mix badly (Score:4, Interesting)
As the anti-drunk-driving people say, coffee won't make you any less drunk, it'll just make you a wide-awake drunk. Mixing enough caffeine with your booze makes it easier to get far more drunk that you would if you weren't having the caffeine, or at least to not notice when you should have stopped, potentially leading to experiences like yours (though in your case the caffeine may have added to the hallucinations.) Red Bull and vodka seems to be a popular variant on that, but even rum and coke can do it. (Brain Wash and mixed drinks appear to be a bad combination as well, even if it's the red kind as opposed to the evil blue-dye version :-)
My favorite variant on that is Irish Coffee - since it's hot, I get hit with alcohol vapors right away, but it probably makes it something that I drink slowly and don't have too many of, so I haven't hit the bad-feedback-loop with it.
For some reason people attribute evil-don't-do-that-again-ness more to tequila than to other liquors; I don't know if it's something actually about the tequila, or that it's often mixed in smooth-tasting fruity drinks that are easy to overconsume, or if it's that many people first encounter tequila at parties in early adulthood, when they don't have much experience with drinking and haven't learned not to overindulge yet, as opposed to something like beer that fills you up if you're drinking a lot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So (Score:5, Funny)
Are you OK? Maybe you need to sit down for a few minutes. I'll buy you a coffee.
Re:So (Score:5, Informative)
Persecutory ideation = paranoia
This means that coffee doesn't make you paranoid....
way to go
Re:So (Score:5, Funny)
Who told you to say that?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
See that's what I tried to tell my co-workers! I'm NOT paranoid, it's just that everyone thinks I am!
60 cups (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:60 cups (Score:5, Interesting)
Ancedotal fun (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry to add to the tide of "I remember this one time" posts but I had to share this one.
A buddy of mine decided to experiment with a dose of LSD against pretty much everyone who told him he was being an idiot. He dropped it, and awhile later we all went out to grab dinner at a local diner in Chicago. Almost as if on queue, a group of 20 people from a country/western place came in in full costume (poofy dresses, cowboy hats, chaps, etc) and sat at a bunch of tables across from us. One of them had apparently won a cardboard cutout of a life-size Elvis. They'd propped it up against the wall and kept joking to it during their meal.
There was a silent agreement at the table to pretend everything was normal and to not make any mention of this to our LSD-tripping buddy, who spent the entire time checking and rechecking to see if Elvis was really in the building with a bunch of cowboys.
Re:60 cups (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not really, but they sound just like that!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I was thinking, after I hit preview, "Should I go back and change that to 'illegal drug'? Naaahh. They'll know what I'm talking about... Submit!"
Yes, I have done aspirin, ibuprofen, alcohol, and probably a couple of others, but never anything injected, smoked, or illegal.
Just never had the urge.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Suppository.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Dali is quoted as saying "I don't do drugs, I am drugs."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, he was just explaining the difference between a true hallucination and the alterations of perception caused by LSD or other classical psychedelics. A true hallucination has absolutely no basis in reality (seeing people who aren't there, hearing voices, etc.) The "hallucinogenic" effects of psychedelic drugs generally take perceptions of things that are actually there, and modify them (shifting colors, add movement, synesthesia, etc.).
The only recreational drugs that commonly cause true hallucinations ar
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I remember reading somewhere that 60 cups of coffee would supposedly yield the same level of hallucinations as 1 dose of LSD...
Hmmm, where was that study from ?
60 cups of US coffee are like 3 cups of coffee elsewhere. And while I confess to not having tried LSD, I've already had way more than 3 large cups of real coffee in a day. And nothing much happened.
So unless you give more data I'm not convinced. If it's a European (preferably southern) study, then maybe there's something to it.
(granted, there now are ways to get coffee in the US instead of just warm water with a brown crayon dipped in but us Euro people used to be fairly puz
Re:60 cups (Score:5, Informative)
I actually work part time for a Starbucks... and do you know who gets bitten by the caffeine fairy? Europeans.
When you go to Europe, you get espresso for nearly everything. If n American goes over there, they have name for their drink, an Americano. Shots + hot water. Ok.. 3 shots/200mg caf. ~300-400mg per drink. And you have the strength of the smoky espresso, so Americans get somewhat what they want.
Now, a European comes to the USA. They order a coffee (they expect espresso) and they're handed a cup of our coffee: coarse grounds over hot water. It tastes too weak, but they drink it anyways. They then drink 2-5 cups before the caffeine kicks in and they've never felt the jitters like that.
Our coffee extratcs more caf, but with less coffee flavour, while they extract flavour with less caffeine.. makes things fun.
Why Im there: 5 hours in a 5-10 am shift 4 times a week gives me full medical benefits on the cheap, so I can continue my consultancy.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Our coffee extratcs more caf, but with less coffee flavour, while they extract flavour with less caffeine..
[citation needed]
Anyway, I *know* that nowadays you can get coffee in the US instead of just tinted water.
Your coffee extracts more caffeine ? Passing a litre of water through a spoonful of coffee that's barely enough for a cup extracts more caffeine ? Well, ok, whatever.
Yes, in the "US oriented chains" over here, if you sound US American, of if you speak English, they might ask you if you want your coffee "US style" or "American style", in which case they'll just dilute it in 4 or 5 times as much water.
Not
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
saying "Our Coffee is too burnt". bleh.
It is. Darker is not always better when it comes to coffee. ;)
Re:60 cups (Score:4, Interesting)
Freezing in airtight container is of best for storage. Failing that, airtight containers are next. Refrigeration of course will pick up humidity like you said.
My morning routine is this:
Get filtered water from fridge pitcher and start heating to a boil.
Get beans from airtight ziploc bag out of freezer, take what I need, press air out and reseal.
Grind beans at coarse grind, which is around the time the water is boiling. Into the french press and 3 minutes later, coffee.
Re:60 cups (Score:4, Informative)
Freezing in airtight container is of best for storage. Failing that, airtight containers are next. Refrigeration of course will pick up humidity like you said.
And every time you open that air tight container to get more beans, warm humid air enters the container, cools down, condenses, and freezes, freezer burning your coffee. The best thing is an air tight container at room temperature. Your coffee should not be sitting around long enough to get stale anyway.
Also, if you regularly drink French Press coffee, you're ingesting a significant amount of cafestol [wikipedia.org] which is shown to significantly raise cholesterol. I love the taste and feel of French Press coffee, but the data I've seen have scared me off of drinking it regularly. Now the French Press only makes an appearance when I have company or go camping.
Aw man! (Score:4, Informative)
Damnit... I got a french press for christmas and was lovin it.
Tina Fey was right: if you're feeling too good about yourself, the internet is always there to bring you back down.
Re:60 cups (Score:5, Funny)
They said, "cups of coffee", no mention of adding water
Re:60 cups (Score:5, Funny)
Actually it makes more of a guggling sound when it brews.
Oh. OH! Nevermind.
Re:60 cups (Score:4, Informative)
The LD50 for caffeine is 10g, but serious side effects exist after just a few g. I know, because I've felt them. 3g at one hit isnt fun by anybody's standards.
And yes, hallucinations is a serious side effect, as is palpitations, arrhythmia,nauseousness, mania, depression.
Re:60 cups (Score:5, Funny)
Insomnia....
Re:60 cups (Score:4, Informative)
More accurately it's about 127mg/kg (mouse). For a 70kg human (154 lbs), that's about 8.9 g. A penny weighs about 3g so think about 3 copper pennies worth of caffeine.
Re:60 cups (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, this post must have been modded up by people who have a number of copper penny sized caffeine chunks and are deciding how many to eat. Seriously, it is literally informative, but does anyone _really_ need to know the lethal dose of caffeine in copper pennies worth? Next up the lethal dose of gelatine expressed in toilet duck lids!
Re:60 cups (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, the LD50 is about 200mg per kilo of body mass. If you weigh 90kg, that means the LD50 is about 18g which is an awful lot. You'd probably have to drink 150-200 cups of coffee in a very short time. The time is dependent on the half-life of caffeine, which, in a health adult is around 3 hours.
So, basically you'd have to drown more than 50 cups of coffee every hour for 3 hours straight to reach the LD50 limit. That's nearly one cup every minute.
In other words, drink as much as you want, you'll be fine*.
Also, assuming 100mg of caffeine in a large cup of drip coffee (and 100mg is a DAMN lot, most coffees usually have 40-60mg), you claim to have had 30 large cups of coffee in less than 3 hours? That's nearly 10 liters of coffee.
*) fine meaning you won't die :>
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
During Uni I once crushed up some coffee granules and snorted a couple of fat lines.
I was fucked beyond words for a few days.
Then I tried it with Pro Plus.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
WHY!?!?!
Re:60 cups (Score:5, Interesting)
source [xs4all.nl]
But its on the internet, so its gotta be true! Right?!?! Take it with a grain of salt and a cup o' joe.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is actually more common than people think. The reaction is usually not severe though.
For instance, a physician or RN reaches for a vial of medication to be injected, is distracted and picks up a different vial. They then withdraw the correct volume of the wrong medication and, whammo, malpractice.
Hopefully you only got a tetanus shot by accident, instead of 3200 mg of caffeine.
Re:60 cups (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what would have really sorted you out? A big fat fucking spliff, or a hit from the bong </Cypress Hill>.
If I drink tea (I've never liked coffee) after about 10pm, there is no way I will fall asleep until gone midnight - the caffeine gives me enough of a kick to stop me dropping off. But if I am stoned then I can guzzle as much caffeine as I like and sleep ain't a problem.
The weed would have helped settle your stomach too.
But THC ain't patentable, so it stays illegal.
And corn makes growers a lot of money, even though hemp is a better source for biofuel.
And the wood-pulp based paper industry is happy with its methods, even though canvas lasts hundreds of years and doesn't go yellow.
And who needs natural fibres when they're making money from artificial fibres made from oil.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] suggests otherwise. Redbulls start at 80mg of caffeine per serving... NOS, however, has 343mg. I guess the strongest that I've had was Jolt cola at 280mg
7 cups? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:7 cups? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe this story is a hallucination, and you just think you read it.....
Ahh but... (Score:3, Funny)
You are not paranoid if they really are out to get you, which lets face it they are..
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
the words "no shit" (Score:3, Funny)
..come to mind.
No surprises (Score:5, Insightful)
Three cups? (Score:5, Funny)
So now it's one man and three cups? I thought the hallucination was about two girls!
Re:Three cups? (Score:4, Funny)
So now it's one man and three cups? I thought the hallucination was about two girls!
With the two girls, it's straightforward PTSD.
Wow, bad reporting or bad science? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Triples your risk" - well, what are the risks WITHOUT coffee? I drink coffee all day long, yet I haven't had a hallucination since 1982 (the last time I did acid).
lack of sleep will case hallucinations.
And exactly what do they mean by "hallucinations?" Water swilrling down a drain may make you think you heard a female voice; "floaters" in your eyeballs (you'll get 'em when you're older) can make you momentarily think you saw something that wasn't there. I wouldn't count those as hallucinations.
"The new study also showed that people who had a high caffeine intake were not more likely to think that others were out to get them, a so-called "persecution complex".
That one little word omitted (that I bolded that WAS in TFA but not in the summary) changes the meaning completely, doesn't it? Taco, you need to cut down on the Jolt! get some sleep, dude!
Re:Wow, bad reporting or bad science? (Score:5, Interesting)
And severe paranoia, as well. Once I been up and about for just over 70 hours and that is _not_ healthy. Slept for 17 hours after that. Never going to that again, it was living hell.
Re:Wow, bad reporting or bad science? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well super. So in the end, what exactly has this study proven that we didn't already know?
Forgive the attitude, this stuff is just starting to grate my nerves. I think I need a cup of coffee.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Triples your risk" - well, what are the risks WITHOUT coffee? I drink coffee all day long, yet I haven't had a hallucination since 1982
The average human can and will hallucinate without the aid of chemical substance, lack of sleep, or stress. They are just more likely to under those conditions.
What could be the case is that the human mind is not really comprehending 100% of the data input correctly. There are not enough neurons to process all of the light photons that enter your eye so your brain just make
Might depend on the person (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet to experience them. (Score:5, Insightful)
And I bought a jar of Caffeine off of Unitednucler.com for 10$.
ACS/reagent grade, so great to use... I use mine with DMSO if I want the caf without bitterness. In my job, if I take a .5g hit, I feel it after about 10 minutes where I consistently get more lively and awake.
Just watch for the downs after about 6 hours after first hit. You'll get hit with extreme tiredness and apathy... You wont be close enough to a bed.
*I dont work for UnitedNuclear.com : Im just a happy purchaser.
Re:Yet to experience them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember kids, just because it's legal, doesn't mean you're not a fucked-up addict. Seriously, absorbing caffeine through your skin?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I try not to ingest it. My dentist recommended that I quit drinking coffee, if I ever have any want to not have brown-ish teeth.
My solution was to use my lab scales, measure out specific amounts of caffeine and dmso, and directly transfer the caffeine through the skin. As per basic health guidelines, I observe the MSDS in handling and monitor any deviations I have from this regimen.
I simply applied scientific method to my own body.. And it works rather well.
Now, can anybody expect to have 1mg resolution sca
Tags (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you! I'm glad someone else saw that. I'm pretty sure an overdose of caffeine is causation for paranoia and hallucinations. I think a better argumentative tag would have been "obviousscience."
Re:Tags (Score:5, Informative)
Correlation (Score:4, Insightful)
Why must we tag EVERYTHING correlationisnotcausation. Does /. suddenly have a patent disregard for statistics in it entirety? Seriously, what is the alternative here? People about to have a hallucination have a sudden caffeine urge before their episode? Looking at the study from both sides is good. Ignoring statistics entirely is cowardly. I see too many people ignoring them because they are offensive (religion correlates with violent crime, homocide, stds, abortion). And i mean blanket ignoring, not trying to deduce anything from the stats. I never used to think of /.ers as the types to plug their ears and go lalalala. But this meme is childish.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Do the dew! (Score:4, Funny)
I enjoy a lovely Mountain Dew high every morning at work, and never suffer any ill effects... other than the giant spiders. Those can be a bit off putting. The glowing, telepathic ferrets usually keep them at bay, though. Hallucinations! Pfft! As if! Now excuse me. I must kiss teh sky.
Re:Do the dew! (Score:5, Funny)
Are you sure that's not a guy you're kissing?
"Energy" Drinks (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always been turned off from so called "Energy Drinks". I see too many people pound down these combinations of corn syrup and caffeine. The boost is very brief and all that sugar can't be good for the waistline or for insulin levels. The appeal seems to be mostly marketing. If you need lots of caffeine to function you'd be better off getting a decent night's sleep regularly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which are my real friends (Score:5, Funny)
Great now I have to figure out which are my real friends and which ones I'm making up.
Try mixing it with real psych problems! (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, I thought we knew this already? O.o
Second, it's more fun if you have a pre-existing psychiatric condition. Personally, it has some nice effects on my PTSD. On the one end, it can help with the numbness and similar symptoms, because I get amped up and happy if I drink enough of it. On the other end, holy shit does the hypervigilance, irritability, and other such symptoms get worse with enough caffeine. Of course, that's really noticeable when you're drinking 3-4 16oz energy drinks every single day, like I used to before I started to realise the extent of my problem. Even down to only one cup of coffee every day, I still don't get any more sleep though, so whatever.
Can't say I've experienced the hallucinations so much, though. But I can only imagine someone with schizophrenia or other disorders causing hallucinations (well, you could try to get away with saying PTSD has hallucinations as they are similar, but there's actually distinct differences between flashback type things of PTSD and hallucinations) drinking a lot of caffeine. Mix it with weed and it's even more fun! I could also say meth, cocaine, and some others, but that sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen, and they can cause hallucinations themselves anyway; and no I'm not kidding--working in an emergency room, I've seen my fair share of heart attacks where the only reasonable explanation was meth/cocaine use.
Nonetheless, I'd be more concerned about ulcers and other problems, like heart problems, that can come with heavy caffeine use. You can at least pass off a somewhat normal life, without ending up in the hospital for it, with the hallucinations, if you really try ;)
Anecdotal Evidence is Crap, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Back in college, when I was still super driven to be the best at everything, I used to down several cups of coffee and tea at night in order to remain awake and focused while doing my homework. It got to the point where after drinking the tea, I would suck on the teabag (keep your wiseass comments to yourself, thanks) because I'd read that saliva could extract even more caffiene.
This all ended one night when I woke up at about 3AM (after staying up until 1 doing some Physics III homework) with what sounded like a couple of dozen people having a rally in my head. I couldn't make out individual voices, words, or sentences, but the sound was distinct: lots of people were talking over one another, LOUDLY, and there was no way to get away from it or make it quieter. It was, frankly, extremely frightening, even though it only took a minute to realize what was going on and why. I wound up lying on a couch in the common area with a pillow over my head for about an hour, wishing the noise would stop so I could actually get some sleep. Eventually, it quieted enough that I could crawl back into bed and catch another four or so hours before needing to get up for class.
Anyway, caffiene: it's a drug, and now I limit myself to one cup in the AM and occasionally another in the afternoon, or a very small cup with dessert. Auditory hallucinations are no fun, and I found that I value the quality of a healthy life much more than the rewards of intense focused work these days.
I overdosed on caffeine once (Score:4, Insightful)
No hallucinations that I remember, but it was not fun.
My girlfriend at the time had a couple of caffeine pills, which for some reason I remembered from my youth as not having much of an effect on me. So I downed them both, then went home and proceeded to make and drink an entire pot of black coffee for my all-nighter.
By 4am I was shaking like a junkie. I was having hot flashes and cold sweats, alternately. I felt so nauseated that I went to the bathroom repeatedly and stuck my finger down my throat, praying that something would come up. Nothing did but a little bit of brown sludge. My head was spinning. My teeth were clenching. My eyes were darting around. I felt confused, like I couldn't really concentrate on anything.
Did I mention that I needed to be at the airport by 6am for a business trip?
On the cab ride to the airport, I was hanging my head out the window like a dog. The cabbie kept shooting me dirty looks, like I was going to puke in his cab. Sorry pal; believe me, I wish I could. First thing I did at the airport was make a beeline for the men's room and get down on my knees again. I felt really bad for the poor guy in the stall next to me who had to listen to my retching as I dry-heaved. Still, it didn't help. In the mirror I looked like a wax manikin soaked in sweat.
On the plane I started to feel better. "Oh thank god," I thought. "What I need now is water... maybe even a little orange juice." I had the flight attendant bring me a beverage. Mistake. Two sips in, and the barf bag was in my lap. Lucky for everyone on the flight, though -- I still couldn't puke.
Anyway, this went on for the entire day. When I got back home from my trip at about 9pm, I went straight to bed, still shaking, still pale, still sweaty. And I lay there. Probably it was about four hours before I could get to sleep.
The next day I told my girlfriend about my ordeal and she explained that she'd thought it was a little strange that I'd taken both of the caffeine pills at once. When she was driving cross-country from New Jersey, she said, she'd usually take half a pill with a little bit of water.
So I learned my lesson -- but the upshot was that I'm not sure I was ever the same again. An ounce or two into a strong cup of Pete's coffee would almost throw me into a panic attack, because I could feel all the effects coming on again. One time, the coffee machine at the office was broken so that it wasn't sending the full amount of water through the grounds -- in other words, you ended up with a strong pot. I didn't realize this, and I ended up having to go home early.
So, to the parent's point: Hell yeah it's a drug, and some people mess around with it too lightly.
I had this happen to me. (Score:4, Insightful)
I had given up caffeine for about 6 months, and then needed to pull an all-nighter at work. I went to the 7-11 and got a Double Gulp of Coca-Cola, and drank it all pretty quickly. Within about an hour, I started seeing "movement" out of the corner of my eye - just little flashes, but enough to startle me and make me turn and look. I also got paranoid; I was on a construction site (only one there) and even though my car was right outside my window, and a diesel to boot, I became convinced someone was trying to steal the car silently. I would check every 15 minutes to see if it was still there.
These symptoms are also seen in recreational users of amphetamines, so I assumed (afterward) that it was an overdose of stimulants per se, not that it was caffeine.
That can't be right. (Score:4, Funny)
So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
I can hallucinate using just a radio and a ping pong ball [boston.com]
Visual and Auditory Hallucinations may vary (Score:4, Interesting)
Some of the medical genetics studies I work on have measures for those, and having seen the questions and coded them, I can affirm that they're not quite as reliable as you may think.
Besides, every time I drink more than three cups of coffee, I get this visual hallucination that I'm being asked to work to hard and this auditory hallucination that my boss has an unreasonable deadline ...
Only 3 cups? What about 100 cups? (Score:4, Funny)
Correlation is not causation (Score:3, Interesting)
This explains ... (Score:3, Funny)
... why coffee makes this seem like a great place to work. The only problem is the one, terrifying side effect:
The coffee wears off.
Hallucinated Chicken or Caffinated Egg Dilemma (Score:5, Insightful)
This study CORRELATES high intake of caffeine to auditory/visual hallucinations--and ASSUMES caffeine came first. What if people who are already prone to having these hallucinations tend to consume more caffeine?
Another correlation of this nature is that people with schizophrenia are ~75% likely to smoke and others with mental illness are prone to this trend as well. Source Here. [schizophrenia.com]
Also, this study was held at a university, and their test subjects are freshmen/sophomore level psych majors looking to get extra credit in their 300 level class. These students are already stressed about exams, relationships, money, and the fact they will probably have to work at Starbucks when they graduate because they got a Pysch degree--so to suggest that the sample is not bias in that way (and is indeed not anymore stressed than the regular adult population) is unscientific.
Not everyone hallucinates... (Score:3, Interesting)
I drank enough energy drinks/coffee this morning to be equivalent to several hundred millgrams of caffeine, and it's sharpened my focus and calmed me down, though I've gotten a bit jangled. I suspect I have ADHD though, so the reverse stimulant effect is not surprising.
300 Cups (Score:3, Funny)
3 cups might cause hallucinations, but 300 cups causes you to slow time down and save all of your friends from a raging fire. (Obligatory Futurama Reference)
So ... (Score:3, Funny)
This isn't out of the realm of possibility. (Score:4, Interesting)
Alot more people than you think have "hallucinations" and don't know it, mostly because they don't know what a hallucination actually is.
If we were going to believe Hollywood, visual hallucinations would be things like people who aren't there or ants or stuff from an acid trip. Auditory hallucinations would only be things like hearing voices.
But visual could be things like seeing shadows moving in the corners of your eyes, or a flash of color or movement. Auditory could be hearing music in your mind for just a second.
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a fairly decent overview of it.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Funny)
What's this "posting on slashdot" thing you keep mumbling about? And what's an "internet"?
Dude, you gotta snap out of it. We've a big stack of betamax tapes over here for you to watch, if you'd just come back to us.