Pokemon epilepsy in 1997

Long story short:
In 1997 kids in Japan watch Pokemon cartoon and soon 685 children were taken to hospitals. Some of the viewers experienced blurred vision, headaches, dizziness, seizures, blindness, convulsions and loss of consciousness.

en.m.wikipedia.org...

6 seconds of flash lights in cartoon send almost 700 kids to hospital.

Thoughts?

a reply to: aristorat

Thoughts?

I remember when this happened, people freaked out like they always do. It's why we can't have shows with flashing lights and why video games, children's toys and other things started having seizure warnings on them.

It was nothing really. The episode was altered before it aired in north America. It was a lot of exaggerated nonsense over some Japanese # people were already vaguely wary about and looking for excuses to # on.

Watch the Chinpokomon episode of South Park. It'll give you an idea about the general mindset towards pokemon and anime in general back then.

I have a thought

a reply to: aristorat

Ah yes,the secret operation to see if TV screens can cause long term zombie like effects in order to create a society of passive vapid non questioning consumer/slaves.

It didn't have the desired outcome-unfortunatley it just made the test subjects(the kids) dizzy and sick.

But don't worry-they have since fine tuned it,and its been rolled out globally through mobile phone screens and it now works a treat.
As you may have noticed.

a reply to: aristorat

I remember this when it happened, it was largely overblown, the numbers were inflated because of pushy parents and a MeToo mentality.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

it was the bitten apple that sent snow white into her eternal sleep was it, imagine for a second the logo choice was not an accident.

a reply to: aristorat

Hmm. One of the first games to cause it, and one off the first g game obsessions I remember watching younger kids get sucked into.

Brainwashing that caused seizures? Secret conspiracy maybe? 😁😊😉
www.webmd.com...

Driving down the road with the sun flashing through the trees can trigger seizures in people who have epilepsy....and they do tests with lights to test epilepsy when doing testing for epilepsy with the wires hooked up and stuck to your head. The flashing lights did give me some weird feeling but never triggered my seizures because I knew they were purposely doing it to trigger seizures. It is when you are not paying attention that a seizure can be triggered, and young kids do not have enough life experience to know how to control it.

This happened with may console games and they used to all come with a warning. I assumed it was CRT screen related because we see the warning much less nowadays.... But I have a friend who ha a child who has developed ticks. The child is on the computer a lot.

The screens cause ticks. This is related.

a reply to: rickymouse

Surely that only accounts for Photosensitive Epilepsy?

a reply to: and14263

Not just CRT, but any light emitting screen can do it. And I'm a daily gamer, own nearly 1000 games just on PC and nearly every game I have with any kind of flashing in it has such a warning. It's actually quite common. Think more of my games, especially the 'Triple A' titles have seizure warnings than don't.

Most recent one that comes to mind is the game Cyberpunk 2077, in the game the players character 'V' wears a device that looks like two panels with LED lights on them, it's a kind of VR called a 'Brain Dance'.

The company had to cut the animation of the lights when the players character puts it on and goers into the brain dance as it supposedly could actually trigger seizures. Even the cut down version the lights are super bright and harsh to look at, like looking directly at a real LED lamp.

I could see it actually triggering seizures in people as I about 3 years ago I had to get tested for a type of seizure I suffer from and developed about 15 years ago and I guess they were seeing if it was 'epileptic'. The machine the hospital used was an array of strobing lights that look identical to the ones in the Cyberpunk 2077 in-game head set. Turns out I am not photosensitive myself thankfully.

CYbperpunk 2077 sequences may cause seizures

The developers didn't warn about it and only patched in a warning, and patched out the effect I believe after a epileptic game journalist reported the matter, and that warning stated that even though it only occurred in a minority of people, it could still occur.
(Warning weirdly was only on the PC version of the game and not on consoles like the Xbox and Playstation.

So yes, I can see a episode of a kids show on the TV giving people a seizure, and when you have several million kids in any given country 700 being affected isn't really an unrealistic amount.

`

originally posted by: rickymouse
Driving down the road with the sun flashing through the trees can trigger seizures in people who have epilepsy....and they do tests with lights to test epilepsy when doing testing for epilepsy with the wires hooked up and stuck to your head. The flashing lights did give me some weird feeling but never triggered my seizures because I knew they were purposely doing it to trigger seizures. It is when you are not paying attention that a seizure can be triggered, and young kids do not have enough life experience to know how to control it.

Yea I hated the strobelight test - I don't have photosensitive epillepsy but always found intense strobbing and sunglare on water pretty disorientating/hypnotising and have to conciously look away or cover one eye with my hand for 60 seconds to reset the brain to be on the safe side.

I have a vague memory of the cartroon causing it as the strobe effect was at a paticular frequency that is well known to induce seizures in peole with photosensitive epilepsy/neuro conditions but may well be wrong.

a reply to: bastion

There's even a thing called 'electronic drugs' based on this kind of effect.

You strobe lights and colours, usually along with sounds that are supposedly synched to certain 'brain wave' patterns and you can get almost hallucinogenic effects. A friend of mine said he even had a psychiatrist try it on him as some kind of therapy, he avoids them like hell now as he did not enjoy the experience.

I've tried it once on my computer and the effect was quite trippy. Moved my computer monitor close to my face, and closed my eyes so the light patterns went through my eye lids and I ended up with a really cool 3D light show inside my head. Like 2 rings of light spinning around each other, one red the other blue.

But does seem a mileage may vary scenario. Some people can enjoy the experience but I have seen a few people get freaked out and I definitely wouldn't recommend it for anyone that is photosensitive or on any actual kind of drugs.

You can even get kits, like sunglasses with LEDS mounted behind them based on the same principal that you wear when going to bed that are supposed to aid in lucid dreaming.

Kind of trippy (no pun intended) how light and sound patterns can have such a profound effect on the brain, even saw plans for a 'vomit gun' torch mod online years ago, where you took a every day torch, replaced the lamp with an array of coloured LED's that cycle in different patterns and it would effectively make anyone you pointed it at that looked at it disorientated and nauseous.

Here's the site I used when I gave this a try.
WARNING TRY IT AT YOUR OWN RISK and do not try it if you're photosenstive, are prone to seizures or have mental health issues, or are on actual drugs.
Squareeater - Binaural Beats

How It Works
Squareeater uses a combination of binaural beats and psychostrobic flicker effects to attempt to induce brainwave entrainment in the viewer.

Binaural beats are achieved by putting a tone in one ear of the listener and a slightly different tone in the other. For example, if the left ear is hearing a sine wave tone of 397hz (cycles per second) and the right is hearing 403hz, the brain perceives a pulse of 6hz, the difference in the frequencies.

Under ideal conditions, frequency following response occurs in brainwave functions, meaning the brain starts to function at the same frequency as the binaural stimulus. Different frequencies of stimulus correspond to different brainwave states, for example 4-7hz correspond to theta waves, a brain state associated with deep meditation or early stages of sleep.

Additionally, other forms of stimulus can achieve some of the same effects. Indigenous cultures have used rhythmic drumming in rituals for neurophysiological effects and research backs up these assertions. Also the stimulus does not have to be auditory, but psychostrobic visuals can also induce similar effects (ie. the dream machine). The strobing used on squareeater is intended to reinforce the audio.

We are often asked "aren't the effects just placebo?". While there certainly have been users whose response is largely imagined, there have been a number of studies (see research below) published in legitimate scientific journals drawing a correlation between binaural beats and brainwave functions. While the research is insufficient at this point to fully understand how the brain reacts with entrainment, a variety of responses have been well documented.

I recommend wearing decent stereo 'over ear' headphones that will block out external sounds. And that you do it on a desk top PC where you can have the screen fairly close to your face so the light can go through your eyelids and then make sure your eyes are closed when you run the sequence you choose. a monitor on a swing arm could be handy here, but as long as the light can penetrate your eyelids you should be good to go. Looking directly at the screen didn't work for me.

Audio can be extremely grating, and it might take a minute or two for the effect to kick in so give it a chance.

Some info on Binaural Beats: What are they? WebMD

What Are Binaural Beats? Reviewed by Dan Brennan, MD on April 12, 2021

A binaural beat is an illusion created by the brain when you listen to two tones with slightly different frequencies at the same time. Your Brain and Binaural Beats Your brain interprets the two tones as a beat of its own.
The two tones align with your brain waves to produce a beat with a different frequency.
This frequency is the difference in hertz (Hz) between the frequencies of the two tones.

For example, if you are listening to a 440 Hz tone with your left ear and a 444 Hz tone with your right ear, you would be hearing a 4 Hz tone.
When you listen to binaural beats, your brain activity matches the frequency set by the frequency of the beat.
This is called the frequency-following effect. This means you can use binaural beats to entrain your mind to reach a certain mental state.

And here's an older video regarding the 'vomit gun' I talked about. Although it's slightly different to the one I mentioned (single light colour) and they finish by saying it's not as effective as some might think. (I'd say how effective it is comes down to how photosensitive the person is looking at it.) WARNING VIDEO HAS STROBING LIGHTS.