People may think he’s crazy, but part of psychedelics is hypersensitivity. I doubt he could actually see in the dark and smell landmines, but his brain probably recognized very small details and fabricated hallucinations based on what little he did pick up on.
I sort of believe the seeing-in-the-dark thing. I was at an LSD party with my friends one night and we took a black frisbee out onto an unlit field (no moon) and threw it around without once dropping it. We just knew where everybody else was and where the disc was at all times. I dunno, maybe we could smell the frisbee.
Was anybody smoking? We always take a drag when we want the disc in the dark, bright cherry gets the toss
Contrast in the dark is far better on psychedelics, I assume because of the massive pupil dilation
No expertise here, but I wonder if neurons are more excitable on LSD. If every cell in your retina and optic nerve is trigger happy, you’d see more in the dark. More noise, too, I suppose.
Maybe the elevated brain energy along with the will to survive or to avoid imminent death might coerce other areas of the brain to align with survival.