I was reading something the other day...totally forgot what it was or who wrote it, but there was a part where this guy is talking about how Paul Morphy's buddies told him not to play blindfold chess cause he would lose his mind.  He played like 8 games blindfolded or something, I don't quite remember.. It also said blindfold chess was banned in the Soviet Union at some point.  Was there ever any actual evidence that blindfold chess could make you snap?  And when did they remove the ban?  The history of blindfold chess is pretty interesting to me.  I play blindfolded against my friends all the time, but I have a photographic memory, so I don't know if that is still considered strain on the brain considering all I have to do is close my eyes and I see it.  What do you guys think ?  I would assume playing blindfolded would only be good for your brain.  Any thoughts?

Is that before or after they realized leeching is a bad idea?

That's a question for Google.  I found the answer to your question in "About 5,500,000 results (0.31 seconds)".  

then why dont post the answer??

Emanuel Laker said something about Pillsbury death being the result of blindfold chess causing an overextension of the memory cells.  Pillsbury died from Syphilis which he probably not catch from blindfold chess.

I think Morphy put on exhibitions of his ability while blindfolded, he played numerous people as well (I heard 20 at a time, and beat them all). There are lots of stories about how great he really was.

I think he had a photographic memory as well, to what degree (like if he could just briefly look at a page, and remember everything, or if he had to actually read it all then he could retain it, thats what I mean by degree) I am not sure.

When I play, I inevitably get a headache. No photographic memory here. I doubt it actually has any adverse effects though.

I think it might give you some short term concentration problems afterwards, and make it hard to sleep but I can't imagine it would do much more than that.  It could maybe make you a bit obsessive about chess, but that's probably not a problem if you are playing 20 blindfold games already.  My brother used to be able to play 6 good players blindfold; it seem to be an innate skill to a degree, though I am sure you can train yourself to get better at it.  I could never play just one blindfold game that well.  I could hold the position in my head, but analysis was hard without physical pieces.  Watching Carlsen today I was wondering when he was staring into space - I guess he was moving the pieces in his head.  I still like to look at the board when I'm planning.  That's probably why his grade is a bit higher than mine.

The Morphy story I like best is about one of the players who Morphy had beat in a simultaneous blind fold exhibition.  The player is studying the game he played against Morphy and finds how he could improve one of his moves.  I spends three months analyzing his new move and becomes convinced he could of won the game.    He happens to run into Morphy and tells him about the move that he has found.  Morphy replies that the move would have been better than what was played, and then goes on to explain how he would have responded to move completely refuting the line the player had spent three months analyzing.

It was a rhetorical question anyway.

everything i have read about morphy is astounding to me.  where did you read this?  

I can tell you where, but I don't remember the source.  Often I would have to make a morning appearance on the Court docket call, get done early and would have a Court appearance in the afternoon which gave me several hours to kill.   I would spend the time at the Austin Downtown Library and spent a lot of time browsing the chess books and magazines there.  That where I read it, but I don't remember what book or magazine I read it in.