Curious about drug-induced pareidolia

[SquidInSunglasses]

Hi EADD! Quick sidenote, this isn't me coming back fully, I just have a query and this is the best place I know of to get it answered. Might stick my head in a few of the drug specific threads too, depending on what's rattling around in my bloodstream, but at the moment I'm not planning to jump back into the social side of things around here.

So then, on to business. I was wondering, since I experience a similar side effect from a fairly broad range of drugs, if anyone here could enlighten me as to what's up in my head, to the best of their ability. To be more specific, speed, 3-FPM, weed and the initial effects of sertraline all result in me experiencing pareidolia at the edges of my vision. When I focus on the human shape, it will resolve to whatever bollard or flower display it actually is, but when such things just catch the corner of my eye I initially take them as people. In all the cases of the drugs listed above, alcohol amplifies this effect. On its own this is pretty much nothing to worry about, just very mildly trippy. However, if I don't have something anxiolytic running through my system (booze and weed both seem to work, weed a lot more so than booze) then I will become jumpy/afraid of (not seriously, not even enough that I can't keep myself calm, but it is unpleasant in the moment) the human figures when I pick them up in the edge of my vision. Actual people do not have the same effect, and once my brain catches up and works out what I am actually looking at it is no longer a problem, it's just that moment when my eyes go "person!" and my brain goes "danger!". The only other thing that comes to mind is when I was tired and had been using modafinil earlier in the day for an exam, I got the first hints of this phenomenon occuring, but when actually up on moda or just tired I didn't notice anything.

So, anyone got an idea what's going on, if this is common, should I care at all, etc. Anything else that you think is relevant, ask away, anything that is irrelevant, well, ask it too, this is EADD after all.

 

[consumer]

I think its fairly common for people using stimulants especially meth to see "shadow people" in the corner of their vision. It's happened to me years ago when i was hitting the meth reasonably hard. I would see something out the corner of my eye, think it was a person only to focus on it and realise it wasn't. I am not sure this is what you are experiencing but it did happen to me. It always stopped when i wasn't on a stimulant and has not happened for ages as i dont go on multi day benders anymore. It would usually occur after a night of no sleep. I hope that helps in some way.

 

[SquidInSunglasses]

I think its fairly common for people using stimulants especially meth to see "shadow people" in the corner of their vision. It's happened to me years ago when i was hitting the meth reasonably hard. I would see something out the corner of my eye, think it was a person only to focus on it and realise it wasn't. I am not sure this is what you are experiencing but it did happen to me. It always stopped when i wasn't on a stimulant and has not happened for ages as i dont go on multi day benders anymore. It would usually occur after a night of no sleep. I hope that helps in some way.

I'd gotten the impression that shadow people were more like black figures instead of just perceived people like I get, though your description sounds a lot closer to what I get. Sleep dep doesn't seem to be a necessary requirement for me, but hey, everyone's different and the fact that I often have SRIs running around my bloodstream probably impacts things. I'll just file this under "pretty common" and leave it at that, unless I start getting similar effects when I'm not drugged up. Cheers mate.

 

[steewith2ees]

Speed + Weed used to give me pareidolia type effects when I was 16 / 17 the day after I had been out dancing. I saw a painting on my wall come to life a fee times and when I looked out of the window once the sun had set the lamp-posts always seemed to have bats swarming round them until I stared at them straight on

 

[Itsgoneundertheboa]

Hi Squid sounds very like shadow people territory. You never see them you just catch glimpses out of the corner of your eye. Go easy with the combo your on. Could be your brain and body are giving you a heads up to slow down.

As you say everyone is different but the continued use of Stims, mainly bloody strong base speed (the 90's good stuff ?) but also Coke, just increased the frequency of the effect. I also started auditory hallucination as well towards the end of my run. It all ended in paranoid delusion for a couple of months as the brain began to try and rationalise what is effectively irrational creation by drugs. I can't touch Stims anymore, even the 3. Although weirdly never get any from MDMA. Did you ever find a good one btw?