Is it HPPD or Awareness or Nonense?

[CosmicG]

I recall sitting in class, first grade with my face buried in the crook of my arm watching closed eye visuals stone cold sober (obviously) able to see whatever it was that came to mind. Imagination is a hell of a drug. Any single thought, whether it be a word, object person, color, place, etc...I was able to see. If it was not exactly what I was thinking of it would be something that clearly symbolized that or was so relative that it was basically the same thing. Basically whatever my mind was capable of coming up with, but effortlessly.

I remember being fascinated with this when I was a kid. I can no longer do it so I wonder how accurate this memory truly is. Maybe it was a gift we all have only as children that we aren't supposed to remember. Does anyone have any experience with this phenomenon? It makes me think about the closed eye visuals that we experience on mind expanding drugs. What is it that influences these flashing seemingly ransom but not always images flashing behind our resting lids?

After having tripped more times then I can remember I am still able to look at things in the same way I would if I were under the influence of say LSD-25. Not HPPD exactly, though I have experience with that and still have tracers which I find fascinating at times, but like if I look at something and just sort of stare off as though I am looking through it begins to change colors and even shape shift at times into something else entirely.

Do you think drugs caused this to happen or do you think we have always been able to see the world this way and drugs just showed us how to do it?

Sorry if this is a little out there I'm just thinking about it.

 

[pupnik]

you are mentioning a few different mental phenomena, and asking a few separate questions, but it is an area I like to address, so here goes:

A lot of HPPD is anxious feedback and panic, but some of it is really interesting visual events. Many of these events are the kind of thing that most people gloss over as they formulate scenes in their sensorium, but trippers, who have enjoyed observing through stoned eyes may get into noticing bits and pieces that others gloss over. Noticing extraneous bits and pieces, parts of objects and other seemingly meaningless fragments of vision can be distracting, and add to that some anxiety then you are describing HPPD.

Vision is both mental and visual - scenes and fragments of objects in focus enter the brain/mind both as integrated tableaux and as bits and pieces. some floaters and tracers are from debris in the eyeball or cornea, and others are fragmentary perceptions of objects (mental constructs) that are triggered from elements in the view.

The process of creating memory involves resonance, or brief periods of sustained signals, and in some states of mind (such as drowsiness) these signal pulse trains are extended a bit longer over time, and when that happens moving fragments in the view overlap and will form trails that you can still see following any movement. These trails are all in the mind/brain and are 100% natural - particularly to every child or person as they are rousing from sleep, or descending into a nap.

you mentioned your head was down on the desk, and from that I would say that some of the syropy dreamy state was in effect as you explored your personal cartoon images while in your classroom setting. This is a fun thing to do at the gate of sleep or daydreaming, or when stoned.

you can call that imagination, but not all imagination involves such clear or tangible mental formations, or you can call it dream stuff if you need to because of the syropy dreamy state that enables rich visualizations.

We definitely gain access to this when using psychedelics as well, it also occurs with meditation, or when emotional or stressed (such as when panicking - as for example into an escalating HPPD event).