reevaluating my use of psychedelics again

[al-laddin]

I have a question for you more experienced psychedelic users, people like you Solipsis. I have a lot of respect for you in regards to your seemingly well balanced use of entheogens. You seem to remain grounded in reality despite the mind bending effects of these compounds. It seems as though you know when to push the envelope juuuuuust a hair and also when to refrain from doing so. I gather this from browsing bluelight and coming across your posts, much respect man.

So my question is this, I have been using psychedleics for nearly twenty years. Not daily, but casually, perhaps 4-5 times a year at most. Im mainly attracted to the aesthetics that these compounds produce as I am a visual artist. Also Im fond of the intensely complex and altered emotional states. I believe Im describing what people often refer to as "otherworldly" or "magical" states. perhaps even "mystical" would be appropriate. Anyway, I cant tell apart the long lasting aftereffects from the side effects anymore. Do your psychedelic states seem to outlast the acute phase of tripping more and more as you endulge more and more over the years? For example HPPD lasts longer and/or abstract thinking with prolonged use? For example, I wont go into detail about how it ALL happened but I definitely have pronounced visual artifacts post entheogen use. Its three months after my last trip and I still have some visual trailing etc. going on. I cant tell anymore if its damage or an inevitable effect of mind expansion. Im definititly changed forever, but we all are changed once we decide to embark on these psychedelic journeys. Where do you find the balance? I think we can conclude HPPD is a real phenomena, but some of us believe its a form of damage while others believe its enlightenment and then some believe its somewhere in the middle. Just a natural side effect of overuse of entheogens. Im only using HPPD as an example because its a bit more quantifiable then cognitive changes, IMO.

I find that ALLL of my peers report some degree of visual artifacts from psychedelic use. That's pretty staggering. They don't all indulge heavily either. I ask you Solipsis, because I see your posts a lot, you seem well informed on these sort of things and you are also seemingly unbiased in regard to this sort of thing. I know you've answered me some similar questions before but Im hoping you can put some personal input on this. Something anecdotal if you are comfortable with that. Perhaps a friend or a peer has had some psychedelic crisis. Also anyone else who feels like they can shed some light on this please do so. I feel that this sort of thing is ignored far to often in regards to psychedelics.

 

[pupnik]

I think it is important to at least have a glance at what vision is.
People may assume that they are given a capacity for vision that always delivers seamless integration of the surrounding world.
In fact this is not the case at all, but without eye-games, psychic alteration (emotional upsets), or psychedelics, after many years of seamless ordinariness, people may be startled to experience actual vision which is more raw:
fragments of objects,
color fields
progressions of shape or gesture (including trails)
edges without form
these are not new, but they are always there.

people just get used to the reliability of a visual 'attitude' that ignores anything that is not part of seamless 3-d integration of external reality.

after some drug use, the other parts of vision are more easily noticed and admitted as valid into the conscious stream.

 

[pmoseman]

It seems to me that you call your normal vision "ignoring reality" and your visual changes from drug use as "actual vision".

Is this arbitrary?

 

[phuckingnutz]

I think that transient (2-3 days) persisting distortions are very common and that, for most, those distortions are just interpreted as visual noise and disregarded fairly quickly.
Of course that's not the case with HPPD...I still believe that, even with HPPD, the persons mind just takes longer to decide that it's noise, but still, usually, does.

 

[rpm]

I find it hard to tell if I have persisting visual artefacts from psychedelics or whether I just pay attention to my vision. I suppose I'm saying something similar to pupnik. I see slight blurring behind fast moving objects and if I stare and unfocus my eyes at a textured surface I start to see movements or patterns. But I think this may always have been the case.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

I've met people who have visual artifacts prior to ever using psychs, generally who've never done any drugs. I think it's silly to freak out about visuals without drugs, I mean... Life isn't an exact science. Anything is possible.

 

[al-laddin]

I think it is important to at least have a glance at what vision is.
People may assume that they are given a capacity for vision that always delivers seamless integration of the surrounding world.
In fact this is not the case at all, but without eye-games, psychic alteration (emotional upsets), or psychedelics, after many years of seamless ordinariness, people may be startled to experience actual vision which is more raw:
fragments of objects,
color fields
progressions of shape or gesture (including trails)
edges without form
these are not new, but they are always there.

people just get used to the reliability of a visual 'attitude' that ignores anything that is not part of seamless 3-d integration of external reality.

after some drug use, the other parts of vision are more easily noticed and admitted as valid into the conscious stream.

Well I have read some accounts of people who seem to have an extreme case of HPPD. Where they are constantly being bombarded by abnormal visual stimuli. I mean we must be able to medically decipher normal from abnormal visual phenomena. A line needs to be drawn somewhere. PUPNIK, has your vision changed long term or seemingly permanently since your indulgence in psychs? Or rather, have you noticed an enhancement of visual artifacts. One thing I have noticed is a decreased ability to adjust from light to darker enbironments. And when I come out of a dark environment I get a brief speckling of points of light in the center of my vision.

With all due respect I didn't intend for this to become yet another HPPD thread but more so an informational one in regards to mental safety and the use of entheogens. Harm reduction if you will. Ive always thought of myself as a fairly mentally sound person but overindulgence in these compounds seems to blur the lines of whats real and whats imagination, they cause me to question and reevaluate consensus reality, and while this may be healthy, it can quite easily become an unhealthy obsession if you have to much time on your hands.

 

[swilow]

It seems to me that you call your normal vision "ignoring reality" and your visual changes from drug use as "actual vision".

Is this arbitrary?

I don't think he is really saying that. More to the point, the visual sense is not flawless by any means and at any time. All humans can experience apparent visual artefacts, such as phosphenes from mechanical stimulation of the eye (ie. rubbing your eye) which many simply take for granted. The ignoring of this is generally beneficial, or neutral- if I rub my eye and see that odd 'light', it would be ridiculous for me to try physically respond to it- its not actually indicative of any real, potential threat or occurence, so I move on. The fact is that things like tracers, floaters, trailing/flanging, 'lens flare' type phenomena are happening constantly to everyone. I would further propose that some psychedelic users learn a heightened awareness of sight- as sight is one of the senses that psychedelics can alter so obviously- and this contributes to users reporting ongoing visual 'problems'. Not to say that HPPD is not absolutely real, but that this disorder needs to be considered frightening and disruptive to the sufferer to be diagnosed; many psychedelic users merely recount the odd visual effects with little actual feeling about it either way. Actual vision, the actuality of which could plausbibly be enhanced by psychedelic use, is exactly that- actual, raw vision as our brain processes it, coupled with increased focus on all visual phenomena, both 'normal' and 'not-normal'.

 

[pmoseman]

I don't think he is really saying that. More to the point, the visual sense is not flawless by any means and at any time. All humans can experience apparent visual artefacts, such as phosphenes from mechanical stimulation of the eye (ie. rubbing your eye) which many simply take for granted. The ignoring of this is generally beneficial, or neutral- if I rub my eye and see that odd 'light', it would be ridiculous for me to try physically respond to it- its not actually indicative of any real, potential threat or occurence, so I move on. The fact is that things like tracers, floaters, trailing/flanging, 'lens flare' type phenomena are happening constantly to everyone. I would further propose that some psychedelic users learn a heightened awareness of sight- as sight is one of the senses that psychedelics can alter so obviously- and this contributes to users reporting ongoing visual 'problems'. Not to say that HPPD is not absolutely real, but that this disorder needs to be considered frightening and disruptive to the sufferer to be diagnosed; many psychedelic users merely recount the odd visual effects with little actual feeling about it either way. Actual vision, the actuality of which could plausbibly be enhanced by psychedelic use, is exactly that- actual, raw vision as our brain processes it, coupled with increased focus on all visual phenomena, both 'normal' and 'not-normal'.

HPPD does not have to be frightening. You can damage your vision without accepting that you have.

Our vision under normal conditions is not perfect. Pupnik was saying that psychedelic users are more perceptive toward the visual imperfections and you are saying vision is enhanced through psychedelics to vision overall, including faults in our vision.

Take the blind spot in each eye for instance. It is covered up and made seemless by our brain but there are simply no neurons in the eye to be activated. Seeing the blind spot for what it is presents no real problem.

To see this blind spot involves a little experimenting, but we believe that what we see there is not fabricated by the mind, yet it is. Perhaps LSD users through altering their mind see it more readily.

The only way I have to explain what you are saying is that the other side effects on perception from LSD are always present and that people with normal vision are not aware of lens flares, floaters, tracers, and flanging? because the mind is playing tricks on them.

That seems kind of reasonable, but on the other hand it may be reasonable that your enhanced visual acuity (seeing fine detail on a grasshopper was al-laddin's example) is the mind playing tricks on you.

 

[rpm]

With all due respect I didn't intend for this to become yet another HPPD thread but more so an informational one in regards to mental safety and the use of entheogens. Harm reduction if you will. Ive always thought of myself as a fairly mentally sound person but overindulgence in these compounds seems to blur the lines of whats real and whats imagination, they cause me to question and reevaluate consensus reality, and while this may be healthy, it can quite easily become an unhealthy obsession if you have to much time on your hands.

Moving on from HPPD then, obviously psychedelics cause you to change the way you understand the world. I completely know what you mean about an unhealthy obsession. About 10 years ago was when I first started tripping, and it's fair to say I dived in too fast. Tripping every other week or so for a while, which eventually culminated in two trips that you could categorise as spiritual crisis. This caused me to reevaluate many of my assumptions about life and my part in it, and started to lead to some rather irrational or "magic" thinking - mostly I think because it's easier to believe in the extraordinary than the stark "reality" as the mainstream views it.

It took me a number of years to properly integrate the psychedelic experiences and become more grounded. I am more spiritual than I was, but much more skeptical and probably often agnostic.

Anyway, I suppose what I'm saying is give yourself some breaks from tripping to take stock. For me this often happens during winter (or not summer) when the weather is less great for tripping anyway. In the summer I can find myself tripping often and following the same philosophical questions, which is no bad thing (as happened last summer with a bottle of lsd and the illuminutus! Trilogy ), in moderation and with some kind of reality check.

I hope my ramblings are interesting.

 

[Morninggloryseed]

/me staying out of the HPPD argument but I would invite everyone to read the criteria for HPPD. If the symptoms are not so severe as to interupt work or school, the DSM then directs you to call the 'illness' something else. I hate the DSM. Remember, a decade ago the DSM stated homosexuality was a mental illness.

Anyway, I have been tripping for 20 years, generally a few times a year but I will go through period (like summertime camping trips) where I will push the limits.

I have no personal experience with persistent, unwanted, visual changes. I do see the world as fluid and not static, but that is a condition of my mind and outlook, I don't mean to imply my perception is swimming as if on LSD. But I have made it a point to integrate the 'psychedelic experience' with the 'life experience' and I try hard to keep my thinking oriented in such a way that the lessons from each carry over, and the line between the two stays arbitrary.

 

[amanitadine]

I think willow nailed it.

I also think there is way too much hype around HPPD.

I also concur with MGS....I've tripped sooo many times the past 20+ years and have noticed no visual changes. I'm also not spending any time looking for them.

 

[perpetualdawn]

I've also tripped many many times in the past 20 years, and not noticed anything I would say is a defect. However, I don't think it's impossible that others could experience some changes due to psychedelics.

Ttripping changed some ways I interpret my visual field:

-Improved my night vision, not because I can actually see better at night, but I've learned how to trust the thin data coming in in low light conditions.

-I notice spectral corona around light sources at night more, like from streetlamps. I never noticed that until I tripped on mushrooms one time, and I'm certain it's not because mushrooms somehow changed my vision, it just made me aware of something I had been filtering out. I think these corona arise from slight astygmatism because our lenses are never perfect curves, so there is some diffraction of light. I think before the mushroom trip, my mind had been ignoring this effect.

-I notice the limits of my brain's "edge-detection algorithms" more. Like if I stare at branches of a tree for a little while, the edges of the branches connect on their intersects, giving the impression of a flat web of interconnected branches. This illusion disappears as soon as I move my head and regain depth perception. I don't think this is because drugs fucked up my brain, I think they just made me aware of a normal illusion.

Analogously, tripping has changed the way I interpret my own thoughts and sense of hearing. Because our brains are somewhat plastic, everything we do ought to affect them, that's how we learn. I think that because tripping is a very rich experience it can have a strong effect on our brain's wiring.

 

[pmoseman]

A few studies confirm visual shortcomings with LSD. Eyes adjusting poorly from dark to light, difficulty distinguishing the color and size of objects. These can go on for a period of weeks.

It is probably like recovering from any injury, if you continue to use the injured part you will compound the problem and have longer and longer recovery periods.

It is obviously not some kind of super power.

 

[rpm]

A few studies confirm visual shortcomings with LSD. Eyes adjusting poorly from dark to light, difficulty distinguishing the color and size of objects. These can go on for a period of weeks.

It is probably like recovering from any injury, if you continue to use the injured part you will compound the problem and have longer and longer recovery periods.

It is obviously not some kind of super power.

Much as the OP doesn't wan't this to become a HPPD thread, I feel drawn in. I think what many other people here have been saying is that HPPD is over reported, with many people who simply are more aware/concerned about normal visual artifacts after using psychedelics as it obviously is very visual in nature. That isn't a super power, it's just being more aware. I also have noticed (just a personal observation, may be wrong) that many people who have tripped a lot become more interested in aesthetics, for example appreciating a good view. I think this is a similar phenomenon, becoming more interested in our visual sense.

That isn't to say that there arn't real cases off HPPD and lasting problems, just that if you take a poll of psychedelics users (as we are basically doing when we ask this question on this board) people tend to over report such effects.

 

[any major dude]

There are all sorts of visual artifacts/aberrations that have nothing to do with drug use. Use of psychedelics & sometimes cannabis does seem to make some people more aware of them.

This is not to deny the existence of HPPD, just wanted to point out that not all visual weirdness is related to HPPD or drugs in general.

 

[swilow]

HPPD does not have to be frightening. You can damage your vision without accepting that you have.

Not entirely correct. To be diagnosed with a disorder implies that the symptoms are, in fact, disturbing or unsettling. Without the fear/emotive component, no such diagnosis would be made. Which is what the OP seems to be experiencing.

Our vision under normal conditions is not perfect. Pupnik was saying that psychedelic users are more perceptive toward the visual imperfections and you are saying vision is enhanced through psychedelics to vision overall, including faults in our vision.

I'm not calling any of this an 'enhancement' or limiting it to vision. For some people, psychedelics can increase the clarity of all perception, sensory or otherwise.

 

[max_freakout]

the psychedelic visual alteration demonstrates the philosophical idea of indirect representationalism.

In the ordinary sober state of consciousness, mental representations of reality are so flawless and consistent (they look so *real* and so solid) that the mind is fooled into mistaking them for the actual real (ie external to the mind) things that they represent. So the belief is formed that perception makes direct contact with the external world.

Psychedelic tripping disproves this belief by revealing the representational nature of perceptual content, because when the normally solid physical world starts to undulate and dissolve in the psychedelic state, the mind is no longer able to believe that the objects of perception are external to it. The psychedelic perceptual effect reveals that the mind is isolated within a subjective 'fishbowl'. What was previously taken to be 'actual' reality, is now realised to be a merely 'virtual' reality, the manifest universe is not as real as was previously thought.

HPPD is a mild reminder in the sober state of consciousness of the virtuality of the visible world. It is fine if you are in a positive mind state because it's basically like free tripping, but in the negative mind state it can cause great anxiety if a person struggles to come to terms with the psychedelic revelation. In most cases HPPD clears up substantially within a few years, although continued psychedelic use can always bring it on.

 

[al-laddin]

Thanks for all the replies, I find that the HPPD thing is about as touchy a subject as bringing up religion at the pub. It seems that it always goes down the HPPD road doesn't it?

I must say that the bottom line here is that out of 9 adults ALL of them have ; sensitivity to light, slowed ability of the eyes to asjust to light and dark, abnormal trailing of objects (people including I who have this effect describe it more as a smear of color obscuring the visual field and persisting behind an object as it passes the visual field. The said object is not separated into multiple defined frames), electric/static vision. Now the difference between non-psychedelic induced visual snow is that mine tends to be kaleidoscopic and be slightly neon. What I mean is that if I actually focus on this snow which happens to be superimposed over my visual field it seems to have direction. Like faint Christmas lights that seem to move in one direction. Now all of this is easily ignored for me , but that's because Im a busy guy and no longer have any PTSD like symptoms. My visual artifacts first appeared after a bad trip and I had all the classic PTSD like symptoms. Now I don't like the term visual artifacts when discussing HPP (hallucinogen persisting perception) because it makes it too easy to replace real symptoms that were caused by entheogen use with natural occurring ones.


If you are at all concerned about developing HPPD my heed of warning to you is that LSD and phenethylamines seem to have exacerbated the symptoms the most. Psilocybin never had persisiting effects for me like LSD ....for example I ALWAYS have slight visual phenomena for several days up to a week or more after using LSD , with mushrooms there was no next-day after effects ever. After sleep I was back to visual normality.

A few studies confirm visual shortcomings with LSD. Eyes adjusting poorly from dark to light, difficulty distinguishing the color and size of objects. These can go on for a period of weeks.

It is probably like recovering from any injury, if you continue to use the injured part you will compound the problem and have longer and longer recovery periods.

It is obviously not some kind of super power.

I agree with most of what you are saying, however again what im trying to get to the bottom of is the fact that it is not strictly "damage". As Ive mentione before in another thread their are studies that suggest that psychedleics seem to activiate neurogenesis which would be accelerated cognition in some degree I believe. I hypothesise that there MAY be some sort of "learned" HPP ...perhaps being in this high state of "plasticity" causes a sort of "imprinting" in the brain. Ok look, Im convinced that I am not merely seeing "visual artifacts" that were already there. Its clearly an effect of past psychedelic use. The sooner more people accept that HPP is more common than we believed in the past the sooner we can get to the bottom of things. Perhaps we may discover that its just an "effect" of entheogen use as opposed to a negative consequence. Further, we may discover that some psychedelics are safer than others to individuals that are susceptible to HPP. Ignoring it is shooting blindly in the dark and hoping to hit your target. I personally want to see more research into this so that we can use entheogens as a species whist diminishing poetential consequences that some aren't prepared to live with. Take a simple casual survey of your colleagues use of entheogens in regards to persisting visual phenomena and report back here if you like.

My own personal experience shows that their is a positive affect that ckearly linked to LSD use. In fact ever since my last one three months (roughly) My mind produces "scenes" and/or movung pictures when I close my eyes. Especially when Im more relaxed. If I wish to ignore them I can, if not I can use this to my advantage. I am an artist and sometimes I can produce inspiration from this.

Further, there is clearly some emmense medicinal, psychological and spiritual value to psychedelic compounds. The fact that they have still not been able to find any neurotoxic effects in proper psychedleics says something to me, especially when neurotoxicity so easily quantifiable in stimulants MDMA and a multitude of other drugs. A simple autopsy can determine damage in the brain from use of the afformentioned substances. I hear one argument implying that we just havnt studied entheogens effect on humans enough to produce the evidence. Sure I guess, but LSD has been researched at least to the same degree as MDMA to my understanding and its been around more than twice as long.

 

[al-laddin]

Id like to add that HPP for me is more akin to a "scar" than a "low dose state of tripping". None of the elements of the psychedelic visual phenomena is as "developed" as actual tripping. The colors aren't as bright and "in your face", the tracers are more like smears of water color than defined frames of objects etc.