Survey and Discussion about HPPD Symptoms

[hppdquestion]

I would like to create a thread serving as a forum for people to discuss the etiology/onset/recovery/etc of their HPPD symptoms from start to finish. Other threads I've found are usually rather vague about the specifics of usage. For this reason, I think it would be useful to create a thread for "case studies", more or less. At present, most HPPD threads are spread out all over the place and rarely give a complete picture of usage and symptoms. I will begin with my own usage/experience in a separate post.

When writing out your experience with HPPD, please consider the following (and if I've missed anything important, please comment):
-How frequently did/do you use psychedelics?
-What was the onset of your HPPD symptoms like?
-What other drugs do you use and how frequently do you use them?
-How have your HPPD symptoms changed over time?
-What specifically characterize(d) your symptoms?
-For those of you whose symptoms changed over time, what was the timeframe and extent of those changes? Did things get better, worse?

I am particularly interested in people's experience with visual noise and tracers - especially if the noise changed over time. However, I would invite everyone to provide a detailed account of their dosages/frequency of use/onset timeframe/etc - essentially everything from start to finish. Every bit of information this community has about your personal account may be able to help us all understand HPPD a bit better.

 

[hppdquestion]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Tostart everything off, I would like to describe my own experience withwhat I [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]believe[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]aremild HPPD symptoms. This is a brief history of my usage:[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Iused a total of ~2mg LSD over the course of 9 months in about 15separate instances. Except for two of these trips, I never went veryfar with the drug (only mild visuals lasting during the peak - inonly 2 or 3 of all my experiences did I experience any fractals).Except for two instances, I would ingest about 70-100 ug of LSD perusage. I did not combine it with any other drugs except in threeinstances (combined with marijuana). I believe I experienced egodeath twice but the mild visual noise I experience did not improve orworsen after the stronger experiences. However, any conclusions youcould draw about it are complicated by the fact that my usage wasspaced relatively consistently (approx. every other week) and theonset of HPPD (I've heard) can take from days to weeks tomonths.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Duringthe entirety of my usage, I used marijuana once a week. Only rarelydid I use marijuana more than once per week. When I use marijuana, Iwill ingest quite a lot at once and get very stoned.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]MyHPPD symptoms: during a period of heaviest usage, I experienced afair amount of afterimaging particularly when looking athigh-contrast things. The afterimaging is now pretty rare despitehaving not completely ceased my usage (it's about once per month,same dosage, still no combos).[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Myonly noticeable persisting symptom is mild visual noise. I cannotnotice it when looking at anything with any amount of detail but if Ilook at a blank wall, for example, I will get some noise. It is mostnoticable in the dark. Subjectively, I believe my symptoms dip in andout. Particularly when I wake up in the morning, I will notice itmore. In any well-lit area, it is often easy to forget about thevisual noise.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Thatsaid, since about a year before my LSD usage began, my vision hasbeen getting somewhat worse - I have found it increasingly moredifficult to see long-distance and about 4 months ago I went to anoptometrist and had to get glasses. I'm not sure if the generalfuzziness I experince (which is always just noise - there is neverany patterning, etc.) is influence/exacerbated/obscured(?) by myworsening vision. Just to clarify: my vision has not gottensignificantly worse - I only needed a mild prescription.[/FONT]

 

[psood0nym]

This will probably be spliced into The Big and Dandy HPPD Thread eventually -- if you haven't checked that out. I really doubt your HPPD symptoms are influencing the onset of nearsightedness at all. The optometrist probably used instruments to measure the curvature of your cornea and shape of your eyeballs, and determined the findings matched up with your performance on the eye chart. If you had done substantially worse than expected, they probably would of recommended other tests.

Since you've already noticed a reduction in effects over time, if you keep your frequency low you'll probably be fine. Be a diligent monitor, and if it seems to get any worse lay off for a few months to make sure it gets better.

I've used psychedelics, on average, around once per month for about 13 years (over a dozen types, including all the classics, sometimes at very high does, many times), starting at 16. There was a brief period in my early twenties when I would see tiny strings of "bubbles" under text. This seemed to be related to 5-MeO-DMT use. I laid off the 5-MeO for about four months and it stopped. The only returning hallucination I experience involves an area of psychedelic-like visuals that begins in the lower center of my vision and moves up and to the right until it's "out of frame" over the course of about 30 minutes. It began after ayahuasca use and is more likely to occur soon after ayahuasca use. Otherwise I only experience it every three months or so. It's just mildly annoying though, not proper HPPD. These have been my only persisting hallucinations.