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Do I have HPPD?

Spiritual

Greenlighter
Joined
Jun 30, 2010
Messages
26
Hey everyone, There has been something bothering me lately and I decided to find out what you guys thought. Well I think I might have hppd but im not fully sure. I hear alot of people seem to think that they have it but dont so im just wondering if I might be one of those people. MY symptons include:

savere after image affect, For example if I look at a light the after image stays with me longer then I think it should. It stays in my vision for at least 10 seconds and is pretty annoying, and when I watch tv all I see the after image all around the tv and it just stays there. It is ussually a purple color.

Tracers. Again with light I seem to get tracers like crazy. They stay for a while then turn into the after image effect.

Dark room visuals. If I am in a dark room I have constant visuals it kind of reminds me of dxm. The visuals wont go away if I am in a dark room and it always feels like im tripping in the dark.

Closed eye visuals. I always seem to have closed eye visuals aswell. I asked some of my friends if they see mad colors when they close there eyes and they all said all they see is black so idk.

Static on walls. I always see tv like static on the walls and on the ground. It looks like when you look into the sky and you see all those little dots jumping around( I thought that was just me also but I asked someone and they said they see that also)

That is all I can think of right now but another example is at this moment when looking at the computer moniter I can see colors out of the corner of my eyes .

So what do you guys think? I know I had after image effect before I did drugs but that was so long ago and im pretty sure they were not this severe. If I continue to do drugs will this just get worse and worse? Im not freaking or nothing I just wanna know if I have to stop taking my precious psychedelics lol/
 
If you had some of these effects before you ever touched psychedelics, that suggests that at least those effects are something other than HPPD.

HPPD is not very well understood at all, unfortunately. There's no guarantee that continuing to take psychedelics will make it any more intense, but it could. The effects could also get more intense all on their own, or go away entirely. If you still have these effects even after a few weeks of not taking any drugs, and the effects are problematic for you (they make it hard to see things clearly, you find them distressing or even just overly distracting, etc.), then I would advise you stop using psychedelics and any other drugs that produce visual distortions.

It's not that uncommon to see patterns or colors when you close your eyes or when light levels change suddenly. Static on the walls, tracers and colored halos around things like TVs are the things that sound the most like potential HPPD to me.

Everyone with normal, working human eyes sees little dots moving around sometimes. They're called floaters, and they're actual physical particles floating around in the aqueous humor (a little sac of fluid inside each eye).

As for the after image effect, everyone gets that when they look at very bright lights, but most people barely notice it with dimmer light sources like a TV or computer monitor. My monitor is fairly bright, and since I have BL open full screen, most of it is white/offwhite right now. If I close my eyes, I can see a fading box of rapidly shifting colors for a couple seconds where the monitor used to be in my field of vision. If I dart my eyes quickly away to something else in my room, there might be a very faint washed-out after effect, but nothing bright and colorful and nothing that lasts more than a split second. It sounds like you get this same effect, but much more intensely. The only light sources that would leave an after image in my vision for anything close to 10 seconds are things like uncovered lightbulbs, or the Sun.

Sorry I can't be of more concrete help, but until governments start allowing and funding research into psychedelic use directly, I doubt we'll make much progress in understanding or treating HPPD.
 
If you had some of these effects before you ever touched psychedelics, that suggests that at least those effects are something other than HPPD.

HPPD is not very well understood at all, unfortunately. There's no guarantee that continuing to take psychedelics will make it any more intense, but it could. The effects could also get more intense all on their own, or go away entirely. If you still have these effects even after a few weeks of not taking any drugs, and the effects are problematic for you (they make it hard to see things clearly, you find them distressing or even just overly distracting, etc.), then I would advise you stop using psychedelics and any other drugs that produce visual distortions.

It's not that uncommon to see patterns or colors when you close your eyes or when light levels change suddenly. Static on the walls, tracers and colored halos around things like TVs are the things that sound the most like potential HPPD to me.

Everyone with normal, working human eyes sees little dots moving around sometimes. They're called floaters, and they're actual physical particles floating around in the aqueous humor (a little sac of fluid inside each eye).

As for the after image effect, everyone gets that when they look at very bright lights, but most people barely notice it with dimmer light sources like a TV or computer monitor. My monitor is fairly bright, and since I have BL open full screen, most of it is white/offwhite right now. If I close my eyes, I can see a fading box of rapidly shifting colors for a couple seconds where the monitor used to be in my field of vision. If I dart my eyes quickly away to something else in my room, there might be a very faint washed-out after effect, but nothing bright and colorful and nothing that lasts more than a split second. It sounds like you get this same effect, but much more intensely. The only light sources that would leave an after image in my vision for anything close to 10 seconds are things like uncovered lightbulbs, or the Sun.

Sorry I can't be of more concrete help, but until governments start allowing and funding research into psychedelic use directly, I doubt we'll make much progress in understanding or treating HPPD.

Thanks for the response man, Yeah it seems to me that I do have hppd considering the difference in the things you see and I see. What do you see when you go in a dark room? Is it just black or do you see a bunch of colors because this is the most annoying effect for me. Im gonna take a break from drugs for now and see if they stay the same. Hopefully someday we will be allowed to further study psychedelics and hppd to get a better understanding of things but I dont see that happening for a while lol.
 
I have this aswell man... I can say for me it was definitely increased by drug usage, mainly the worst when doing MDMA too often.

I remember from young having the neon kinda after image thing as I do think we all have it as normal... but it would only be very suttle and would last about 2seconds tops, after a period of about 6 months doing MDMA too often like every 2 - 3 weeks and a few mushroom trips aswell this became a nuisance as it is very noticeable and gets in the way.. for example if it is night time and im driving, if I glimpse a cars headlights even for a split second it will leave a colored blob (mostly green, purple or blue) for a good few minutes which can get in the way of things im looking at.

I have learned to live with it now as a part of me pretty much that's how I push on with it.

Do you smoke weed? If you do, do you think HPPD has effected your high in anyway? Because now after living with this for a good year or so I have noticed that when I smoke weed it seems to be alot more visual (colors, trails, static) than beforehand
 
I have this aswell man... I can say for me it was definitely increased by drug usage, mainly the worst when doing MDMA too often.

I remember from young having the neon kinda after image thing as I do think we all have it as normal... but it would only be very suttle and would last about 2seconds tops, after a period of about 6 months doing MDMA too often like every 2 - 3 weeks and a few mushroom trips aswell this became a nuisance as it is very noticeable and gets in the way.. for example if it is night time and im driving, if I glimpse a cars headlights even for a split second it will leave a colored blob (mostly green, purple or blue) for a good few minutes which can get in the way of things im looking at.

I have learned to live with it now as a part of me pretty much that's how I push on with it.

Do you smoke weed? If you do, do you think HPPD has effected your high in anyway? Because now after living with this for a good year or so I have noticed that when I smoke weed it seems to be alot more visual (colors, trails, static) than beforehand

Wow its great to hear from someone who shares the same thing I have. I agree with you on mdma aswell, even though I have only done mdma 5 times I remember my last experiance it seemed to magnify the visuals from hppd like crazy.When I questioned my friend if he was getting the same thing he wasn't and thats when I started to really think that I had hppd. After that mdma high is when I started noticing it more and more. . Same thing happened on my last mescaline trip about 2 weeks ago. About weed yeah I smoke alot of weed and it for sure seems to make things more noticable. When it was happening I just thought I was paying more attention to it because I was high but now thinking about it, it could be magnifying it while on it. This last two months I think it has gotton worse because its been way more distracting then normal and I can definitally relate with the driving thing, I get the exact same colors you do also purple,blue,and green.
 
The second time I did acid I got this. Haven't touched anything for a year (except alcohol), though this might change soon :\ My boyfriend (who did the acid with me) got it as well. I remember the trails bothered me more than anything in the beginning, but they have become so normal and integrated into my vision that I totally forget they are even there.

Some people say that if you continue to use, it will get worse. Other people seem to remain at the same 'level' of hppd. I really only see hppd as a problem if you experience depersonalisation/derealisation/panic attacks. I guess that is precipitated by visual irregularities, though.
 
I get symptoms similar to that if i've been tripping too often (particularly on 2C's), i'd reccomend a break from tripping for a bit.

I don't particularly notice the after-image more than before (after images are normal)

Patterned walls start to look a bit odd, particularly where there are boundaries between different colors. Slight static in dark or looking at objects of a single color.
In the dark, there are generally non-moving purple, blue, or green shapes in my field of vision.

2C-I does it the worst, but all the 2C's are bad (except maybe 2C-C). Strangely, MDAI seems to contribute to it, despite not being really visual. Weed makes it worse, but only while high on the weed.


This is my sign that i need to take a few weeks off psychedelics, and it has yet to persist more than a week or two after last tripping, and has never interfered with functioning.
 
If the visual effects are coupled with psychoactive effects, that's a flashback, not HPPD. HPPD is characterised by being constant or nearly so, and being purely visual, with no accompanying psychoactive effect, and persisting even after an extended period of not using any psychedelics.

"What do you see when you go in a dark room?" If I go from normal light levels to pitch black, I can't see anything but black. Assuming it's not true pitch black and there's a tiny bit of ambient light, I slowly begin to make out outlines, but color is washed out or nonexistent, typically.

I definitely notice visual aftereffects for days following a trip, sometimes weeks after a binge. Weed also definitely seems more visual in general now that I'm experienced with psychedelics, and especially in the days/weeks after a high dose trip.
 
Spiritual, do these effects occur more commonly after smoking marijuana or taking other non-psychedelic drugs? Or when completely sober?

Also, depersonalization & derealization are often comorbid with HPPD and the combination appears to be something akin to post traumatic stress with a visual component. There's been some interesting research on it, and it appears to be the result of some neurological alteration, but as to whether that alteration stems from psychological or chemical factors is unknown.

2c-i & MDMA (from anecdotal evidence) seem to be the most frequent chemicals blamed for this disorder.
 
I can see halos around streetlights and starburst coming out of car headlights,I haven't noticed anything else(no trails no problem recognising colours,no flashbacks), I also have like static vison when I focus but I can't relate it to visual snow,I don't see any white dots,everything it's just slightly more blurry,I am really worried all the doctors said I am fine but I am sure that something is wrong,I don't know if its hppd and I don't know how to get a diagnosis for it,I am really worried and I really hope that it will pas through time but it's been over a month now and I've started to losing hope..If any of you has goten throught a situation like this give an advice please...
 
I have pretty much the exact same symptoms as you dude. When talking to others, some believe me, some say they have the same thing, and some just plain old discount me as cooky:p. I have only been doing chemicals for a year now, but it sure is due to them.

I can go ages not noticing and thinking about it, but its something I notice before I think about, rather than think about before notice if that makes sense. It doesnt really worry me, kinda a reminder Im a little avid psychonaut ha. The only thing that is kinda annoying is when Im reading a paragraph in a book or on the computer the words can float around and be distracting. Does it bother you at all?

Whilst these symptoms are not intense they are definitely noticeable. I guess it just depends how your attitude sits with it. After smoking weed and being a few days sleep deprived, woah mumma does it intensify the HPPD. I kinda dig it but:)

The definition of HPPD however is having these types of symptoms, but to a degree that it negatively interferes with your life. So before people go jumping down throats like I have seen in regards to the topic. I would just say we have symptoms of HPPD but wouldnt go as far as saying we are stricken with it.

For curiosity sake, which chemicals do you feel brought on this?

Peace=D
 
Yes reading is difficult,I don't see the words float around but I lose my focus very easily,which is very annoying!I stoped smoking weed because it feels different now,my vision becomes more blurry and the halos bigger.All of my symptoms started after an mdma bad trip,I took around 500 mg in total,I think it was the 300mg dose which fked me!How long do you have these symptoms? have they got any better with time?I hope the symptoms will evade in time cause I have a weird feeling that I am not normal anymore :/
 
The best piece of advice I was ever given in regards to HPPD is that the more you start looking for visual distortions/hppd effects the more you train your brain unwittingly to recognize them even more. For example, if you see visual static on walls for a few days after a trip you'll start to look for it even when it might not have been there to begin with, thus creating or magnifying the effect and teaching your brain a pattern you don't want. This could go on for a long time I presume, but if you're aware of this fact it makes it easier to shrug off the annoying little effects and slow down the impact hppd has in daily life.
 
I have had all these symptoms for about 2 and a half years now. Visual Snow(static vision) Extreme light sensitivity( Glares and Halos when looking at lights, especially car headlights). I have noticed that when i smoke weed the visuals i have increase drastically. The static is a lot more vivid and lights seem to be much brighter. I also notice trails seem to be a lot more noticeable as well...
 
The question seems to me not whether one can label it HPPD or whether you can notice the effects but if you can ignore them when you need to like when driving a car. If you feel impaired because the symptoms are too strong then that's what is the major point IMO. If you are distracted more by the question whether you have it or not, whether it will ever go away etc, that is something you are needlessly doing to yourself and different from the pure sensory symptoms.
In any case there doesn't seem to be a remedy for it as far as I know. That, too, matters for the question whether you have it or not: it doesn't change anything. Sorry if I am putting it bluntly, I really do hope that you are able to live with it well enough, if you have doubts about that it should go without saying that taking drugs including weed should be kept at a real minimum as not to exacerbate it but instead give it time to correct itself.

For some people it hardly goes away over time indeed, but keep this in mind for faith then: the brain can learn to compensate for a lot of things. If you invert your vision for example by wearing glasses that make you see upside down, then after a while your brain switches it to auto-correct for this. Then again, this is a part of filtering systems which may be exactly the things that are not functioning properly with HPPD symptoms.

All the best to you, also I would suggest to merge this into the Big & Dandy HPPD Thread we have running on this but I am afraid the chronology of posts will be messed up because of another merged thread. So instead I suggest that if you would like to discuss this more in depth, we join in there are make it a common central discussion.

And before I forget, welcome to bluelight and PD! Please check our Index and Beginners FAQ, they should be of good help to you in the future. :)
 
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