Ayahuasca, tracers, HPPD

nybryx

Bluelighter
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uk
Hi everyone :), a story about how I ended up with depersonalization symptoms and seeing tracers a week after overdosing on ayahuasca.

I made the brew last week by boiling 1 litre with 10g acacia confusa root bark and 5g syrian rue for 30 minutes three times, was the first time brewing it this way. I purged in 10 minutes and 20 minutes later I was overwhelmed by what I could see looking out the window (I was travelling on a fast train through the countryside when I'd had the brew). One and a half hours later I was proud of myself to have made it home, the trip seemed to have gone past its peak and when I couldn't see any more visuals I had a small steak and gravy pie and the trip unexpectedly returned with intense fury. The visuals escalated faster than ever, I threw up again, the entire complex scene I could see with my eyes shut whiplashed like it was a trampoline getting hit by a cannonball, I went into deja vu, and vision was followed by long tracers and insane zooming when i focused on anything, this made mopping some of the vomit that missed the toilet upon throwing up an impossible task to grasp, I gave up after 20 minutes and went to bed tripping into my sleep.

I experienced the following days after:

HPPD type symptoms
- Constant tracers/ghosting especially of my hands going to pick up a cup for example
- Slight skewing of rectangular shapes
- Visual static

Depersonalization
- Sinking feeling coupled with anxiety
- Moments of feeling unsure who I am and feeling insane
- 'Entering' dreams when dreaming

I've never tripped off anything else except dmt/changa but not for a long time. Smoking weed makes tracers more obvious, but doesn't seem to make it any worse. I'm almost certain that the stress of seeing tracers trigger depersonaliztion. I was in love with ayahuasca but I cant imagine having any while this is going on

Thanks for reading... any advice and guidance would be appreciated.
Best.
 
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I am curious about what your intention was going into this experience? What did you want to see or gain? Did you plan to be on a train 20 minutes into the trip?
 
Yeah I wanted to enjoy the solitary train ride. It was the amount consumed and potency that did my head in, I remember the exact moments when I felt it had twisted me due to intensity of the rush. I would never knowingly take such a high dose I made many duds in the past and never expected the strength. What was weird was that I came down for 20 minutes before having a snack and then the shit exploded on me and here I am feeling eternally fucked, all I get is tracers but that is distracting enough to change how I interact with the world, I feel for the people with more and worse symptoms.
 
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It's now 17 days since my mishap, the depersonalization is gone but I'm still very disturbed by trails never thought aya would do this
 
No problem

I have tons of HPP like visuals

I just don't consider it a disorder for myself

CH's words make a great deal of sense, anxiety itself can make things feel very unreal.

Reality and our perception of it arent fixed even if we spend most of our time believing in the thin veneer we create for ourselves, it's practical illusion that we are complicit in.

Psychedelics tend to strip that veneer away which can be quite disconcerting particularly afterwards when trying to integrate the experience and your 'self' back into some kind or less fluid state.

I doubt I've expressed myself to well there ;) try not to worry about visual oddities and such, maybe they were always there and you just weren't acknowledging them consciously.
 
Reality and our perception of it arent fixed even if we spend most of our time believing in the thin veneer we create for ourselves, it's practical illusion that we are complicit in.

Psychedelics tend to strip that veneer away which can be quite disconcerting particularly afterwards when trying to integrate the experience and your 'self' back into some kind or less fluid state.

Expressed very very well, if I may say so.

To learn to live in it may be hard at first...but really, no different than anybody else's version of their own aka as everyone's accepted version of perception.
 
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Also a note on "HPPD"

I don't consider it a disorder for myself but that's because it doesn't distress me

I can fully understand it's distressing to some

I would suggest the OP check out their vision; if they don't have proper vision, and could benefit from glasses, then they should do so. the visuals are way less intense with proper eye wear, in my experience.
 
Thanks for the comments and advice. Yes being anxious and thinking about it has been counterproductive and seems to increase the movements. I've carried on smoking weed too but symptoms dont seem to be getting worse, I think they are diminishing ever so slightly each day I'm 50/50 on whether it will fade away. I'm also making effort not to think about it too much. Doing weights exacerbates symptoms, mind starts tripping out half an hour into workout *roll eyes*
 
It's been 3 and half weeks and my symptoms have gone down to about 20%, rapidly began to improve starting 3 days ago, I didn't expect to get to this point for months, if ever. Been to the gym and wasn't overwhelmed by feeling utterly insane from the head rush and smoking weed doesn't make me feel trippy. My vision is much closer to real time so I'm seeing light tracers, I cant express how relieved I am, I'll be extremely careful with this stuff in future.
 
Thanks Captain Heroin. My symptoms are now down to trails that hardly distract me, I can live it and am able to carry on doing the things I lived for, Im over the moon!!
 
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...so 6 days ago I took speed and my trails and after images came back to a disturbing level, im back to couch potato mode
 
It's been 5 weeks since and I'm way better though I left my job and have been able to rest and exercise a lot. I've also done a little bit of mdma twice and each time I noticed my floaters diminished significantly. Last saturday I had a subvisual ayahuasca dose and the floaters vanished completely for two days, they returned but now smaller and feint and reduced in number. My vision really feels improved after aya I'm less affected by trails (can still see them but they are less obstructive) and cars moving past looks more like it did prior to HPPD, the wild thoughts and feelings of disconnection are not there to the point that it spooks me because I've gotten used to feeling fucked but now I'm having to tell myself to accept and believe the improvement.

I've also smoked weed constantly and drank at least one beer every day so those dont seem to be long term exacerbating factors but stopping the weed would bring a certain immediate improvement. I've been taking Lions Mane Mushroom which I feel helped with stabilizing. I'd surmise that DMT related HPPD might be kinder than some of the other hallucinogens. Cheers.
 
I'd surmise that DMT related HPPD might be kinder than some of the other hallucinogens. Cheers.
No WRONG! AND IM A FUCKING IDIOT!!!

Ahem... I had another bit of aya, another sub visual dose, this time I had moments of feeling like I've just found myself in the room without knowing what I was doing or thinking before, these feelings have persist 4 days after, it's like not processing shit on time at all and I keep getting flashbacks of those moments in the kitchen and I've been getting intense trip dreams and aggressive closed eye visuals and I can sense my psyche as a bright red angry face grinding its teeth at me.
 
Take a break from all drugs for at least half a year. This includes cannabis and alcohol. The tracers/trails, visual snow, etc. will eventually go away if you do this.
 
Yo it's been near enough 5 months since messing my head up completely on aya.

Quick summary: I had enough for a full hour trip but in small doses over 2 hours, my vision went creepy and I decided to go to bed. BTW I was sipping the juice on a full stomach, no purge, just absorbed, which may be the reason it fucked me up so bad.

Two days later I started having flashbacks, visions, very delayed processing of stimuli, extreme fear, worsened hppd, depersonalization, seeing self from a third perspective, tunnel vision, too many symptoms to count, probably down to some deep anxiety due to aya taking down some chemical defenses in the brain that prevent signals from refiring.

5 months on I'm nowhere near as agile or comfortable as I used to be in my environment or myself, im always questioning the last few moments, the trails cause me to pick up stuff like a cup differently. I feel progress is being made daily. Mdma has helped regain more trust in the present, weed is not a hinderance, I've gone a week without and still felt as fucked, weed brings some pleasure back into my life and is worth the 'ocd flashbacks'. I took 200mg 5htp when i stopped weed for a week, the depersonalization went down instantly, i also had nightmares which gave me strength to face my situation during waking hours, i believe nightmares are a key way of overcoming mental blocks by putting you in very stressful (but physically safe) situation that will trigger the required chemical changes or thought pattern change.

I'm still an early HPPD/DP/DR'er so I dont know how this will pan out, sometimes I'm certain it's all forever, other times I'm certain I'm making progress.

Just thought I'd put this here for anyone going through anything similar. Will update in a few months, take care.
 
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