Characterized and recurring hallucinations.

[thatdreamer123]

From the psychedelics I've done, I've noticed that some psychedelics have recurring types of hallucinations or specific characteristics to them.

For instance, every time I take mushrooms, the visuals are more or less the same each time. My visuals are always extremely facial. I constantly see humanoid-esque faces on everything in many forms. Whether it be buddha looking heads or misshapen skulls (which are sometimes frightening, but other times comforting). I attribute this to why i am prone to difficult/bad mushrooms trips, the faces have always frightened me. At least, they open the door for me to become frightened as they can become very scary, distorted and in abundance.

On mushrooms I always see these skeleton-like structures that look sort of like venus fly traps and they sort of breathe/yawn and stretch their jaw and neck.

Whereas when I took LSD, there was no trace of such types of hallucinations. I remember actually thinking about it like, wow, there is no way I could have a bad trip on this because the hallucinations are too friendly to trigger any sort dark mindset, as this trip is void of any sort of "scary faces". As I attribute most bad trips to a single slippery slope that can be hard to get yourself out of once you're really far in.

Just wondered if anyone wanted to share similar experiences, I'd enjoy reading them

 

[Crashing]

On mushrooms i always gain an awareness of something that surrounds my body, like an aura or something. It forms a sphere that is in perpetual motion around my body and when i move, the aura breaks with such fluidity. When I wave my arm through the air, millions of multi dimensional x's +'s and o's that are pink, blue, and yellow break apart like liquid and go flying and rotating through the air. It allows me to understand motion with what seems like perfect precision, that is there are no solid pieces of matter, everything is fluid and energy is just transferred and forms a chain reaction. Reading it in a text book and actually directly experiencing it is quite different to say the least.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Yeah I do think specific drugs have specific types of visuals associated with them (although with some, like ayahuasca, the visions seem to be highly variable for me). Actually seeing things that are totally "not there" physically at all, like full hallucinations as opposed to just distortions and patterns, seem uncommon with LSD (IME at least). I have always had a happy mindset and "friendly" visuals with LSD. Mushrooms can be a bit darker and more unpredictable. But do you actually think that you are more prone to unpleasant feelings while on mushrooms because of the frightening visions, or could it be that you get frightening visions on mushrooms because your mindset/feelings are less pleasant? (I guess it might be a kind of chicken or egg thing).

Interestingly, according to Disregard Everything I Say, fully-fledged 3D hallucinations are only possible with certain psychedelics, LSD not being one of them. Not sure if that's true or not, but that is in line with my experience.

 

[Solipsis]

About the facial hallucinations: not sure if this helps but there is a highly specialized brain region described by Oliver Sacks, that is apparently 'inappropriately' stimulated by some drugs or other causes of hallucinations. This triggers something like 'facial recognition software' that is normally used on humans but now on random things you see.
As with people who for example think cats can smile, your emotions get reflected back at you. So the weirdness of seeing faces on or in objects and failing to identify seeing them with your own brain activity can then send you into a spiral of fright or misunderstanding.

So next time that happens, try to put it in a frame of perspective... no need to yank all of the magic out of a trip but perhaps you can get a bit more control over the level of immersion.

 

[sekio]

Psilocin and LSD are different molecules that would likely bind differently in your brain. This just goes to show that no 2 drugs are really 100% the same

 

[thatdreamer123]

About the facial hallucinations: not sure if this helps but there is a highly specialized brain region described by Oliver Sacks, that is apparently 'inappropriately' stimulated by some drugs or other causes of hallucinations. This triggers something like 'facial recognition software' that is normally used on humans but now on random things you see.
As with people who for example think cats can smile, your emotions get reflected back at you. So the weirdness of seeing faces on or in objects and failing to identify seeing them with your own brain activity can then send you into a spiral of fright or misunderstanding.

So next time that happens, try to put it in a frame of perspective... no need to yank all of the magic out of a trip but perhaps you can get a bit more control over the level of immersion.

That's incredibly interesting. I am definitely one of those people who think cats can smile hahaha!

All I know is, nearing "the clearing" of a mushroom trip, where the visuals persist but the mind high has come to a 100% controllable level, I always have the realization that the entire visual trip is based off of a all sorts of faces and masks.

Wether it be bark on trees, clouds in the sky, textures in the pavement; faces faces faces faces. everywhere. Smiling frowning laughing crying etc.etc.etc.

But with LSD, that aspect was missing entirely, I couldn't even TRY to see faces.

Interestingly, according to Disregard Everything I Say, fully-fledged 3D hallucinations are only possible with certain psychedelics, LSD not being one of them. Not sure if that's true or not, but that is in line with my experience.

Interesting as well. As with LSD everything I find has a very smooth, warm and almost fuzzy texture too it. Whereas with mushrooms, things can appeared jagged, disjointed or shattered, and I constantly see 3d objects but in the form of sort of Nintendo 64 level graphics, nothign realistic just chunky and clumsy objects.