Do you believe....

[theotherside]

HPPD is a documented disorder only because of the "symptoms" experienced by people who come out of a trip and don't understand the "doors" that they have opened, or the new level of awareness that comes from a strong trip. The "symptoms" are not symptoms at all....they are simply people confused/angry that the old saying, "Once you trip, you are never the same" were not taken into consideration before they decided to trip.

 

[stom10]

All within a 2 year span, and i suffer from HPPD almost daily. Usually its after i smoke a fat bowl of something super headie. All tho every now and again i get it when im at work. High stress situations, things will look like there moving in towards me. Also when im driving and i look ahead of me and slightly zone out the yellow line appears to be pealing off the road. Slightly hard to explain it but it sometimes effects my driving.

Though I don't doubt the existence of HPPD, I feel like saying you "get it" after smoking weed is "cheapening" the actual disorder. Weed is more psychedelic for you after tripping. Period. If you get the effects without weed, then its HPPD. Otherwise, its a change in the qualitative properties of a marijuana high brought about by prior psychedelic use, IMO.

 

[JackARoe]

If, on the other hand, you just mean that people should learn to think of "HPPD" as a residual stage of the psychedelic experience that can be channeled positively rather than viewing it as some medical condition that needs to be treated with more drugs or whatnot, then you probably have a good point, at least for many people who experience lasting visual effects. It's not inherently a good or bad thing to see minor visual distortions, unless those distortions interfere with your normal vision to the point where you can't see 'real' sights clearly when you want to.

That is the most important point that I can see. Regardless of going back and forth and saying something is "real" or isn't, there are always 2 ways to look at any situation. From reading here it seems some people enjoy what may be HPPD and others are troubled. For me, having taken my first psychedelic back in the middle 70's, I am probably use to the patterns on the wall, especially after smoking weed. :D To me that just opened up life more and I can see the swirls of circumstance and happenings as well as geometric patters in the background. I can not say how life would have turned out had I never had a psychedelic, but honestly I don't even want to know.

So now it's could be beyond a argument if it is real or not, but more of an argument on an individual level if it is a postive or negative thing. Some people think a marijuana high is a postive thing as well as others that think it is negative. Some people claim they do not even feel marijuana yet the high is documented. Yet that person that doesn't feel anything can say a high is all in your head, which it is but.... (going in circles now)

 

[Tunnelfission]

Let me put it this way

I hallucinate more regularly and in unprovoked circumstances MUCH more often after I began tripping than the years before I started.