Grainy Vision/ Visual Snow

[luckytaak]

**Deleted for National Security interests**

 

[Dondante]

Luckytakk, please stop being ignorant. Why don't you look for the information yourself? Just do a pubmed search for Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder and you will see pertinent studies ... too few if you ask me.

Here's one of the most concrete studies I've seen w/ regards to perceptual distortions. It's objective data ... you can take the conclusions with a grain of salt, but the basic fact is there. HPPD is real. I have minor perceptual distortions from psychedelic use, but they are by no means interferring with my life. BTW, please don't bring up some government conspiracy BS.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

 

[chicpoena]

I have this. It gets somewhat better. It's really nothing to freak out about. I believe that it's always there, and once you take psychedelics your brain is far more aware of itself and then BOOM! you see all this static. But it was there the whole time.

Try not to think about HPPD as a negative thing. As soon as I started thinking about it in a positive light everything in my life changed for the better! It was a major paradigm shift. In fact, I even got sad when I could no longer see mayan patterns in carpets, or faces in clouds. HPPD makes life far more significant IMO.

It's all in your head anyway.

 

[rollingregret]

i think the real divide comes from the severity of symptoms. If i just saw static, maybe it wouldnt be that bad. But it's far worse than that. I feel like i am always tripping minus any positive feelings. Ive never even done acid. As for toolazy2think's question, trust me when i say this....very moderate, responsible use. No more than about 20 times over 2 years, which surprisingly isnt that bad considering how much some people have done. And no ridiculous amounts, usually 2 pills. Also, all steps for harm reduction, including vitamin C, htp, tyrosine, etc. Raving was my life, along with rolling, with a very great respect for it, not abusive. I never could have imagined this would happen to me. I still can't beleive it. Acceptance that this is possible is so very hard, takes a lot of maturity, but it might seriously save your life. It's hard to look into the longterm.

I kow many people's HPPD doesn't really bother them, and therein lies a somewhat controversial implication that it is therefore NOT HPPD. Mine is mixed with feeling fucked 24/7, just completely gone, in addition to a chronic, debilitating, absolutely excruciation muscle tension pattern. Head feels like it's in a vice. This far far far outweighs any rapture ive gotten from e. And trust me...it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me.

 

[Psychedelics_r_best]

Rollingregret, I dont think HPPD or the grainy vision I get is a result of physical damage to any cells in your body.

Also, I can not imagine myself using drugs at a greater frequency than I already do, and I have been using at this frequnecy for more than 6 months, so I cant imagine it getting any worse. I never get any physical side effects, or at least negative ones. I always feel very relaxed though, and have a tinge of body high all the time. The visual side effects arent that bad, and are only distracting. I can imagine some people would be horribly bothered, but I am not. Its only realy distracting at night, even though during the day it is still present.

 

[cremenoir]

Hey, glad to hear I'm not alone...

I've been experiencing crazy pixelated visual snow, flashing lights, colored dots, light tracers, and after-images of contrast colors for about five years now, and I know with fair certainty its because of (or at least exacerbated by) marijuana use. Actually the first time I recall any visual disturbance at all was after the first time I rolled on ectasy, but its difficult to say what the real cause was because it was right around the time I started smoking weed frequently. Anyway, I haven't rolled in more than three years and I find my visual snow is related to my frequency of marijuana use, although it doesn't ever completely subside even when I quit smoking for a considerable period of time, at which point I found it to also be highly stress-related. (So to hell with not smoking
Anyway, I'm usually not bothered too much by it because I've gotten used to it, but sometimes it still gets really bad. Stress and caffeine make it much worse. In fact before/after test cramming usually (which entails ridiculous amounts of both) it can progress to the point where I see patterns and faces and odd tesselations of the strangest things spiraling out from the center of my visual field when I close my eyes. Which really sucks when trying to fall asleep and seeing scary faces is never fun (but always interesting).

I know that these visual disturbances relate to serotonin or similar neurotransmitter disturbances somehow. When my pixels get so bad I can't concentrate/get anxious/convince myself I'm going blind, I find that taking some form of flouxetine (prozac, etc.) once or twice a week for a few weeks really helps get it under control. Another interesting thing to consider is the odd and unfortunately understudied relationship between serotonin and psilocybin. I love mushrooms because when I trip, my visual snow goes away completely. (Of course, it's replaced by far more enjoyable visuals But compared to real tripping, my pixelated vision just feels like some sort of constant unpleasant migraine aura, and at its worst, is accompanied by a headache. Interestingly enough, that actually may be the case, because migraines are also related to serotonin and other neurotransmitters that are disturbed by marijuana use in prone individuals.

I find my visual oddities interesting for the most part, even though I sometimes despise them and feeling like I'm tripping all the time can be debilitating in some situations... (driving at night, which I have to avoid.) But... it definitely puts life in an interesting perspective.

Hope this helps!

PS: I'm generally affected much more quickly and deeply by most drugs that I've done than most people I know (with the exception of cocaine and booze). Even after six years of heavy marijuana smoking (at some points extremely heavy) I still get instantly high after a hit or two and rarely build up much of a tolerance. Which is good I guess. Because its cheap But the tendency for my brain to respond so well (or so badly... subjective judgment) to chemicals I think has a lot to do with the visual disturbances. Also, quite severe neurotransmitter imbalances are known to run in my family.

 

[cremenoir]

(oops... I meant the visual disturbances have a lot to do with the tendency to respond differently to chemicals than other people, not the other way around...)

Also: I heard somewhere that HPPD is thought to originate when drugs activate new/different/delayed/off-course neural pathways in the brain. In most people, when the drug is out of the body, the pathways go back to normal. But in some people who are prone to neurotransmitter disturbances, the pathways don't all go back to normal. It isn't that your brain cells aren't working, they're just confused and not working together in the right order to produce the effects that should normally occur when messages are received from the eyes.

 

[foundationx4]

HPPD is bullshit there is a lot of factors in eyesight I really don’t think residual effects of psychedelic drugs do anything to it especially when you 17 years old. Get some glasses or put your head in some ice water and wake up.

no way. i completely attribute my static /grainy vision to mdma and psychedelic use.

its really bad the day after mdma or lsd or 2ci. gets better after a few days tho.

im still bothered by it occasionly tho, especially in the dark.

 

[foundationx4]

I'm curious, those of you who have experienced such HPPD symptoms, especially the severe ones which will not go away, what was the level of use which brought on such a condition? Did you have one absolute balls out trip that your vision/thoughts were never quite the same since, or was it a process after (ab)using psychadelics over a period of weeks/months?

mine got bad after heavy ecstasy use (like 10 pills in a night). acid didn't seem to effect it as much as mdma, acid just made the visual snow bad for a few days (minus the 5 hit trip - that f-d up my vision for a week or so.

but i dont let it bother me, i try to take it in a positive light.

 

[Mjäll]

I don't experience aural hallucinations or patterning on walls but I have all of the other symptoms, until now I didn't even realise the delerium upon waking up was a symptom, I thought everyone just got it.

Of course your mind isn't sharp as a knife when you wake up. Your brain doesn't function in the same way when you're asleep...

Wakeup delerium is about as much a symptom of HPPD as dreams are, as far as I know.

 

[TRPPNASS_DSCOMONKE]

when ever i look kind of up to the sky, or i see what looks like specs of dust that seem to follow whatever direction i look when i try to stare at them. any ideas?

 

[theWorldWithin]

psychsarebest please take everyones advice and stop now before you are fucked for life. If you think that things can not get worse than they are after 6 months of tripping then you truely are an amatuer. Your vision and emotional state can get much much worse quite quickly. The fact that you have a constant body high is very disturbing and a sure sign that things will begin to intensify soon. Just wait until your psysical symtoms spill over into emotional manifestations, then you will understand what HPPD is really all about.

When your parrents said "dont do psychedelics, they will fuck up your brain son" they were giving you a good piece of conventional wisdom. Too much tripping will take its toll. Yes smoking cannabis will exacerbate your HPPD because it potentiates any psychedelic state of mind. But I assure you it is not the cause of this horid disease. To my knowledge all drugs that cause HPPD have a strong dopaminergin component, and more commonly also profoundly affect 5-ht receptors (but it is not exclusive to 5-ht psychs, see ketamine, PCP, and methamp HPPD).

Please be smart about this because it is the rest of your life we are talking about, there is no cure for HPPD and I doubt there ever will be. The phenomenon seems intrinsic to neuroplasticity.

 

[Psychedelics_r_best]

Well, I have been tripping for about 4 years now. The past three years with about a frequency of once every two weeks.

I don't know if I had contacts when I made this original post, but I do now and I see fine. I do get visual effects sometimes, especially burn in's and tracers from bright lights at night, but it is nothing that impairs my ability to actually see what is going on.

I have had no negative physical or mental effects manifest themselves ever.

The brain is a very intricate object, and it is influenced more by the very way we choose to perceive reality, than the physical mechanisms that act on it. There is no way to loose touch with physical reality as long as you stay there mentality.

I am not sure why you are so concerned about the rest of my life, but I think I can manage it myself.

We have much more to worry about than drugs taking away our abilities to exist as we would like. For example, the military-industrial complex that is strengthening every passing moment within the U.S.A. Our freedoms are ruled by a group of corporate affiliated politicians and their associates, motivated by nothing else than extracting continually greater wealth, from the general populace, people like you are me, implicitly.

 

[theWorldWithin]

We are just concerned because our community does not need any more horrific casualties. If you have tripped that long at such a high frequency I am truely surprised that nothing more serious has resulted, perhaps you are just one of the lucky outliers.

But becarefull how much you read into the psychedelic experience. No doubt how you chose to percieve things have a profound effect on what happens to your subjective reality. However psychs have a tendancy to distort your glimps into the objective whole. You may be slipping without knowing it because drugs often delude us. My advice is to tread lightly because tripping 24 times a year is quite alot and will eventually catch up with almost anyone. Our community is just concerned so dont take it as preaching, I do not want to see anymore of our people have to suffer through being mind bent.

And yes I agree with you, there are much bigger prolblems in the world. But if your personal objectivity is fucked then there is not much we can do to change them is there?

 

[ebola?]

I god these, but I think it is more me noticing the imperfection of human vision. most prominent with cannabis or dissociatives.

 

[ebola?]

Let me just reiterate this briefly:

The human visual system is not perfect. There's some "noise" in the signal. Looking for it makes it more prominent.
...
I get what you say about the graininess. For me, dissociative and cannabinoid visuals are "grainer" than other agents.

>>To my knowledge all drugs that cause HPPD have a strong dopaminergin component, and more commonly also profoundly affect 5-ht receptors (but it is not exclusive to 5-ht psychs, see ketamine, PCP, and methamp HPPD).>>

Is this true? Is this dopamine part of the equation necessary for HPPD?

ebola

 

[General Patton]

Let me just reiterate this briefly:

The human visual system is not perfect. There's some "noise" in the signal. Looking for it makes it more prominent.
...
I get what you say about the graininess. For me, dissociative and cannabinoid visuals are "grainer" than other agents.

>>To my knowledge all drugs that cause HPPD have a strong dopaminergin component, and more commonly also profoundly affect 5-ht receptors (but it is not exclusive to 5-ht psychs, see ketamine, PCP, and methamp HPPD).>>

Is this true? Is this dopamine part of the equation necessary for HPPD?

ebola

I would agree with the statement that there is always "noise" in the visual system and looking for it makes it more prominent. I remember as a kid looking at the sheets of static and imagining patterns on regular surfaces. All things that I later found out were classical psychedelic activities, haha. I've also noticed that cannabis makes the static worse, and if I meditate to get visuals from it they are grainier and more simple/geometric than psych visuals. I have no experience with dissociatives so I can't really say anything about them...

Lately I tried supplementing with tyrosine to try and eliminate some residual visual fuzz I picked up after tripping a little too much this summer... It in fact made things worse, especially when combined with cannabis. I don't know if those two are a no-no together, but it felt like I could feel the drain on my dopamine system. Sortof like the crash from 2C chemicals, but over a longer period of time. Some of the physical symptoms reminded me of what rollingregret was describing, the unpleasant morphing sometimes boiling over into a painful twinge. I think disturbing the balance of your central nervous system can only be remedied with enough time to let it get back to normal. So far no magic pill or cure-all has worked in alleviating the classic "baked and fried" symptoms, it just takes sober time, I think... Though in the past the only thing that has truly minimized my visual noise after the fact is psilocybin, we'll have to see if that can help soon enough...

 

[PearlsGirl]

I've had HPPD for 4 months now. Nobody seems to know much about it and I've read lots of contradicting info. I've heard it can go away after a couple of years.. Have the visual disturbances ever completely gone away for anyone? Just need to know whether or not there is any hope that I will recover. I get the coloured geometric patterns, static, flashes of colour, negative after-images, moving objects, etc..

 

[The Winner!!]

I say alot of it has to do with weed. I smoke weed all the time and I've noticed this definately. But after I took mushrooms then I smoked weed awhile after I noticed this X10. EVerything is all fake man so don't worry bout a thing!

 

[NeuroDr]

David Kozin has a great site/organization he started for HPPD, and he has simulators for some of these effects. The visual snow, auras, and even shifting, really a great site and resource for anyone who think they may have HPPD. And a great site just for people interested. I've spoken with Mr. Kozin and he's very helpful for information on the subject.

http://nodid.org/dynamic/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=57&Itemid=67