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The Big & Dandy HPPD Thread

1) How many times have you tripped? Done mushrooms twice, salvia 4 times, ecstasy about 8 times & smoked pot occasionally for about 6 months.

2) Did you experience HPPD after a bad trip? No. I took some 'ecstasy' pills one night & hallucinated- started seeing brightly coloured geometric patterns, when I looked at a blank TV screen it felt like I was travelling through a tunnel I could see on it.. Hard to describe.. Things were moving & swaying, etc. It was a very good trip but the visuals haven't completely gone away after 4 months.

For the first month I carried on doing drugs.. Smoking cannabis, cocaine, heavy drinking, did salvia once & a small amount of MDMA. I thought it was nothing to worry about at first but when it showed no sign of improving I stopped everything except alcohol.

I've now also not been drinking for just over a month as alcohol makes the visuals a lot worse. I think I'm somewhat better, although the visuals seem to flare up a lot when I'm stressed or tired. I'm hoping that I'll be completely better eventually.

Whether or not this is 'HPPD', I don't know, but it certainly isn't normal or pleasant in my opinion to constantly see neon coloured geometric patterns, coloured static, morphing objects, flashes of bright colour, etc..
 
J. Alfred Prufrock said:
I developed one persistant visual artifact from the 1st trip I had and it has been with me since. It is in my peripheral vision.

The greatest incidence occurs when I'm being overtaken by a vehicle passing me when I'm driving. I get a strobing effect where the overtaking vehicle looks like it lurches forward in repeating steps. It goes away if I look directly over at it.

Anyone have a similar effect?
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yes!! i know exactly what your talking about

mk... yes i do have HPPD.

i have done acid about 5 times, shrooms countless times, mdma alot of times...

ok.. so ffrom the first time i did acid.. i knew my vision was different. i actually got very depressed the first few monts after i did itcause i thought i fucked up my vision forever...

now.. if i take a phone, and make a big (2 feet in width) figure 8 in the air, i see a figure 8 sit there for a few seconds.. when cars drive by, i dont see thier headlights move by me a see a long line of light sit there.... now, when im sober.. i sit and give myslef lightshow cause im amazed at what i am seeing..

i havnt done acid in a while.. but when i used to do it i would see patterns move when i looked at them and ha veeryyyyyy staticy vision...

one of the craziest things is after i do MDMA, if i look at a light i can actually see bars of light stretching from it to my eye lids, like these little bars, lot of them, coming from the bottom of the line out to he front of my eye...

now.. anything wll give me trails.. even my hand in the middle of the day, i canmove it around and see a huge trail from it..

i also see after images when watcing tv, if i see someones face and look at a wall, i see thatpersons face in my vision for a few seconds..
 
I dont know if i have HPPD but i got an overnight onset of DP/DR symptoms after doing pure mdma one night. I get afterimages and slight trails from objects moving across my vision. I also get tiny sparkles of light that appear for a milisecond and then vanish.

The mist distressing part for me was the Derealization aspect. The night after i rolled i went to bed and woke up in some bizzare dream world. That was about 5 weeks ago and has gotten better since then but i still dont feel completely normal. My advice for anyone who thinks they might be going through this is to cut off all drug use immediately and start up an exercise routine along with a healthy diet and a good B vitamen complex with some amino acids thrown in.

My best bet would be that something you took has altered the way your brain operates. The sooner you get on top of the problem and aid your mind in recovering the better your chances are of getting rid of it.
 
i see effects of hppd everyday. i had taken mushrooms at least 30 or 40 times before i took lsd and had no signs of it. then some acid came into town and i took it weekly for about 6 months straight. about 4 months into it, after a relatively high dose, 1000 micrograms, i have noticed a small amount of static in my vision along with the carpet developing acid like patterns, but it hasn't ever gotten worse, and i have dosed many times since then. it is intensified when i smoke weed, but it disappears after i come down from mushrooms, which is weird i think. i am not upset that i have this, in fact, i enjoy the hppd, if that is what it is, every day, and it is never bothersome either, but that's just me.
 
I mean i see vague patterns on walls most of the time. DOne LSA 10+ times, 2c-I, shrooms, salvia, weed, and a bunch of other stuff. Not like distinct visions, just patterns. More so within about 2 weeks of a trip, but most of the time. I love it.
 
I've noticed some mild HPPD.. I've done shrooms about 7 times, DXM once and acid twice.

I sometimes see little floating stringy patterns in my vision go by slowly, sometimes static or weird little curvy lines blinking/showing up/going away(when I look at sky) and sometimes I get little ripples or even colors that arnt there
 
Does anyone have the guess of what the cause of the phenomenon is?

My vision is most definitely altered by my use of psychedelics. It doesn't bother me but when I look for it, it's always there. It gets way more intense when I am smoking weed.

This seems to be clear evidence that LSD has lasting effects on the brain no?
 
Delta-9-THC said:
Does anyone have the guess of what the cause of the phenomenon is?

My vision is most definitely altered by my use of psychedelics. It doesn't bother me but when I look for it, it's always there. It gets way more intense when I am smoking weed.

This seems to be clear evidence that LSD has lasting effects on the brain no?
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No.:\ Most of the phenomena that people are presenting here as HPPD are natural phenomena that have nothing to do with the use of LSD or other psychedelics. Light patterning on structured backgrounds, phosphenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphene), floaters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater), these are completely normal. The use of psychedelics makes you more aware of sensory phenomena, so you tend to notice them. So, there is an effect of psychedelics, but hardly one of the kind that you imply.
 
^Really? I get that kind of stuff all the time, the floaters are way more patterned and remind me of my trips though. And the Phosphene isn't straight up black and white stripes, but the middle of my vision, wherever I stare at has this motion to it like that thing, only in normal vision.

I also get "Visual Snow" It's like a yellow and blue visual snow that I only see when I look at a white wall
 
1) How many times have you tripped?
2) Did you experience HPPD after a bad trip?
3) On which substances did HPPD become apparent?
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1.) hundreds of times over the last 9 years, unsure of the exact number.
2.) I have never had bad trips necessarily, only very heavy and therefore hard to manage ones
3.) Cannabis triggers psychedelic-like pseudo-hallucinations in me sometimes

I can't say the persistent effects of psychedelics are a disorder though. I feel like I turned something on that could have gotten turned on by other means independent of drug induced psychedelic experiences
 
By pseudo-hallucinations. As an example, look at a white wall, and it seems like theres a box of purple sitting there maybe moving around a little bit, then when you look at it DIRECTLY, it goes away, then theres more shading fuck ups like that in different parts of your vision? I get that so intense when I smoke weed now, and more mildly when I'm not smoking weed.

Been wondering how to word that, I guess pseudo-hallucination is the thing.
 
pseudo-hallucination is a pretty common technical term to use for very real visual phenomena like psychedelic visuals. It's used to differentiate from the types of hallucinations a person experiences in a psychosis or delerium where distinct stuff like voices or visual things like real objects are falsely percieved. Psychedelic hallucinations are normally abstract, and therefore aren't true hallucinations, but pseudo-hallucinations.
 
Oh I see. Do you think you could help me figure out what kind of halucination this is that I get? I get it when I'm not under the influence of anything. But mostly when I'm stoned now. Like an example, 15 minutes ago taking a poo in my bathroom.

It seemed like there were these transparent lines of different colors in different directions and different spots of the room, as if a strip of my vision was faintly painted by this color, then when I look at it directly it goes away, but if I sort of gaze at it in my peripheral it stays there.
 
I think anyone on this thread whos complained about persisting visual disturbances after psychedelics or what not are lucky they dont have the trippy feeling that accompanies it for some people.

Some people experience strong DP/DR brought on by a certain chemicals and its not at all fun, myself included.

Plants in sunlight look very saturated now for me and i dont at all appreciate that because for me it seems that my reality has somehow changed. i also get very very slight tracers and visual snow/static in dark rooms.

I dont consider myself in the same category as some people who suffer from HPPD, but i consider myself to suffer from it nonetheless, as its altered my state of reality. Its like my life was consumed by an emoitonal flatness and i cant respond to my reality the same way i used to. I dont know if this is more DP/DR or what but i definitely dont like it.
 
There is preliminary evidence that some antiepileptics are effective in alleviating distortions in visual perception cause by psychedelics. I have minor visual alterations, primarily increased visual saturation, but this doesn't bother me. I am curious as to the more subtle effects psychedelic use may have had that I can't clearly identify. In case anyone is interested, here's a post I made a while back:

Levetiracetam efficacy in Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorders:
a prospective study. Casa, B, Bosio, A. Drug Monitoring Service, New
York NY; USA; Mater Dei Clinic, Rome, Italy. Journal of the Neurological
Sciences, Volume 238, Supplement 1, 2005, p. S504.

Abstracts of the XVIIIth World Congress of Neurology

"Background: The occurrence of flashbacks following use of drugs is a
recognised condition known as Hallucinogen Persisting Perception
Disorders (HPPD), therapy for wlffch is based on neuroleptic and
attticonvulsant medication. Tiffs prospective study assessed the efficacy
of the novel antiepileptic drug levetiracetam (LEV) in treating patients
with HPPD over a 1-year period.

Method: Patients with HPPD were treated with LEV 1500 mg/day
(500 mg in the morning, 1000 mg in the evening) for 1 year. Daily
flashback frequency and electroencephalogram (EEG) assessments
were conducted at Day 0, 15, 30, 60, 90, 180 and 360. The incidence of
adverse events was monitored throughout the study.

Results: 27 patients (121 males, 6 females), with a mean age of 21.8
(range 18-26) years, were enrolled. At baseline, mean daily flashback
frequency was 9.3 (range 1-45) and EEG assessment demonstrated
temporal slow patterns in all patients. Over the 1-year treatment
period, 20/27 (74.1% ) patients became flashback-free. After 15 days,
7/27 (25.9% ) patients were already without clinical manifestations,
with 6 patients demonstrating > 75% reduction in flashback frequency
and 1 demonstrating 50-75% reduction. EEG patterns normalised in
18/27 (66.7% ) patients after 30 days and in 23/27 (85.2% ) after
90 days. 3/27 (11.1% ) patients continued to have flashbacks, despite
complete disappearance of EEG abnormalities. Side effects were
few in incidence and mild in severity. No patient discontinued
treatment.

Conclusions: This study demonstrated LEV to be highly efficacious in
the treatment of HPPD, with very good tolerability and ease of use."

I'm curious why they didn't do a placebo controlled trial, or at least have a standard of care arm (e.g. benzodiazepine)?? Who knows if LEV was actually responsible for recovery. I suppose one could infer LEV's efficacy if these people met the full criteria for HPPD (particularly the > 6 months after last dose bit).

I also don't like their lumping of all HPPD phenomenon under the term "flashback." My interpretation of the results is that visual disturbances were relieved in 100% of the patients (since all EEG recordings normalized), but those with more PTSD-like symptoms continued to suffer from "HPPD". HPPD needs to be better characterized for studies to accurately predict response to treatment.
 
I think the acute, distressing phase of real hppd goes well before a year if you temporarily stop heavy use of strong psychedelics. I have had a bad case and it is no fun. Flashbacks on the other hand, I quite enjoy :)

I thought I was getting hppd a few weeks back. I had weird visionary disturbances, tunnel vision and when I closed my eyes I saw a white cloudy ring and a bright colour in the middle. However, my eye started to hurt and the eye casualty at hospital said I had posticular scleritis (inflammation) and it was over the optic nerve, causing this weird effect. I was very relieved!
 
Im have a very mild to mod case of schizophrenia, does that count?......................lol
 
HPPD is not eye floaters. It's visual disturbances that stay with you after all drug use has ceased. These disturbances include light sensitivity, visuals static, color confusion, afterimages, trails, intensified colors like plants (tree's especially), There are more but i dont feel like listing them.

Alot of people seem to deny the fact that HPPD is very real. The amount of people effected by it seems to be pretty low but its there nonetheless.
 
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