Side effects - Tripping Sober: Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD)

[boredINbuffalo]

SWIM notices some minor effects for a week or two after a trip, but it's usually a "heh, never looked at that in that way" or just a breif flash of color where there wouldn't be one normally. It's never anything disorienting, and most of the time, it provides SWIM with a grin and a chuckle at the memory.

I think that's more than likely what it is. When you trip, your pattern recognition is altered, to be sure. You do retain some of those new pattern recognition patterns, hence the colors... the bit about it being out of your peripheral vision reminds me of how you can look at a negative of a photo, then overlay it with the negative of the color information and it will actually work.

Here's an example, if it helps:
http://www.johnsadowski.com/big_spanish_castle.php

[Phungushead]

SWIM has a condition somewhat similar to what is described, although
in SWIM's case it is more of a constant thing... basically, SWIM's vision
gets "static-y" when it is dark, and things will mildly start patterning if they
are looked at for more than a few seconds. SWIM's gotten pretty
accustomed to this over time, although it can be really annoying -
especially when trying to concentrate on a computer screen!

SWIM believes this to be HPPD, brought on by many years of heavy
psychedelic use. The only thing that makes it better (for SWIM) is taking
a break from it all...

[jaked588]

Originally Posted by Phungushead

SWIM has a condition somewhat similar to what is described, although
in SWIM's case it is more of a constant thing... basically, SWIM's vision
gets "static-y" when it is dark, and things will mildly start patterning if they
are looked at for more than a few seconds. SWIM's gotten pretty
accustomed to this over time, although it can be really annoying -
especially when trying to concentrate on a computer screen!

SWIM believes this to be HPPD, brought on by many years of heavy
psychedelic use. The only thing that makes it better (for SWIM) is taking
a break from it all...

yea SWIM experiences the same stuff. he sees static nonstop, all day, every day. he has a pretty good amount of hallucinogen use on his belt but not anything extreme. he also believes that it could be weed and not the shrooms that causes these visual changes

[Merkury]

SWIM went downtown today to the place where he first tripped on shrooms, and was his first drug expereience ever. SWIM stopped into the starbucks where he was for hours just writing shit down in a little log book. And SWIM ate at a resturant thats really really good, actually it was the first time SWIM had been sober there, haha, shrooms, weed, weed, weed, weed, and today nothing. Okay but when I went upstairs in the starbucks wehre they have a nice little fire and a lot of armchairs and stuff, and i looked at the carpet and it started to move a little bit.

SWIM sees weird shit for a while after he does something, like SWIM had two hits of E once and was at a concert and whenever he closed his eyes he would hallucinate, so when SWIM came down once the concert was over, SWIM had these after-hallucinations.

SWIM has gotten them twice out of three times SWIM has done shrooms, one was at a concert then in the back of SWIM's Dad's car who knew something was up, because I couldn't even tell him my address... but anyway, SWIM tripped real hard in the back of the car and then when SWIM came home he went to his room and just layed down and felt every single primal urge ever, then SWIM just felt really trippy and listened to a lotta Shpongle, and eventually went to sleep at some point, stick an existential crisis in there when SWIM was coming back to reality. But SWIM saw a much much much less intense version of what he saw on the shrooms for the affter effects.

And one time on LSA, SWIM had a real good afterglow during school, and SWIM looked at the AC unit which he sat next to, and it started turning different colors like green and purple. SWIM had summer school in that same exact room and when SWIM looked at it and had been sober for a week it still turned green and purple.

Is SWIM crazy, or is it just like a memory implanted there by the drugs, so thats what you think stuff looks like?

SWIM also hallucinates a lot when lying in bed trying to go to sleep. And when SWIM sits alone in the dark.

SWIM had DXM-like after hallucinations for a while after SWIM's DXM experimentation this summer. (SWIm doesn't like DXM too much anymore, its just like a stupid fucking lame way to get high, and people like it initially because its so available, I mean you go to any CVS and you can steal them if you need to. But then after you do it a couple times it's just really only useful because its pretty much free, and then you lose interest and go back to the real shit)

Does SWIM maybe have HPPD? It's not gotten to a point where it bothers me, if anything I kinda like it, nothing interfering with every day stuff at all.

Maybe SWIM does have a potential to get bad HPPD later on, but SWIM knows he's going to turn into a pretty hardcore psychedelic psychonaut, droppin acid all the time getting bad HPPD or some shit.

How bad is HPPD really? I thinks its also used as a scare tactic, but not nearly as much as the flashback thing. ONe of the biggest arguments is that it will give you a flashback while you're driving or some shit. SWIM wouldn't mind a flashback, or a 'freebie.'

SWIM had a shrooms flashback in a movie theater watching Shrek 3 or some shit, SWIM didn't pay attention to the movie at all, too busy watching the inside of his head. But that was psychological because psilocin doesn't stay in your spinal fluid, acid does.

SWIM doesn't know, SWIm's rambling on

BTW, SWIM smoked a shitload of white widow, had a shitload of speed, so that may be why SWIM is posting a lot more and a total of more times than SWIM has ever posted here.

BLAH!

So yeah, shrooms memories, anyone have anything happen to you like it happened to me?

[mugsirhc]

youll see what you wanna see

[Nagognog2]

Seeing things a bit differently following psychedelic/dissociative,entactogenic experiences is to be expected. SWIM should chill use for awhile and go do something else. Read some books. Take a few courses (creative writing is always fun). Write a song. Strip SWIM naked, paint him blue. Put him on a rooftop as a weather-vane.

Things like that.

[dr ACE]

swim thinks that HPPD is your mind telling you that your doing to much too often.in the extreme swimy guess's its a mental illness developing ie--psychosis heres what erowid says bout it;

http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/...hppd_faq.shtml

[LSDMAN]

SWIM has been experimenting with psychadelic mushrooms for the last couple of years aswell with other psychadelics like LSD and DMT.

SWIM noticed after a binge lf psychadelic mushroom use where he used daily for a couple of weeks that he is experiencing alot of flashbacks and still feels somewhat awkard.

SWIM felt for several days after stopping use that he still had slight visuals like when they are wearing off.

SWIM has also noticed that wires like telephone wires and anything that sticks out looks like electricity is running through it. Something that SWIM saw during a Mushroom trip.

Will these stay with me for a while? It has been about a month since SWIM stopped use of the psychadelics.

[Phungushead]

Do some research on Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD) - visual disturbances during everyday sober life after taking psychedelics.

Tracers, "static" effect in dark rooms, minor patterning, images seem to stay in the mind longer than usual... sound familiar at all?

SWIM experienced this after heavy use, and it diminished over a period of abstinance (no noticable effect after 8 months or so)... probably different for everyone though.

It can be pretty annoying/distracting at first, but after awhile SWIY'll kinda get used to it... HPPD can even be entertaining at times - just stare at a wall, and it becomes a canvas for some interesting designs by the artist of the mind!

Reputation Comments on this post:

This was very informative, and relevant to the OP queries.

[PsychedeliaSmith]

SWIM developed HPPD after extensive MDMA/MDA use.
It'll go away with time, SWIY just needs to abstain from tripping for a couple of months and then learn to limit how often he trips.

[Greenport]

Alright, swiM wondered about this for a long time. During your time here as a human, you use your senses to retain information about things that your mind deems important. These are stored within the pattern of neurons in your brain and recalled when thinking about that particular situation. Not all of the information is stored however, usually only little bits of it that are deemed important (much in the same way your mind filters out things unimportant to you at the time being, such as a water bottle in the corner of your eye)

When one takes psychedelics, they are 'randomly' binding chemicals to the 5HT-2A receptors, where normally serotonin binds in order to send messages to the brain from the sensory organs. What happens then is the person begins to sense things (colors, sounds and feelings mostly) which aren't there. The mind tries to process these things just like it would with normal sensory input.

However, just like normal sensory input is remembered and recalled later, as are these hallucinatory inputs. When something happens that reminds you of the psychedelic experience, you experience a memory of it which essentially causes the flashback symptom. Your thoughts are much more tightly tied to your senses than you might think.

Unfortunately, you say you have done mushrooms extensively, aka for years. That means that a significant portion of the neural pathway patterns in your brain are filled with hallucinatory memories. Thus you have more hallucinogenic memories essentially.

The best thing you can do if they are bothering you is to try and avoid things that make you think about it even in the least bit. Other than that, try to ignore it when a flashback occurs and over time, they will become more handleable. Now would be the time to go out and experience as many new (non-drug related) things as possible, so you can replace those memories. You'll always have flashbacks but the intensity decreases greatly over time.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Very insightful and informative and relevant to the OPs queries.

[Decstar]

In SWIM's experience mushrooms doesn't cause HPPD, but SWIM has heard that LSD does. In SWIM's experience the one time he went on a mushroom binge it had the opposite effect. SWIM became completely immune to them after about three days, so it was pointless for him to continue using them.

[Sr. Pcilly]

NADAR has had similar issues with residual visual distortions, mostly noticeable at night causing increased sesitivity to neon/florescent lights, but it may just have been weakened vision because NADAR's new prescription glasses have sharpened his night vision for driving.

Light trails and other mild residual effects are probably pretty standard and in most cases I would assume there is mild/insignificant permanent damage to the central nervous system. I could be wrong though too.

[Rhin]

SWIM has experienced this with Cactus for about 2-3 months after and mushroom for about 4-5 months after but eventually SWIM realized it was his mind doing it and he started to tell himself it wasn't real and he stopped noticing it as much and eventually it went away.

[Smirnoff]

Long time/frequent shroom users may experience HPPD, or Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder. Little research has been done on the cause, severity or impact of HPPD. It is reported that HPPD has a significantly diverse range and scale of affect. It has been reported that it can be a minor, unintrusive and temporary impact of psychedelic use yet in some cases it is a permanent and invasive disorder.

HPPD: Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder

Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder or HPPD is a form of visual disorder characterized by visual snow, light sensitivity, halos, and other visual disturbances akin to those demonstrated by halucinogen. Fun as this sounds, it does get annoying when you try for the fifth time to read War and Peace only to be foiled by the words curving and changing colour. It's an interesting, but often difficult condition. It also sometimes comes alongside depersonalization and derealization, which only exacerbate things further.

Symptoms:
Typical symptoms include heightened awareness of floaters and tracers, halos of light around bright objects, curving effects at the edge of the peripheral vision, visual snow, sensitivity to light, changes in the hue of objects, and deficiencies in depth perception. In extreme cases, depersonalization and derealization have also been reported.

Causes of HPPD:
Little is currently understood about the biological mechanism underlying the disorder. One theory is that the disorder is a form of nervous hypersensitivity related to vision, but at the moment there's no experimental evidence to support this. In many reported cases HPPD is triggered by frequent and relatively heavy use of hallucinogens. However in some cases HPPD-like symptoms have been reported even after a single, relatively modest trip. It is possible that genetic and environmental factors may make certain individuals more susceptible to develop the disorder, but until more is understood about the nature of the condition there are no firm predictive criteria.

Prevalance of HPPD among hallucinogenic users:
Anecdotal evidence would suggest that HPPD occurs at a significant, albeit low rate amongst hallucinogen users. Estimates range anywhere from 0.66% up to 4.1% of hallucinogen users will develop HPPD, however no substantial medical study has been carried out.

Diagnostic criteria for HPPD:
As the name suggests, the use of a hallucinogen is a prerequisite for diagnosis. It is however possible that HPPD belongs to a wider spectrum of perceptual disorders that can also occur in individuals with no history of hallucinogen use.
Diagnostic criteria from DSM-IV:
A. The re-experiencing, following cessation of use of a hallucinogen, of one or more of the perceptual symptoms that were experienced while intoxicated with the hallucinogen (e.g., geometric hallucinations, false perceptions of movement in the peripheral visual fields, flashes of colors, intensified colors, trails of images of moving objects, positive afterimages, halos around objects, macropsia, and micropsia.
B. The symptoms in Criterion A cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
C. The symptoms are not due to a general medical condition (e.g., anatomical lesions and infections of the brain, visual epilepsies) and are not better accounted for another mental disorder (e.g., delirium, dementia, Schizophrenia) or hypnopompic hallucinations.
If you do not meet all three criteria, you do not have HPPD. Typically the symptoms must persist even after several months of abstinence from hallucinogen use for a physician to definitively diagnose it as a persisting disorder. It is also worth noting that many general practitioners are unlikely to have encountered HPPD and may not even know what it is. It is important to be honest about your history of drug use; few physicians will be able to identify HPPD unless you indicate to them that the symptoms developed following use of a hallucinogen. Without this piece of information they may believe the symptoms to be related to one of the arguably more serious conditions listed under criterion C above.



Threatments:
There is currently no known effective treatments to manage or cure HPPD. Many sufferers find the negative symptoms weaken and may even disappear with abstinence from hallucinogen use. It is unclear in such cases whether the condition is truly cured or simply lying dormant (i.e. may return and even worsen if the sufferer later resumes the use of hallucinogens).



Contreversy:
There is debate over the existence, severity, and likelihood of HPPD developing. A large amount of the existing information about it is anecdotal, yet it is almost always cited as a potential negative side-effect of hallucinogen use. HPPD certainly has been documented, but more research into the phenomenon is necessary.

Reputation Comments on this post:

great way to dispell myths

[cra$h]

As for a more personal note on HPPD, swim has experienced many of these symptoms. He believes it's very similar to post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) in effects. Psychedelics particularly impact the mind so much, whether it be positive or negative, it's something that's going to stick in the mind, and occasionally be brought back up. Just like the war veteran who thinks he's back in the jungles of korea. But for the most part, a flashback is something that lasts seconds, and severity can vary from that body sensation of the spine tingling, to a flash of distorted colors, to those corner of the eye hallucinations. But to those who are afraid of this ailment, like the article mentioned, under 5% of users are noticeably impacted by this.