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Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

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Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#151

Post by kaybe »

drunken-serval wrote: post #144
perl4ever wrote: post #12

The article alludes to it, but understates how difficult it is to ask questions about things similar to psychosis with no frame of reference. For instance, it is possible to look at a person, see someone else, and be kind of aware of the discrepancy, but not to experience as a visual disturbance but more of a disturbance in the part of the mind that identifies people. Upstream of the visual input, so to speak. But it…

> For instance, it is possible to look at a person, see someone else, and be kind of aware of the discrepancy, but not to experience as a visual disturbance but more of a disturbance in the part of the mind that identifies people. Yes. I've had a psychotic break and saw my hands as animal paws. At the same time, some part of my brain was vaguely away something was very wrong and as a result, I successfully hid these…

I'd love to hear more about your experience. What else was different from your normal self?

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#152

Post by kaybe »

blotter_paper wrote: post #91
sova wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably more related to working for YouTube where the comments are absolute vitriol. Actually reading this article this person was clearly not mentally equipped for a trip, ended up taking 2 additional doses after already "becoming delusional" and then going on a rampage when his friends tried to get him to stop. All because they rented a house on the fourth of July and thought what better thing to use to par…

My worst trip (which I still don't regret) was when I took a strip of acid, and then a friend who was 4 tabs in pulled out some tannerite that he hadn't mentioned beforehand and started shooting at exploding targets. I was totally lost in the swirl of drugs, vaguely aware of the explosions and worrying about the safety of my friends. I think I could've handled it a lot better if I had known about the exploding target…

Most kinds of drugs, really. Alcohol and explosives are a legal but often unfortunate combination.

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#153

Post by throwawayitall »

I sustained pretty severe HPPD after taking LSD and drinking alcohol at the same time. I had taken a number of hallucinogens before that time. It took two years and went away. I still have tinnitus, however.

I took a 300mg MDMA pill 2 years ago (on accident - I didn't realize pills were this strong - and had no experience with MDMA prior to that), and have permanent low-level anxiety at all times now. The quality of my life has been reduced like 30%.

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#154

Post by [deleted] »

anon9001 wrote: post #47
chubot wrote: post #8

So I wonder: psychedelics make you more likely to believe woo, and more likely to have certain classes of visual hallucinations. But some people believe woo without taking psychedelics, and some people have those same visual hallucinations without taking psychedelics. Interesting, I believe it and have always wondered about this. I think people's sensory experiences vary wildly by nature, but we have no access to the…

> Although I can also conjure some low-level hallucinations when "looking at the back of my eyelids" when falling asleep. I imagine that's pretty normal/common since low light is sort of like sensory deprivation. Me too, and it's definitely a result of taking psychedelics. I quite like it. I suspect that I could have always made those CEVs appear, but I didn't "know how" until taking psychedelics. In other words, I h…

[deleted]

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#155

Post by dejawu »

precisioncoder wrote: post #123
improv32 wrote: post #92

I'm the one who provided the third quoted anecdote in the article. What I didn't mention was the HPPD coincided with a sort of depersonalization/derealization effect. Basically I got very checked out from my own life. I felt as if I was a spectator watching my life happen and I didn't really feel any connection or agency towards anything coming into my sensorium. It was a really weird and hard time for me. Those feel…

Something I'm surprised hasn't come up yet is the ability to flex... "something" in your brain and turn hallucinations on and off. I grew up in a Buddhist family and was meditating since an early age. I'm not sure if this was related at all but since I was young I could look at things when I was bored and do something in my brain that would cause the patterns to move. If I then needed to concentrate I could focus and…

I honestly don't remember exactly where, but I was reading a wiki for psychonauts once and it provided a scale for the potency of a dose (e.g. No effect, threshold, etc) and the metric they used was the observer's ability to consciously resist the effects of the drug - kind of like when you're drunk or stoned and try to "force" yourself to sober up.

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#156

Post by whiddershins »

I’m just not sure whether or not some of the things I see were always there, and I just didn’t notice, or just didn’t care.

Like, for example, blurred after images (“trails”) when I wave my hands around.

I see them all the time. I’m just not sure they are new. I suspect I experienced that visual effect prior to doing psychedelics, then when on psychedelics they looked really cool and “trippy” and now I’m just conscious of it as a result of that.

Or else permanent low grade hallucinations.

But it really doesn’t seem so.

I see patterns in the dark visual space that occurs when my eyes are closed. Pretty sure everyone will see something - subtle colors, moving shapes, etc if they stare at the backs of their eyelids for a bit. But you don’t really notice unless you deliberately pay attention to it while meditating, or while on some drug, or even feverish, or go into or out of sleep, or whatever.

I wonder if it’s all just a matter of taking common and inevitable visual distortions a little too seriously.

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#157

Post by _Microft »

_Microft wrote: post #126

Somewhere I read the theory that persisting trips might be a learned thing. Very simplified example: everyday experience makes us convinced that walls can not warp. The experience during a trip might show one otherwise. Now the brain can accept the concept of warping walls in even in everyday life. A very quick search did not turn up anything useful. Anyone knows what theory I am talking about?

It might have been in the comment section of https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/06/06/hppd-and-the-specter-o...

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#159

Post by theNJR »

precisioncoder wrote: post #123
improv32 wrote: post #92

I'm the one who provided the third quoted anecdote in the article. What I didn't mention was the HPPD coincided with a sort of depersonalization/derealization effect. Basically I got very checked out from my own life. I felt as if I was a spectator watching my life happen and I didn't really feel any connection or agency towards anything coming into my sensorium. It was a really weird and hard time for me. Those feel…

Something I'm surprised hasn't come up yet is the ability to flex... "something" in your brain and turn hallucinations on and off. I grew up in a Buddhist family and was meditating since an early age. I'm not sure if this was related at all but since I was young I could look at things when I was bored and do something in my brain that would cause the patterns to move. If I then needed to concentrate I could focus and…

I didn’t realize this was a thing! I’m generally able to do this too, especially when meditating. It started after trying psychedelics in college, which probably ‘activated’ something in my brain that said “you can make the carpet swirl”. It’s sort of like looking at a Magic Eye photo. I just tried to do it now, but having just woke up, I don’t think I can concentrate enough to do it.

How early did your parents start you on meditation?

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#160

Post by mikelyons »

throwawayitall wrote: post #153

I sustained pretty severe HPPD after taking LSD and drinking alcohol at the same time. I had taken a number of hallucinogens before that time. It took two years and went away. I still have tinnitus, however. I took a 300mg MDMA pill 2 years ago (on accident - I didn't realize pills were this strong - and had no experience with MDMA prior to that), and have permanent low-level anxiety at all times now. The quality of…

Strangely enough, a friend of mine who I tripped with in Thailand said that his lifelong tinnitus went away from the mushrooms we took. /anecdote
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