# How many of you have HPPD or HPPD-like symptoms?



## Manic D (Jun 29, 2005)

I'm interested to know. Here's my little story to provide some background. I used mushrooms about 4 1/2 years ago which initiated me into DP/DR. I had a real bad DP/DR episode on the drug and totally freaked out. Thing is, immediately after that I didn't really notice anything like DP/DR (but I did start having bad problems with anxiety and shit). I also never noticed having any HPPD (hallucinogenic persisting perception disorder) symptoms. That is, until about a year and a half ago I had a really traumatic experience (I'd rather not go into it) and from then on I started feeling more and more DP/DR until now here I am. I didn't know what DP/DR was when it all started, I just kept saying I felt "spaced out" and "like I did when I was on shrooms". A while after that I started to notice that I was seeing things. Like the carpet and drapes would look like they were moving and they weren't, afterimages in my vision, I see all these crazy floaters and swirly dots when I look at the sky, shit like that. I never saw that stuff during the intervening time between when I took the drugs and when I had my trauma experience.

My interest is just to know if DP/DR can cause visual disturbances that mimic HPPD. I've already noted that some other people on this board have HPPD-like symptoms on DP/DR without ever having taken drugs (or at least hallucinogens). And I've also noted some people (including myself) talking about not being able to focus their eyes on a given spot for a period of time (sort of like what happens in REM sleep). I'd like to know how many people go through this stuff too, it would be interesting to know how much of this disorder is physical/visual and how that is tied to our psychological/mental state.


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## nemesis (Aug 10, 2004)

I find that when I'm exceptionally tired or under a great deal of stress, patterns on carpets or tiles may appear to twist by 10 - 20 degrees, albeit only for a fraction of a second before reversing back to their original orientation. This effect (or hallucination?) will only occur after after I've been staring in a trance like state at the pattern for a few minutes.

We also seem to share the problem you mentioned about focusing on an object for an amount of time. I could only describe it as 'darting eyes' where my eyes appears to jump from one object to another making tasks like reading exceptionally difficult, and driving just plain dangerous. This only ever seems to appear when once again, I am tired or highly stressed.

My DP also appeared after a smoking cannabis a handful of times, but also like yourself it worsened after a traumatic event. I had never hallucinated whilst under the influence, I would find it hard to believe that my hallucinations or visual distortions are a result of my mind replaying events whilst smoking the cannabis.

Visual distortions is listed as a symptoms of high anxiety, but I'm unsure if this extends to those visual hallucinations that we've described. Like you I'm also extremely worried about it and I had initially thought it may be the beginnings of some more troubling mental disorder, however all of the professionals that I have seen have attributed it to an anxiety based disorder.


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## Beth (Sep 27, 2004)

Hey Manic,

I got this from one bad experience on cannabis cookies & a lot of meditation. From the start I've had a few visual symptoms, but they've increased over time. I have visual stuff even when I feel pretty normal otherwise now, before I only had them at the worst times. At first it was all stuff like I'd had before on drugs, the air somehow tearing itself up and stuff breathing, and things seeming to move out of the corner of my eye. Now I have all that stuff from before and also I see a lot of things in bright neon colours just for a flash, my vision goes tunnel-like really easily (although it comes back really easily too), stuff in the centre of my vision seems to move as well as peripheral things, well, just to have finished moving, I can't really describe that one, and in general I notice light more, reflections always catch my eye and seem as real as what they reflect, and things that sparkle, like glass, seem very complex and beautiful. I've once had a proper visual hallucination, but that was ages ago now.

I think dp can make stuff look really different, colours and distances and stuff, I don't know if any non-drug users have the floaters and things moving and all of that? I find those subtler (less druggy-seeming) things more intrusive and frightening in general, the other stuff I only get to a mild degree, every day but not anything like all the time, and I quite like a lot of it, like the glass.

(Kind of related - For a while I felt really sick every time I saw a reflection slide along a car as I walked past it. Because of the shape of cars it just seemed really gruesome and oily and sort of sucked me in. I'm definitely getting weirder, even though I'm much less frightened than I was for the first few years.)

I can focus on a spot, although if I do it for ages then I get tunnel vision or everything goes fluorescent. Maybe that happens to even normal people though?


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## Beth (Sep 27, 2004)

Oh yeah. My doctor said anxiety too.

Carpets are horrible. I can't believe that everyone doesn't see carpets moving, the carpet in my room last year just vibrated the whole time and it looked so real I just forgot that it was in my head. A couple of times I made one of my friends (who knows about the whole dp thing) stare at it to try and see what I was talking about.


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2006)

i see things move from the corner of my eye sometimes, floaters.. blackspots or afterimages(rarely) sometimes i see words that aren't what they appear like. Also electric dots .


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## Manic D (Jun 29, 2005)

For the people who have seen carpets or rich patterns appear to be moving when they are not: do you see a lot of floaters/swirly dots in the sky or on a light-colored surface reflecting the sun? I've determined that the reason carpets and things appear to be moving is because of these little swirly dots in my vision. They swarmed and swoop in circles and arcs and although they are always in my vision, I only truly perceive them under those circumstances which I just mentioned. The motion of the dots and floaters over the patterns makes them appear to move (or breath or they sort of look like wind is blowing over them). It's annoying but I've gotten able to deal with them just as a "visual disturbance" or an "eye problem" and not a hallucination. What's truly bizarre to me is how I didn't have any of these reoccurrences of "drug vision" or "drugged out feelings" after my bad experience on mushrooms really until I experienced an intense trauma and period of sustained anxiety.

It's apparent to me that (at least in my case) I opened some kind of door in my mind with the drugs which I was able to close shortly thereafter but which was flung wide open when I experienced a significant traumatic event. It's like I suffered an actual physical injury to my brain when I suffered the emotional trauma. Like I couldn't (and still really can't) process what happened and so I sort of withdrew into myself and put the "closed" sign up on the window. I guess the problem with this now is, how do I/we come out of that shell? That's why we're all here I suppose.


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## David Kozin (Jan 11, 2005)

27 of 303 participants (of which 146 checked that they believe it was caused from drug-use) of the study marked that they had been "professionally" diagnosed with HPPD, however the additional stories indicate that many others also have these visual distortions and a history of hallucinogen use; the number is much higher.

- David


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## Beth (Sep 27, 2004)

I do see dots and floaters when I look at the sky, but they aren't that intrusive, yours sounds rather more intense. When I see patterned carpets move it definitely isn't to do with that for me, it's a different kind of motion, and they go really 3d as well. But yeah, just thinking of it as 'visual disturbance' and then trying not to dwell on it is definitely the way to go.

It'll be really interesting to see the results of the survey when they're up, especially about stuff like this.


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

Nemesis is right on about staring, tranced out will induce movement in patterned objects with a uniform surface. I especially can get this with popcorn ceilings, whoah.

I happen to find it interesting. It doesn't induce anxiety in me because I know that it doesn't indicate that there's anything wrong with my visual perception. I'm visually sensitive, prone to trance-like states, which happens to help very much with my art.

My drawings are actually based around this, and all I can say is, most normal people report visual movement when they stare at my drawings. So I don't think this symptom is peculiar to DPers. I would assume that most people just don't find themselves staring at carpets is all. But if they DID for long enough...

Have you ever been to a wake and got completely freaked out that the person in the casket was actually breathing? You could actually see the chest moving up and down? The same principle is at work here.


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## Manic D (Jun 29, 2005)

This is all very interesting. I was mainly wanting to knbow if DP/DR by itslef could induce HPPD-like visual disturbances. Maybe it can, maybe it can't. I think it probably has the potential to reawaken or jump start those symptoms in people predisposed or "softened" to them at the very least.


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## bedina (Nov 20, 2005)

I used to take LSD a few times when I was 16 (I am now 25). Since last year, I often took extacy, speed, ketamin etc. but marihuana not. 
I see sometimes very interesting things as well.... moving carpets as well!

J-utah I feel the same "i see things move from the corner of my eye sometimes, floaters.. blackspots or afterimages(rarely) sometimes i see words that aren't what they appear like. Also electric dots"

Maybe this is "only" anxiety... but it is distubring!


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## Manic D (Jun 29, 2005)

Man these God damned electric dots (good term for them whoever came up with that, ive heard them called "static" before, but that's not entirely appropriate...theyre sort of like tracers you see everywhere but are almost invisible.) sure are annoying. I've been noticing them more lately, maybe I'm just thinking about them more. I wish to hell I could make them go away though.


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## Da'Burgh (Apr 25, 2005)

Manic D said:


> This is all very interesting. I was mainly wanting to knbow if DP/DR by itslef could induce HPPD-like visual disturbances. Maybe it can, maybe it can't. I think it probably has the potential to reawaken or jump start those symptoms in people predisposed or "softened" to them at the very least.


Yeah man, I get all those things. It happened the same as you. I don't think you have HPPD because when my DP/DR was at its worse I remember times I'd be in the bathroom and the patterns on the wood floor would mess with me and the shower curtains seemed like they were moving or melting.

Things outside would seem fake many times, and now it's all good. I used to get an explosion of floaters and crap when I looked at the sky. That's normal for DP/DR. After I lowered my anxiety, all this stuff went away.


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## Da'Burgh (Apr 25, 2005)

Oh yeah I still get afterimages all the time. I'll be reading and get the area between the lines like imprinted in my vision for a few seconds occasionally.


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## Lilymoonchild (Jun 18, 2005)

The floaters when you look at the sky or light objects are normal, there is actually a scientific term for what they're called, but I don't remember off-hand what it is. Everybody gets them, we just notice them more.

I do know what you mean about the hallucination-like thing, though. I see carpet move; and in anything with a texture to it (walls, ceilings, and wood panels are the worst) I see faces. Lots of them. They don't talk or move or _do_ anything, it just really bothers me sometimes that they're there. 
I also see things as different than they are. On my drive to work, there is a large cement something-or-other that has a large metal wheel-type object leaned against it, and every day, from a distance, this thing looks like an extremely large tabby cat. It shocks me a little bit every time I see it, it's like I can't figure out what it is, even though I know what it is.


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## Lilymoonchild (Jun 18, 2005)

And FYI, my DP is not drug-induced. I've had it since I was 8 years old, and possibly before. Not that it matters really, but just thought I'd throw out that you didn't have to do drugs for DP to cause hallucination-like occurences.


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## Guest (Jan 17, 2006)




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## The3lbDream (Apr 30, 2016)

I see things flicker out the corner of my eye sometimes.Also see flashes of light and think things move but I know theyre not.Its really bad when my DR is full blown and my anxiety is up.I also had a bad experience with mushrooms that made my DR worse.Is this stuff normal with DR?Could someone please pm me or reply?Im having a bad day at work and constantly think I'm going crazy...I had this for over a year


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## AMUNT (Dec 10, 2013)

I have a non drug induced DR with visual distortions(static+snow), disconnection from limbs when seeing them and generall brainfoggyness.. so from what i have read about HPPD my symptoms seem pretty similar but how can that be?


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## Guest (May 3, 2016)

Seems like a very common symptom of DP/DR. I often wonder if I actually have HPPD but I know it certainly feels like it. It was especially pronounced when I smoked a blunt the other day, I was noticing every tiny little visual disturbance more than usual. Even now I seem to have some sort of very light static, but it's hardly enough to bother me too much. Especially on my computer screen it seems like there's all kinds of weird things going on.


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