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Comment by Pelic4n | Hacker News Reader

>The two others are in a living hell and will never have a normal life again.

With that degree of seriousness it can be not HPPD but underlying psychosis or schizophrenia that has been activated by the drug. It happens with cannabis too. I hope they are followed by a psychiatrist and on proper medication.

I agree with you. I believe psychedelics open a door in in the brain that can never close back. A lot of people have psychiatric fragilities and have no business trying these substances. Hppd occurence is closely related to past psychiatric symptoms like anxiety or depression.

One heavy dose of mushrooms significantly & permanently altered my visual perception: I see colors a lot brighter, a lot more saturated, and with tones & hues I wasn't really perceiving before. It's not technically an hallucination I don't think it's hppd, but it's something.

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> it can be not HPPD but underlying psychosis or schizophrenia that has been activated by the drug

This is crucial part - tons of folks are a mess inside, and either it will never manifest fully (but they won't be perfectly normal balanced happy human beings either, just some grey zone), or it will with some shock - be it car crash, heavy alcohol use, tough breakup, death in close family or psychedelics for example.

My first GF's father had permanent paranoid schizophrenia triggered just by episode of heavy drinking during mandatory military service. Fucked up for rest of his life, on heavy medications.

Its not as rare in the population as we would like to think, still carries a heavy stigma with it so folks don't talk about it unless they have to.

That's one of my low-key worries in life. People go through life apparantly happy and healthy, and then bam some event unlocks or triggers something and they spend the rest of their life with crippling, life changing mental illness.

I think you can alleviate a lot of your anxiety (as far as you can without hacking the anxiety itself with, say, cbt) by being in tune with your body and not ignoring potential early symptoms of conditions that leave these lasting effects.

Combine that with only doing "allergy" doses first (think, peanut dust that would trigger your throat to swell, but not close as if you had taken a spoonfull of peanut butter), and you really will be okay.

As a pro tip I tell everyone exploring lsd/shrooms - always have a benzo on handy. If you need to end the trip NOW, it'll almost for sure do the trick. If you may be susecptible to mental trauma, you will be doing no one a favor by "pushing through" it.

Message me if you want :)

I have benzos as a safety net during my trips, and it occured to me that it may be a really bad idea to take them.

During a trip I lived what people describe as an "ego death", where I saw myself disappearing and dying, and it was the most frightening experience of my life. Not only was I completely unable to take a benzo at this point, but it is very much a death and rebirth movement as described by Leary in the psychedelic experience. If I was pulled out from that movement without completing it, I don't know what would have happened. I think I would have been left seriously shaken and disturbed. It was crucial perceiving myself coming back to existence in order to feel "me" again.

Sometimes "bad trips" aren't "bad", they're learning experiences meant to be completed, even if it is tough.

I'm imagining a "Do not shutdown while OS is installing" message pulsing in mid-air...

can you tell me more about "benzo" ?

Benzodiazepines, a type of (mostly) tranquilizers

I recommend biking through midtown Manhattan: nothing like playing real life frogger to let go of vague fears!

> It's not technically an hallucination I don't think it's hppd, but it's something.

I think you just learend to pay attention to nuance in color and color combinations. I had similiar experience without psychedelics after taking a course on color and color composition by a graphic artist. The course was a combination of traditional color and composition theory with art therapy.

My perception was never the same after, i learned to find joy in stopping for a moment and contemplating the things i see. Even if it is a trashcan with peeling layers of fading paint.

This is happening to me right now!

I just took edibles daily for ~5 weeks. I haven't taken them for ~1.5 weeks and my perception has completely changed. They pulled me out of my head and thoughts, I am now much more aware of my body sensations and visually aware of the things around me, colors, angles, layouts. It feels like a completely different world.

In my early 20's I had similar experience that I would have absolutely described has hppd. I smoked heavily for ~6 months and when I stopped it was so unsettling and caused me extreme anxiety and mental anguish; my visual perception of the world was completely different. There was a 'before' and 'after' perception and my mind couldn't accept it. I had crippling anxiety, would avoid people, couldn't hold a job, would have panic attacks and believed I was going crazy. It was literally hell.

Were you microdosing?

5mg indica. It got me functionally stoned. I'd only do it in evenings/night. I couldn't work, but I could still read for leisure, drive, run/exercise.

I know what you are talking about, I went through the same things learning how to paint and color theory.

But it is not the same with the effects of the mushrooms. My visual perception has significantly changed. The day after, the tree I see from my kitchen was not the same.

No they had no mental problems prior to it. One of them has constant visual snow combined with hallucination like visions, the first year it was a great source of anxiety and depression. now that has settled, but not being able to focus on text and music because of the visual snow and other issues really makes his life not normal.

My other friend also have visual snow and a constant dulling of his mind.

They did not take big doses and never had major problems before this.

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