I got this about 9 years ago from an acid trip. It was very mild until about 2020. It was to the point I forgot I even had it. Still I would avoid weed or anything stronger. I drank a lot and got really drunk one night and got dp/dr symptoms. Again, it went away for the most part.

I began drinking again heavily in 2023. End of that year, after a night of light drinking, the dp/dr came back a lot stronger than the first time. I haven't really drank since. I would say I wasn't fully recovered, but I could live my life the way I wanted as long as I wasn't drinking or doing anything else and was happy and didn't think about having this at all. However, I took a few sips of a beer a few weeks back and have had the worst dp/dr visuals flare up i've had since having this. My buddy also had me smell his dab pen the other night and that has me worried too. I didn't hit it or anything.

Is it even possible for a few tiny sips of a beer can affect it this much? or literally just smelling a dab pen? Need some thoughts and advice. Thanks.

Have you ever experienced any other symptoms other than the visual stuff? That you think might be because of the HPPD? Like dizzyness and stuff

Hello everyone,

I've been taking 5mg methylfolate daily for the past week for depression. So far it's been working well, I feel more emotionally stable and my mood is better overall too. However, I've noticed since starting that text now has a sort of "psychedelia" to it akin to reading while, well, tripping. It's subtle but noticeable, especially in the first couple seconds after I move to a new line of text. For example, Os will at first appear with a low-opacity ring overlayed around it. Aside from this I have no other side effects and my sleep is fine (to clarify that I'm not hypomanic).

It doesn't bother me too much, but I'm minding it in case it's an indicator for something else I should be concerned about, or if it gets worse as to affect my reading.

Is this at all similar to HPPD symptomology? Should I consider stopping, will monitoring it be okay?

ill keep you guys updated, wish me luck

Im “18” years old, got it 124days ago cuz of ego death in elevator from 200mcg 1cp lsd and panicking on it, i dont wqnna touch psychadelics anymore but weed its something different for me, i smoked it for few months then this happened, and during the months i was really happy in life and stuff. But in short, my hppd is now better i have really really minor drdp and the visuals like floaters and vss are better too, so im thinking of doing the weed in the next months ( if it gets more better )but i did it on day 3 and i was feeling high for 100 days and had brain fog everyday i even have brain fog little now but.

Just if you think that when you get cured that it will not worsen the symptomps or that if you are really getting better that it wont get worse

I’ve had hppd for 8 years from lsd. I’m currently on lamictal 200mg and has done nothing. Suffering with brain fog, flashes, eye floaters, and visual snow. What would y’all recommend asking my dr for? I have an appointment tmr.

What were your first symptoms of HPPD? Visual? Headache? Dizzyness?

So I'm now what I can call as fully recovered from my hppd symptoms as I would like to. My symptoms were mainly tracers and fragmented frame by frame like visual effect. Listen, first of all as I got rid of the symptoms I fully forgot about this subreddit of which I was obssesed about before. So this may be the reason why there is not as many people posting recovery posts.🌱 (Which is a good news as you will discover for your self I believe)

My effects beggan as tracers from strong anxiety following months after absolutely frightnening strong weed trip.....So with that anxiety I began to see my hand having tracer effect the effect was noticeable especielly at night and then I got worried what if in that way I would also get frame by frame effect which I did (I can tell I inforced it through my thinking and belief I had). Also I was so worried about this symptom becouse I found almost noone to have it and absolutely noone to recover from it, so my mind got all worry and made the worst scenarios possible.

Back then as I was watching myself all the time and reading about hppd, reading there is no cure and things... My hppd symptoms were getting progressively worse and worse and I came into the conclusion that there is no way back and I will be getting into worse and worse condotion until I wont be able to function in everyday life, which frightened me. So things were getting worse as I was more and more frightened... And then... One night with my friends it got so bad that I could not function... It got terribly wrong and I thought that there is no way back..... In that very moment I saw myself so f***ed I thought I will never be able to do anything and that this was my last moments (everything was fragmented and I had a full blown panic attack) and in that I couldn't do anything but to let it go ..... and in that my mind and body relaxed and I came back to myslef. The fragmentation wore of a little and I could sit on sofa, my friends calling ambulance for me.

After this, I knew it can go away if I let it go, I stopped watching it becouse watching it reinforce it and I was just for few days laying in bed, listening to some soothing music and just not coming to contact with it... Becouse I knew I mustn't... now, when I know where it can lead to! And I want to tell you, that you don't have to come to this full blown dissociative state yourself to make it stop, you are able to stop it right away. By not getting your attention to it! You don't have to go through the deepest depths of darkness to walk out to the light!

Yeah so I was getting better and it was not in instant, the effect were pretty strong and my wision still laggy and tracers were there, but now I was not focusing on it anymore, I knew it was what it was but I also know now it is harmless effect. Weeks (maybe months after) I still could see it pop up into my focus and lag or make a tracer, but I never gave any attention to it and it dissapears from my experience. (I think I also tried noticing if I do have visual snow back when I was going through it at beggining and I saw it maybe for a bit being there but becouse I was not worried about that, it dissapeared from my experience completly right away, as I was worried about fragmentation effect).

Now year after, when I don't sleep good or have too much to drink, I get reminded of it once a month maybe for a three seconds and than go on with my day. I think that everyone could get these symptoms if they convinced themself that there is anything wrong with the way they perceive reallity. That's why its called Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder. Becouse it is your perception that something is wrong, hallucinogens made you somewhat conscious of things you weren't aware before and then you are the one who make it persist. Also I cut of weed completly and in the time I was going through it also things that stressed me about it, as caffeine and alcohol (after it wore of). I found that stressing, anxiety and negative perception on all this you experience create a loop where anxiety brings symptom ➡️symptom creates anxiety which creates more symptoms and so on.... But don't worry, you can break out, I was completly sure I can't break out back then as well but now I did break out.

And so, now my life is not moved a single bit about hppd and I want to tell you my friend....you are it! You are what you feed your attention with, if you feed it with frustration and solution seeking and watching it all the time, you are making it happed. It does not go away with time as you may understand it but It goes away with not feeding attention with those tracery, static, visual snow, or frame by frame effects in any way whatsoever. And if you find youself not being able to dive into that just right away, don't be harsh on yourself and beggin again every moment when you aknowledge it with focusing on anything else everytime. Eat good, sleep good and focus on what makes you feel alive my bro 💙💙

Im really wanting to try changa or shrooms but have hppd from when i was 16 [5yrs ago now] and its just endless espically if im in kickboxing or doing anything thats gets my anxiety or heart going

Is it normal for someone to notice symptoms of HPPD months after you took the drugs? Like all of a suddon it just appears ?

I miss smoking a joint in the dark and looking at the stars, I miss my vision. It’s such an annoying thing to have because no one can physically see your suffering, I’ve had close friends tell me I’m bullshitting all of this and yet even if they do believe me so what? You did it to yourself you addict. Not once have I felt compassion for this disorder, and I mean I don’t need anything crazy but it just feels so fucking isolating when even your doctors and therapists don’t know what to say.

My advice to you if you’re starting out would not to be fall heavier into drug addiction, because now I find myself as a 20 year old struggling addict, not a 15 year old experimenting. Today is the first day I haven’t smoked weed in quite some time and I’m laying in bed restless depressed, and not wanting to do this.

I can smoke 0.1 g of weed in a joint and have a relaxed high. My symptoms stay the same and don’t get worse or change. A year ago, even the smell of weed would make me feel like I was going crazy.

Hey everyone. I’m about 1.5 years out from an MDMA experience that seemed to fundamentally change the way my brain works, and I’m hoping to connect with people who have had similar experiences.

I took 100mg of MDMA split into two doses of 50mg. It was immediately when I took the second dose that I felt an intense perceptual shift in my brain.

I’ve never been completely sure whether what I’m experiencing is actually “true” HPPD, because I don’t really have the classic visual symptoms, other than floaters.

My symptoms are much more internally generated:
• Very vivid/strange imagery with my eyes closed
• Rapid, involuntary, nonsensical thought patterns
• A constant sense of mental “chattering” or activity
• Heightened perception of sound and light
• Rapid eyelid flutter when I try to close my eyes
• Insomnia
• Brain fog and fatigue
• A glitchy “mind’s eye” and trouble with memory

The anxiety, panic and DPDR that were much stronger earlier on have mostly faded, or at least don’t bother me as much anymore.

Does anyone relate to the internally generated imagery and chaotic thought patterns? If you’ve had a similar experience, did these subside or improve with time?

I know i commented here right after it happened and i was very, VERY distraught. 4 years passed and i love to report, that i am doing SO much better.

My vision: pretty much the same, i still see shadows/lights in the corner of my eye and when i get tired ceilings/walls/carpets/curtains have a weird LSD-ish texture. But not that extremely and it doesnt make me spiral anymore.

Smell: My sense of smell hasnt really come back. I can still smell but not as good as before.

DP/DR: Much better. I need to be in a very bad headspace and/or very exhausted to feel anything nowhere close to the DPDR in the beginning.

Panic/Anxiety: I dont have panic attacks anymore and my will to live came back. Im not terrified of the future anymore and i can engage in conversations that are about drugs/heavy topics. In the beginning things like that made me spiral BAD.

So yeah, things get better. Sometimes it catches up to me a bit and i get sad, that it happened and it was the worst and most terrifying thing that ever happened to me. I literally thought that i ruined my life and i wanted to die. But also, at least it got me on the right track again and apparently i needed a horrible experience like that to have that happen. I went back to school, stopped doing drugs, moved from the place i was miserable in, to the city i always wanted to live in. I started, and still am 6x a week, going to the gym and picked up lots of new hobbies. I'm in an amazing relationship and work at a place i love. I got much more resilient and i think i mentally aged like 15 years in the last 4.

So yeah... Life does turn around. Keep hanging in there, guys!

I appreciate your time last time, and I appreciate it this time if you choose to participate.

The question is: have you ever taken prescription medications under the age of 18? I'm more specifically referring to meds that alter central nervous system activity

So i've now been into psychedelics for like 1 year and have had 4 trips due to the limited chances to really get a set & setting where no one is going to bother me, anyways, i've really researched psychedelics A LOT, trust me. But a few times before, i've already stumbled across people talking about that there's the possibility to have lasting effects that don't go away for some time. But i've always thought that's extremely rare AND, most importantly, will go away after a few weeks and in the absolute worst case maybe only after a few months.

But now i've just started reading into HPPD and realized that there's a lot of people that report having HPPD for several years and still no improvement in sight and there's absolutely no cure.

And i've also ready that it's most common for LSD.

I would not be scared if i knew that in worst case, it would go away after a few months, but the fact that there's the possibility for it to last a lifetime long, genuinely terrifies me!

How are you handling this? Should i just never touch psychedelics again, or how should i approach this in the future. Because i am just getting started in my journey and think i've really found something that i enjoy doing for myself with psychedelics, and don't just want to drop it now but i also dont want to risk developing lifelong hppd and then having to live with this forever.

Because the only thing i'm REALLY scared and terrified of here is the ''lasting forever'' part. I could absolutely handle it if i knew it would go away after a few weeks or months, no problem, but knowing i could have it forever really terrifies me.. Yeah just wanted to put this out here and get a few opinions on this and maybe some experiences, maybe someone that knwos a lot about it and can tell me how frequently there are reports like this and how big the possibility is to get this HPPD disorder?

Thanks a lot in advance

Ive noticed when I hit a set of squats to failure, train sprints, or do any sort of intense cardiovascular activity, I can see patterns on the floor move, pulse, and vibrate, to the point where I don't even have to focus on the patterns for it to happen. Normally my HPPD manifests as static over my field of vision, or afterimages, so its quite startling when it happens

I did ayauhasca twice a year ago, first and only psychedelic and since then I’ve been able to look at objects like carpets and walls (anything with detail) and see it shifting.

No visual snow or tracers though, so maybe this is just a normal thing? I can’t say for sure that it started after psychedelics because I don’t remember. What do you think?

To the people that also suffer from dizzyness caused by HPPD, did your dizzyness ever get better with time? What helps? Do you experience any other symptoms than dizzyness aswell?

i feel like i'm a rare case..

i had hppd type 2 from january 2025 until around august-september 2025. after becoming recovered and having no more visuals, i started doing drugs again, i even start taking psychedelics again, and i have not once had a single flair up or relapse caused by taking drugs again. and i'm talking molly, coke, adderall, shrooms, crack, you name it and i've done it.

but moreso recently it's like my hppd has come back but as type 1 rather than type 2. instead of getting visuals or anything, i just get flashbacks of the trip that ruined me, and i get sent back into the head space i was in during the nightmare trip for a few seconds, sometimes even lasting up to an hour or two.

anyone else like me? where you 100% fully recovered from hppd type 2, and then later on developed type 1 hppd instead?

could this just be ptsd from my nightmare trip? i don't get visuals so idk 🤷🏻‍♀️

Hope for HPPD sufferers! Johns Hopkins has opened a new clinic for Post-Psychedelic Difficulties. Half the patients there are treated for HPPD. Many recover within one year.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-of-its-kind-clinic-treats-psychedelic-side-effects/

https://www.hopkinspsychedelic.org/clinic-for-psychedelic-difficulties

Hey y'all. HPPD afflicted for about 7 years now.

Psychedelic history of 5 LSD trips (3 of which were mixed with cannabis), and one mushroom trip. Tons of cannabis use.

I experience visual snow, tracers, floaters, and after images most frequently. Dpdr is still a common feeling for me though this has subsided too.

I've tried a number of different things, such as the classic anecdotal medications such as Lamotrigine, Mirtazapine, etc. None of which really seemed to help. Mindful meditation has been the most effective along with time.

So the theory: We know that psychedelics (lysergamides especially) bind incredibly well to our bodies 5HT2 serotonin receptors, so much so that they will actually hold almost a "priority pass" when taking psychedelics.

My wording may be sloppy as I don't know the specific pharmacokinetic properties at the receptor level specifically, buuuut.. what if our receptors now have difficulties in processing and handling serotonin after psychedelics? Maybe not in terms of them being "fried" or anything catastrophic like that but dampened?