Heyguys

I had many symptoms of HPPD about 5 years ago after taking MDMA/Magic mushrooms. Spent many many hours reading this forum and it led to quite a bit of depression/anxiety. Long story short... I don't even think of HPPD anymore as it doesn't exist in my life. I only come in this forum when I get tempted to try another drug (really want to try coke/ket) and the sadness on here drives home that it's not worth it. Some people are just not meant to have fun with drugs (me!). My advice to anyone new here... GET OFF THIS FORUM. Do what you need to do to understand what hppd is and then try and forget about it. The anxiety you get from reading on this (and other) websites makes it WORSE. Seriously, focus on you life, mental wellbeing etc. but DON'T OBSESS about HPPD. I remember being what I would consider 'almost HPPD free' and I would come back on this website and instantly all the text would start waving around again and my peripheral vision would start seeing random shapes etc. My hppd was directly related to how much I focused about my hppd... Many years in and i'm HPPD free and have been for ages. Believe that you will be too and all will be alright. To those veterans that have had HPPD for year I have no advice, sorry. I just hope that you guys can help any of the new members by sharing a similar message as above. Don't obsess over HPPD and HPPD won't obsess over you.

Are you sleeping regular patterns mate? I find that less than 6 hours and more than 10 hours makes my VS/flickering worse. I know it's hard but try to find something new to focus on. Every minute you're not focusing on your VS they better it will get. Need to train your brain! Do you have the freedom to go travelling? Start a new hobby in the evenings? Learn an instrument? Do you go to the gym?

My visual symptoms get worse for a couple of days after then reverts back to baseline. I also get head pressure when drinking but not to an intolerable level. I'll also get a head ache the next days, even if I only have a couple of shandy's. A few hours after drinking (and a bloody good dance) my vision is much better, headlights are how I used to remember them! Starburst free and not 'burn your retina' bright. One can dream! Then I sleep and it's back again in the morning! I'm with you on the ghosting/after images though! Two pints + club with a good light show and it's like I've entered a psychedelic world! I see double of everyone and 10 x as much multicoloured light as everyone else! I don't need any more drink for the rest of the night! (Cheap-entertaining-non liver killing night out anyone!?) I also find that when clubbing I'm more active and have more energy than even my mates who are on MD/speed! Maybe my body associates the music with some kind of unprompted dopamine release! I'm also with you on driving + headlights. Damn pain. I also look down at my speedo and I'll see it on the road when I look back up again! You ever get any weird heart palpitations? Feels like it's a bit harder to breath for about 30 seconds? I've only had this twice but it's quite scary and not sure if it's HPPD related. I'm interested on hearing back how the weed goes. People say about hindering progress etc... I do wonder if we will ever progress pass baseline? Or do people that "got better" just unconsciously accept their new reality? I wonder if anyone that 'had' HPPD can honestly say that they no longer get static in the dark any more. Hmmm Dylan, are you suggesting that if you're going to drink alcohol, do it properly...!!?!

Blimey you're a cheery one ain't ya! Hope is powerful mate. When you noticed you first had it 24 years ago... did you stop taking more drugs? Do you still consume now? Your reply is interesting; a mash up of spiritualism and science. Don't feel like you have to simplify your text though. We can follow... there's always Google if we get lost ;-)

Does it revert back to normal after a certain amount of time?

OMG everyone on here should watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_490724&feature=iv&src_vid=FkUwogWzSwk&v=L_W-IXqoxHA Interesting effect at the end too! Anyone else have a blank circle in the middle where they don't see the blood vessels? His third video. Again very interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LmCbRPdd0Q

Wow thank you! Just watched this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkUwogWzSwk

How are you doing now mate? I've gotten a little but worse but that's because of alcohol. No more for me! Yea the buzz and jolt down your body is exactly what I felt... while I was asleep. Weirdest thing ever I think! My head flew up from the pillow too as I woke up! I thought I'd been abducted my an alien or something! I'm confident without alcohol we will recover... in time I really 'hope' you're doing better. (Don't let it fade! ) What country are you from, I'd be interested to chat/skype? I've not told my parents; don't think I will. They are going through enough (divorce) as it is. Best not tell them their son is a failed druggy too! Hehe. I'm real glad your parents are very supportive of you though, I can only imagine the weight lifted upon sharing it with them. Kind regards,

I saw this picture on a medical page on facebook. I'd only ever seen this before once a week after first getting hppd but not seen it since. So I looked out my window at the sky just to see when looking at the blue sky. Saw nothing, just the same old sky. Then I saw this little triangle whizzing around. Was really shiny like a crystal, darting across the sky. Then more appeared and I could see like 20/30 of this little shiny triangle darting in their own direction! Looked a lot like a game on my phone called "Eufloria". They weren't falling like VS. They wern't moving away from my area of focus like a off centre floater does. They were all flying around in their own direction. I was beautiful for the 10 seconds I noticed it. Then I looked away in fear I might never stop noticing it now! I haven't seen it again (phew), but I'm grateful I did get to see it. Very pretty, a different depth to HPPD. I do wonder if other have seen these shiny crystals whizzing around. Makes a change from black floaters and this one "ripple" looking this I see sometimes! Update: My HPPD has been getting slightly worse but it's my fault. The alcohol is the issue. After this NYE I'm completely T total. The main thing that's worse recently is trails. I move my lit phone in front my my eyes and I get the usual trail (Everyone gets a slight trail) but then a second one lagging behind. There's a noticeable "lag". Bizarre. Peace.

Copied a thread I started. I'm trying to keep my stuff together in this thread though. I've been trying real hard to not drink alcohol but with friends birthdays and Xmas and that it's hard! Had a few mulled wines (festive!) Sat night and then went clubbing in London. I had a great night! The combination of the low amount of alcohol, the loud music, atmosphere and all the lights meant my vision went pretty crazy. I'd be talking (shouting) to a mate and then look away and I'd still see his face clear as day for a second! Weird! Very shroomy and I actually enjoyed it as I felt a lot more 'gone with the fairies' than usual My mates were on MD and I swear I had a better night than them! I certainly danced/raved harder! Everyone was asking what I was on! By 2/3am the alchohol had worn of and I was going strong till 6am. "Sober!" I replied to their disbelief! During alcohol: + No visual snow, flashing etc + Headlights are less bright + Blacks actually look black (walk home at 6am, so I was sober I guess) - 10x noticeable increase in afterimages in the club After alcohol - All symptoms worse for a day or two. I may notice an extra floater etc. - Particularly 'background flashing' (Persons face is clear but I can see the background flickering slightly?) - Headache next day (normal really) I have cut my alcohol consumption down massively and have drunk only 3/4 times since HPPD onset, all just enough to get tipsy. Doesn't take much though any more!

Do you know why each drug makes HPPD worse? And what have you experienced? I've been trying real hard to not drink alcohol but with friends birthdays and Xmas and that it's hard! Had a few mulled wines (festive!) Sat night and then went clubbing in London. I had a great night! The combination of the low amount of alcohol, the loud music, atmosphere and all the lights meant my vision went pretty crazy. I'd be talking (shouting) to a mate and then look away and I'd still see his face clear as day for a second! Weird! Very shroomy and I actually enjoyed it as I felt a lot more 'gone with the fairies' than usual My mates were on MD and I swear I had a better night than them! I certainly danced/raved harder! Everyone was asking what I was on! By 2/3am the alchohol had worn of and I was going strong till 6am. "Sober!" I replied to their disbelief! During alcohol: + No visual snow, flashing etc + Headlights are less bright + Blacks actually look black (walk home at 6am, so I was sober I guess) - 10x noticeable increase in afterimages in the club After alcohol - All symptoms worse for a day or two. I may notice an extra floater etc. - Particularly 'background flashing' (Persons face is clear but I can see the background flickering slightly?) - Headache next day (normal really) I have cut my alcohol consumption down massively and have drunk only 3/4 times since HPPD onset, all just enough to get tipsy. Doesn't take much though any more! I'm interested to hear how other drugs have affected your HPPD?

Ah. This sucks. Well just a case of being healthy and hoping they moisten back up!

So I got drunk a few nights back and my visuals have got worse. Yay. Mainly random flashes of light, like shooting stars that catch my attention. And lots of black wormy things at night. My full colour after images are starting to suck too. I also have about 3 black floaters (little dots) and another floater that's weird. It's like a mini see through ripple. Like a little bit of gel or something. Can't describe it but it floats like a floater but it's not black. Also last few days I've been finding it harder to read on the computer. My eyes just don't want to focus. I can make teh vision sharp again if I try but my brain won't do this automatically any more! My oh my what have I done to myself! Haha. Booked into the opticians anyway to see what they say and would also like a good examine of my eyes, see if they see anything wrong... Meh,

Anyone else's contact lenses dry up quicker than before!? Or just me?

^Same. I can drive fine, but at night headlights are a lot brighter. Burn my eyes bright. I'm constantly questioning whether the car that just passed me had their high beam on!

Good read. I like you're writing style. Very fluent and controlled. Wish I had the same skill Nice to read you're keeping positive. I think we both came about trying drugs in a very similar way. We've both grown up in the "drugs are bad for you" culture and conformed for years. Then a little science knowledge comes into play (Chemistry BSc) and before you know it you're researching into these mind altering compounds all the 'bad kids' raved about! I spent months reading about them on Bluelight. I came to the conclusion that my parents, the schools and the Government were wrong for preaching that all drugs were bad. Drugs only had such a negative light because the uneducated users weren't responsible enough to use safely. I decided that Magic Mushrooms were a natural gift, a forbidden fruit kept hidden! How dare they make a naturally growing fungus that grows not 5 minutes from my house illegal to consume! Well now we're here on hppdonline lol! You have to laugh a little bit, eh? My thread: http://hppdonline.com/index.php?/topic/2286-the-head-pressure-and-my-hppd/ All the best mate, feel free to PM if you want to chat. You mention nerve/brain zaps. I had a pretty crazy experience of one a couple of days after trying MDMA. A shiver from head to toe in the middle of the night, right down my spine. Possible the most unnatural feeling I've ever experienced. You?

Thanks for your kind words mate, they helped a lot. So time for an update I think! I'm 3 months in now, or thereabouts! So end of September my head pressure went away and it was replaced with a head ache. This was so much better! (Didn't think I'd ever welcome a familiar headache!) Paracetamol became my best friend. Peace at last! A week later and I was off on holiday with the family to Florida. By day two, the headache was gone completely. Whether this was because I was so active I'm not sure. What I do think helped a tonne, was the sunshine! The heat! It was a savior! I spent the whole holiday very positive knowing that if the headache came back when I returned to the UK, I had a cure. I just had to uplift my entire life and move to the Sunshine state! Perfect. The headache never returned. I get a slight head pressure the day after a night clubbing but I think that's more to do with my neck. I feel that banging my head around to the music all night does my neck in and that's given me the weird head sensation. The visual symptoms are getting better daily bar a few. I've not seen the black sperm since or any visual snow. 99% of my day is hppd free. I still see some colour after images, headlights are still brighter at night and my retina is still determined to hang on to bright information for longer than most people. I do feel these affect me less however. Whether this is because they are actually getting less pronounced or because I spend less time analysing them after each encounter. Due to them being less 'significant' I find my mind is starting to ignore them and my anxiety is staying low Turning the light off for bed used to freak me out because while it was pitch black, everything was still very white! It felt like I was blind. Freaky. It was instantly noticable and I became very hostile to it. A couple of months ignoring it and it doesn't bother me any more. It may still be apparent, but not thinking about it as such a 'bad thing' has made it less of a 'big thing'. Tips I've learnt: - New here? Don't panic, it will only make things worse. Relax and be positive The reason there isn't many success stories here and the forum is pretty quiet, is because those who get better want to put hppd in the past not post here constantly. There lots of helpful guys that do still post though... a friendly bunch it seems - Get off this website. I've limited myself to reading on here like once a fortnight. Instantly when I study hppd my visual field starts messing up. In the white spaces between sentences I see temporary after image lines that aren't there. If I told that to anyone else other than you guys I'd probably get a snigger. Reading about HPPD really won't do you much good. At first it's useful to ease some anxiety and feed the need for hope, but once you have read all that needs to be read, stop focusing on it and live your life. (p.s. why isn't this website's text and background colour more 'hppd' friendly? Black on bright white is just asking for a headache!) - Worrying about HPPD will worsen it. I read a guy put on here "Alcohol never used to effect my hppd until I read on this forum that it worsens most peoples... now it makes my hppd worse too."... I think this happens to a lot of people on here which I why I'm conscious about reading threads about peoples symptoms in case I subconsciously make more for myself! I've been drunk drunk twice since and it's not worsened mine. I felt amazing and happy. So happy and carefree that I'm on the phone to my mate telling him how much I was to try all these other amazing drugs one day. Needless to say, I slapped myself the following morning multiple times with various household products for having such immature thoughts. - Take some supplements. I only took an A-Z vitamin, magnesium and fish oil tab a day. If anything else, the placebo effect really helped me out. I've not taken these for a week and I feel fine. - You're not as alone as you think. I found out today my girlfriends auntie sees 'white fuzz and black wiggly things' sometimes. Most people don't know what they have and have just dealt with it. For some people not knowing, works out better. - Tinnitus; don't focus on it. I 'think' I developed tinnitus. I've put it in brackets because I think I've only got it because I expected to get it. And i'm not even certain I didn't have it before. Either way it's only noticeable if I lay a certain way on my pillow and even then it only bothers me for a minute or two while I change position. I'm making a conscious effort to divert my thoughts away from it immediately. Not going to let my brain focus on it. - I've found caffeine is OK in moderation. Not knocking back the espressos on the daily but a latte or can of coke here and there doesn't effect me. - Drink lots of water - Change your underwear every day. - Start a new hobby? Gym? - Get some sunshine. If there's none, then maybe a sun bed once a week might have a similar effect. - Don't do drugs, they are bad for you. (Yeah, like we need telling!) ;-)

Hi guys, So I have mild HPPD, had it 3 weeks now (I'm aware of the 6 month rule! But I deffo have it...) I'm mid twenties and live in the UK. After 6 months of reading up on drugs, those that are dangerous and addictive. Those that cause the least harm etc. I learnt so much, and watched so many documentaries! I decided the government were trying to hide these hidden fruits from us and that I should investigate to see what they are all about! Drugs aren't all bad... I thought. Took a small dose of mushrooms (most fun I'd had in years!) and after noticed I could move text on a computer screen at will. Thought nothing of it. (Shame really!) Second dose of mushrooms and it didn't get any worse (Again a very jolly and positive trip). Large 300mg MDMA dose 2 weeks later (my third drug encounter, damn this drug made me so happy, I just loved everyone and life itself for those 4 hours, will never forget it) and then 300mg of unknown a few hours after (Think BZP/mCPP (Whoops...! These should never be mixed but I thought it was more MDMA and I just got caught up in it all *cries a little* This is a massive regret that I'm finding hard to deal with! I'm normally such a cautious person, to find myself buying drugs in a club from a random whilst thinking I can get that MDMA high back is just painful) ...and a couple of days later I got this head pressure. It's not gone since! - Moves around my head - Gets better after exercise (Increased blood flow) - Goes away to a point I can almost ignore it if I try and forget about it (anxiety related) - Accompanied by a numb feeling scalp! - Reduces by a lot in the evening HPPD: -VS at night (turning bedroom light off, night vision is much worse than before) barely visible during the day, seen it perhaps twice -Have after images a few times but very rare. (seen clearly twice) -Headlights are brighter -Have to concentrate reading text on phone, I find myself moving the text up and down to stop the static text making myself trip out! I can't read erowid at all because the text/background colour combo destroys me! -Legs feel light sometimes when walking -Seen the black sperms once but tbh I don't go looking for them! I try and ignore all my visual hppd and it's getting better! -Drop in Libido All the above are more noticeable when I'm tired! Especially the drop in libido! ;-) Not got: -No de personalisation, never done any drugs that do this so I don't really know what it would feel like -Depression is minimal but this headache is getting me down, that's for sure. The thought of never being able to do drugs again (I'd only just discovered shrooms and mdma!) is also a bit upsetting but probably a blessing in a very good disguise. -No visual trails -No tinitus (Please, please, please don't let me get this now!) I'm not sure if this head pressure is due to the painfully poor combo of drugs or the HPPD or both. What I do know is that if it went I'd be a hell of a lot happier and could certainly move on from thinking about my HPPD. Not read many success stories though of shifting their head pressure so I'm kind of letting that sink in at the moment! I eat healthily, exercise. taking magnesium tablets (just one a day) and cod liver oil (1000mg a day) and multivitamins. I'd love to hear from someone that has had this head pressure I describe and managed to beat it? I spoke to my GP about it (UK) and he said "well we all get headaches...!" "Come back in a few months if you still have it!" Anyway, so much negativity! I'm generally a happy guy, love my gf, have a good job and a loving family. I understand how serious some of you guys have HPPD and reading about it has put me off drugs for life. It's clearly not the path I'm destined for and I wish you all well and hope you make a good recovery. My gf has also since said to me she thinks headlights are brighter to her since the MDMA night so I think she may be susceptible too, so I'm not going to let her try shrooms to risk it!! She also said her depth perception is wack since... not something I have noticed but I have read some others have? Drugs are out of our life for sure. So is alcohol. I had a few sips of wine and my visuals were worse the next morning so no more for me! I'm going to turn into a right boring person! This sucks seeing as I just made 25L of strawberry wine and have a few gallons of larger to brew! Aren't my friends lucky when they get all this alcohol handed to them! I have read a lot about hppd in the last few weeks and the main bit of advice I read time and again is... don't think about it! So I'm not going to check the forum too often but will be back to (hopefully) reply to some of your comments Now... to shift this head pressure... maybe if I just go for one more run...! Take care,