RLS

I've only been around this forum for a week or so but I can already get the sense that only the negative aspects of HPPD is what everyone seems to dwell on. Besides HPPD being something that call tell you that there is something wrong and that you might want to do something about it it's also performing a critical function along with the anxiety that comes with it. I would assume that the brain would have mechanisms to protect itself or rather yourself beyond just what's known about the flight or fight response and that would include giving you every way possible to increase your reaction time. It's not uncommon for some people to feel as if time slows down during a traumatic event but in our case all day everyday time stays the same but we still see some of the visual side effects and probably then some. My point is that ever since I noticed my HPPD I've been more vigilant and aware of my surroundings and I know it has kept me from harm on many occasions. I'm actually looking forward to playing sports soon and seeing if it gives me the advantage I think it will. Maybe I'm the only weird one who's afraid his symptoms will go away if I have to give up cannabis for school. Maybe I won't need the tracers so much after awhile but I'd rather not have "boring" vision. With or without cannabis I'm sure there's still a chance that once the body feels that the threat is gone the HPPD and even for those people with DP/DR it will fade away.

Only very little. I believe that paranoia is only enhanced by cannabis so if you're a very paranoid person you won't get very paranoid. I like to believe that most people only become so paranoid because it's illegal unlike most other things that can kill you a lot faster. I may be human but there are some days where I wonder and how my body reacts to most external stimuli must be different than most people. My dad has accused me of being too laid back. As anxious as pot can make me feel about a few things it doesn't overrule my warm fuzzy feeling or my ability to socialize better when high similar to when I drink a Red Bull mixed with vodka minus the slurring and stumbling. I must point that I have no desire for my HPPD symptoms to fade but if they do after I start my new life I can always go back to smoking cannabis if needed.

Even MDMA was used to treat disorders like these but it's probably best it isn't recommended any longer. Sounds like the newer drugs are trying to contain the good effects of MDMA without as much of the negative.

I hope you've not decided or done the LSD over these past 9 days but if you are still wondering about your chances of acquiring HPPD then don't do it. Chances are much too great that you will come down with HPPD eventually if not right away. If you can be okay with seeing noticeable visuals from time to time then it might not be a completely terrible idea to try LSD to expand your mind but you cannot undo the trip or take anything back besides whatever insight you may be fortunate to find. I personally think it was worth it but my experience might be different than yours and I'm still dealing with mine although mostly positively.

Well, I had no issues reading it or understanding so you did a better job than you think or we just happen to think on the same wavelength. I too have found that after I'm done writing something typically it makes more sense when I reorder the sentences which is probably why my introduction topic wasn't so great. I've also had allowed my inbox to remain untouched for much too long at times and the only reason why I don't now is thanks to having a smartphone. Your experience with ADHD fascinates me for it sounds like we had similar work habits in school. I would almost always ace tests or assignments done in class but homework was something I had a hard time focusing on so I almost never did it unless I had time during school. My overall GPA was 2.49 but my senior year was 3.8 thanks to it being only 5 classes long and 3 of them being music classes. Procrastination would be the name of the symptom that I experience the most and I don't know why. I can become so worked up or anxious about doing something fast enough or getting it correct that I must take my focus off of it somehow so I can try to back to it with a clear mind. By the time I get done relaxing I may have forgotten that the assignment needs completing or try to rationalize putting it off until before school which hardly ever happened successfully. It's effecting me severely at this time because it's even worse when you have no deadlines or even a significant other to help motivate you to get things done in a timely manner. Maybe you don't feel it so much as procrastination but I'm sure one way or another it's common to our disorders. My plan of attack is to focus on getting a Bachelors degree and I'm thinking that my going in at the age of 34 is better than if I had entered when I was 18-21. Finally I'll have a main goal and then all of the little ones in between and if I allow life to happen to me while still staying focused maybe more will happen than just earning a degree. Sounds like you do come up against deadlines and goals but I guess they don't seem as important enough to the world than it does to you. It's as if we feel selfish for wanting even just a little bit out of life so we're more likely to give than to take. Take my advice and try to remember that we do deserve a place within this world and if you cannot seem to find if where you live there are other options and causes that would like at the very least only your effort and time.

Hash > Cannabis.

I guess I showed up too late.

Well, the store I work at usually plays some light music in the back of the store and even when I know that the stereo is off I'll still think I can hear it.

Maybe I'm lucky because I've never had a bad trip other than the 2 times doctors had given me laughing gas to knock me out. It certainly had triggered my deep thinking and issues with DP/DR and by the time I turned 12 I had contemplated suicide perhaps months after the 2nd experience but no one knows about that besides you all and a mom of a friend who I talked to back then who was very religious. I figured I just had to learn to deal with life because I didn't want to cause pain to my parents or any other people if I can help it. It's quite amazing that I was never put on meds of any kind other than perhaps the occasional antibiotic and I didn't get into drugs until the summer after I graduated high school in 1998. Other than the occasional floater I still didn't have any symptoms of HPPD back then even after tripping on LSD for the first time a couple months before my 19th birthday. My cannabis use stopped a few months later but only because I joined the Air Force. I only smoked cannabis one more time while still in training before being stationed in Korea where it is legal to drink at 20 years old. Cut to Jan 2001 a month after I was honorably discharged I was happy to get back to smoking cannabis. I feel more "normal" when I'm high then I ever do when sober unless of course I have some other reason to be happy. It was during the summer of that year I got to trip on acid at least over half a dozen more times, tweaked out a week at a time twice, rolled on ecstasy once or twice, and ate mushrooms once all with my old best friend. I ended up being more depressed by the end of each experience but I knew that was normal when crashing from any drug. Still though, other than for occasional floaters and visual snow along with what I believed to be normal afterimages from bright sources, my vision was otherwise clear and back to normal by the next morning. Between 2001 and 2011 I may have smoked a lot of cannabis but during that time I had only tired and failed to roll on ecstasy once, tweaked for a few days twice twice feeling sick as a dog each time, tried and failed with crack once, smoked salvia twice, smoked plenty of "primos", snorted my fair share of coke, and ate shrooms 2 or 3 more times being alone for one or two of those times. It's not until 2011 when I began to notice my HPPD symptoms and that didn't lead me here until just recently. In my case I didn't read about symptoms and then look for them but rather I've always had them and these topics reinforce what I've already experienced in my 34 years. I do seem to be an exception to the rule because I didn't feel as if I was suffering from anything other than a deep depression until I Googled why I might be seeing so many visuals with or without using cannabis. The visuals themselves seem to me to be more like having an advantage over normal people because what's wrong with determining trajectories faster? It is odd to notice the trailing when stepping through doorways or opening cabinets and the many other strange phenomena but if I have only learned one thing from my trip experience from the first time they gave me laughing gas is that perception isn't 100% reality. I keep trying to come up with the perfect proportion and while 4/5 sounds great it's probably closer to 1/3 if you at least include string theory. In other words just because you may feel pain or see the waves of the water on the road it's just your brain telling you that there is damage being done to your body or the mirage caused by light bouncing off the road at a right angle and creating the distortion wave pattern classically known as a mirage. Once again, am I the only one who see these mirages all of the time? At least I know what they are and know that I don't need to bother to slow for them unless it happens to be raining that day. Even tough I'm aware I may have done damage to my brain I have a positive outlook on its effects and only time will tell if we somehow had caused early onset Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease or something to that effect. Maybe it'll be the opposite with us and doctors find that we ended up becoming less likely to have a degenerative brain dysfunction but having to live with a perhaps slightly overactive brain. I'm always looking for the good within the bad and I feel like I have a slight advantage doing so with prior knowledge that seem to come to me in my dreams. I don't know maybe that's where I'm wrong and perhaps I have the worst case of DP/DR ever but I at least try to base everything I do and believe on what I do, what I read, or what I see instead of what others do and what they tell me to read or see. I'm pretty sure I may one day spend a long time in a hospital and I will be on many drugs but I'll at least always be aware and able to think whenever I'm awake. It's supposed to be perfectly normal to see floaters and if paid attention in biology class you should have learned how the brain is not only able to filter out the little things like floaters but also flip the image. Babies view of the world is supposed to be upside down right after birth and even medical subjects who wore special glasses strapped to their heaps that flipped the view of the world would slowly regain an upright image over time. There's even a blind spot in everyone's eyes where the optic nerve connects and it's only noticeable most of the time during a trip to an eye doctor where they shine tiny dots at your eyes. I'm always curious what else could the brain be filtering out and if having HPPD gives me the chance to see the inner workings of our visual system even better I'm happy. I long for the day when we can wear special glasses and not only see in ultraviolet but perhaps any spectrum. By the way until I go back to school I'll probably continue to smoke cannabis because at the very least it is the only medication I feel I need.

Interestingly enough is how one drug that can induce HPPD can also be used to treat PTSD and HPPD if done correctly despite what I believe that one military study said. That drug is MDMA or otherwise known as ecstasy or xtc typically. I would rather try hypnosis by itself before trying it with ecstasy. I'm not telling anyone to go out and get some pills but if you happen to live in a country where a doctor can still prescribe it and perform the treatment then by all means. It still bugs me that I was given nitrous-oxide as a child for that started my journey into the deep unknown but maybe I'm the only one who seems to trip on laughing gas. If I wasn't hyperaware at that time I certainly was by the time I got to high school long after my 2nd encounter with laughing gas. Nitrous-oxide may not be the cause of my HPPD but it certainly has to have something to do with DP/DR.

I'm actually more concerned with your seroquel use then I would ever be about cocaine. It took my ex-fiance a few years to get off that stuff because it made her feel like a zombie but it's very addictive and hard to get off. The only reason I would rather not do cocaine again would be because of the damage done to the heart. Not because it would do anything to your brain other give yourself an aneurysm if possible.

Yes, I can relate but what we are experiencing are not hallucinations by definition. We may be confusing what we are seeing but the difference is that at least the object itself is real even if we get what it is wrong at first.I get a kick out of eating the candy Bottlecaps because even though it's supposed to have only 5 flavors I taste twice as many including marshmallows and the taste of the Fun Dip stick. Noises in general are hard to figure where they come from as it is when they're likely to bounce off walls anyhow but I do hear times when I think either someone is saying my name or someone says something and I thought it had sound like they had said something else. It may seem like I have a hard time hearing someone when it's usually because I have to process what they said a few times to make sure I got it right and I still wind up saying "what?" right before saying "oh, right". I routinely think I see a person standing in my peripheral vision only to find that it was only a store display or just a shadow. The good thing is I'm always able to still see and figure out what it was instead of believing I just saw a ghost again. I'm not sure how any of this could be ruining your life unless you have a job where your sense of taste and smell are very important, you work in healthcare, or in any dangerous profession where it's important to know what people are saying each and every time. It's certainly discerning when you eat a sandwich and it doesn't taste the same or there is no taste at all but as long as you still have an appetite be happy. That's the main reason I self medicate with cannabis for otherwise I have no appetite AND a strange sense of smell/taste. When high I have a great appetite and an enhanced strange sense of smell/taste but I find it amusing considering that I don't change my diet much. Maybe I've always had a supersniffer and there are many things that share a trait within their odors that should remind you of food but the worst thing that happens is it makes you hungry.

Yes, I routinely realize when I am dreaming and yes, it's clear as day. The only issue is that the fear of waking up can cause me to awaken. I sleep in way too much because I love dreaming.

Sorry, I never got to the more physical problems that aren't so easy to ignore. I got this notion from the people at the DP selfhelp site that DP/DR was more physical while HPPD is solely visual. I got the feeling that they were trying to talk me out of thinking that I belong. Somehow though I can identify with every story about HPPD and even DP/DR so it's safe to assume while I'm new to describing what I've been going through I am not new to any of the symptoms.

Star bursting or any sensitivity to light is likely with a migraine.

I've been in the same boat as you for over 20 years and I can tell you that it does get better. If you're still young like I was now would be time to build your character. Sounds stupid and maybe a little too obvious but if social situations are tough the answer may be to learn jokes or whatever stuff is worth saying around the people you socialize with. I used to be the exact same way and hesitate way too long and by the time I came to say what I wanted it was too late. Thinking fast is hard if you have to focus on exactly what you are trying to say but if you practice someway somehow and learn to relax then it'll get easier. I used to be anxious about being in public but my solution was to build confidence in myself that if something were to happen I should be able to respond correctly. I got myself a black belt in Tae kwon do while I was stationed in Korea in 2000 and the speed in which I achieved my belt versus anyone else proved to me that my hand-eye coordination, muscle memory, and (insert term here for visual mimicry if found) is enough for me to pull off some really cool stuff that so far has never been needed. There must be some sort of hobby that you can use to not only kill time and distract yourself from the symptoms but also help you figure out your place in this world. Good luck and please try to remember not to think about it too hard! All I have to do is think about tinnitus and then BAM!

Personally none of those options seem like a viable solution. Deciding whether or not to smoke pot should involve why you smoke it in the first place. I think it's fine if you only smoke for recreational purposes but if you smoke it all day everyday like me to escape from a bad reality that's a much bigger problem. The solution is to fix your routine where you should hopefully be happier and perhaps too busy to smoke pot whenever the occasion arose. I cannot seem to get by with just minor changes to my routine which is why I decided to completely uproot myself and go to school to help me really change my routine. Maybe you could get by with just either a better job or a girlfriend if your HPPD doesn't get in the way. Whether or not your HPPD will go away after you stop is hard to say for certain but if you do change your routine enough the HPPD should hardly be noticeable or at least no longer being the most important thing on your mind.

I'm usually either playing Civilization V or Battlefield but it does more harm than good when I spend way too much time zoned out on the game. I suck at doing things in moderation.

Although this really really bugs me. It's a good thing I have a good head on my shoulders for if I was having a hard time figuring if I was crazy I'm sure this could have been the nail in the coffin. If it's really this hard for me to get my point across then maybe I'm more autistic than I thought! I proof read the best I can but I suppose I could have left out some words. I'm sure I really did not describe each and every one of my symptoms for I knew that what I write gets very long usually and I pretty much just stopped where I did. I did have to stop to finally watch The Daily Show after all! I could only wish I just had a little anxiety but I'm good at avoiding certain situations! I pepper each of my responses to other people's topics with more tidbits about myself so maybe you'll understand me someday.

Great, thanks for welcoming me. Not as bad at this time at least. http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/47197-stepping-through-the-looking-glass/

Come again? O_o It's a lot to take in so please don't just breeze through it.

Motion blur with something fast = normal for most people Motion blur with something at normal or slow speed = HPPD Try opening the cabinet slower and see if you still see any trailing. Motion blur is normal or otherwise fans and moving wheels wouldn't appear like they should to most people. And just like I do with ceiling fans while it is possible to focus on one blade to remove some or most of the blur good luck maintaining it!

Here I was thinking the times I thought I heard my name being spoken by a familiar voice not around was more connected to a phenomena that a lot of people experience. Almost like ghosts of people who aren't dead yet but I always had a feeling it was just in my head. But yeah, any kind of hyper vigilance or hyper awareness can cause anyone to think they hear something after the fact. You'll always be unsure though that you did hear something while a true sufferer of schizophrenia will be more certain that they did and are likely to have a full conversation with what they think is real. I on the other hand just talk to myself as if I'm practicing or just letting the spirits of the world or God know what is on my mind if it happens to help at all. I wouldn't completely ignore your senses though like I did once and find yourself in a bad situation wearing only your boxers. Be cautious and mindful by securing your house or wherever you live the best you can and just learn that you can only do so much but if you need to still get up from bed and double check the locks or find more to make you feel safe there is no problem with that as long as you learn to get outside once in awhile. I like to think that my black belt in tae kwon do and my usually rather quick thinking is enough to keep me confidant and unlikely to feel anxious in public. I just need to get skinnier again. Good luck but it looks like you already have a pretty good handle on the situation!

Dang it somebody just had to mention tinnitus because then my ears just had start ringing, lol! Okay, I'm actually quite sure while it's possible to experience a brief case of HPPD and or DP/DR from smoking normal weed it takes something more like LSD, mushrooms, or MDMA to cause a permenant case. Now if you had tried hash that would be a slightly bigger issue but unless you bath yourself in the oil like the priests did waaaay back in the day you still won't see any real visuals. Try some salvia and then you'd have a reason to be concerned. In your case your symptoms will fade with time while in my case I know I'll always be a little screwed up but I can accept it.

My thought would be to lower the lighting of the room and perhaps even the lighting of the display. It helps that my PC monitor sits against a blank white wall but if I'm at work its black and white tiled floor makes it hard for me look at my phone for longer than it takes to read a paragraph or perhaps write a sentence. I guess I've always learned learned to deal with it like when I tried reading in the back of my parent's car on our first trip when we lived in England and it made me want to throw up after a bad headache. The Gameboy however had never been an issue when I finally got one of those and back then it was the original that had the dot matrix screen but even the Sega Gamegear was fine on the road with enough breaks. I guess a lighted screen held in your hand seems to bounce around along with you better than text on a page. As for your doctor I wouldn't talk to him about HPPD but rather find one that may have more knowledge of it. What you have is nowhere near as bad as psychosis which is a real bad disconnection with reality and actually believing something false. Whereas we just notice the little stuff, dwell on it and we are still aware of our actions and what is supposed to be real but it may not appear to be real to the eye or senses. The trick is to ignore it or find some other mental exercises if you can't find something else to distract your attention long enough to finally find yourself asleep or more aware before you realize it. Just thinking about it is like a constant feedback loop that is more likely to keep itself going unless you figure out that you have the keys and can turn it off when it's not needed. Well, the fuzzy light won't go away as easily but it too can be ignored enough to enjoy a 3D movie like when I just saw The Edge of Tomorrow. I'm sure I have more ideas but I'm just a new guy here and I'm positive there's some better advice on the way.