TryingToHelp

This is very interesting, thank you. Would you say that this past familiarity has helped you overcome the symptoms in any way?

I read a lot of your threads and all of it is speculation. The white matter in the brain idea, so you gathered mris off sufferers then analysed them yourself for example. How did you know how to do that? people study for years to become radiologists. The hypertherima idea in the brain, why would it not give hppd to people who went for a run or had a high fever for example? I think that @Jay1s view on the brains filter being moved somehow is on the right lines. I cannot come on here and say for definite that it is the case for all hppd sufferers, but I do think that a subconscious psychological reason could accout for the 'filter shift' in a reasonable number of sufferers, particularly those prone to severe health anxiety. @dasitmane, I'm not attacking you, this is a debate between two amateur scientists with contrasting views. The questions over physiological explanations I have are: -some drugs completely remove symptoms in some patients but have no effect on others, why? I note that lamotrigine and clonazepam, the two main drugs thought to help have common usages in controlling depression and anxiety, so maybe it is their effect on those conditions that help rather than on visual neurology? - why do symptoms delay in occurring from the time of the drug use? I gather there are people who get it months or even years after the drug use, when the drugs are completely flushed from their bodies. If the cause in these people was neurological, this implies some kind of spontaneous change in brain physiology, that doesn't add up. A phychological cause is more credible in these cases. Surely if you think it is definitely not correct in your case, you must be able to see the logic behind my theory being true for at least some hppd sufferers?

Maybe because I remember seeing all the symptoms before doing the drugs, that has reassured me that they are nothing to worry about. Ie when I see them now, it's like for a split second and my brain easily diverts from them. If I hadn't the childhood memories, my brain might latch onto them more and associated them subconsciously with the drugs. The interesting thing would be to see if a hppd sufferer has any memory of the visual noise from before they ever took the drugs, what do you think?

Yes, seems I might be coming across ok finally. Ok I half agree with you. My question is whether the filter is at a subconscious psychological level rather than neurological? We all have had the thing I'm sure when u dont notice an annoying noise until someone points it out, eg air conditioning, then u cant help but hear it. What if the mechanism for hppd is similar, but the drugs act as the person pointing the thing out to you, the thing being visual noise as opposed to aural noise?

So essentially some kind of brain damage you think. The evidence as I read it doesn't add up to this. Why would some drug treatments rid some users of all symptoms but not have any effect on others?

Thanks will read. Please, I am not trying to attack anyone.

So what do you think is the explanation for it then?

In my experience, mdma has the effect of stimulating the body / mind out of the effects of alcohol, rather than the other way around. People, esp in Britain have been mixing 5 or 6 pints of beer with a few mdma pills on a Friday night for 30 years or more with little negative effects. 2nd poster is right though. Wrong forum

Ok, first some background on me... I have taken a reasonable amount of hppd associated drugs in the past. I last took mushrooms 15 years ago, MDMA 6 years ago. I am very interested in hppd for a few reasons... 1. I have a friend who has suffered from it for years and thankfully failed in committing suicide as a result. 2. I feel lucky that I am not affected by this condition in any way at all dispite my past drug use. I do however feel that this past drug use and the intense visual experiences I encountered whilst under the influence has made me more appreciative of the subtleties of my normal sober visual perception. I can see all the classic symptoms of hppd in my vision if I explicitly look for them. I do however have a very good memory of my childhood and can remember distinct and numerous occasions where I saw visual snow, halos and after images.....these were of course many years before any kind of drug taking. I've always had a shit load of floaters since a very early age, as a child I can remember playing some kind of weird hockey like game with them when drifting off to sleep. When swimming as a kid I would always see rainbow like halos around the white lights illuminating the pool, at the time I put it down to the effect of the chlorine on my eyes. I remember commenting on blue and red visual snow to my parents when aged about 7 when I was walking home in the dark one night. I can remember getting crazy after images from freeway lights a few times in my parents' car during long night time journeys home from summr vacations. As a teenager I used to quite often visualise gemoeric patterns and all kinds of wierdness In the dark as a precursor to falling asleep. I therefore have no reason to believe that the 'things' I can see if i go looking for them right now result from any kind of drug related brain damage. Possibly, from the past drug use they are maybe easier to find.......as the drugs have helped me learn how to find them.....does that make sense? 3. I am a scientist by education and for some reason am extremely curious about hppd and want to try to understand how it occurs and help people recover from (or come to terms with) it's sometimes devastating effects. So, my theory is this.... -hppd symptoms do not indicate brain damage, but are aesthetically normal and have always been present in the affected individuals' vision since childhood. -the use of drugs has brought these normal visual phenomena to a higher prominence in the sufferers' visual consciousness than before the drugs were taken. - this might have occurred due to possibly: Health anxiety over the perceived visual symptoms and guilt over the drug use Or A subconscious psychological process over which the sufferer has no conscious controll that has been triggered by the drug use. In short my theory is that: THE BRAIN OF A HPPD SUFFERER IS PAYING UNDUE ATTENTION TO UNDERLYING NORMAL VISUAL PHENOMENAE. THIS MAY NOT BE SOMETHING THAT THE SUFFERER HAS ANY CONSCIOUS CONTROL OVER....(it is not their fault). Any thoughts on this idea? DISCLAIMER... I previously posted a version of this idea as MattyHouseMouse a week or so ago, that post and subsequential follow ups were put across in terms that were in hindsight disrespectful to hppd sufferers and I apologise. Please can you all read THIS post on it's own merits and not in the context of my previous misguided attempts to convey my ideas. Thanks