Wesley

I'm in the eastern u.s. time zone

I'm in the eastern US time zone.

Hi Akshay, Thanks for your response. I saw an interesting video on YouTube "DMT The Spirit Molecule" where it talks about DMT (dimethyltryptamine) which is a naturally occurring hallucinogen theorized to be released by the pineal gland under certain circumstances. Maybe this is how the yogis experience ego deaths? Also, have you ever read any near death experience accounts? Many of these people report death experiences where they met spirits who sent them back to life, telling them that they haven't finished their life's work yet. I remember wondering, when I was about seven years into my HPPD experience, whether I had agreed to go through this experience before I was born. Since that time I began to think of my HPPD experience as a continuation my LSD experiences where I experienced continued loss of ego. Since, HPPD weakened me, I was unable to lead a life that was impressive to other people and this was deflating to my ego. Speaking of yogis, did you ever hear of Paramahansa Yogananda? He was an Indian yogi who moved the America and popularized yoga here. He was born in the late 19th century and died in 1952. Yogananda spoke about learning to have control over the mind. I think this is how I gained control over my HPPD symptoms. I'm currently reading the book "Your Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. where he talks about the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder. He says that the flashbacks that people with PTSD experience are caused by traumatic memories. Also, I think that HPPD is a type of PTSD. Van Der Kolk says that the cure for PTSD involves integrating emotional memories of traumatic experience with the rational part of the mind. He says that traumatic emotional memories are stored in an area of the brain that responds much faster (the amygdala) than the rational part of the brain (the medial prefrontal cortex). So when we experience a traumatic memory (i.e. a flashback) it registers in our consciousness faster than our rational mind can respond. The result is that we tend to have a panic response. I think that a yogi would have insight into this phenomena.

I'm trying to write this with a cat and a dog fighting next to me and I it submit before I meant to... Anyway you can probably see what I am saying that hallucinogens have been used for spiritual enlightenment for thousands of years and that maybe there is something to this.

I have previously written about my experiences with HPPD and I think that I presented my experiences accurately. However, there is an aspect of my recovery that I did not include previously. What follows is a description of an amazing experience that I had just as my flashbacks ended. From the point in 1973 when I experienced my first flashback, my personal experience was radically altered. I experienced extreme anxiety, agoraphobia, and panic attacks. In addition, I experienced many visual changes which included enhanced perception of color intensity, an altered sense of awareness (depersonalization), trails behind moving objects and visual snow. Also, I was afraid of hallucinogens, so afraid that I couldn't tell other people about my fear. I knew that I had to avoid these drugs at all costs. My first flashback occurred about 6 months after a trip where I took too much LSD. Immediately prior and almost simultaneously with my first flashback, I noticed visual snow, felt depersonalization, and then the flashback began with ensuing panic. These experiences would recur for 27 years. Then in the year 2000, something extraordinary happened. One night, I got up to go the bathroom and while sitting on the toilet, half asleep, I noticed a light hovering in front of me. As I focused on the light, I could see that it was incredibly detailed. It consisted of bands of light travelling in a figure eight pattern. It was changing ts shape in a way that gave the impression that it was intelligent and alive. After a few minutes, it faded away. I thought of it as a manifestation of God, but I think that it could be seen as the same higher power that many other cultures describe. It seemed to convey a message that everything was alright now. From that point on, I had no more flashbacks and I had no fear of having another. Over the next three to five years, I would occasionally have similar hallucinations. They all happened upon waking and me feel comforted and seemed to be loving beings. There were several types of them. One type was shaped like a snowflake. They were colorful and morphed in shape. Another was made entirely of light and looked like angels. Yet another, was a sphere that was made up of objects floating on its fluid surface. These objects would emerge from within the sphere to float on its surface before submerging again. Many kinds of objects would emerge as the the sphere turned on its axis. I thought that the objects represented ideas that were being communicated to me. These hallucinations gave me peace of mind and coincidentally may flashbacks stopped after my first encounter with them. It was interesting to me that seven years prior to having these hallucination, that I had beenexporing religion. My approach was in line with my family traditin. I grew up attending the jCatholoic Churchm whle my mothers's father was a protestant minister. So, I tried to understand the Bible. Because I have a degree in bgiology I had difficulty accepting many of the accepted interpretations of the scriptures. Then, after years of attempting to reconcile mu scientific knowledge with biblical writings, I read CarlSagan's "The Demon Haulnted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark". Afte3r reading this book, I decided that Carl Sagan was rightthat there exists no mechanism by which human beings can access Gof telepathically or experience life after death. So I decided to become an atheist. Within a year of that decision, I began to have the hallucinations described above and I coincidentally experienced the end of my flashbacks.; This was the most profound experience I ever had. It changed the direction of my life and converted me into a believer in a supremebeing. My experience with hallucinogens always seemed to have a spiritual quality. The first time I tripped, I immediately felt like I was in a spiritual place of some kind. Asso, the end of mhy trips would end wiht sole profound insight. On jone trip, I ascended into heaven and observed haw the end of the worldwpi;d jappern. The nextr day I couldn't remember details. only had a general sense of what would happen. My impkression was that niobgody has anything to worry about and that it will work out for everyone in a way which is simple, natural and easy tio accept Many years after I used hallucinoges, I ledarned that native americans and others have n`

I haven't had a flashback in over 20 years. I still have a slight snow effect, but I don't notice it unless I focus on it. So, I would say that I really have no bothersome symptoms anymore.

Between the ages of 15-17 I experimented with various hallucinogens. I think that I took LSD and mescaline, because that's what people said they were giving me. I probably only took these drugs on 10 or fewer occasions. The last drug I took was most likely LSD and I took a very large dose. The experience was intense and I had difficulty managing it after 2-3 hours. At that time I thought that I was going to die, so I reached out for help. Someone helped by making me a strong drink which helped me to calm down. Then I continued to drink wine through the trip. As one can imagine, I became violently sick that night. After that experience, I withdrew from friends and any mention of hallucinogenic drugs made me extremely anxious. I wanted nothing to do with these drugs anymore, they scared the shit out of me after that. At this point I remained well, except for my instinct to avoid hallucinogens and the experience of anxiety when I was around people who wanted to use them with me. After about six months, I was at work washing dishes in a restaurant when I suddenly noticed the snow phenomena and then immediately afterward I had my first flashback. This represented the onset of my experience with HPPD.. Other symptoms included intense anxiety, enhanced color intensity, trails, melting walls, visual snow and feelings of unreality. It was difficult in 1973 to get help because so little was known about the disorder. Initially I was given Valium and that allowed me to complete my high school education, college and graduate school. Basically, Valium only addressed the anxiety, it did nothing to ease the flashbacks and other HPPD symptoms. After a few years I was under pressure to stop taking Valium which I was unable to do completely. In 1985, a psychiatrist gave me Xanax and Doxepin which helped me to sleep at night and alleviated some the the anxiety that I experienced. While this treatment did not address my flashbacks and other symptoms, I at least felt as thought that I could deal with having HPPD. My next break came around 1998 when I started taking Prozac. This med eliminated the need for any other meds. It helped me to sleep at night and almost eliminated my anxiety, but it didn't prevent the flashbacks, snow, etc. Finally in the year 2000, I stopped having flashbacks. I haven't had one in 22 years. I still have some other effects like visual snow but at a much more tolerable level. For many years I have been intrigued by the apparent similarity of HPPD to PTSD flashbacks and I have wondered if my experience represents a form of post traumatic stress. I'm in the process of reading the book "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. The book details how traumatic experiences can cause visual flashbacks and other neurological symptoms which are a consequence of past traumatic experiences. Certainly my last trip was traumatic, and just as in PTSD cases, I withdrew from friends and began experiencing anxiety over the perceived source of my traumatic experience. Although Dr. Van Der Kolk (from what I have read so far) does not make a connection to HPPD I'm thinking that maybe it is possible. Also, one of the problems that I overcame in my ordeal with HPPD was agoraphobia. I overcame this problem after reading the book "Hope and Help for Your Nerves" by Dr. Claire Weekes. This book introduced me to a behavior based model which describes agoraphobia as resulting from the avoidance of places that we associate with anxiety. Basically, if we avoid a place because we experience anxiety there, we begin to experience greater anxiety when we do visit that place. This leads to more places that cause anxiety and more avoidance until we get to the point that we are home bound. Dr. Weekes explains that the anxiety can be controlled by gradually exposing ourselves to the places that produce anxiety. In my case, because I was afraid of having having a flashback in public places, I started avoiding places and my world grew smaller and smaller until I couldn't leave home. This technique worked for me to recover from agoraphobia and from panic attacks. Furthermore, when I began to apply this technique to flashbacks, they went away as well. At that time I was taking Prozac which greatly assisted me in this effort. Today, I no longer experience anxiety and no longer take Prozac. Of course, I don't know if this would work for anyone else but I thought that my experience was worth sharing.