Here is my experience with this

[Drustan]

I experienced my very first panic attack about five years ago, and it was provoked by smoking marijuana. I had always smoked regularly with no real issues, until one day bam. I had been thinking too deeply about life and the human body while I was high, and all of the sudden (what I now know to be depersonalization or dr) came on rapidly. All of the sudden I had the thought that none of this is real, or better put, we are robots, and I felt like I was pulled back from my brain, sort of outside the body. Instantly I tried to get rid of this thought, only to my dismay, palpitations ensued, my vision became (in my own description) hyper aware, everything became vivid, then snowy, then purpuly blotches like you get when you are severely dehydrated, or when you are hit really hard (if you played american football, you probably know what I am talking about). Now it almost led to me blacking out, but I fought it and it eventually passed, with vision issue returning to normal upon waking the next day. I decided to quit that day, and never smoke again so I wouldn't have to experience that freak show again. Now as the years passed those moments would hit me, maybe once or twice a year, without being high or drunk, I just got the vision issue, usually brought on by a life isn't real thought and bam panic attack, I learned during this time, that by going outside and grabbing a handful of dirt or something, I could make this thought and visual disturbance go away within 30 mins or an hour. Now let me describe this visiual disturbance to you before I go into what I'm experiencing now. I studied what my vision was actually doing to cause this and came up with some great descriptions for you. It's not blurry, it's not double, I can read fine. It is more like sharp corners or edges began to bother me. Looking at the ground, holy crap I would almost soar into a panic attack. Grass is extremely difficult to look at, a bed of white and brown rocks, generally found in people driveways, even red mulch freaked me out. Visual snow at night, not constant, but there if I choose to notice it. Lit signs on buildings and red writing on a white background are the worst, my eyes can't handle it, it's like it traces itself around the sharp edges, it's super wierd. Sometimes even the shadow traces around people, wig me out. You get the picture, it's just really messed up. Anyway after a wierd thoughts about the multiverse, and me studying planets and such, DP came on in full effect, almost instantly after thinking about the sun and it's life. I thought man it's that time of year, I have to deal again, panic attack, those thoughts that your heart is acting funny, really crappy stuff. Anyway , so eventually I went to sleep, only upon waking, guess what, my vision had become stuck that way 24/7. It's been 2 months, with much improvement on the panicky anxiety side, without medication mind you, Im just kinda freaked about taking medicine or anything other than a vitamin. Just exercising like I always do, been doing it 5 days a week for years. But the visuals are still here about 65% less than they where when it started. Anyway,I want to give you guys way more info on my recovery, but I'll save it for in the comments for now, since I've been typing a lot, it's time for a break. Comment below peeps and let's discuss and help one another. Keep in mind, I have went to a few doctors, and left with no real answers. A few more notes, eye pain and headaches start to come on when I'm focusing too much on my visuals, and one last thing.

Disclaimer: My statements are not medical advice, nor intended to be, I am not a doctor nor do I have a medical degree. Im just telling my experience with these issues. Go to the Emergency Room at the closest hospital or dial 911 If you have a medical emergency.

[andrewcb]

"I experienced my very first panic attack about five years ago, and it was provoked by smoking marijuana. I had always smoked regularly with no real issues, until one day bam. I had been thinking too deeply about life and the human body while I was high, and all of the sudden (what I now know to be depersonalization or dr) came on rapidly. All of the sudden I had the thought that none of this is real, or better put, we are robots, and I felt like I was pulled back from my brain, sort of outside the body. Instantly I tried to get rid of this thought, only to my dismay, palpitations ensued, my vision became (in my own description) hyper aware, everything became vivid"

 

This is me exactly. Everything you said up to this point describes what I am experiencing. Except for my night of terror I thought I was literally insane and would wake up or have to end up going to an insane asylum. I also view my dimensions weird if that makes sense. Like everything has a 3d look/feel but some objects look 2d like just plain flat. When it gets bad the best way I can describe it is as a pop-up book. But I am currently still going through the dp/dr vision crap and it has been 3 years. I always explain it as the vision you get on the come up of x or lsd where everything is just surreal and crispy as hell. 

[Drustan]

Man, I feel your pain. I experience the 3d/2d vivid stuff, although that has gotten super better over the last month or so. Everything looks ok now, or easier to deal with. Inside my house at the beginning was horrible, but now it's fantastic, except on some days. Outside is also much much better, it used to really just freak me out at the beggining of all this, especially looking at grass or trees or water, it was just send me into those thoughts of what the hell is wrong with me. I should note that during the massive panic attack a few months ago, where the vision became persistent, I had a thought I never thought before, the one where you think, " I'm going crazy, oh crap if I go crazy or lose control of what I know to be real, I'll be in the mental place." I think that thought triggered this whole thing to become persistent. It's like my brain suddenly decided to not just deal with the vision panic thing that came up every once in a while, it's like my brain finally just had enough and said "we are going to deal with this once and for all, and solve this problem". It's like it had had enough of the pestilence, and has now zeroed in on the trigger (which is the vision).

[Drustan]

I have to just mention. I believe over time that this gets better, I know mine has, but it is taking much practice and self control to do so. I think that it really is just a shift in the brain of how you perceive the world, when in reality, everything looks exactly the same as it always did, I just now perceive or I am paying attention to things, that normally I wouldn't. Like for instance I caught myself when I was obsessing over the vision problem (which was 24/7) not actually reading signs on buildings, but looking at the edges of the letters and the space in between the letters. Mine has improved with continuing my regular exercise, going out to the mall or on nature walks, and just plain leaving the damn house. Meeting new people, and sometimes taking a Saturday night trip to the strip club LOL! Which by the way is a huge distraction and helped me in a major way.

[Drustan]

I can't believe I failed to mention that continuing in my faith in God and Jesus Christ, I have always been able to overcome these types of things. In my opinion, what I am experiencing is a spiritual attack. After my first bout of panic attacks and dp, I had my first experience with sleep paralysis. Which is when you wake up, your eyes open, but you can't move or speak, and you feel an evil presence at the edge of your bed or hovering over wherever you are laying. The first time I experienced this I woke, and was screaming, but not making a sound, finally in my mind I yelled the name Jesus Christ, immediately I was able to move, get up and speak and the presence was gone. This has happened to me about 3 times. If you google sleep paralysis and Jesus Christ you will find other stories just like mine. I think a key for me, to be non anxious and non panicky is that I will focus on on Gods promises and on certain verses from the bible, like there is one where Jesus says, who of you can add 1 year to his life by worrying, it's not word for word but really close to the passage. I will get better, crap I am better, it's just all in the perception of things. Even if I feel that it is a bad day, I can make it a good day, just by changing my mood, and all of the sudden the headache stops.

[andrewcb]

Hah it is funny you speak of sleep paralysis because after my incident is when it first started happening to me. The very first time it happened it literally felt like a demon holding me down, like that was my exact thought. Apparently that is a ton of peoples feeling when it happens. I have experienced sleep paralysis up to 3 times in 1 night but every time after the first it just felt like I was going to die from suffocation. It really sucks when it happens and you and laying face down basically, it happened to me once and I thought it was the end of me lol thought I was doing to suffocate in the blankets. Mind you I am not a religious person at all, I am Agnostic and opened minded to just about everything but for whatever reason the first time it sure the hell felt like a demon holding me down or trying to enter my body lol. 

 

I agree with you about the perception of reality just being the only thing that has changed, I doubt any real changes have been made and this is how life has always looked to me but the mind change makes it real to me so I guess that is the only way I can perceive it. My biggest mistake was I kept smoking weed for a week straight afterwards(here comes the stupid part) even though it made everything 10x worse. I just kept smoking wanting it all to go away and was just trying to escape the reality I pulled myself into. Also I continued to take x for about 2 months after this and I was not your normal x user, I was taking 6-15 tabs at a time and doing it 3-4 times a week. So I continued that habit as well for 2 months + doing coke and smoking ice. I am sure if I just stopped everything the moment it all happened it wouldn't be as bad as it is now but I guess this is the price I have to pay for being a dumbass at the time. 

 

I think the only for it to go away is if you are able to realize nothing has changed but your state of mind and then you are able to cope with that and then this new reality just becomes your normal reality. Anyone can come to that conclusion but most can't accept it. Like to me, I know it has to be in my head but that doesn't change the fact that I still perceive life this way and I for whatever reason can't adapt. 

[Drustan]

Dude, I totally understand what you feel. Sometimes I just get angry with it, and I'm like dammit, quit thinking this way, But it's so hard to pull out of. I can honestly say, that if my vision wasn't this way or my mind for that matter, I would be normal. I wondered if anyone else has that thought constantly. Anyway, I know the vision thing has improved for me, because I judge it by looking at neon signs lol. I think a big part of why the vision thing is so hard to overcome with people like us, because we obsess about it, because it's always there. This disease makes you feel like you're living through your eyes. Before this I had never experienced eye pain or itchy eyes, which always leads me to the point that it is due to eye strain which is brought on by obsessing over the eyes. I'll tell you a few things that helped improve it for me. I bought a basketball, and When I feel the panic from the vision I just grab the basketball and dribble or try to find somewhere to hoop, and man that works wonders. I also check my pulse on my wrist routinely, reminding myself that I am in good condition and tip top health. Also I force myself to be outside since that is where it is worse. Here are some strange things I noticed about my condition. Watching an interesting movie, playing a video game, or driving in a car with the windows up, all these things my vision is normal. But the moment I go into a store or step out of the car I see it, the vision thing. It's just plain wierd. That's why I am convinced that this is completely drummed up in my head, and is a perception/obsessive compulsive disorder. I get what you are saying man, and I feel for you brother. I truly hope you are healed of this torment and can get back to just living (that's how I think about it). You're a strong one!

[Drustan]

I want to point out that at least with me, I finally discovered that I almost never blink. This can lead to dry eyes, as blinking refreshes the eyes. Man purposefully blinking helps me a ton ????

[andrewcb]

Lol, how do you feel when you walk into a Walmart? That place really fucks me up when I walk into it because it is huge with a ton of empty space, a reflective floor and those damn lights! Lighting is everything for me, like at work all the lights are yellow and everything looks kind of yellowish and this for whatever reason makes me feel normal. But when I get around bright fluorescent lights it really jacks me up. Oh, also I experience migraines which I think have something to do with the vision, also my vision gets blurry and I can also make it blurry on command, like if I got control of it lol. I use to get eye floaters really bad but now I just get them whenever I think about them or if my anxiety gets to going. I use to have 3 in my field of view constantly. Also my ears, now I know this part isn't in my head. Ever since my incident with x and weed which caused this I was able to stretch my ear drums(I guess) the very next day. Like if I squeeze my eyes or do anything that puts tension on the muscles in my ears I can feel them stretch and can hear it, sounds like rolling thunder. I have never experienced this before until that night. I also got this knot on the right side of my neck by my hairline, you can't see it but just feel it. I don't ever remember having that knot and noticed it a day or 2 after my incident.

 

But yeah I can almost confirm this is made up in our heads because I use to be addicted to hydrocodones and I wouldn't pay much attention to my vision while on them because I felt great constantly. I wasn't getting high off them, they just gave me a serious mood lift with a ton of anxiety relief. I guess since I was feeling so emotionally well I never paid attention to my vision thus it wasn't real to me anymore.

[melissa2010]

Sometimes when I look at trees or look at grass and the sun is hitting it it starts to make me feel off. I know it's derealization, but before when I used to be scared by it, now I am trying to make myself accept it or be intrigued by it. If something looks weird I continue to analyze it why it looks weird.

 

I've had this vision DP/DR for about 3.5 years now and to be honest I think I forgot what normal vision is.

 

I would describe the way I see things as about 3 degrees off and with ULTRA-HD. 

[Drustan]

Andrew, dude that is totally on point with what I experience. Walmart and grocery store chains, gas stations things like that in the beginning of this were a freaking huge huge problem for me, especially Walmart, I was like wth is going on Walmart never freaked me out before. For me it was the isles and the products on the shelves, to me they just seemed to sharp, what I noticed was that I was again looking at the edges of things and judging them instead of just processing them. Now I can handle them a little better. At one point in this I finally got so pissed off, I just walked up to things that really set off my vision and freaking just went off on them, like walls and corners, I did this without judging myself and just decided I had too. That also worked wonders, oh and not to mention anything white. Holy crap anything white, especially white cars, just looked so wierd, fuzzy, and so damn bright I couldn't even see the texture of it, it just glowed at me. I get the migraines, in fact I saw an eye doctor about this and she said she was 90% convinced that I suffer from frequent migraines with aura. The headaches are usually at the back of my skull, upper portion of neck and just centralized to one spot on the left. I too discovered during one of these headaches a knot on the upper portion of my neck at the base of the skull on the left side. It's about the size of a quarter. So I massage that sucker and bam headache eases up.

[Drustan]

Melissa, I feel your pain. That is how I described it to the eye doctor and a therapist. As too high def vision. I felt dumb for saying this because I was thinking dude, I'm complaining about my vision being high def. of course it's kind of changed diff ways now, but when the high def ensues, I also seem to notice time and space and that is when the whole damn thing just repeats itself and i would wind up going into panic mode. I've learned to control the panic side of things through belly breathing and just closing my eyes for a bit. I truly believe that whatever the root cause of this thing is, that it can be defeated. Here are important things on my list of things that help me. 1. Remembering who I am, where I've come from and what my goals are. 2. Try to make as many friends as possible and interact with people frequently. 3. Eat healthy, exercise vigorously. 4. Do stuff that I like to do. 5. Maybe try to find a girlfriend. 6. Study history and try to learn new languages. 7. Identify with the world again. This list is immense, but those are some of the things I'm thinking everyday, instead of "why is my vision messed up. Damn I hope I don't have a brain tumor. Maybe I should get checked out thoroughly, maybe there is something seriously wrong, why is my vision messed up, why am I living through my eyes, crap I'm getting dark circles under my eyes" you get the point, it's pretty obsessive and anxious. Although the get checked out thought is not a bad idea, I just got vitals done and went to an eye doctor, im kinda scared to go get an mri, so I'm just fighting this thing and honestly it hasn't gotten worse, it's gotten a little better over time!

[Drustan]

Oh and yes, trees, a bed of white and brown rocks, grass especially and eventually water all in the light, they looked freaking wierd, I'm dealing with them now and things look so much better. I do the whole "why does that look wierd thing a lot, but I also realize that is a trap coming from my mind, so I stop that line of thinking when it gets out of hand.

Here is an important thought that I remind myself of now daily. I say to myself, "you know what? It's a great day to be alive, I'm alive and I feel grateful for that. It is awesome to be here, and now what can I do today that will benefit me or others." Dude those thoughts go the extra mile for me, I'm glad I get encouragement. Although I know some of you don't share my beliefs (which by the way is totally cool, I am not a judge, and I care about people regardless) I believe these thoughts that I have come from the Holy Ghost. Just my personal beliefs, anyway I'll try to refrain from the religious talk, sometimes I just feel I need to put it out there. Anyways I want to thank you guys for commenting and replying here, you are all special and awesome people, and guess what, we are alive right now and that's what counts. I appreciate you all for your conversation and your insight on this damned ole beast. Thank you guys!!!!!

[Drustan]

I'll find a way to post some pictures of things that were bothering me constantly but not so much now, so that we can all look at them and see if our issues were and or are the same. Maybe it will provide more insight who knows, but in any case, I don't want it to be a negative experience for us, so if you're against the idea let me know before I do. It's just things like signs, grass, corners and such.

[Drustan]

Alright so a few more days and significantly better. Starting to recognize myself, love my life and all that again. I read some things about "Earthing" to basically reconnect with the earth. So at home I went on a sock ban, and walked outside a lot bare foot. That helped with my DP/dr drastically for some reason. Now it's like i barely notice the vision changes at all. I am starting to believe this is how it's always looked. Yayyyy!!!! Well I won't be back for a while, I need to let this thing go. Thank you all for your input and help. I hope each of you are healed and feeling fantastic. It's a great day to be alive, and dammit I'm going to enjoy it.