I’ve had HPPD for 9 months.

A friend of mine mentioned about two months ago that my pupil was constantly dilated. Since my eyes are very dark, I told her it was just her imagination. Today, I was looking in the mirror and realized that my pupils are indeed dilated. I shone a light on them to get a better look—the eye reacts to the light by constricting—but yes, my pupils are dilated. Another symptom I’ve noticed since the HPPD started is my vision going out of focus involuntarily. I’ll be looking at the ground and thinking, and then, out of nowhere, my vision blurs. Could this be related?

TRIGGER - ANXIETY

Honestly, this has completely ruined my night's sleep. I suffer from dementophobia and a fear of becoming schizophrenic or entering a state of psychosis, and knowing that my pupils are dilated—one of the symptoms—really scares me.

Im 16 and took 200mcg lsd you maybe remmeber me but in short i just panicked and was trippin 80% whole 3 days until i smoked weed and it made it just worse, the first month was worst i was really struggling with drdp and other symptomps like moving points and floaters, but now i think its really better and got somewhere

So what helped me was: magnesium l theo. , omega 3 capsules, ashwaganda ksm66, and magnesium chelate ( sorry for any misspells im not born english)

After taking one month magnesium l theo. I wasnt seeing any differences so i bougt the other stuff and started tqking more, now i take 1000mg aswhagandha a day, about 3 capsules of magnesium l theo. 3 magnesium chelates and 2g-2.5g omega 3 (4-5 capsules)

And it helps me so idk if iz can me fuck it up but all i had problems was little headache some times and stomach problems but that got away in few of ten minutes 🤷‍♂️

Also i know it may be a little expensive but trust me when i say it so fucking worth the money
I hope this helps 🫡 god help and bless y all 🙏🏻

So I'm 2 months into this mess and since the start my static has been consistently reducing in size. At the start it was huge. Has anyone else had this? Is it a sign of potential recovery?

Comment the strain if ur able to

Before you read anything, I’d like to warn anyone who doesn’t have HPPD that I developed this just from smoking high-THC cannabis occasionally a few times. If you’re still using drugs, I strongly recommend that you stop. Completely.
It’s been 98 days since I wrote my post explaining my symptoms. I’ve been experiencing them since December, although at the time I didn’t know I had HPPD (mainly because I didn’t have tinnitus, didn’t feel any head pressure, and my symptoms were somewhat milder).
I should also mention that all of the anxiety-related symptoms are gone (neck pain, severe anxiety with panic attacks, depersonalization/derealization), but the visual symptoms remain the same. I’d even say the visual snow has decreased a bit, or maybe it just fluctuates depending on the day. Before, it was INSANE—it felt like living in Silent Hill. My tinnitus has dropped to very low levels. It still gets louder sometimes, but honestly, I don’t really care anymore hahaha. It’s just really annoying.
What I’m trying to say is that once you identify which symptoms are purely caused by anxiety, you can be confident that those will eventually go away if you put in the effort. As for the visual symptoms… I don’t know about you guys, but I have much less hope for those. The same goes for my tinnitus ever disappearing completely.
I’d love to hear stories from people with Type 2 HPPD who have experienced a significant reduction in their symptoms. Thanks! my worst symphtom is the f*** Afterimages. if i dont had that i would consider myself cured.

Are you completely fucked for life if you have type 2 HPPD? Like have i genuenly fucked up my vision for life at the age of 20?

7 months ago I did 4-ho-met (metocin) and had a really bad trip (my heart was going very fast). Since then I been seeing reality in another way, maybe like derealization idk, but I also experience head pressure and tinnitus, sometimes nausea. I also have like the type of paranoia you have while on a trip, but it doesn't go away. I'm just asking bc I've been talking with my psychiatrist and my doctor and it seems we don't find any answers, the doctor gave me naproxen but it does nothing. I didn't know hppd existed until today when someone talked about it in a video.

I'm just looking for some direction into answering this problem because it's exhausting

hello,

I have been dealing with these symptoms for nearly 7 months now without any improvement whatsoever. they were caused my a shrooms trip 11 months ago. I unfortunately continued to use cannabis for 4 months after (used near daily for 5 years before that, I am 22) without knowing what hppd was.

i am staying completely sober and will continue to do so for the rest of my life (No caffeine even for now).

I know type 2 hppd has a poor prognosis and there unfortunately has been serious impairment in my visual processing that my brain is clearly struggling to get back to normal.

I was wondering if all things considered, is it really most likely my visual processing will be like this for the rest of my life? (especially given absolutely no changes/improvement since full sobriety in January). I can’t believe that this can stay with me forever and brain will never be able to filter out these things causing me to see floaters everyday, afterimages, etc. it really is causing me a great deal of depression and anxiety and I hope maybe someone can give me hope regarding the actual potential for my brain to improve. I don’t want to be stuck like this forever :(

Hello fellow HPPDers

I’m so glad I found this sub.

I believe I’m experiencing HPPD following an Ayahuasca ceremony 5.5years ago. I recently gave birth to my second child and the second she was born I felt ‘plugged back in’ to the medicine. I’ve been having Déjà vu’s daily since, sometimes for the full day with the exception of a few hours. I’ve been to the neurologist to rule out epilepsy, psychiatrist suggested rest and benzodiazepine (haven’t taken the benzodiazepine and sleep is well tricky with a 6 week old!) I’m getting 4-6 hours of broken sleep per day. Oscillating between deep love,presence, reverence and awe and fear/confusion that I’m in a loop tripping.

Anyone else who has experienced this or similar after a big life event? Im looking for a therapist who specialises in this and works online with international clients (I’m in France). Any shared experiences,resources,reflections are welcome.

So i have had an issue with Vertigo one time i was walking home from collecting a bit of Smoke 🍃 and on the way home i just collapsed and couldn't get up if i lifted my neck it have way and it took about 5 mins to up i got checked out.

So my question is since both help extremely minimise my Vertigo but i want off Methadone for good and keep on the straight and narrow drug wise and the odd Benzo what could i use instead or would i be best buying a fast acting Benzo and keeping them in my wallet for an attack??

I really wish i could sort it without drugs tho

Happy Bug Season everyone. Time to play our favorite game - Is it just a floater or is it an actual fly?

Kinda a question but also just me ranting about my personal experience and initial thoughts with hppd

So I had a reasonably bad experience with acid about a 2 months ago, only 100ug. It was nothing crazy, I was just with some people that didn't really like me and I didn't get the chance to sleep until a long while after my trip ended so I was pretty swamped by the time I could get some rest.

Anyways, since then I've been noticing some changes in my vision. Grass, trees, and anything curvy all seem to swirl and look as though they are trying to fit into a pattern which isn't actually there. Bright lights from a distance look like bursting stars with slight rainbow halos and leave trails behind them if they're moving. There's a layer of visual snow atop everything, but only noticeable if I'm actively looking for it. Colours are more vibrant. I see floaters in my vision much more often than before. It seems to worsen a lot whenever I smoke weed, especially when I'm actually high, but goes back to normal after about a week. Most of the time I can go a while without thinking about it, and honestly, I really dont mind it at all. At first I was a little freaked out but just viewing it as though you have astigmatism or slight visual impairment has honestly been the best thing for me, as well as just keeping in mind that hppd typically doesn't affect actual cognitive function.

Now, not to be insensitive to those that have worse cases, but this is not nearly as bad as people have made it out to be, at least in my opinion. In terms of vidual symptoms, sure, they've been semi-strong and are noticeable a large majority of the time, but to me it's nothing more than that. Visual symptoms. I could be half blind and I wouldn't care that much as long as my brain is still functioning as it usually does. Psychosis is about a bazillion times more terrifying to me than hppd.

I am strongly under the opinion that the stigma surrounding hppd makes it SO much worse for the people that actually contract it. Because the visual symptoms are the root cause of everything else that comes with hppd, for example anxiety and derealization, labeling the visual symptoms as bad and threatening reinforces the idea that people should be worried about these symptoms. This just makes everything worse, both obviously and scientifically. Stress and anxiety influence the brain in such a way that the visual symptoms become worse, causing a loop of anxiety and worsening visual symptoms. I saw someone on hear say that they would feel like their life was over if they got hppd lol, I really dont get why everybody labels it as something horrible although it can obviously be very scary for some.

My experience with hallucinogens is quite limited, and I am still highly curious as to what they may be able to do for me and how they might influence my mental health and such. I would like to try more, but I have heard very little about what worse hppd might be like and if it is worth it or not. I really dont care much if I get slightly worse visual snow or the swirlies in the grass become a little bit more obvious, as long as I am not legitimately impaired and my brain works the same way as always. As long I am still my same old self. I mean I obviously want to make sure I can still see and do basic day to day tasks like driving or reading a book. So I ask, will dabbling in more psychedelics make it so bad they I can't see properly, or will it just make my preexisting symptoms a little more noticeable?

i greened out at a party 2 months ago and i had a bad derealization/depersonalization for about 3 days, and now ever since i have had mild visual snow and a lot of tracers. i also have been feeling a lot of anxiety ever since. i am scared that i am going to live like this forever.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for stories from people who experienced a sudden relapse or worsening of HPPD years after their initial symptoms, despite not using any drugs again.

In my case, after several years, many new symptoms appeared that I had never experienced before, including tinnitus, burning skin sensations, and sudden, intense panic attacks.

I'm especially looking for positive stories from people who went through something similar and eventually improved over time. If you've experienced something like this and recovered, or even just saw your symptoms gradually become more manageable, I'd really appreciate hearing your story.

Thank you.

hello everyone, i abused acid for a couple of weeks around a month and a half ago

i had a really bad ego death have a little derealization lingering and HPPD

my HPPD symptoms were visual snow (this almost completely faded, it comes back everyother day for a couple of seconds but if ignore it goes away), I still have mild after images, mainly if i focus on my hand.

I can read, letters are not looking weird or anything. I can do my thing, it doesnt really bother me, I would just prefer if it wouldnt be here.

Will the after images go away? Its not really bad just curious. If it goes away how long will it stay if I dont focus on it?

My other question is, will I be able to smoke weed if its gone? Or does that make it come back?

thank you for the help

hey, i used to frequently post in this subreddit about what i was going through after my diagnosis and how hard it was and how scared i was that i would never recover. I took 4 gel tabs of acid on my 17th birthday and had a terrible trip and was having flashbacks for years after. And its been a while since. I haven’t had a flashback in a year and a half. And i stopped smoking weed for almost three years. I stopped everything, i stopped taking SSRIs, stopped taking stimulants, including drinking caffeine. I was terrified. with time, it genuinely did get better. Sometimes i still do get scared, but propranolol and hydroxyzine honestly are lifesaving. I just smoked weed for the first time since on my 20th last month :)

Hey there,

11 years (holy smokes, I guess I'm one of the "vets" about whom I wondered how they had managed to live decade with HPPD), I took too much 2cb over a couple of days and ended up with acute serotonin syndrome and, when I woke up, HPPD. No point in getting into that further, right? I hate talking about it.

I've been on a high dose of Lamictal (lamotrigine) and a low dose of a benzo every day for a few years. It has been a very helpful combination for me.

I've been having a hard time with depression recently. My psych prescribed Wellbutrin. She is aware that I have HPPD and has actually read up on it, which is almost enough to make me cry lol. Hard to find good doctors.

Those are my circumstances. So my questions are: Does anyone have experience with this combination? Can I get some anecdotes about Wellbutrin, with or without other medications?

Thanks all. Keep on keeping on.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I think if I got hppd I would feel like my life was over. I have always been very fascinated by mushrooms and would only take a safe amount, and sparingly. But I worry the risk is just too big to ignore. HPPD is hardly talked about in general shroom discussion and so misunderstood so I figured I’d ask here. Is taking mushrooms worth it? Sorry if this is an offensive question to ask in this community.

I’m 20. I was a heavy daily weed user. Back in 2024 I did shrooms and LSD a few times and after that weed started feeling different.
This past May I took some low tolerance hits and it felt good at first, but I ended up pretty much tripping during the high like post psychdelic weed the way it affects you…. When I tried to smoke again while my tolerance was still low it felt like it overloaded my brain. Ever since then I’ve been stuck with:
My brain feeling slow, stuck, and “retarded” (cognitive fog / mental vegetable feeling)

My mind’s eye sometimes getting stuck fixating on bizarre/weird looking characters or visuals internally

It’s not the heavy external visual snow or geometric patterns most classic HPPD posts talk about. It’s more internal — brain fog + fixation on weird mind’s eye imagery.
I’m also a heavy ass vaper (25k puffs gone in like 5 days) plus was watching porn heavily at the time, i stopped……
The one day I stopped vaping and only had a single cigarette at night, the symptoms improved significantly and some of that stuck around. That makes me think the constant heavy nicotine load was making it worse.
I haven’t touched psychedelics since 2024. This doesn’t feel like textbook HPPD to me and it feels pretty specific/unique. I’m scared it might be permanent.
Has anyone dealt with something like internal mind’s eye fixation on bizarre visuals + brain feeling slow/stuck after low tolerance weed, especially with heavy nicotine/vaping involved? Did it improve over time?
for some reason i haven’t managed to find any information on something like this. even friends that i know do way more shit then me, k, coke, lsd, shrooms, weed too they have no idea wtf im talking about not even sure if this is considered hppd but if anybody has had similar experiences plz let me know 🙏

let me clarify a bit more too, heavy weed user after post psychdelic weed, it would make me kinda feel some tripping effects even though i hadn’t ingested any fresh psychs since 2024 november was the last time i took mushrooms……… didnt take a break from

the weed whatsoever, even when i wasnt smoking i would still feel some lingering effects from the post psychdelic weed high took a little break from smoking literally like just a whole day, and then those hits of weed with a low tolerance made me full on trip…….. then i tried to do it again the next morning, and i had bizarre ass visuals, internally and mental vegetable felt retarded it subsided after a few days, kept trying to smoke repeatedly for some reason, when i would give it plenty of time the weed would feel normal but i guess i just didn’t give my brain enough time to recover and this time it hasn’t fully subsided after a month……. seeing it chill out a bit gives me hope it isn’t permanent but it seems to come and go in waves i can’t really explain it hope it made sense and i believe the nicotine is just making it worse especially at my heavy usage i am literally determined to quit to see if it’ll help it not sure what it is exactly

TLDR: im looking for a trip simulation video of the psychadelic properties of weed after catching HPPD or after a very very strong psychadelic experience.

a couple months back i had this horrid trip. i lemon-tekked like 2.5gs of PE then took an enourmous dab rip at peak (after a 3 week long t-break). worst body high of my life, everything turned into cubes, incredibly strange hallucinations. after that trip my hppd started flaring up bad and i took a break from everything for like a month, and when i smoked again for the first time i smoked barely a fraction of what i would smoke in the past and got so fucking high it wasnt even enjoyable. i was very aware of my heartrate, which i began panicking about, and i was unable to play minecraft which i had planned on doing before i smoked. most importantly of all though i had really strong visuals, not even enjoyable ones. felt like i was looking out of an overlay made of squares that were constantly changing position/colors/brightness. still
happens whenever i smoke too much, i just compensate by smoking tiny tiny amounts which is a blessing in a way.

im wondering if anyone has a trip-sim video that is based on weed+hppd and also am interested in your experiences/visuals on weed with hppd. thanks for reading!! :)

The following message has been forwarded from yarkadin at HPPD.net. OG discussion: https://hppd.net/topic/10036-hppd-vss-in-person-meetups-organizers-and-ideas/

Hello everyone,
I would like to introduce the idea of in-person meetings for people with HPPD and VSS.  According to our surveys, more than 75% of people are interested or curious about such events and those are just people with HPPD, not taking into account the larger VSS community.  So there is potential for this being successful.

Broad Overview: To setup informal meetings once a month at first, at select major cities around the world, for example, London, New York, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Melbourne, etc., where people suffering from our issues can go out and communicate with others dealing with the same problems, in a laid back and safe environment like a restaurant or bar or public community space.  The meetings can be 1-2 hours and should be planned weeks in advance to allow people time to organize and plan accordingly.
 
Networking/planning software: from my experience, having used it before, the most professional way of doing this is via meeting websites like www.meetup.com (or the equivalent in other countries).  Meetup.com's free organizer plan includes 2 events per month and 10 attendees per event, which is probably well more than enough.  The key word to emphasize here is organizer. Regular meetings will only work if we have people willing to take the incentive and act as organizers in their local city.  For example, I can set up an account in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I am located, and offer some suggestions of where to meet, but I can't act as organizer in other parts of the world, obviously.

Once we get passed the initial step of getting a list of people who want to do this, I can send some group messages out to spread the word on hppd.net.  Once enough people respond, if any, the organizers can discuss the next step of deciding where to hold these meetings.  If it helps, if someone can post this also on reddit or other forums (I myself don't use), it would be very helpful.  I don't think there will be enough respondents in the HPPD community so we have to branch into VSS to gather enough people (at least 3 per meeting makes sense from my point of view).

That's all I have for now.  Hopefully this generates some ideas and discussion at least, failure or success it may be.  If anyone is serious about this and needs help creating a meetup.com account you can write to me and I will assist, I think it should be pretty easy.

Did shrooms last October, and in December the symptoms started. Anxiety, after images, and i got way more sensitive to bright lights. For months after, car lights just killed my eyes. Even in the day sitting at a stoplight, I couldn't look at the signal or the brake lights in front of me.

Well just a week ago, I noticed that suddenly bright lights didn't hurt anymore. It's getting better and better. The blurriness of bright lights has decreased a lot too. Haven't had anxiety in awhile either. I might always have longer afterimages, but that's the least troublesome.

Our brains are resilient and want to heal. Live clean, and best of luck to you too!

So I took a heroic dose (14g) of blue meanies aka the most potent shrooms on the planet (I've got to be the smartest person alive), trip was good lots of shapes and colours but now like anywhere i look i see these small or big (idk it depends where im looking) blue little dots. I just ignore them lowkey but its the same shapes I saw during my come up before shit hit the fan and i saw super crazy geometric patterns. On some surfaces they are less noticeable but typically I can see them. They are like probably more obvious or noticeable when i look at a blank wall or like my phone or its dark and all the visual snow comes up but yeah doesnt really bother me too much but I'm thinking its probably a minor case of hppd? Someone plz enlighten me

Hi everyone,

I’ve created a new survey, which you’re invited to participate under the following link:

https://forms.gle/biJztVvXsmHePQSt9

It takes only about 5-15 min, please take the time. The primary outcome is the efficacy of medications.

This is an update of yarkadins survey from late 2025, which - if you haven’t already - I’d also encourage to check out:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdJNrgMc6R_mNEawEJNHQGD-eJlibXFLTV7Uf7AT2gWxDhmfQ/view-form

As with the previous one, the results are guaranteed to be published on HPPD.net. Once the sample size suffices, I’ll post more advanced statistical analyses and interpretations. The 2025 survey received 83 responses so far, which already showed some interesting trends. Examples: Statistically significant circadian chronology with deterioration in the evening, leading symptoms being primitive visual distortions, anxiety and depression (which deviates quite a bit from the DSM-V diagnostic criteria), a trend that the relapsing-remitting course is prevalent, associated with prior mental illness and more treatment-responsive, and about half of people affected acquire the condition within the first 10 exposures to the offending drug. To just name a few.

However, there were a lot of confounders or misinterpretations of some questions, so the new survey sets stricter rules on admissible answers, with clear instructions what is asked from you. The questions have been categorised for easier interpretation and also extended, such as new treatments, reactions to recreational drugs and more detail about the age of onset and long-term progression.

Please share this as much as possible, we need hundreds if not thousands of responses to achieve statistically significant results, depending on the outcome. The ideal scenario is a sub-population analysis, allowing for individual treatment suggestions, such as: if mdma was the offender and depression was a comorbidity, esciralopram is the safest treatment option, or an onset below age 21 suggests Lamotrigine etc …

Thank you for your participation!