I've been hearing this every now and then, but in the past few weeks some people personally said so...

No drug usage in the past whatsoever.
Sometimes as young as 10.

Anyone has any insights, scientific or personal?

#edited for clarity

As I understand it, by definition, it's not (it can't be) HPPD without drug usage, as without that component it's missing the H and the first P.


Source

HPPD (whatever that really is), as the name implies, requires that you've already taken psychedelics - like snozz said.

People can enter altered states without drugs and even have visuals/visions though of course. Especially while still in childhood.

Not really any need to throw a broad diagnosis on this though in my opinion.

Many of us have knock-off effects resulting from our explorations as well and dont always consider it a disorder either.

Yes, the D of HPPD is a very unscientific and largely erroneous assumption. For one thing "disorder" refers to a chronic condition which HPPD seldom is. Second, if you wanted the initial psychedelic experience then quite possibly followups are welcome (as long as the timing is not too bad). This is what I'm finding with 5-meo-dmt and looking into ways to actually generate these.

one lad i know has visual snow (as do i), recall finding "visual snow" to be related to HPPD, he says however that after meditation his visual snow is stronger
im quite skeptical about the whole idea of a mental DIS-order, especially in regards of these obviously benifitial psychoactives, who declares what is a DIS-order, anyways?? had some small colourful blips coming up in the darkness when i would try to sleep, was quite entertained by it

Woah, I should have known.

I wanted to have some insight about open or closed eye visuals without psychedelic experience. Maybe find a connection between the two. Just to get a better understanding and a clearer picture...

I know I haven't specifically stated this, but I can't really state everything can I? The post and threat should generally be informative and progressive. So saying that it's not a disorder, or that the two don't match on paper doesn't really give me or any of us for that matter any insights as to what these visuals actually are, how they are generated and intensified, and how they can be degraded or healed (again, please don't feel offended, I'm not saying you guys are degenerative personalities because you see visuals in the dark, duh...)


For myself, meditation and lack of sleep increase, while focus and breathing exercise (on some occasions, not sure exactly how and when) decrease the visuals...

Let's not go down the same road as all other hppd threats went.

Just because you don't get the answer that you're looking for doesn't mean that this thread is not "informative or progressive."

Your statement about "saying...that the two don't match on paper" with regards to the definition of HPPD and people who have no experience with drugs appears to evidence quite a bit of confusion. For example, consider if someone told you, "I have a friend who told me that they recently got STDs, but they have no history of sexual activity." We can be fairly certain that whatever the friend might have, it's almost definitely not an STD.

Contrary to your assertion, I would assert that it is important that the definition and the cause/symptoms match on paper, otherwise we could attribute any symptoms to anything we feel like.

The definition of HPPD requires hallucinogen use. Without that use, by definition, it's not HPPD and should not be discussed as HPPD, even if there are interesting symptoms to discuss. There's no reason we can't discuss those symptoms without calling it HPPD, and there's no reason to call it HPPD if it doesn't fit the diagnostic requirements.

Ok, so why does this actually matter, if my intention with this whole post is to basically gather data on people and how they decrease or increase their personal visuals no matter the underlying cause?
People report visuals similar to HPPD.
I thought it was clear that my intention was not to define things or argue about definitions, but to get the most information about visuals in itself...

Sorry for exiting the chat we were having, my internet connection died and had to be re-sync'd.

To answer the question of "why does this matter..."

Your thread title is "People with HPPD and no contact with drugs?" By definition, that's not a thing. If you want to discuss similarities between HPPD and visual phenomena in people who have never taken drugs, then you should say as much in the title and/or in your first post. The title and OP of this thread are both clearly attempts to talk about HPPD in people who have never taken drugs. Again, by definition, that is not a thing.

Definitions matter, linguistic accuracy matters...they're really the only things that allow us to have meaningful conversations, especially when dealing with complex phenomena.


TL;DR - If you want to talk about visual phenomena, you should change the title and OP of this thread or make a new thread that actually states what you want to discuss, as this thread is not framed as a discussion about the broad category of visual phenomena.

Hope that helps clarify things

Snozz, I think this thread is about discussion of effects people have that are HDDP like without having taken any entheogens beforehand perse.

So, any data concerning this is welcomed.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

The psychedelic experiences i had laying in bed as a kid can be quite like some kind of harmala-tryptamine concoction

Ann Shulgin details in the beginning of PIHKAL her experiences of visions as a child before any drugs.
Also, as others mentioned - visions/visuals can be induced via other means like drumming, sensory deprivation, fasting etc.

I think most people have had various interesting optical effects before, and a lot of times this is due to light, sleep and just the way photoreceptors in the retina are hooked up to the optic nerve and modulated by the other retinal (ganglion, bipolar, etc) cells.
I think if we understand that the visuals psychedelics produce are generated through the medium of neuron/receptor/drug, and if we understand that our perception of reality is mediated by neuron/receptor/neurotransmitter, then it makes sense that these states are atleast nominally accessible without drugs via 'quirky' brain activity.

The other option is that the sober visuals are similar, but not really same' in regard to psychedelic visuals, and they are underlain by a different phenomenon altogether. Either way, I guess it's at some level all a matter of neuron+receptor+ligand = perception of reality, at least from a somewhat reductionist perspective.

As a kid I often had body hallucinations after going swimming.
When I went to sleep in bed later that night I would almost always get a heavy feeling like im still in the water being washed around even though im laying still.
Was quite strong but it just dissapeared.
Also the effects when you softly press onto your eyes. Which are quite trippy.

Now I dont have any persisting hallucinations even after use of multiple different psychedelics. I sometimes think I have some but then its just normal things. Like floaters or an optical illusion. Or just things that I look at and think that looks exactly like somethign i saw during a trip.

also, childhood epilepsy is moar common then ppl assume, it can take all kinds of different forms (temporal lobe, partial seizures, tremors, absence with eyes unfocused, generalized seizures, morning seizures, hallucinations, auditory hallucinations.....and so on and so forth). As long as one doesn't have a generalized seizure or visible boday tremors, it moar likely remain un-diagnosed.... due to:

social stigma 1. your child is not 'normal'
social stigma 2. you yourself as a child are not 'normal'

...and epilepsy is very, very scary. Figure this scenario: One gets a generalized seizure in a pool. Then what...?

Spawn horizontally into a parallel dimension where it un-happened?

Has any of you used Lion's Mane by any chance?

For me, visuals were scarce when I was a kid.

Are you telling me that I got epilepsy? I never had anything but when I was swimming.
Also I wasnt really the kid that never went to the doctor. I was everywhere.

I dont have an average brain yes, but epilepsy no.

We wasn't addressing you in particular Ulim, this was rather in response to the OP.
But yeah, we (intezam) have had epilepsy...so what...? Should we be ashamed?

Nah. I was just wondering what you were trying to say.

That really sounds like phosphenes. But normally they shouldnt be there when you just close your eyes.
Maybe you suffer from overpressure in your eyes or something else.
For me blue field entoptic phenomenon is really strong when im running. But i really only see it on blue skies.

Many ppl, when they think of epilepsy, they have some stereotypes in the back of their heads. Like severely handicapped (#retarded) ppl wearing leather helmets hitting the floor in convulsions. And they do exist. But epilepsy can take many moar (benign) forms.

When an EEG is done, they will often ask the patient to hyperventilate and close their eyes......

Both, the rise/change in blood oxygen levels and/or closed eyes can cause changes in people having a lowered seizure threshold.

Shortly before a seizure is about to happen, one experiences anything from nothing to an aura or even hallucinations (both auditory and/or visually)....

Off topic: artificially induced seizures were-and are still used (in some countries) as a therapeutic 'tool', even tho the whole process-action at work here is so poorly understood...(we do not endorse it, but perhaps it's worth mentioning..)

We understand that this isn't the popular 'roman-tic theme park....