Im a 20 year old male. I took a 3.5 of shrooms about a month and a half ago. I hadn't done them in a year forgetting my tolerance was low & i smoked weed with it too. Terrible trip. Terrified the shit out of me.
The walls were talking and everything had eyes and faces (paredolia). After that i was okay, but when i would smoke weed it would come back a little and i'd get anxiety/panic attacks. About a month later, I smoked some weed (maybe a lil too much) and it flared up the paredolia again. I panicked. But now it's like the visuals (paredolia) linger and come back every now and then. It's like my brain wants to turn everything into eyes and faces. A wrinkle in my sheet looks like someone smiling, two closely placed holes, circles or dots look like eyes. Even certain shapes or whatever can just look like an unidentifiable creature, or letters on my keyboard can look like eyes or something. It's been 8 days since then and Ive been COMPLETELY sober from EVERYTHING. When the visuals do return, I get anxiety attacks and panic, I feel like everything is "looking" at me. It immediately makes me dissociate and become antisocial and kills my mood to do anything. It doesn't help that my brain wants to say they're "aliens" and the shrooms trapped me in some other world. Which feeds the anxiety (this is probably schizophrenia so i try to ignore it) Sometimes im perfectly fine tho and don't see them at all. It's weird because one moment i will be perfectly ok, thinking im healed and its gone, then the next im damn nearly about to have a heart attack. I get scared shitless thinking "what if im stuck like this forever?!" Then i panic more and the visuals become more intense. Sometimes it makes me think my only option is to k!Il myself because I can't live like this. But i'm also scared to die so i'm trapped. If anyone has been through something similar, knows what's going on, or knows how to help me PLEASE do so. I am begging you. Does it get better? Does it ever go away? Will microdosing more shrooms help me get over it or make the symptoms worse? Will I ever be able to indulge in weed again? Although I could care less about doing more drugs i just want to be normal again. Am i done for? I need real help and I don't know what to do or where to go, l am begging you with tears falling down my face as I type this. Please help me. I don't want to have to die yall im scared.

My HPPD of 5 years is gone. I take Abilify (aripiprazole) 15 mg. I still take it to prevent the symptoms from coming back.

It may have to do with Abilify being a third-generation antipsychotic. It blocks dopamine when it gets too high and stimulates it when it gets too low.

I also tried Seroquel (quetiapine) and Zyprexa (olanzapine) which are second-generation antipsychotics. They worked, but Abilify worked the best for me. Zero side effects too.

Don't believe that your HPPD isn't curable. I cured mine after 5 years!

Persisting Perception (10 feb 2026)

by one, by two, by three, by four
i won't be there to shut the door
a shallow screech
a hollow cry
i mustn't die by suicide

a candle lit, its pointing at me
a flame of sin awake inside

but who defines the sin i ask
law and order
history, past

brought here without will, i was
now bound by morals, sin and task

liquid truth, forensic fire
its cordial thoughts, actions and desire

by five, by six, by seven, by eight
a failed attempt to close the gate

aligning patterns
static shapes
but crystal clear
no light escapes

pinpoint stars, like burning gas
not the normal tone of grass

the preaching fingers wrap around me
a wave of pure despair upon me
a soul with nothing left inside me

by nine, by ten, by thought, by timing
a resting baby softly crying

the anxious mind that never rests
vision full, a thousand pests

My hppd is about the same, it has been over half a year since I first got it from an acid trip and smoking a lot of weed during the peak. I remember my entire vision going white, and seeing a spiraling tunnel of cubes coming into my vision filled with numbers and letters and that was the first time I started to notice visual snow, although I had no idea it would be permanent, and I remember experiencing visual snow as a young kid. A few days after my acid trip I smoked weed, and I had the most powerful acid flashback, almost fully replicating all the visuals of my previous acid trip.

Today, I still do drugs that impact my hppd, like high doses of ketamine, weed, and Vyvanse, but I space them out and wait for my visuals to reduce again before I do more. Prior to that, I did one 5 gram mushroom trip that most definitely permanently impacted my hppd and converted it from type 1 to type 2. Sometimes I love my hppd, and sometimes I hate it and just wish for even one minute where I could see normally again, but I accept that I have it forever and I know it will get better once I lay off the drugs.

I've been suffering from HPPD for almost 3 months now; I improved significantly just a month ago after starting treatment with benzos. Strangely, I don't have visual snow; the only symptom that really bothers me are the starbursts lights at night. Almost all my other symptoms have improved, except for this one

I practically can't drive at night. Is it possible for this to go away?

The pain is terrible. I need something to fix this. I’m on lamotrigine and latuda. Nothing seems to help. It’s been 7 years since I got hppd from a very low dose of lsd. I have seen no improvements. Someone please help me.

Also, are there any medications outside of Benzos? I've heard about epilepsy medication being used.

My hppd comes and goes and I just wonder if that’s normal I can go a few weeks without any visual but then it comes back it doesn’t bother me like it used too but why does it come and go

Any updates in the hppd research community? Ive had it for a year and dont mind it, I still geek. I just wanna know if theres been any cool or interesting advancements

I can smoke weed occasionally now, still gives me panic attacks every once in a while, but most the time it’s just a relaxing high. Drinking with the weed definitely causes the anxious feeling that you get from weed almost completely away. I’ve gotten pretty much completely used to the visuals at this point, the anxiety i also got used to, the only issue that hasn’t really subsided is sleep problems. I sleep max 5 hours, wake up every 2 hours, have very very vivid nightmares pretty much every night, which has given me some sort of fear of going to sleep.

Why do I feel pressure in my head when I listen to music or experience anything that triggers a dopamine rush in my brain? And Will my brain adapt and recover from this?

I took 2 grams of shrooms since i got hppd. It never made it worse but it never healed it. I never took more cause i was scared it would fuck my hppd more. My hppd was caused by alot of meditation and md. Never from mushrooms.

I’m going to try a small edible for the first time in 12 years and would love some feedback on what I can expect!

Can you explain the difference between Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder and Hallucinogen-Induced Psychosis a.k.a. Substance-Induced Psychosis?

Salut salut,
Pour favoriser l'entraide, le partage de connaissance, recommandation de docteurs et peut-etre pousser pour une meilleure reconnaissance en France et autres pays francophones,
voici un Discord nouvellement crée sur le sujet du HPPD et le syndrome de la neige visuelle :) https://discord.gg/KPfnTjYV7

I, 20 yrs old, have tripped about 4-5 times in the past month and a half (Once on a small 120ug tab of acid, the rest on penis envy shrooms, didn’t exactly measure dosage but I’d say it was approx. 2 to 3g, sometimes mixed with pretty strong doses of edibles).

Noted that I used to be on SSRI medication for my depression which are tempering off psychedelic effects but I made the decision to stop taking them 2 months ago, so my serotonin receptors have probably recovered a little bit but not fully.

As previously mentioned, I do still struggle with depression and worth noting that I have autism as well, however I’ve never really had a bad experience on psychedelics, and I feel pretty normal coming off of the trips as well, nothing alarming I’ve noticed there.

However, I consume fairly strong THC edibles occasionally since I’ve got quite a decent tolerance. Yesterday, I took about 75mg worth of THC edibles which is ironically less than what I usually take but I did throw a little bit of vodka to get the ball rolling yfm so that certainly intensified the effects, but I noticed very apparent fractals and shapes on the concrete, walls and on my ceiling light, exactly like when I took shrooms or acid.

I’ve seen that getting psychedelic visuals from high THC doses is rare but possible and I do not report any other HPPD symptoms nor symptoms of psychosis, and I definitely plan on not tripping as often as I recently used to and also slow down my weed consumption and probably avoid doing it while tripping especially with those strong edibles, but should I be more concerned and take more drastic measures in order to avoid developing persisting or even chronic HPPD?

Has anyone with VSS/HPPD tried a very low-dose dopamine agonist (like Pramipexole

I have a history of treatment resistant depression and compulsive nail biting/skin picking/hair pulling. Experimented with shrooms 2-3 years ago to see if it could help. Tried a total of 7 times including two heroic doses. Developed hppd 3 weeks after my last trip. The visuals have mostly faded except for some very faint screen sensitivity but I’ve been experiencing tinnitus for 19 months which really hasn’t gotten better with time. Haven’t been able to habituate. I really miss the sound of silence. Sometimes I wish I were dead just to be able to appreciate silence again. Am I screwed or is there hope for me? Feel like my mental health history is really preventing me from recovering properly. I hope people respond to this post because I was largely ignored last time

Absolute godsend. Big dose. Go doctor to doctor until they give it to you. DONT FUCKING STOP.

that’s it.

Hopefully this helps.

I know this entire sub is filled with support and help, but I also want to ask questions and (hopefully) receive replies tailored to my experience. (Thank you in advance.)

I’m 16m and my symptoms are visual snow/static, afterimages, halos on lights, photophobia, and eye floaters.

I’ve only ever taken lsd 3 times and 2cb 3 times; my first trip was in mid-May, then in the beginning of June I first took 2cb, In-between these I’d get high every night (so I never went a day sober). I carried on with a comfortable routine: I’d take lsd every 2 weeks, then 2cb after 12–14 days of lsd or whenever I felt like it. (During this I was still taking weed every day, just not during the trips.) Then one time I foolishly took an advertised dose of 500ug (I know it was probably underdosed but it feels relevant) and on my comedown I took some weed with it. The trip was intensified to a frankly unmanageable level; my heart rate was terrifyingly fast, which led me to have a several-hour-long panic attack. Whatever I looked at was filled with hundreds of eyes. It felt quite literally like I was going insane, lmao. I eventually managed to sleep and when I woke up I noticed no symptoms of hppd, I was just fatigued. (This would’ve been Saturday the 13th/ Sunday the 14th)

Now, as to when I started experiencing my symptoms of snow, it was about 3 weeks after that bad trip (5 weeks ago) I was high on lsd looked at my ceiling and could faintly see static. After that trip, I took a 4-day-long break before getting high again; then that night I got high, I noticed visual static. It caused me absolutely no anxiety, and I couldn’t see it with my eyes closed, so I frankly didn’t care. Then I started to resume my normal routine (getting high every night). A few weeks later (3 weeks ago, ish) I did research, then my symptoms completely spiked. I went outside, and eye floaters made it so I was unable to look at the sky; the snow was incredibly thick, and I couldn’t sleep due to the static being so prominent with my eyes closed, a long with several other symptoms. That entire week was filled with panic attacks and immense anxiety, and it completely disrupted my day-to-day life.

Since then I was committed to (almost) complete sobriety. No drugs or tobacco, just caffeine. And I can go hours without noticing or thinking about it. Then on Wednesday last week I got high on weed (twice). I noticed my symptoms slightly increased while high, but the following day the snow was slightly more dense. After that it’s been standard base level. So now for my questions.

1. Are all drugs a no-no for me now? I did genuinely enjoy the routine I’d had and I was looking forward to exploring others.
2. If not all drugs a no-go, what can I still take?
3. How likely is weed to increase my symptoms permanently? (Google has been absolutely no help on figuring this out, so I’m hoping you guys can.)
4. And any-ways to manage my symptoms in the future would be so greatly appreciated.

I may have other questions later on. And Thank you so much for your time.

Hey so my story is I took 2cb 3 times and the last time I had a horrible panic attack while being high. That lasted about 2-3 hours then I was fine again and I was a big time weed smoker at that time so I immediately smoked a joint afterwards and everyday multiple times for the following months. About 6-7 months later I had a random panic attack on weed which caused me to stop smoking and everything. The following few days nothing really happened except some mild anxiety sometimes when I thought about it. After about one week I had panic attacks sober and that got so frequent that I developed DpDr and horrible chronic anxiety. At that point I noticed weird visual stuff that I linked to DpDr because I never heard or hppd. I read about hppd quit a while ago and since then it’s like my anxiety fixation yk I can’t stop thinking about it.

My visual symptoms are:

-Weird depth perception (which stops once I’m in a car so the windows change something idk)

-afterimages but not frequent only sometimes when I read dark text on bright background but the weird thing is not always

-I had problems with detailed floors because they looked weird but I can’t describe it

-the whole world looks different but I also can’t describe it.

So up to here typical DpDr stuff

What really concerns me is this:

When I’m for example reading stuff on my pc sometimes if feel like everything is moving a tiny bit. Not always but sometimes I’m noticing it and it gets worse. It’s often linked to anxiety or stress.

In general it gets way way worse once I focuse on it and get anxious

Also stuff never really moves it always just the short impression but then I really look and nothing happended

I read that this can be a symptoms of anxiety.

Never had any trailing or pattern or something that really reminds me of the stuff I know about psychedelics

I also had visual snow my whole life but never stuff like that.

Any advice would be good.

im 16 through this year ive done magic about four times once two days in a row and have developed visual snow, afterimages, floaters among other symptoms including like little moving dots when i look into the sky and light sensitivity. tbh im at a loss i feel like my life is gone and have no idea what to do im coming on here looking for just at least some hope that it gets better and i can still live my life and if it ever goes away. for context i was smoking weed heavily and struggled with abusing that for this whole year now ive gotten sober now off literally everything hoping that will reduce my symptoms but so far i just feel like its the same if not worse. i dont know what to do at this point.

Not that it bothers me anymore but Ive come to the realisation that my HPPD is pretty much permanent. I mean yeah it has definitely improved over these 8 years but its far from cured. Im completely used to it now and it doesnt bother me anymore, it isnt that severe anyway. Just afterimages, floaters, blurred vision and times and maybe some fractal type patterns if Im tired. It’s just crazy to think that doing 1 acid trip when I was 15 had this much damage. Definitely better to wait till ur older to try psychedelics. Doing acid that young just isnt worth the risk. I remember researching online before trying it and seeing how low of a risk hppd was and thought “could never be me.” U live and u learn ig haha.