HPPD, anyone?

[maxfreakout]

What I said was to show that I was making these effects myself. I had control over them, so I knew it was my own doing and wasn't a product of the trip I had a few months before.

you said that the visual effects only started after the trip you had, so was there any connection at all between the trip and the onset of the visual effects?

 

[Forkbender]

I don't think so. The two were months apart and the visual effects weren't accompanied by feelings of bliss (or anxiety for that matter) and insight.

 

[maxfreakout]

I don't think so. The two were months apart and the visual effects weren't accompanied by feelings of bliss (or anxiety for that matter) and insight.

ah right ok, well what you experienced is not the phenomenon that i am talking about, ie the 'HPPD' or 'RVE' or whatever that this thread is about. There is a condition where psychedelic-style visuals persist beyond the end of a trip, that most people call (rightly or wrongly) 'HPPD', where the connection between the trip and the persisting visual is totally obvious, because the onset of the visuals directly and obviously follows from the end of the trip. This is a phenomenon that is fairly common among psychonauts, but obviously you have not experienced it. Therefore you are in no position to deny its existence, only people who have experienced it (such as many posters on this thread including me) can say for certain that it exists. It doesnt in any way appeal to the idea of a 'causal' connection between the trip and the condition, any talk of causality is purely speculation, and personally i am a sceptic and i dont believe there is any causal link

 

[GOD]

Fork , if there was a conection it was only that you had taken a sense expanding drug that alowed you to be aware of something that was there before you took the drug . The drug didnt cause the sense effects .

 

[Forkbender]

GOD, I know.

max, I'm not denying the symptoms.

And if there is no causal link between the use of entheogens and PVE's, why would you need to take entheogens before you could experience them? That is also precisely the best criticism of the official HPPD definition, which also seems not to include a link between the use of psychedelics and HPPD except that you have to have taken them before you could have it. Now why is this a prerequisite, if it doesn't play a causal role? That's just like saying: you have to have a bachelor's degree before you can call yourself stupid.

 

[maxfreakout]

Fork , if there was a conection it was only that you had taken a sense expanding drug that alowed you to be aware of something that was there before you took the drug

yes but the important thing is that (assuming that there IS a connection) the 'sense expansion' lasts beyond the end of the trip, and wouldnt have been there were it not for the fact that you took the trip in the first place. THAT is the meaning of 'HPPD' or 'RVE' or whatever insofar as it relates to the drug experiences.

So you could call it 'persisting sense expansion'

The drug didnt cause the sense effects .

i agree with this, HPPD isnt 'caused' by the drugs, rather it is a necessary condition of having HPPD that you took the drugs first. Otherwise it isnt HPPD (or RVE/PPP or whatever you want to call it) it is something else

 

[Forkbender]

So if you have these symptoms and you used drugs that didn't cause it, it is RVE and if you didn't use drugs that didn't cause it, it is not? Don't you see how ridiculous this sounds?

 

[maxfreakout]

if there is no causal link between the use of entheogens and PVE's, why would you need to take entheogens before you could experience them?

because if you DIDNT take drugs before you experienced the effects, then you are not talking about HPPD (or PVE's) but rather some different phenomenon, which isnt what this thread is about. The term 'HPPD' as it is used on this thread only applies to visual effects that last beyond the end of a trip, that are obviously correlated with the trip itself (ie they begin as soon as the trip ends, so in a sense it is as if the trip doesnt fully end)

That is also precisely the best criticism of the official HPPD definition, which also seems not to include a link between the use of psychedelics and HPPD except that you have to have taken them before you could have it. Now why is this a prerequisite, if it doesn't play a causal role?

The phenomenon that is being talked about on this thread is visual effects that persist beyond the end of a trip, NOT visual effects that have no connection at all with tripping. It is only a 'prerequisite' in the sense that the onset of the condition is correlated with the end of the trip. This is a fairly common condition among psychonauts.

The whole concept of 'causation' is very tricky and slippery and personally i dont believe in it.

for example, there is no way to 'prove' that there is even a causal link between taking LSD and having an LSD trip, according to the modern state of science, because all that science can tell you about what happens when you take LSD, is that the LSD fits into your serotonin receptors, but how the activation of serotonin receptors is connected to the actual subjective, phenomenological effects of an LSD trip is a complete mystery.

Perhaps some future scientific advance will shed light on this mystery, but it hasnt yet done so

That's just like saying: you have to have a bachelor's degree before you can call yourself stupid.

No it is like saying that having a bachelors degree doesnt necessarily make you smart, as there could be some third, unidentified factor that makes you smart. This is the case whenever we talk about 'causation' - you can never rule out the possibility that an effect was caused by some unidentified factor besides the factor that you believe to be the cause

 

[maxfreakout]

So if you have these symptoms and you used drugs that didn't cause it, it is RVE and if you didn't use drugs that didn't cause it, it is not?

No, firstly the expression "if you didn't use drugs that didn't cause it" doesnt make any sense in English, it is a double-negative, a non-existent non-existence


if you took drugs and then immediately after the trip, the psychedelic-style visual effects persisted (when they were not there before the trip started) that is HPPD (or whatever you want to call it - the thing that this thread is all about)

but if you didnt take drugs, and yet you experience some kind of ongoing visual effect, then that is some entirely distinct condition, not HPPD, which is not what this thread is about

 

[IJesusChrist]

shut up

 

[Forkbender]

Since we are talking about HPPD again:

according to DSM-IV there is no limit on the time between the visual phenomena and stopping the use of hallucinogens. If you take hallucinogens a few times and have some persisting visual phenomena that cause damage to social and/or working life after three years of abstinence, it is still called HPPD according to DSM. So there doesn't necessarily have to be an immediate persisting of visual phenomena.

I have a different theory for you to debunk, because I think it is a better explanation of what is really going on:

Some people experience these sorts of visual phenomena. Some people have them without taking drugs and others only after they have taken certain drugs which seemed to have 'triggered' these experiences. It is impossible to tell whether these experiences were caused by drugs and whether they wouldn't have occured without taking the drugs. It is likewise impossible to say that they are distinct from the experiences of people who didn't take the drugs, because both groups of people describe the same effects. Now, because the visual phenomena resemble experiences the person had while under the influence of the drug, they naturally associate the two and think that the drugs somehow has something to do with the phenomena occuring. This is, however, fuzzy logic, as both experiences are isolated in time and because the people who didn't take the drugs will never associate the two because he doesn't know how the drugs influence a person and doesn't have a frame of reference. Both groups will therefore word their experience in a different manner and because of that can be classified into two distinct groups eventhough the drugs had no direct influence on the effects. Psychiatrists have noticed some people describing these phenomena as 'like being on acid, dude' and figured (with their usually flawed sense of logic): HEY, it must have been the drugs! Let's invent a specific disease so we can pretend we are a serious occupation.

Maybe others can see if I make any mistakes or if there are some gaps that cannot be explained.

 

[IJesusChrist]

I'm going to say 2 things:
1Someone who hasn't taken drugs and started to see things melting are going to notice... The drugs don't just make you "aware" (people who are sober life-long don't just not notice these visuals if they happen)

2Who cares.

 

[GOD]

I used to have a lot of those effects as a child before i ever took drugs . Its about awareness and some people have more than others .

 

[maxfreakout]

Since we are talking about HPPD again:

i was talking about the same exact thing that i have always been talking about, which is persisting visual effects following the end of a psychedelic trip

according to DSM-IV there is no limit on the time between the visual phenomena and stopping the use of hallucinogens.

im not actually talking about the specific DSM criteria (i am JUST talking about persisting visual effects), but here ^ you are confusing the time limit on the duration of the phenomena following cessation of drug use, with the time limit on the onset of the phenomena following cessation of drug use. The DSM definition talks about the former, but doesnt mention the latter, whereas i was always talking about the latter. In other words, the onset of HPPD/RVE (or whatever you want to call it) tends to follow (as far as i know, and certainly in my own experience) immediately from the end of the trip, but even if it doesnt, the thing that makes it 'HPPD/RVE' (or whatever you want to call it) as opposed to some other condition, is the correlation of its onset with the use of psychedelics

If you take hallucinogens a few times and have some persisting visual phenomena that cause damage to social and/or working life after three years of abstinence, it is still called HPPD according to DSM. So there doesn't necessarily have to be an immediate persisting of visual phenomena.

again, here ^ you are making the same mistake, confusing the onset of HPPD/RVE' (or whatever you want to call it - whether or not it disrupts your life negatively) with the duration.

HPPD/RVE (or whatever you want to call it) lasts for a long time, sometimes years, but it begins as soon as the trip ends

Some people experience these sorts of visual phenomena. Some people have them without taking drugs

in which case, it is a different condition from the one that this thread is about, although it may well be related

and others only after they have taken certain drugs which seemed to have 'triggered' these experiences. It is impossible to tell whether these experiences were caused by drugs and whether they wouldn't have occured without taking the drugs.

But it takes an enormous leap of the imagination to say that they would have occured, at the same point in the person's life, even if they hadnt taken drugs at that specific point

It is likewise impossible to say that they are distinct from the experiences of people who didn't take the drugs, because both groups of people describe the same effects. Now, because the visual phenomena resemble experiences the person had while under the influence of the drug, they naturally associate the two and think that the drugs somehow has something to do with the phenomena occuring.

It isnt *just* the similarity that causes people to make this link, but also the fact that the visual effects start when the trip ends, and were not there before

This is, however, fuzzy logic, as both experiences are isolated in time and because the people who didn't take the drugs will never associate the two because he doesn't know how the drugs influence a person and doesn't have a frame of reference. Both groups will therefore word their experience in a different manner and because of that can be classified into two distinct groups eventhough the drugs had no direct influence on the effects.

But in the case of HPPD/RVE (or whatever you want to call it), the drugs DID influence the effects, evidenced by the correlation between the end of the trip, and the onset of the condition

Psychiatrists have noticed some people describing these phenomena as 'like being on acid, dude' and figured (with their usually flawed sense of logic): HEY, it must have been the drugs! Let's invent a specific disease so we can pretend we are a serious occupation.

but again, it isnt merely the phenomenological similarity that prompts people (including but not limited to psychiatrists) to make the connection to drugs, it is ALSO the fact that the onset of the condition always correlates with the end of the trip - to say that this is just a coincidence, in every case, is a massive leap of the imagination, and it is much more plausible to simply acknowledge that there almost certainly IS some connection with the drugs

 

[maxfreakout]

I'm going to say 2 things:
1Someone who hasn't taken drugs and started to see things melting are going to notice... The drugs don't just make you "aware" (people who are sober life-long don't just not notice these visuals if they happen)

I agree, this is why it is inadequate to simply say 'the effects were there before but you just didnt notice' - that fails to explain the fact that now, even when i stare very carefully at my carpet, it does not dance around like it used to a few years ago when i had HPPD

2Who cares.

you posted the thread!!!

But the really important thing about HPPD, is not whether or not it exists, but what its significance is. The symptoms of HPPD have very profound philosophical implications, which unfortunately this thread doesnt even mention

 

[GOD]

There is no point in talking to mad-max hes lost his argument and he knows it . His tactic is "keep on talking and hope nobody notices" round and round in circles .

It comes to a point when a rational person stops letting dishonest idiots play childish games with them and just ignores them . Remember the story in the bible about the kid who kept drying wolf ?

 

[maxfreakout]

I used to have a lot of those effects as a child before i ever took drugs . Its about awareness and some people have more than others .

i agree, it is about the level of consciousness you have, people with HPPD are getting a truer visual picture of reality - which comes with having a higher level of consciousness



"you never step in the same river twice" - Heraclitus

 

[maxfreakout]

as far as the existence/non-existence of HPPD is concerned, it all ultimately comes down to this:

the people who have experienced it, know that it exists, and the people who have not experienced it, dont know whether it exists or not

 

[Forkbender]

HPPD/RVE (or whatever you want to call it) lasts for a long time, sometimes years, but it begins as soon as the trip ends

It doesn't according to the DSM definition. The DSM is a very precise book with precise rules. If there would be a time limit to the onset it would have been in there, just like in medical books, for example in cases of allergy reactions which have to occur after intake of a certain substance within x minutes/hours.

in which case, it is a different condition from the one that this thread is about, although it may well be related

There is no proof for that and you know it, so stop insisting on it.

But it takes an enormous leap of the imagination to say that they would have occured, at the same point in the person's life, even if they hadnt taken drugs at that specific point

Not if taking entheogens is one of the symptoms of a person who is prone to experience these kinds of phenomena.

It isnt *just* the similarity that causes people to make this link, but also the fact that the visual effects start when the trip ends, and were not there before

As said before, this isn't a necessary condition for HPPD. Maybe it is in your definition of it, but we are not talking your definition, we are talking the general definition. If the habit of trying entheogens is symptomatic as well for people who are prone to experience these phenomena, then there is no possible way to link the two either. I think this is the case.

But in the case of HPPD/RVE (or whatever you want to call it), the drugs DID influence the effects, evidenced by the correlation between the end of the trip, and the onset of the condition

This correlation seems to be your ace of spades here, but it isn't a necessary condition for HPPD and correlation can never imply an influence. Both the taking of entheogens and the visual effects can be symptoms of something else. These are the two major prerequisites of the official DSM-HPPD, so why not call them symptoms instead of forcing this link on us? And how can the drugs influence the visual effects? How do you explain that without a causal relation?

So far, my theory isn't really debunked, you just enforce it, because your 'case' fits perfectly within it. You have created your own myth and don't know how to escape it.

 

[Forkbender]

as far as the existence/non-existence of HPPD is concerned, it all ultimately comes down to this:

the people who have experienced it, know that it exists, and the people who have not experienced it, dont know whether it exists or not

There is so much assumption in your argument. And so much circular reasoning. You need to wake up, dude, because you say one thing and the exact opposite at the same time.

You (who had an experience) cannot deduce from your own experience that this experience was a) caused by the entheogens, b) HPPD nor c) dissimilar from the experience people had who didn't take drugs. You have a limited viewpoint and induce general statements, which clearly aren't true.