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I've been thinking about taking psilocybe mushrooms to get some help to anxiety and social phobia problems. But I just heard about HPPD, and I consider myself lucky to do so! I thought mushrooms are nearly harmless but this HPPD sounds very nasty. Most HPPD cases report LSD as the cause but mushrooms are sometimes mentioned too. Has anyone got HPPD from mushrooms and does anyone know what's the percentage/risk of getting it? Are there any ways to test if it's going to result in HPPD? Should I take small dose first and see if any signs of HPPD appear? Or should i just ditch the idea of taking mushrooms? I have never taken any recreational drugs besides alcohol and cigarettes.

Hi all, I'm very glad to have found this forum and think that it has already aided me in understanding what I can do to help combat my (suspected) HPPD. I've been looking through threads and have found a few great stories which gave me hope and huge inspiration from those who have been suffering (and still are) but seem to be able to make a go of things. Some context, I am 20yo male, studying at uni and working. Previous to my breakdown, I had 1 LSD trip (Dec 2014), Shroom two weeks later cactus trips (Feb 2015), LSD trip 2- the bad one (20th March), Shroom trip 2 (9th May). Since approx 2010 I've been smoking week periodically, and over the past 2 years reasonably constantly; culminating in periods where I would smoke every night. I believe that I have got HPPD after having a particularly bad acid trip where I completely disconnected from reality, lost all connection to my sensors and from what I can remember decided that I was experiencing death at what were the bottom of existential crisis thought loops. After this I experienced what I will call disconnection from my past (i.e. with effort I could remember what had happened to me, but could not remember the actual feeling of being there (the quaila-any philosophy majors?)). I had some mental fog, but was otherwise seemingly fine. A month later in hopes of helping the situation I had a mushy trip at reasonably low dose (5 caps maybe), this started out really well, with mostly euphoria etc. I then started to feel very L.S.D'y and told my tripping buddy and he came up to my room with me and helped me write about what I was feeling; I believe at this point I had my first taste of DR/PR, as I frantically wrote about the meaning of life and the way in which we define ourselves as people etc. After an hour or so of this my anxiety abated and the trip ended very pleasantly. Approximately 3 weeks later, my mind somehow preempted my complete collapse and I went back to my parents house, where I ended up with crippling anxiety which saw me bedridden, this is when my HDDP symptoms appeared (I'm not sure whether one preempted the other etc), this all started approx 1st of June. I was a complete mental mess unable to concentrate or remember almost anything. I had streaks and trails (which as far as I can understand are reasonably mild comparatively to other peoples- but I was scared to death at the time), I believe at this time I also had thoughts of ending my life because I could not see a way through what was going on. At this point in time I had exams and managed to do one of the essays (in hindsight this probably stressed me out and made things worse). I went to see a psychiatrist whom I told the whole story, and it seems I got lucky because he took it all in and did not judge at all, which helped immensely. He put me on zoloft (SSRI) to treat the anxiety and Circadin (melatonin to aid sleep), I've also been using Temazepam when I have a really bad night. I am also hoping to get my hands on some benzos as a 'just in case'. So I'm now just over a month into this experience, things do seem to be improving. At times I feel completely normal, and having read what some people experienced and are experiencing I feel almost unqualified to feel bad for my situation. The questions I have relate to the mental symptoms which seem less talked about, while I am dealing reasonably well with after images/trails tracers and the such; I get almost complete disconnection from each day to the next, while I can most of the time remember with effort what I did yesterday I don't really feel like I've done it. I have also experienced this at random times during the day (kinda like turing around and looking at someone and being like what am I doing here and who is this and then having to dig for the info and being disconnected to it); is this to do with DR/DP? This coupled with my complete lack of memory really freak me out at the moment and seem to be my biggest barrier to getting back to a normal life (memory is good for uni and work ) Last question is thoughts on the SSRI use, I have talked to my doctor and while he is hesitant to take me off it he said if I believed it would be better in the long run, then he would defer to me on the matter. From what I've read it seems it might be best to go without the SSRI? Any general tips Cheers for all the love that goes around this place, the forum seems to help a lot of people in desperate need; I feel like I'm a lucky one to have found you guys so early, Peace, Love & Healing to all

Hi there! For the past two years, I have been having difficulties with video projectors, and sometimes leds. When I watched anything on a projector, the image seperated into red-green-blue trails. Usually a great sense of terror and panic attacks accompanied the visual disturbance. It was awful for me, because as an art student I am exposed to projectors constantly, and I had to give up on many of my classes because of it. It all started about a month after a very bad psilocybin experience. (I guess I haven't been exposed to any projectors in between) At the time I also experienced constant sleep paralysis, disturbing lucid dreams which started over and over when I tried to wake up... When I mentioned this to my psychiatrist, he didn't seem to care and prescribed me antidepressants and antipsychotics for my depression and general anxiety (first prozac and rexapin, then cymbalta and seroquel). I started seeing another pdoc, and it was the same with him. I told my parents about my problem (not the psilocybin experience though) and a neurologist who is a family friend suggested that I get screened for epilepsy. I went to an epilepsy expert. She wanted EEGs and MRIs which came out clear. I told about my drug use, and gave her a list of drugs I have tried over the years. She said that it must be a result of my drug use, but offered nothing to help. About 6 months ago I started seeing another pdoc. She said that some minor epileptic cases may not be diagnosed by EEGs, and prescribed me a low dose Lamictal. The main reason for Lamictal was that it acted as a mood stabilizer, but she also wanted to see if it helped with these symptoms. I started with 25 mg, around 75 mgs the visual disturbances vanished (now I'm using 200mgs but that's for the mood stabilizing effects). Well, altough I mentioned my drug use none of these doctors mentioned anything about HPPD, I guess they just don't know about it. I just found out about it myself, and after reading some articles and the posts on this forum, it seems a lot more relevant to me than photosensitive epilepsy. Still, it was treated by the instincts of my pdoc I guess I'll talk more about this with her next time we meet. What I'm curious about is, is this thing curable? Or will it return if I stop using Lamictal?

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