Naps

[Mazzy13]

I've noticed people on here sometimes have problems sleeping with hppd. Luckily I've only experienced this a few times, otherwise at night I sleep fine. What I found out this week though is that I can no longer handle midday/afternoon naps. The past two times I've tried I go into a state full of intense closed eye visuals where it honestly feels like I'm tripping hard as he'll, and when I wake up/snap out of it my visual symptoms are about ten times worse for the next hour or so. Has anyone else experienced anything similar/learned how to beat it?

[Shadowplay]

I could never take naps due to the tension headaches it gives me. This was pre-HPPD and I've experienced a lot of sleep paralysis too in my younger days. The state before falling into sleep can produce a lot of CEV:s such as colours, patterns, tunnels. I did experience an OEV of an ashtounishing pattern of green spiderweb-liked advanced mathemathical pattern accross my whole vision when going into a hypnogogiac state.

When I'm in a dark room, there is no difference from having my eyes shut or not. I still feel and see the walls and objects around me. 3rd eye open lol.

My best advise to you is to start liking the CEV:s, which is easier said then done. But you better get used to it and it's nothing dangerous to be honest. Colours and geometrical patterns is something that I find beautiful and interesting. It can even help you sleep if you relax and focus on the visuals instead of your anxiety or thoughts.

Why it gets intensified after sleeping is hard to tell. Maybe becayse of low blood pressure or drowsiness. Have some green tea with honey and get your body warmed up.

[Mazzy13]

Thanks for the reply Shadow. Honestly, it's not really even the closed eye visuals that bother me so much as the feeling I have. It is just a trippy vertigo feeling. Anyway, I can live without naps. I was just wondering if it was weird that I experience this during naps yet not night sleep.

[Shadowplay]

Maybe it's related to derealisation if you're a sufferer of that? Mine is worst when I wake up. Had an unexpected nap yesterday, woke up really confused, headache and increased derealisation, which is a very trippy feeling indeed.

[Mazzy13]

Don't really think I suffer from dp/dr, unless that's the feeling I had after those naps, and if so those were the only times and they didn't last long.

[Thelizardking420]

Dude, I know exactly what you're talking about. I appligize for the lengthy post but I have alot to say about this matter because it happens every single time I take a nap, I have even seen that exact green visual with the floral pattern swirling that the other person described! I have been smoking weed daily, drinking and experimenting with a wide array of other drugs for years but around October of 2013 my friends and I bought what we were told by the asshole who sold it to us was salvia but unbeknownst to us it was a strong ass brand of synthetic cannabis (k2) and we smoked it in the middle of a heavy thunderstorm and pouring rain in the forest (yes, imagine how terrifying it was) and I had my first experience with a terrifyingly bad trip, I looked in the mirror and looked like death and had a song from my childhood screaming incessantly throughout my head but for some reason after the fact my friends and I decided to do it again and again totaling about 9 times. Long story short, me and a number of my friends got hppd, derealization and depersonalization. One of my friends even had to leave school an go see a doctor because he had a freak psychotic episode in my English class and didn't know what the fuck was happening. After I got hppd though I still smoked marijuana daily as I believe it honestly helps it a ton but even on weeks where I don't smoke anything and more than a year after the fact every time I take a nap (rarely before a full nights sleep) I have insanely trippy dreams where i am partially concious and I experience full on hallucinations of demons or I am laying on the floor paralyzed tripping and vomiting in my sleep as the result of an overdose or some shit like that (in the dream) or I am 100% convinced that I am awake and just took some psychedelic. It can be cool sometimes because I am almost always partially concious and like flying or just seeing some pleasing visual patterns but alot of the time it is disturbing images or scenes and I cannot wake up unless I physically pinch myself. Sometimes I will also flashback in my dreams to the setting of those places I smoked the k2 like this one park near my house and just see the playground violently vibrating and melting. Another thing I should mention is I am currently and have been taking since march a tricyclic antidepressant (amitryptyline 50 mg) to help manage anxiety from IBS ( irritable bowel syndrome is the main reason I smoke so much weed, if you have it you know how much your appetite decreases and the cramps and pain is awful) and the reason I mention taking this Is because I have read that this medicine alone will give people crazy dreams. I really don't know why hppd will give these dreams like this but it seems to be rather common but I just wanted to share my experience so you guys know that you're not the only one.

[Mazzy13]

Wow, sorry man. I suppose my nap hallucinations don't seem quite as violent as yours, but I think it's the same basic Idea. Interesting you bring up K2, as about 3-4 years ago I smoked that shit and had an insanely bad trip, thought I was gonna die. since it was so long ago I don't really attribute my hppd to it, but if anything I can tell you that if you're still on that shit, snap out of it. If you believe the weed isn't making things worse that's alright but shit like K2 should just be wiped of the face of the earth.

On a more positive note I actually managed to take a successful nap today. Visuals were hell for the hour after I woke up but it was worth it.