A question for dopers, and non-dopers alike

[El Barto]

Disclaimer for the modstaff--I won't be promoting drug use, helping others to buy or locate contraband items, or instructing in their proper usage.


Specifically I'm interested in people who've done hallucinogens; acid and psylocibin in particular. And better still for people with flashback experiences. And also just as interested in people who've done no such things, but might have experienced the visual the phenomenon I'm going to describe.

When I get a nice trip working I see a lot of undulation in flat surfaces. You hear people say the walls breathe. For me that's not quite it. Random areas on that wall move in and out. It never happens as a whole.   If I'm really tripping those random areas can move about and trade places with each other on the wall. A couple of years ago I spent a good hour watching freshly manicured sand at Long Beach on Long Island and it did beautiful stuff for my amusement.  The patterns all stayed he same, but they moved freely and interacted with the others. It was beautiful.

From time to time, like right now, I get this sort of distortion while stone cold sober. Letters on the page I'm typing on are moving in a peculiar manner. It's impossible to pin down because the letters can act alone, or they can act in conjunction with words, or even whole paragraphs to move in precise motion. It's really quite cool, even if a bit distracting. All of the sentences behind me are pulling this, too. My tabs appear quite a bit in front of the shortcut bar, and words I'm typing seem about a half an inch in front of the rest of the screen.

My wall has a swirled paint texture on it, and oddly they're not doing anything-that would be awesome. However, the wall appears majorly uneven. Pockets of it stick out toward me and other pockets are pushed back behind them. They seem content to stay in their own spot for now, though.  Clearly my sense of depth perception is just fried, which is cool. It's a fun effect, and in the past I'ts always gone away on it's own, and I find it enjoyable while it's around. Things don't get hairy until they can utilize all 3 axis.

Most strangely, because I'm on the rules page, Bosk's avatar is in the lower left corner. It's in 3d, and he moves just enough to demonstrate what looks like idle movement. Sandboxing movement. And because he was looking into the camera, his eyes always follow you no matter where you go. It's slightly creepy.

I'm just wondering if this is what people refer to as flashbacks. It does seem exactly like the visual hallucinations I experience on a low lever trip. I had a different take on what a flashback was, and this ain't it.  Anybody else with any sort of insight? Similar visual anomalies? With or with out drugs. Any have experiences with what they call a flashback?

Let's talk flashbacks and visual weirdness. Kinda fascinated by the whole thing.

[Kotowboy]

  I've genuinely never even had as much as a drag on a cigarette or been tipsy from booze.

I've been in the same room as people snorting white powder off a table or smoking weed ( which 100% smells better than cigarettes )

But that's it.

Yes there's a huge discussion to be had about prescription drugs VS recreational drugs vis-a-vis which one is actually more harmful yadda yadda...

But i've only ever had prescription Diazepam for insomnia and antibiotics etc.

[Stadler]

Honest question; what did you think a flashback was?   

I can't offer anything fun or nostalgic; I've never done hallucinogens.   Closest I've come was a wicked fever dream (twice) while being sick.

From what I understand, though, what you're sensing isn't a "flashback" per se; there is a thing called Hallucinogen-Persisting Perception Disorder.  Looks like the science is divided as to what that really is, though.

Is what you're experiencing cool, or something more negative?

[Ben_Jamin]

What you are experiencing are what I would call...Lingering effects. I never tried Acid, but I have tried psylocibin. When I tried them, one time it wasn't the time for me, as It was hectic than people left, and then it got calm, and it took awhile for my body to calm itself down, but once it did, it hit hard and I got sick. Went to Bathroom, and stayed on the toilet for quite a while starring at my door. 

Me and my friends, would experience little quirks like what you described, but it was different for each of us. Psylocibin, in particular, affects people differently, based on a lot of factors, and its why you need to prepare yourself first before usage.

The other time was more fun...I was at my friends, and then wanted to go home, because I had to walk, and it was starting to get a little dark. That was a fun walk, starring at the yellow lines on the road. Almost felt like I was driving. Got home, my parents went out to town, and I put on Live in Pompeii, A Saucerful of Secrets.... The first half was fucking Psychosane...The 2nd half was,  . It was a weird experience, because of the hecticness of the song, and you could really feel it, that it caused me to become hectic, but once it calmed and the Keybaord parts came on, it got calm and felt like I was floating in the air, drifting along to the Soaring Vocal Melodies David Gilmour was singing.

[Phoenix87x]

I haven't done any of the pure psychedelics yet, but with Oregon legalizing psilocybin to be used in clinics I swear to you I will be the first in line. I have a lot of shit in my head I need to heal and it seems very promising.

That being said I have gotten far enough with edible weed to hallucinate. There's a tree right outside my window and I love to look at as the sun is rising when on edibles. It basically becomes an ink blot test where random branches become solid identifiable images and its typically stuff that is on my mind or subconsciously on my mind.

The leaves sometimes melt together into fractal patterns or look like how an amoeba looks under a microscope.

Other times I've been able to look at blank wall and geometric patterns flow by in my vision.

** and on a sidenote of auditory hallucination or alteration, I can feel music or like each of the components separates out and I feel like I'm in the soundscape. Its taken some of my favorite music and brought it to a whole new level.

All of this I love by the way. Ever since getting a card, I feel like marijuana has really changed my life in a positive way and I look forward to seeing if psilocybin can help as well.

[El Barto]

From what I understand, though, what you're sensing isn't a "flashback" per se; there is a thing called Hallucinogen-Persisting Perception Disorder.  Looks like the science is divided as to what that really is, though.

Is what you're experiencing cool, or something more negative?

Not the persisting thing. Far too non-persistent for that. Those people are in a permanent state of tripping. This is only from time to time. And it's quite enjoyable.

However, I think I figured out what it was. If I stay up late and sleep late over the weekend I'll usually take an Ambien on Sunday night to help "reset" the ole internal clock. It's great for that. Sleep at the regular time and wake up well rested. Never thought about it before, but hallucinations are a side effect of Ambien, and it would seem that the hallucinations are the same you get from a couple of hits* of acid. Go figure. Presumably there's a pharmacological commonality. Next Sunday I'll take another one and see if I have the same experience. If that turns out to be the culprit, I'm doubling up on it the next time. 


*YMMV

[The Walrus]

I had a flashback once that was very short lived and not too intense but startled me all the same because I was at work

I haven't tripped in a few years but the last time I did was by myself in my living room and it was the most chill trip of my life and I worked out some big personal issues that night

I've thought about tripping again but it takes a lot of energy and time to do. I would probably just do shrooms again except the feeling of shrooms in the belly is disgusting. The high and visuals are more fuzzy, more oily... similar yet different.

Beyond the sensory effects, acid is a drug of extremes for me; my bad trips have been some of the worst experiences of my life, while the good ones have always offered deep insight, soothing revelations, and a profound sense of learning, understanding to love myself and who I am and what I want out of life

I kinda want to trip again after writing this

[Phoenix87x]

I've thought about tripping again but it takes a lot of energy and time to do.

This is the hilarious part about this stuff being Schedule I aka (OMG this is the most addictive thing on the earth) when really its almost anti-addictive.

After a heavy edibles trip, i am truly exhausted and the last thing I want to do is do it again, lol. Feeling that far under makes appreciate that clear feeling of sobriety honestly.

But that being said, it has been very helpful at times and very self reflective. 

[Stadler]

I've thought about tripping again but it takes a lot of energy and time to do.

This is the hilarious part about this stuff being Schedule I aka (OMG this is the most addictive thing on the earth) when really its almost anti-addictive.

After a heavy edibles trip, i am truly exhausted and the last thing I want to do is do it again, lol. Feeling that far under makes appreciate that clear feeling of sobriety honestly.

But that being said, it has been very helpful at times and very self reflective.

HAHA!   If I had a nickel for every time I woke up after drinking and said "I'm NEVER doing THAT again!" and then did exactly that, again, I'd be burning hundies lighting cigars with Gates and Bezos.

[Ben_Jamin]

I've thought about tripping again but it takes a lot of energy and time to do.

This is the hilarious part about this stuff being Schedule I aka (OMG this is the most addictive thing on the earth) when really its almost anti-addictive.

It's a Schedule 1 drug, not because of addiction. It's a Schedule I because It helps you understand things  and also because it made people act in a way of Sin and Uncivility. I can tell you, a lot of policies made back then were also made because of religious morality.

I've thought about tripping again but it takes a lot of energy and time to do.

This is the hilarious part about this stuff being Schedule I aka (OMG this is the most addictive thing on the earth) when really its almost anti-addictive.

After a heavy edibles trip, i am truly exhausted and the last thing I want to do is do it again, lol. Feeling that far under makes appreciate that clear feeling of sobriety honestly.

But that being said, it has been very helpful at times and very self reflective.

HAHA!   If I had a nickel for every time I woke up after drinking and said "I'm NEVER doing THAT again!" and then did exactly that, again, I'd be burning hundies lighting cigars with Gates and Bezos.

Hallucinogens are vastly different from Alcohol Intoxication. It's not even the same. You can have a mind-breaking revelation of the self, and you'll end up crying in the middle of the room in a fetal position. That's how intense these trips are capable of becoming, and why taking too much, can have negative effects and cause you to go into Psychosis, Syd Barret.

[Stadler]

No, I get that (and that's part of my fear of taking them, by the way; nothing to do with morality).   I was just addressing the concept of not being addictive because - and I paraphrase - I took it and didn't want to take it again immediately after. 

[Ben_Jamin]

No, I get that (and that's part of my fear of taking them, by the way; nothing to do with morality).   I was just addressing the concept of not being addictive because - and I paraphrase - I took it and didn't want to take it again immediately after.

Yeah, I got ya with that.

It's why I won't take Shrooms anymore, because I know I will have a bad trip. Plus, I feel like I don't need it.

It's no where crack levels of addiction, that's for sure. Just for clarity, I have took one hit of it, it tasted like shit, I felt like crap, also made me feel the shitty buzz as I was drinking when I did that, I was stupid and immature when I was around my friend at the time. I have never bothered with it at all, and don't feel the need to want to do it, I don't care if others do, but I don't. That's how I can remain friends with my friends who do that, I try and help them, but it won't help if they are not willing to help themselves. This is what I am keeping an eye on with the Psilocybin treatments.

[kirksnosehair]

I've done more acid, mescaline, mushrooms and peyote than I'd like to admit sometimes, but it's just how it was when I was young.  I was a garbage bucket.  If the kids in the neighborhood stole some pills from their parents they're bring them to me because I'd either know what they did, or I'd have no problem eating a few of them and reporting on their effects.  Ahh, youth 


I've experienced a lot of the same kinds of visual artifacts you are describing, not so much with mescaline, but with mushrooms, yeah.


Conservatively speaking I'd say I've taken a hallucinogenic drug in one form or another at least 2 or 3 hundred times between the ages of 14 and 35.


I have never experienced any kind of "flashback" and to be honest I think that's an urban myth. 


I don't know what you are experiencing, but perhaps its a side effect of something you're currently prescribed.  I don't know anyone who has ever had a "flashback" or experienced the effects of a hallucinogen without having recently (within the last 72 hours) ingested some.


I'm not questioning your experience, mind you.  I just don't know anyone who has had it.

[El Barto]

I have never experienced any kind of "flashback" and to be honest I think that's an urban myth. 


I don't know what you are experiencing, but perhaps its a side effect of something you're currently prescribed.  I don't know anyone who has ever had a "flashback" or experienced the effects of a hallucinogen without having recently (within the last 72 hours) ingested some.


I'm not questioning your experience, mind you.  I just don't know anyone who has had it.

I'm right there with you. To the best of my knowledge, neither I nor anybody I hang out with has had a flashback. I have cues that remind me of a specific experience when I was tripping at some point, a bit of music, or being reminded of something I'd forgotten, but it's really just a very strong remembrance or a sudden realization. It'll stop me in my tracks, I'll go "oh, yeah, fuck!" and then things are back to normal. Pretty cool, really.

And a few posts down I replied that I've decided it was Ambien.

Interestingly, I was sadly too young to experience quaaludes. They disappeared right around the time I'd have been interested. You probably were around for them. From what I've read the closest thing to quaaludes now being manufactured is Zopidem. By most accounts they have about the same effect. I've been curious about that, and now that I see that there really is a hallucinatory component to them, I'm all the more fascinated.

[Orbert]

El Barto, the effects you describe are pretty much what I used to get when doing blotter acid back in the good old days.  I didn't actually see things that weren't there, but it was as if some really good video effects were being applied to what I was seeing.  To be honest, I wouldn't want to see things that aren't there; I don't need to think I'm being visited by a giant purple raccoon or something.  But visual effects can be fun.  Just sitting and watching the effects my own brain makes up can be pretty entertaining.

I used to get similar effects once in a while after not tripping for weeks.  I always assumed these were the "flashbacks" people talked about.  Similar effects, usually not as intense, but sometimes, and not lasting nearly as long.  Usually just a few minutes where my brain apparently got bored and started making shit up.  That hasn't happened in a while.

[Progmetty]

I've always wanted to experience hallucinating, as I've come to understand it from movies and books as vivid visualization.

LSD basically is what I wanted to try and had no access to it, until a year ago or so when a couple of guys from work said they were gonna "drop acid" and I had told them about my bucket list item of trying LSD. The dude said "Well that's what we're doing..", I had no idea up to 2019 that dropping acid meant doing LSD. As a colossal inquisitive geek I asked them when people started calling it acid and the guy said "I have never heard anyone used the phrase 'doing LSD' in my life and I've been doing this since I was 15" 

They gave me a little square piece of paper to chew on, nothing happened, didn't even get dizzy, then I went to bed, most disappointing thing ever heh
I asked them the next day if it may have had anything to do with me being 270lb and 6'1, like maybe I needed more, but they said they never knew it to have anything to do with body size.

[Stadler]

I've done more acid, mescaline, mushrooms and peyote than I'd like to admit sometimes, but it's just how it was when I was young.  I was a garbage bucket.  If the kids in the neighborhood stole some pills from their parents they're bring them to me because I'd either know what they did, or I'd have no problem eating a few of them and reporting on their effects.  Ahh, youth 


I've experienced a lot of the same kinds of visual artifacts you are describing, not so much with mescaline, but with mushrooms, yeah.


Conservatively speaking I'd say I've taken a hallucinogenic drug in one form or another at least 2 or 3 hundred times between the ages of 14 and 35.


I have never experienced any kind of "flashback" and to be honest I think that's an urban myth. 


I don't know what you are experiencing, but perhaps its a side effect of something you're currently prescribed.  I don't know anyone who has ever had a "flashback" or experienced the effects of a hallucinogen without having recently (within the last 72 hours) ingested some.


I'm not questioning your experience, mind you.  I just don't know anyone who has had it.

I don't have your experience, so I'm not speaking from mine, but I thought the idea of "flashbacks" - at least in the form of "tripping" years later as a result of an earlier trip - was debunked.  I thought acid was pretty much out of your system completely in a matter of days, and wasn't "stored" in tissue as once thought.   (Which goes to your experience about "recent ingestion"). 

[Orbert]

If flashbacks are just a theory that has been debunked, then they need to come up with another word for it, because I have definitely experienced the effect, weeks after ingesting.  As I said, not usually as intense, nor as long, but the same visuals.  Solid surfaces seeming to dip and pulse, parallel lines waving in the wind, that kind of thing.  Perhaps it can be written off to being tired or something, but it's not like an entire subculture of people made it up.  We experienced something.

[home]

I've had experiences quite similar like you describe, where if I was looking at a flat surface and zoning out, I would see faint random patterns forming or the surface would start moving. Never really bothered me as it was only in those specific situations and would be gone as soon as I started focusing again. Currently I haven't ingested any psychedelic in about a year and it's completely gone.

[El Barto]

I've always wanted to experience hallucinating, as I've come to understand it from movies and books as vivid visualization.

LSD basically is what I wanted to try and had no access to it, until a year ago or so when a couple of guys from work said they were gonna "drop acid" and I had told them about my bucket list item of trying LSD. The dude said "Well that's what we're doing..", I had no idea up to 2019 that dropping acid meant doing LSD. As a colossal inquisitive geek I asked them when people started calling it acid and the guy said "I have never heard anyone used the phrase 'doing LSD' in my life and I've been doing this since I was 15" 

They gave me a little square piece of paper to chew on, nothing happened, didn't even get dizzy, then I went to bed, most disappointing thing ever heh
I asked them the next day if it may have had anything to do with me being 270lb and 6'1, like maybe I needed more, but they said they never knew it to have anything to do with body size.

Each person has their own tolerance, and that can vary from day to day. Moreover, each sheet has its own potency, and that can vary from hit to hit. There's definitely a random element to it. As for body mass, I don't think it factors into it.

And yeah, Lysergic acid diethylamide has always been colloquially known as acid.

[lonestar]

I've had some decent experience with acid, and more with shrooms, pretty much spent my freshman year at Berkeley on them. Never really dug the high that much and let the whole experience go after that, much preferred getting drunk and doing speed. Per the op, during the high I would get the walls breathing effect, and heaven forbid I tripped in a place with popcorn ceiling, I'd be pretty much fucked if I got lost in that stuff. Never had a flashback though.

[KevShmev]

Alcohol and prescribed stuff aside, I have never done any drug in my life except pot, and I never even did that for the first time until I was like 37 , so I cannot offer much in the way of discussion here, but I will be reading. 

[kirksnosehair]

I have never experienced any kind of "flashback" and to be honest I think that's an urban myth. 


I don't know what you are experiencing, but perhaps its a side effect of something you're currently prescribed.  I don't know anyone who has ever had a "flashback" or experienced the effects of a hallucinogen without having recently (within the last 72 hours) ingested some.


I'm not questioning your experience, mind you.  I just don't know anyone who has had it.

I'm right there with you. To the best of my knowledge, neither I nor anybody I hang out with has had a flashback. I have cues that remind me of a specific experience when I was tripping at some point, a bit of music, or being reminded of something I'd forgotten, but it's really just a very strong remembrance or a sudden realization. It'll stop me in my tracks, I'll go "oh, yeah, fuck!" and then things are back to normal. Pretty cool, really.

And a few posts down I replied that I've decided it was Ambien.

Interestingly, I was sadly too young to experience quaaludes. They disappeared right around the time I'd have been interested. You probably were around for them. From what I've read the closest thing to quaaludes now being manufactured is Zopidem. By most accounts they have about the same effect. I've been curious about that, and now that I see that there really is a hallucinatory component to them, I'm all the more fascinated.

I was really on the back end of the "Lemon" era.  They were still around when I was getting heavily into drug use, but they were already becoming very hard to come by and there were tons of imitations out there that were made with valium or some other benzo.  I was never a big fan of that kind of drug because I would always get up the next day and not remember anything, which is very common with benzos.  It's why they give you a diazepam-based drug when you have a colonoscopy.  Most people believe they were put "to sleep" for their colonoscopy but the fact is, they need you awake because they need you to be able to respond to commands like "roll over more to your left" and such.  No one ever remembers it, which is one of the great benefits of that kind of drug. 

As for Ambien.  I've been on it for over 10 years and I have experienced multiple cases of somnambulism, but nothing crazy like driving a car.  And I've never had any hallucinations from it.  Not that I'm aware of