By: Gus Tovar
If you have read any of my other articles you get the hint that I am pro Psychedelic use. I am doing all I can to dedicate my life to the awareness of Psychedelic assisted therapy, and one day move to practice it under the blessing of the FDA. There are many strides being taken at the moment with MDMA trials, and I hope to see other psychedelics get accepted into the FDA’s list of therapeutic substances. As I have said before, we are going through a psychedelic renaissance; the access to information simply does not allow the establishment to continue lying to the populace.
For the most part, traditional psychedelics are not neurotoxic or of any physical danger to the user. There are certain things that can change for the user which are usually not addressed. When one uses psychedelics there are new neuro connections which are made in the brain. These new connections are what allow us to peer into a reality which is usually not available to us. These connections allow us to view our normal world through new eyes. However, these new perspectives can linger with us, and remain a part of our everyday reality.
Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder is a frequently occurring issue for psychedelic users that is rarely addressed. This is mostly because it is usually not very long lasting and for the most part is a pleasant experience for the person having the “disorder.” Psychedelics such as LSD allow you to peer into an “enhanced” version of our own reality. At higher doses, it will certainly take you completely out of your usual state of consciousness; you might close your eyes and find yourself flying through an endless cosmo of fractal beauty and love. At moderate doses, it is simply an enhancer of whatever is being perceived by your sensory systems.
I see LSD as putting on “awesome goggles” for 12 hours. This enhancement of reality usually propagates itself in the user seeing breathing in patterns, and the well known blooming fractal patterns in the vision. There are also distortions of depth and perception which occur at the peak of the experience, along with the well-known bliss and euphoria that come with the drug. While the effects of LSD vary from person to person and batch to batch, the lingering effects which have been shown to stay around are usually the least intrusive of the bunch. Most users experience no more than slight movement, increased liveliness in patterns, and a clearer outline in visual floaters.
I had a quick chat with a friend of mine, Leo, who currently suffers from one of the most severe occurrences of the disorder. This is what he had to say:
“It’s not my favorite thing ever, but it is also not all that bad. I usually get breathing and large “halos” around lights, even with my eyes wide open. Patterns move quite a bit, even simple ones. Visual snow is pretty intense and noticeable even when it’s not dark. My floaters are always noticeable, and sometimes make me think I see things in the corners of my vision. Like, just now, looking around at the cloudy sky there is a constantly moving field of ribbon-like objects. But yeah, there are these little black things that I mistake for bugs sometimes, but they are actually just little specks in my vision. I don’t know how to describe these little ribbons, it’s like tiny black strings attached to a central black speck, and they sorta just hover there. But floaters are different, these move only after I move my eyes, it feels like there’s a lag time. I look to the right and all the little strings follow in about .2 seconds, different from my normal little orb floaters. I also see patterns when I close my eyes, very subtle, but psychedelic patterns and mandalas and stuff really faintly. Marijuana throws me into a full blown psychedelic trip almost every time now. But yeah, last night I was laying in bed and the closet door was melting. It was odd. Seeing at night has become a lot more difficult because of the intensity of my visual snow and the way lights bleed into my vision. That’s my biggest complaint.”
“Marijuana throws me into a full blown psychedelic trip now,” this is something that I hear from time to time, from people after they first start using psychedelics. From speaking to other people in the field, we mostly agree that this is due to the fact that psychedelics allow you to peer deeply into the obviously psychedelic properties of life. THC is a psychedelic substance, while one of the mildest ones, it is definitely a psychedelic substance. Once you have a potent psychedelic experience, you will become familiar with the psychedelic aspect of the drugs. Therefore, next time you use marijuana, your brain somewhat forces you to notice the “psychedelic-ness” that marijuana offers. The way I believe this works is that every psychedelic trip is sort of like a tolerance level reset for THC. A 200 mg KushyPunch TKO edible just packs a much larger punch the morning after an acid trip.
Experimenting with drugs, while fun and exciting, must be well researched and only done under responsible intentions. Marijuana and other Psychedelic medicines definitely have a stronghold on the mental health world, and on quite a bit of the pain relief market. As the years pass, we will see more and more of these currently “holistic” approaches become recognized and legalized at a federal level. However, there are already countless personal accounts and other independent research cases which back up the claims that these substances possess true medicinal properties. So, please do your research. If you feel that you are suffering from any lingering psychedelic effects, do not fret, a few Google searches will show you there are many others like you. The effects will only linger briefly, they will be gone before you know it, you might even find yourself missing them soon. There is not much to worry about, as severe cases will only come from truly heavy and constant substance abuse. At that point, regardless of the drug you are on… you are asking for trouble.
