I have ingested numerous hallucinogenic drugs, most of them when I was very young. I can only assume that I suffer from HPPD due to the eerily similar symptoms that I experience on a daily basis. However, it appears to me that marijuana had much more of an impact on my daily perception and I experienced it as the catalyst that causes my aberrant perception to be considered a disability. Today I consume no psychoactive drugs other than my prescribed antidepressants.
That said, no one can be sure. There is no reliable way to diagnose HPPD since the change in perception could be caused by any number of confounding factors, and "a change" is not enough to cause discomfort, the effect needs to cause anxiety or disability to be considered a medical condition.
Even with this I really wish countries would fund psilocybin research because the number of unknown factors are too large for people to be self-medicating with substances that cause temporary insanity. "Increased entropy of the brain" is absolutely what it causes, but there is no reason to assume that the change caused is entirely beneficial.
Edit:
I feel like I didn't get my point across well enough or communicate all that I wanted to.
A component of a psychedelic experience is that you feel like nothing is ever "quite the same" afterwards. If you are prone to mental illness in any way, it is very easy to attribute it to the drug. It is hard to know whether the drug caused your change in perception, or it just made a pre-existing condition more noticeable. That however just gets us kind of into a chicken-egg situation of whether the mental condition would have had much impact without the ingestion of the drug. In any case, this is understandably an incredibly grey area.
That said, psilocybin definitely has an effect that lasts at least a few months after ingestion and some effects that last a lifetime as far as I can tell. In my case the shorter-acting effect is overwhelmingly positive, and the longer-lasting effect is mixed, but I don't really regret it. I can easily imagine this having a large contributing factor to my current condition and is one of the reasons why I warn people before taking psychedelic drugs. It has the potential for impacting your life and perspective in ways you can not even begin to predict, and I cannot emphasize enough how much you can not assume that all the changes will be positive. I suffer from an anxiety disorder that seems to be passed genetically, and this has caused some after effects of hallucinogens, especially the ones affecting my perception, to become VERY uncomfortable.
The problem that I have though is that psilocybin is also, in my experience, an incredibly effective countermeasure against anxiety and depression. It gives you the ability especially to change your behavior in very radical ways which can be essential in breaking the vicious cycle that anxiety and depression often is.
My opinion on the matter is that there is definitely great potential here, but it is not to be taken lightly. I believe psilocybin has amazing potential, but it needs to be researched and its effects observed as scientifically as possible before we have uninformed people (like younger me) ingesting it without taking the proper precautions and being aware of the possible negative effects.
At the same time, when you factor in memory degridation on each recall and ever changing perspective - it'll drive you wild trying to match objective benchmarks with subjective tools.
Marijauna, while often a "light" drug, has quite the ability to pull mental difficulties currently just under the surface in to the top. People often stop dreaming/having REM sleep the same if they smoke before bed, which can't be good long term.
This is yet another reason we should be pushing for full legalization of all substances. Being able to go buy Xmg of pure psilocybin with no contamination and a constant dose is so very imporatant (defunding the cartels is just a fun side benefit to citizens safety.)
I have ingested numerous hallucinogenic drugs, most of them when I was very young. I can only assume that I suffer from HPPD due to the eerily similar symptoms that I experience on a daily basis. However, it appears to me that marijuana had much more of an impact on my daily perception and I experienced it as the catalyst that causes my aberrant perception to be considered a disability. Today I consume no psychoactive drugs other than my prescribed antidepressants.
That said, no one can be sure. There is no reliable way to diagnose HPPD since the change in perception could be caused by any number of confounding factors, and "a change" is not enough to cause discomfort, the effect needs to cause anxiety or disability to be considered a medical condition.
Even with this I really wish countries would fund psilocybin research because the number of unknown factors are too large for people to be self-medicating with substances that cause temporary insanity. "Increased entropy of the brain" is absolutely what it causes, but there is no reason to assume that the change caused is entirely beneficial.
Edit:
I feel like I didn't get my point across well enough or communicate all that I wanted to.
A component of a psychedelic experience is that you feel like nothing is ever "quite the same" afterwards. If you are prone to mental illness in any way, it is very easy to attribute it to the drug. It is hard to know whether the drug caused your change in perception, or it just made a pre-existing condition more noticeable. That however just gets us kind of into a chicken-egg situation of whether the mental condition would have had much impact without the ingestion of the drug. In any case, this is understandably an incredibly grey area.
That said, psilocybin definitely has an effect that lasts at least a few months after ingestion and some effects that last a lifetime as far as I can tell. In my case the shorter-acting effect is overwhelmingly positive, and the longer-lasting effect is mixed, but I don't really regret it. I can easily imagine this having a large contributing factor to my current condition and is one of the reasons why I warn people before taking psychedelic drugs. It has the potential for impacting your life and perspective in ways you can not even begin to predict, and I cannot emphasize enough how much you can not assume that all the changes will be positive. I suffer from an anxiety disorder that seems to be passed genetically, and this has caused some after effects of hallucinogens, especially the ones affecting my perception, to become VERY uncomfortable.
The problem that I have though is that psilocybin is also, in my experience, an incredibly effective countermeasure against anxiety and depression. It gives you the ability especially to change your behavior in very radical ways which can be essential in breaking the vicious cycle that anxiety and depression often is.
My opinion on the matter is that there is definitely great potential here, but it is not to be taken lightly. I believe psilocybin has amazing potential, but it needs to be researched and its effects observed as scientifically as possible before we have uninformed people (like younger me) ingesting it without taking the proper precautions and being aware of the possible negative effects.