A man has told doctors that he’s seen faces every time he’s looked at trees, ever since he took LSD – 30 years ago.
The poor bloke walked into a Canadian hospital and admitted he’d experimented with LSD when he was 21, and had seen faces appearing in tree leaves and branches ever since, according to Brain Decoder.
Terrifyingly, the syndrome ‘hallucinogen persisting perception disorder’ (HPPD), is not unique to this guy and many other sufferers hear noises and see strange goings on for a long time after using.
Users of LSD, MDMA and magic mushrooms can be affected and the disorder can reportedly hit you after just one or two trips.
The issue is very rare and most sufferers don’t see anything as extreme as faces. Normally (or as normal as seeing lights can be), people just see ‘trails’ – which are tracers of light behind moving objects – or strange patterns appearing over curtains.
Henry Abraham, an HPPD expert who has studied the disorder for decades, said:
These people get visual information like everyone else, but they can’t shut off the noise. Ordinarily, our visual system filters all of this stuff out, but theirs has a problem with disinhibition—and it makes them miserable. If you don’t allow yourself to be distracted by it, you can do okay. Those who have gotten well say the single best thing is not to focus on it.
You’d think it’d be cool, but being high for 30 years sounds fucking awful!
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.