# Are acid flashbacks a myth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 5, 2004, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765 "2004-06-05T03:49:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tomcat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Tomcat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tomcat)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2004, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765/21 "2004-06-06T15:51:39Z")
As a few others have posted, I can see the same visual swirlies (we called them orbital-doilies for some reason) that I did when on mushrooms. Clouds will shift, so will some wallpaper designs. Sort of like taking your hands, putting them together to pray, splay your fingers, turn your hands 90 degrees and then seperate them a few inches. Background and foreground images sort of shift. I think that it is just the drugs presenting your mind with a way of looking at things, and I am simply remembering what it was. I don’t think the drug itself is still present in my body after 7 years, I just remember vividly some of the effects. These are called mind-altering drugs for a reason. They do have some long-term altering effects. LSD therapy has been tested in psychiatry for this reason. -Tcat ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2004, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765/22 "2004-06-06T19:56:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Ever since I first ate mushrooms, I’ve had the ability to remember how to make myself see vague notions of the faces (sort of like “The Scream”) in wood-grain doors and swirly constantly-moving patterns in textured walls and ceilings. And you blame this on the drugs? I’ve always been able to pick out faces in wood grain, and I’ve never had anything stronger than black tea. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2004, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765/23 "2004-06-06T20:12:00Z")
I happen to run a couple harm reduction websites about the psychedelic drug dextromethorphan (DXM). Flashbacks are known to occur with _all_ psychedelics. Some don’t even need to do psychedelic drugs to get them. Read up about post-traumatic stress disorder. Ordinarily, flashbacks aren’t particularly a problem. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2004, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765/24 "2004-06-06T20:14:03Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > Don’t know if you count this as flashbacks, but 60 Minutes interviewed several former acid users who claimed to have suffered possibly permanent undesirable changes in their sensory perception. One person said that normal sounds are now painful to him - a person speaking in a normal tone of voice sounds like shouting to him. [http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=hppd](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=hppd) This can include flashbacks, but the permanent sensory distortion is the main thing. ---
**Author:** ![stockton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@stockton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stockton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2004, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765/25 "2004-06-07T03:26:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And you blame this on the drugs? I’ve always been able to pick out faces in wood grain, and I’ve never had anything stronger than black tea. …where can I get some of this ‘black tea’ of which you speak? ---
**Author:** ![cdnguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@cdnguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cdnguy)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2004, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765/26 "2004-06-16T19:26:31Z")
Sorry to revive an old thread, but I don’t think it was older then 6 months, which I believe is the cutoff time. I have done a lot of acid, over 120 times (not hits, times) with my record being 12 at 1 time (which made for a very very fun/odd time). I have had a flashback, it as when I was driving and the started to “breath” and mulitply. As well I have also experienced the breathing of walls, and can do it at will just by looking at them long enough, as described by another poster. Also I have suffered some long term effects, lights (particularly street lights) now have a rainbow around them, and I see tracers on a lot of things. Admittedly these effects are starting to go away as I get older, which I’m not sure is a good or bad thing, rainbow lights are rather pretty. I would also advise never ever doing LSD. I have done my fair share of drugs and firmly believe that LSD is by far the worst of them. If you must do it, do it once only. If you like hallucinating that much do mushrooms, they taste like hell but I don’t think they have any permanent effects. ---
**Author:** ![mischievous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765/27 "2004-06-17T02:04:06Z")
I’m with \*\* rfgdxm\*\*. I think that humans, in general, can have flashbacks to extremely bad experiences, which can be violence, near-death incidents, sexual assults, or horrifyingly bad acid trips. It’s just that this phenomenon is labeled “drug reaction” (evil and abnormal) for bad acid trips and “Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder” (undesirable but normal) for the rest. For what it’s worth, I’ve only dropped a half-dozen times, but I took extremely large doses each time and never suffered any bad effects. \*\* rfgdxm\*\*, if you’re still reading this thread - I found some extremely helpful harm reduction sites on dextromethoraphan a while ago, which helped my boyfriend have a lot of (fairly safe) fun. Could these have been yours? mischievous ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765/28 "2004-06-17T02:35:49Z")
I saw a TV documentary on drugs (I think specifically marijuana) in the late 70s, and in it one of the (possibly former) druggies mentioned having had _marijuana_ flashbacks. That program was a big hit the next day at (high, heh) school. Even we thought it was a load of horse hockey. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acid-flashbacks-a-myth/248765.md?page=1)