Potentially odd question for anyone who has done lsd

[crosbystillsandmash]

So I'm a very 'normal' woman in her 50s. Very happy but ordinary life etc
I was lucky enough to be young in the late 80s & 90s and had a frankly amazing time.
I was a Glastonbury regular, went to some amazing clubs, multiple gigs every month etc and was very much immersed in the rave scene, loved dancing in fields, often high as a kite 😳

Anyway I took drugs, for a brief period of time but definitely was a social drug user. Mostly speed but also acid. Now I'm a parent and older, I can see I was fortunate to be unscathed by this. I'm very fit and healthy and very mentally stable, something I am grateful for.

But, and this is my question, I do see faces in everyday objects, not always but for example in a dress fabric, paving slab or my regular one, our shower curtain!!!
So for example when I look at the pattern on something I will often see several images, eg a happy man, an angry goblin, animals etc

Is this normal or some long lasting effect of taking psychedelics in my youth?!

I think it's probably your imagination playing tricks on you but I'm not an expert

It's normal and not related to drug use.
LSD is about as safe as a drug can be, stories of flashbacks are total fabrications.

Doubt it is linked your prior misspent youth. I believe your brain tries to recognise images in patterns. I am possibly completely wrong, however!

It's normal! Our brains are hard-wired to find patterns in things, particularly faces. Some people are better at it than others, but it's very much human nature.

I have never taken drugs and I see patterns in everything, always have since I was a child. Can't say whether it's normal or not though!

Just googled and there's a name for it. Every day's a school day.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

The human brain, for some reason, is programmed to always search for faces in inanimate objects - I do it a lot, too!

It's normal. That's why you get people finding Jesus on slices of toast.

Our brains are programmed to search for what we recognise, amongst chaos.

This is one of the best threads I’ve seen on here.

OP hope you are reassured that your younger years have not ‘damaged’ you!

It is normal. It’s like seeing the shapes of people and animals in the clouds. Children see things that way often, say in shadows in their bedroom at night, and they haven’t had lsd.

Think of all the random scattering of stars yet people recognise groups of them by putting imaginary lines from one to the next to make a shape.

Leonardo da Vinci:
Look at walls splashed with a number of stains, or stones of various mixed colours. If you have to invent some scene, you can see there resemblances to a number of landscapes, adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys and hills, in various ways. Also you can see various battles, and lively postures of strange figures, expressions on faces, costumes and an infinite number of things, which you can reduce to good integrated form. This happens on such walls and varicoloured stones, (which act) like the sound of bells, in whose peeling you can find every name and word that you can imagine.
Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas. The mind of the painter is
stimulated to new discoveries, the composition of battles of animals and men, various compositions of landscapes and monstrous things, such as devils and similar things, which may bring you honor, because by indistinct things the mind is stimulated to new inventions.

And meant to add there is a Twitter account that is all about faces in everyday objects…

I can relate to the theory that the human brain looks for faces in patterns as I saw them as a kid, in the wallpaper or curtains etc BUT....

Having dabbled in psychedelics I can agree. Some times I see something, usually in something textured or light bouncing off a surface and for a second, I'm tripping. It's like you unlock something in your brain and you can never go back.

Absolutely normal. We had tiles with crazy green lines in when I was a kid and mad curtains. Saw faces in them years before I was old enough to think about taking drugs.

Completely normal, it is your brain, same way your brain tries to make music in the dull humm of a fan.

Slight deviation, but as someone who has never experimented, would anyone mind telling me what its like to trip?

@Leafy3 It's probably not like it used to be but you see fractal patterns in everything, sometimes you see entirely made up things that aren't there like a giant cart crossing a road, or things happen like in a crowd you think everyone has suddenly turned round and is facing you, and it all feels very rush-ey.

Babies are programmed to recognise faces as part of their survival, so our brain does seek these patterns.

Most posters are wrong. There is a known "syndrome" which occurs in people who have previously taken hallucinogenic drugs. I can't remember the name right now but it's a bit more than just thinking "oh that leaf looks like a dog". If I remember rightly it's more your brain reproducing the visual moving effects you get when tripping, like a flat patterned floor looking like moving liquid etc.

Most posters are wrong.
No, the OP didn't mention movement, just seeing faces in things.

@JustAsking90 is right, I dabbled with LSD in the 90s and often see movement in patterned flooring and walls, it’s as if the floor separates into layers stacked on top of each other and they move independently. I can snap out of it easily just by blinking or looking away.

It is a normal thing, search the phrase "I See Faces". Some make a hobby of it. www.boredpanda.com/seeing-faces-in-objects-facespics/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

That's a good description of what I occasionally see. Sometimes walking along a corridor at work, the patterns on the floor become layered/3D and I have the impression of floating above an incredibly detailed Dreamscape until I snap myself out of it.

I think this definitely sounds like paredoilia (hope I spelled that correctly)
I also had a misspent youth like you with some very happy days and nights

I definitely do notice faces in things a lot and it always makes me think of those early 90s nights, being entertained by looking at a rock for hours on end 😅

Human brains are wired to see faces/ shapes in things.

If you are generally creative/imaginitive then you might do this even more e.g. seeing goblins/ other creatures.

Are the faces moving at all? Are they distressing? Do you see them in things without patterns e.g. a plain wall, wardrobe, etc? Do you have hyper-realistic dreams or hallucinations?

I'm just wondering because it's interesting that it's concerning you enough to post on here - most people do notice patterns but it doesn't worry them.

I did have a friend who took a lot of LSD in the 60's/70's and he was definitely experiencing weird things - dreams, hallucinations etc - as a result - so it is possible. It depends how distressing you are finding it, and if you are seeing anything that is not actually there.

e.g. noticing a face in a pattern on a bed is normal. But if your brain is inventing more shapes to make that face move, or if you are seeing shapes/ colours that aren't actually there, that is not normal.