Lots Of People Going Around With Mild Hallucinations All The Time

Uses 2019 SSC-survey data on hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder (HPPD): of 2,234 psychedelic users, 12.8% reported persistent perceptual changes -- but mostly very mild (median severity 2: visual snow, haloes, trails, carpet-patterns). This explains the wild prevalence-estimate range (4% to 'doesn't exist'): mild cases shrug it off, only severe/neurotic ones see doctors. Critiques Krebs & Johansen's 'HPPD doesn't exist' (their 'saw visions others couldn't' question, asked amid psychosis items, captured only dramatic visions). Notes drug-naive people also have mild hallucinations, and speculates toward a unifying axis: psychedelics may move you from strong toward relaxed priors, linking perceptual oddities with woo-belief (auras; his purple-haired, Blake-loving patient with a literal visual grid). 'Lots of people are having mild hallucinations all the time, and it just never comes up.'

Quality 72 · Strong. Strong, upper (72). A substantive empirical + speculative post: original survey data, a clean 'movement along a distribution, not a novel phenomenon' reframe (cf. ~20% of healthy people hear voices), a fair critique of the null study, and an intriguing perception<->cognition priors-axis speculation. Held below Excellent by its avowedly speculative second half.

Claude’s paradigm shift 55 · Moderate. Notable-edge (55). The relaxed-priors axis linking perception and woo-belief, and the mild-HPPD-is-common-distribution reframe, are fresh and non-obvious.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. 2 -- minor/within-blog. A psychedelics/perception discussion with own survey data; within-discourse.