Snapshot · The Louis Theroux Podcast
Callaghan developed hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD) after taking psilocybin mushrooms at age 14, causing permanent visual snow in his field of vision.
Where this was said
At 1:14:34 · chapter starts 1:14:22
One of the episode's most unexpected moments arrives when Theroux mentions Callaghan's medical condition. HPPD — hallucinogen persisting perception disorder — developed after Callaghan took half an eighth of psilocybin mushrooms at age fourteen [1] — Andrew Callaghan "HPPD from shrooms at age 14: Callaghan developed hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD) after taking psilocybin mushrooms at ag…" 1:14:34 . He is careful to note that it wasn't the dosage (a regular amount by adult standards) but the age: psychedelics should not be taken before the brain has fully developed. The result, he tells Theroux, is that he currently sees visual static — like a television with no signal — across his entire visual field, even as they are sitting in the Spotify studio. He has had this for fifteen years; he is now twenty-nine. It has not diminished. He no longer notices it most of the time, but for the five or six years after it developed it was a daily nightmare. He describes trying every experimental remedy available online, and turning to alcohol at fifteen — because drinking helped suppress the visual noise more than anything else — a detail that recontextualises his earlier references to heavy drinking.
At 14, Andrew Callaghan took half an eighth of mushrooms — a standard dose — but at the wrong age. His brain wasn't developed enough. Fifteen years on, he still sees visual snow across his entire field of vision at every waking moment. It's not diminishing. He's just learned to forget it's there.
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