Thread: 5-HTP questions!

For me it is a very dependable sleeping aid, if taken about 90 minutes before bedtime. It increases the probability of lucidity (for me).

I would not suggest taking it every day, because tolerance might set in - but maybe that's just me being overly cautious; many people take 5-HTP three times a day to fight off depression.

I take it sometimes when I want my dreams to be extra vivid/memorable. My first experience with it wasnt really great though. I used to have an afternoon job so I'd sleep in until noon and get home from work after midnight, and taking 5htp on that kind of sleep schedule gave me insomnia and made me super groggy when it was time to wake up. I only took it for a few days before I decided against it. I take it now on days I am off because of the dream benefits, but I also have a much more "normal" sleep schedule with bedtime beimg between eight and ten. It still makes me groggy, but I have no problem falling asleep with now. I suggest that if you try it, you try it when you are not working or busy the next day so if you get insomnia or end up groggy it wont be such a big deal.

I have used up over 2 bottles of 5-HTP, 30 pills each.
I'm addicted to the vibrant dreams it gives me in the second half of the night.

Originally Posted by SebastianCross

So I'm buying 5HTP tomorrow. Has anyone here tried it? Does it work? Tips? Intructions? Opinions? I'd love to know how your experiences with it were.

I always take it right before going to bed when attempting to LD. Works great, I see a drastic difference when not using it for my LD attempts.

I find 100mg works well, or maybe 200mg if I want to sleep longer before waking back up
it does tend to make be a bit more likely to suffer insomnia after waking
but it certainly increases focus in your dream, I take it for triggering.

I find it works better if I don't take it all the time, but just on nights when I will have time
to sleep.

remember that Serotonin cannot cross the blood brain barrier, but 5HTP can, and that B6 is
a catalyst for converting it, so don't load up on B6 and 5HTP at the same time.
If you do you will end up with loads of Serotonin produced on the wrong side of the barrier
this can end up in your gut and make you feel sick to your stomach

5HTP should be taken first then sleep 1.5 or 3 hrs, it tends to make me wake up rather
than have an initial dream, then I take lots of Melatonin (for vividness) and B6 for recall
and attempt to get back to sleep (loads of Melatonin also can give me insomnia tho)

I tried taking 300 and even 400 mg but it just makes you wide awake and the more you take
beyond 200 the faster you wake up.

On weekends when I am trying to nap over and over if it has been 6 to 8 hrs since the B6 on
first awakening I will sometimes take more 5HTP and rinse and repeat the process creating
3 rounds of use in the first 30+ hours of the weekend. I find that my sleep cycle can shorten
to like 40 min and dreams seem to begin almost immediately once I have many hours of sleep
its like a constant WBTB with more and more Melatonin at every awakening, recall and clarity
are awesome and it is the best chance for lucidity especially just after the time I would normally
wake up on weekdays and also at the limit of sleep I can stand. When I get too much sleep
my head starts to ache and of course it is hard to just keep going to sleep again and again
while full of insomnia inducing levels of supplements.

It will make you more likely to trigger but it can also destabilize you a bit so be prepared
to do some stabilization, remember the goal is to wake without waking

My experiance with 5-HTP is a bit hit and miss.

(I do generally achieve lucidity approx once per week)

I've been taking it for the last couple of weeks & until I read the power of supplements Advanced Lucid Dreaming - The Power of Supplements: Thomas Yuschak (Great book) I was taking it first thing in the morning, well 1pm (that's my morning!)

I read the book 2 nights back & so took 1 x 5-HTP 100mg just before bed, strangely I dreamt straight away, fairly vivid as most of my dreams are anyway, I woke up an hour later, recorded the dream, went back to sleep & no more dream recall for that night.

Last night I took 2 x 5-HTP but had no dream recall at all.

Tonight as my I shall take 1 x 5-HTP, 1 x GPC 300mg & Choline Bitartrate 500mg via WBTB.

I'll post what happens tomorrow & then having the weekend off as will be drinking :-)

And just to throw into the arena I read somewhere that DMAE can help, have been using this for around a week now, first thing in the morning & thinking about it I didn't take it yesterday & didn't have any dream recall this morning... (But then I did have 2 x single vodkas last night also?)

Originally Posted by TechHeadSteve

100mg just before bed

Yes just before bed or like 30min to 2hrs before

5HTP is the precursor of Serotonin and you want it to get to your brain before it gets converted.
So if you take it at bed time it will tend to make you sleepy then tend to wake you up latter on in the night, when that happens take some B6 like 50mg (if you take it daily, otherwise you could take more if only some nights), this will cause the 5HTP that is in your brain to be converted into Serotonin. Generally 5HTP will promote deep sleep early in the night and REM sleep latter on, tho it can also cause (if you make to much Serotonin) insomnia.

So if you take it right at bed time hope you wake up at 2 cycles (180min in) and take the B6. B6 will generally promote dream recall. I also typically begin adding some Melatonin each cycle for vividness but if your dreams are vivid already you should be good and your recall should be good also, since vivid dreams are more likely to be recalled.

Tryptophan ----> 5-Hydroxy-Tryptophan --(B6)--> Serotonin ----> intermediate ----> Melatonin
(Serotonin cannot enter or leave the brain it breaks down into other things)
(only a small amount of the Serotonin in the brain is converted into Melatonin)

Do not take lots of B6 all the time, it will do damage to your nerves especially proprioception!

Originally Posted by cooleymd

Do not take lots of B6 all the time, it will do damage to your nerves especially proprioception!

Yes. Be very cautious with B6. I've experienced depersonalization/derealization and a part of it was from B6 overdosage, also can lead to many nerve problems.

Originally Posted by Astaroth

Yes. Be very cautious with B6. I've experienced depersonalization/derealization and a part of it was from B6 overdosage, also can lead to many nerve problems.

You have to be particularly careful when taking lots of things

I once bought a bottle that said in huge letters 5mg of Melatonin
but read the active ingredients list at the top was the 5mg of Melatonin, and below it 10mg of B6 WTF????
twice the B6 as the only thing it was being sold as.

Also the other day during the competition when I was taking 75mg of B6 on weekdays and 150mg on weekends I decided to buy a bottle of Poweraid Zero Fruit Punch, but when I read the bottle it said 15% daily of B6, once again read more carefully and find out that its 2.5 servings per bottle so that's nearly 50% daily what ever the F that means, no where does it say exactly how much of the stuff is in there

So if your are jogging down the trail drinking 6 bottles of the stuff you'd be getting quite a bit of the stuff, maybe never realizing it.

I have heard some morons saying things like oh its water soluble and you just pee it out, but they overlook the fact that it is metabolized into a form that has a half life of 2 to 3 weeks.

If you eat a bunch just once you'll be fine as not all of it can be converted, but if you eat a bunch of it every day you'll definitely get toxic effects, which may or may not be reversible

Mmm have to say that for me 5-HTP isn't working as a REM rebound, I'm discovering as I log more entries that I seem to dream for the first part of my sleep, I then wake after 2 - 3 hrs, record the dream, back to bed & if I don't go lucid I have no recall at all...

But then I also find doing WBTB is terrible for me, it can take anywhere from 1 - 2 hrs for me to get back to sleep, it's very hard to judge when to take the supplements on this basis. I guess what I need really is an alarm to go off every half an hour so that when I do drop off I can awake, quickly take the supps & hopefully go straight back off, will try that next week.

Ordered some B6 100mg today, have been taking vitamin B vitamins in general for a while & noticed that they contain 100mg of B1, B2, B6 & B12. Should I stop taking this vitamin & just take the B6 when I attempt WBTB or is this does ok? As of next week I shall do this all on an alternate day basis. Nothing doing this weekend as drinking :-)

It's been my experience that falling asleep at WBTB-time is greatly helped by either of the following:

1. 200 mg L-theanine
2. 50 mg Taurine
3. 1 g Glycine

All three are quite harmless in those amounts (and even in much larger amounts).

A multi-vitamin is unlikely to contain large amounts of B6, so there should be no problem combining the two. But I do not suggest taking 100 mg B6 every day - use it every other night at most!

Originally Posted by TechHeadSteve

Ordered some B6 100mg today, have been taking vitamin B vitamins in general for a while & noticed that they contain 100mg of B1, B2, B6 & B12. Should I stop taking this vitamin & just take the B6 when I attempt WBTB or is this does ok?

25-50mg of B6 per day is probably ultra safe

I have been using a 75mg of every B vitamin including B6, so that is about 2.25grams per month If I took it every day, some day I take 0 some days I take 1 some days (weekends) maybe I take 2, certainly I don't want to go over 2.25g/month on a long term basis

100mg per day would probably be ok
supposedly some toxicity at 200mg per day
others sources seem to report 400mg per day is asking for trouble
and that at 1000mg per day damage is likely

strangely 100mg and 500mg are the easiest to find, I originally bought a bottle of 100 but I have most of it still sitting around sometimes I break one roughly in half but for now I have 75mg of all with 50% fast release 50% slow release matrix

The first thing to be affected if you are overdoing it is proprioception, basically some people begin to have difficulty walking, or you can hold your hand behind your back and ask people how many fingers your holding up "no really tell me I have no idea I have no Proprioception" he he

If you start to get weird nerve symptoms stop taking any at all for many weeks or a few months. But supposedly if you have extensive damage it can be permanent so why not just find some 25 or 50mg pills

Well I've been clean all weekend but maybe someone here can advise.

I tend to find my dreams come from the early part of my sleep pattern & generally when I do WBTB (which takes anything from 1 - 2 hrs to get back off) I remain dreamless.

Is this not back to front, I thought we are meant to have more REM towards the tail end of our kip?

Also wondering if I do a night where I take 1 x 100mg of 5-HTP, then WBTB & take another 5-HTP, in theory that should block all REM sleep for that night, so am I likely to get more the following night?

Originally Posted by TechHeadSteve

Also wondering if I do a night where I take 1 x 100mg of 5-HTP, then WBTB & take another 5-HTP, in theory that should block all REM sleep for that night, so am I likely to get more the following night?

generally it is supposed to pretty much eliminate dreaming at the end of the first cycle, and reduce it at the end of the second (but I often remember a dream when I wake up at 2.5-3.5 hours in, it is just likely shorter than it would have been). After the first two cycles tho I will largely be building up Serotonin in your brain and that should keep you brain more active, causing you some difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep, but giving you more focus in your dreams which could allow you to notice your dreaming and become lucid.

On weekends I often take some more after many cycles, then after many more take some more. So that over the weekend from say 8pm on Friday to 5am on Monday, I essentially have 4-5 nights worth of cycles
but I always start with like 100 or 200 5HTP then after first awaken take some B6 (for recall) and upon every awakening usually add some melatonin (for vividness), occasionally I take DHEA for bizarrness

I managed to have a Lucid earlier to day and then a false awakening where I knew I woke up in the wrong place but assumed that my lucid had been reality and was trying to destroy evidence I kept looking for places to stash trash, but it was recycling day and every container was full of bottles and such. 200-5HTP/75B6/70Melatonin was what I had taken, the lucid came about 1hr after my weekday wake up time and was like where the 6th cycle should have been. I was very stable, lasted at least 3 minutes before the false awakening, had been dreaming at least 3 minutes before, spent most of my time running around, tried to make myself bigger so I could run faster seemed to fail but then latter DCs seemed tiny then I returned to normal size. I should have just tried to hand summon someone

Re Melatonin, I have that in the cream formula, one pump equals 3mg & I tend to rub it into my face & head. What type of doe do you take Coolymd?

Tonight I shall, go to sleep but set the alarm for every 30 minutes so as soon as I drop off it will wake me up shortly afterwards, I will then pop 1 x 100mg of 5-HTP & back to sleep. Then upon WBTB 2 x Galantamine + Choline (which so far on using 1 at a time hasn't done anything but when I used 2 previously I astral'd) Plus either 1 x Mucuna Pruriens 250mg or 1 x GPC 300 Mg. It's fun going to bed with this stuff eh!

Glad you managed to lucid last night, how often per week do you hit it?

Originally Posted by TechHeadSteve

What type of doe do you take Coolymd?
...
Glad you managed to lucid last night, how often per week do you hit it?

I'm not a believer in OBE or Astral stuff to me tis all just lucid dream, if you set an intention to be a rock in your next 100 lucids and acheive it 99 times you can coin a new term DAAR, and beileve that thats what it is but it is just you choosing to be a rock in your dream btw (DAAR would stand for Dumb As A Rock) he he

current lucid is 3/mo or .7 per week, I had 1 just before the Sensei competition and 2 during it, and then one this morning (a new month).

When I was at my all time peak of lucidity I was able to have one to 3 per weekend, and was taking time released melatonin. I just saw a bottle of the stuff at the store, the problem with it is it is 10mg slow matrix dissolve 50% fast 50% slow (all that is good, but now for the bad part) w/ 10mg B6, so to take loads of it I would have to overdose on B6. When using it I would typically take 100mg 5HTP then latter at every awakening take some of the 10mg sometimes just 1 sometimes 2 or even 3, usually I would start with several and then taper off like 3, 2, 2, 1 but I was also at the time taking 100mg B6 unaware of its additional presence in my Melatonin so I often unknowingly took as much as 200mg or on weekends even more. Plus the stores seemed to stop having it in stock for months on end.

So eventually I switched to 10Mg fast dissolve (they have strawberry flavor, I don't think they are carb free but use artificial sweeteners) here in the U.S. melatonin is available in all sorts of ridiculous varieties like in liquid form with eye dropper dispenser , sub-lingual, in drinks like 'dream water' and even in gummy bear form he he but in UK your lucky if a copper doesn't bash you on the head with a billy club for just thinking about ordering some from online he he

typically I take it with the 75mb B6 (and all other B's too) like 30mg then upon waking I might add 10 or 20 more or zero, depends on how vivid my dreams seem, if they are clear I add little if any if they are dark and fuzzy then add some extra.

as for Galantamine it is legal here in the US approved for Alzheimers disease and in theory it is an over the counter drug, getting some is another matter, likely I would have to mail order the stuff, and so I have never tried it. It should be the most effective drug for inducing tho.

The recommendation for it is to not take it more than 2x a week and not on successive nights. Also I wake up after only 1.5 or 3hrs the first time then several times after that, so If I were going to use it I would take it after 5.5 or 6 hours of sleep. So maybe 5HTP then first awakening some melatonin and the B6 then next to last awakening the Galantamine Choline and more Melatonin. With that kind of overkill you should at least have pretty intense dreams. If you cant' remember try harder surely you would have dreamed something and just forgotten, I almost forgot today's lucid but then I remembered the false awakening and then back to the lucid part and even my attempt at Advanced Task i

(i drew some stuff but couldn't bring it to life tho he he )

Grr not a thing last night, not even dream recall.
Took 1 x 5-HTP @ approx 3.41 & got off fairly quickly.
Woke at 9.00 & took 2 x Galantamine (Total 8mg) & 2 x GPC (Total 600mg) & 3 x 3mg doses of Melotone.
Think it took me about 1 1/2 - 2 hrs to get back off though.

Looking at my Sleep stats, looks like I got only a small amount of REM sleep before the WBTB & no REM at all afterwards.

Oh well natural night tonight. If I genuinely had that little REM last night maybe I'm due a rebound tonight :-)

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maybe you should work on dream recall before other stuff

what device is that your using for rem detection doesn't look much like the basis peak (that one is supposed to be accurate)
yours seems to show not much rem at all.

I know I have been in rem each of the past 5 hours because I can recall dreams from each

The app is called sleep & is currently my favourite app for this stuff & the device is an HTC One X, few years oldf now but works fine for this stuff.
Below I've attached yesterdays chart which was taken after a Supp free sleep & as you can see there was a lot more Rem on that one, so maybe the 5-HTP is having longer lasting effects on my lil brain than the avarage 4 hours?

I'm still looking for a decent wearable that will give me some good data on Rem patterns.

2015-09-06 17.43.43.jpg

What do you suggest to actually improve dream recall, in general I'm not too bad on it, but as said last night, nowt!

So its like a phone you tape to your body? and then get results

The Basis Peak (now owned by Intel) uses all sorts of sensors to figure out when you were in REM I think it takes advantage of the fact that thermal regulation is different in REM, it measures sweat rate and also skin and ambient temperature, as well as using pulse oximetry by illuminating the wrist it is supposedly as good as a sleep lab (which also are not 100% accurate)

They cost like $200 tho and come with weird adapter charger that you better not break, worst of all they don't function in real time you have to connect them to internet and let them analyze after the fact. If they were real time you could have the computer or whatever try to signal you when you entered REM.

In any case they are about the best thing out there for figuring out when you actually were in REM give or take a few %error on time and a few % misses.

Make a list of things you see in dreams lately, then go thru them.

Like I saw recently recyclables, ants, bugs, coins, buses, trains. When you wake up you try to remember where you were, be certain that you did dream because you almost certainly did. Then go thru the list, once you get an image like tyring to put trash in the recyclable bins, think where was I before this? keep working backwards, and if you have some fragment like saw a person or relative but not sure where in space/time sequence of the dream, jot it down and keep working. remember all the fragments and images and sequences you can as fast as you can, then fill in the dream sequence as best as possible

you should always be able to grab at least a minute or two, and usually 3 - 5 minutes, remembering more then 10-20 minutes of a non lucid dream seems near impossible for me but that Is why I wake up after every dream, sometimes you will remember a fragment that doesn't fit in and realize it is in fact from a previous cycle

when You can't think of anything more go back to the list of recurring stuff maybe you'll get more, even having just a few minutes is usually good. I have remembered seeing a totem (something unusual I wore to bed) in 3 dreams this morning but I didn't trigger. it is a good trick. try maybe a wrist watch on your ankle, then when your in the dream and realize you have one on you'll ask why and remember that your actually asleep and wearing it to bed.

Oooh are you talking about the Basis Peak Ultimate Fitness and Sleep Tracker, has a B&W LCD screen? If so looks good, there is a used one on Amazon for £123 or new for £169. Saying that the fitbit 3 seems to have a better sleep cycle recorder & having looked at the app pics in google plays seems to cover REM.

I've just sent my jawbone up 2 back so may well get this one instead. Thanks for the pointer, looking at the reviews there is one mention of being able to view data via an app. No I don't strap the phone to my body but instead lay it under a pillow, plugged in so it records my movements & also any noise I make. But I imagine a wearable would be more reliable with data records.

Yeah I do find dream recall works best going backwards, funny that. I generally write down all dreams but hardly ever have recurring items I can use as dream images, if ever. Likewise I never have a body in dreams (nor lucid) so when I had a period of wearing a am I dreaming dream strap as no body to view when asleep it doesn't come into play. The Sleep app does have a feature to kick in a Are You Dreaming alarm when it detects your in sleep, I had it on last night but under my pillow it played to quietly, I'll have to experiment with a speaker, loud enough to enter my brain but not enough to wake me.

Bet I have great dreams tonight taking no Supps which will be annoying as the idea of the supps is obviously to increase the dream capacity...

just remember the Peak is good at REM but it may be crap at activity compared to some other activity monitors, so be sure you want it just for sleep tho I hear it has been getting better