Thread: Published in Nature Neuroscience: 77% induction rate with electrodes on the scalp at 40 Hertz

No one's saying you're trying to mislead. It's just that as far as I understand it, we can't conclude anything about the effectiveness of tACS until it's isolated from confounding factors.

I started to use galantamine with some WILD/DEIL/Raduga's techniques.
this night was my 9th attempt and it was my 7th success (with my very first complete OBE experience).
For my last attempt I used my RemDreamer to help me coming back to the Raduga's way of doing this, but anyway.

I would go the same way than the last comments, Galantamine sound's like much more effective than tACs, but what I would like to understand is what SearcherTMR pointed out :you claimed 100% success few months ago with tACs, and you are saying , if I well understand, that it is the first time you hit lucidity.
Could you clarify this point please?

The problems with galantamine (or at least Galantamind) is that many people (me included) have trouble getting back to sleep on it. If you can get back to sleep, the dreams G+Choline give are mind-blowing. But that's a big "if" at least for me. Anything that give a similar result without the downsides (having to wait 3-4 days between attempts, also) would be very welcome.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

The problems with galantamine (or at least Galantamind) is that many people (me included) have trouble getting back to sleep on it. If you can get back to sleep, the dreams G+Choline give are mind-blowing. But that's a big "if" at least for me. Anything that give a similar result without the downsides (having to wait 3-4 days between attempts, also) would be very welcome.

I also experiment this difficulty to fall back to sleep, but I suspect the norepinephrin produced by anticipation/ self pressure being half of the insomnia origin .
To Avoid that, or at least to reduce the time to fall back to sleep, I imagined a protocol that I first tested this night (partially explained HERE ) and that is derived from the Raduga's technique : After having slept about 5 hours, I WBTB and take LD pills, but I do not try to WILD after the intake of Galantamine, I just try to sleep without trying anything. the galantamine is not supposed to alter your capacity to fall asleep as soon as you take it, so if you don't put too much pressure to yourself, you won't produce the NE that prevent you from falling back to sleep. What I did is that I put my Rem-Dreamer on, and I program it to start tracking REM only when Galantamine will start to be effective, so My device will start to wake me up only about one hour after my WBTB (Galantamine takes about one hour to reach his peak plasma and to start to kick in) , and only when I will be on REM stage.
Then, I can take off the Rem-Dreamer and try to WILD, taking profit of the Pro-REM action of the Galantamine and his ability to suppress Rem Barriers.
That 's what I did this night and it worked very well.
You can do it without RemDreamer if you trust your ability to wake up about one hour after the intake of Galantamine, in the beginning of a Rem Period, but a REM detection device increase your odds to wake up at the best moment to try a WILD;

Edit : to be able to use Galantamine without waiting 5 days between each attempt, but rather about every other day, I just started to use Piracetam just after a LD attempt.
I'll see if I can reach 2 to 3 attempts a week this way.

Originally Posted by jeffg

...it was never my intention to motivate or mislead people into building tACs devices ...

As FryingMan said, no one accused you - inspiring someone is not a bad thing at all. It would be better though, if you had mentioned galantamine in your first posts - so your success would not be attributed to tACS alone.
On the other hand, as Kaan said, we are still trying to figure out how exactly tACS contributed to your results.
So, from what you said up to now, after trying various techniques, you achieved lucidity for the first time with a combo of galantamine+tACS, then went on to have about 7 lucids every 10 attempts with this combo, then discontinued galantamine and reached a 100% rate of lucidity (is that correct?) using only tACS, and then you stopped trying and never had a lucid again as you concentrated on your daily stuff.
Is that about correct? If so, tACS might have actually been quite effective in your case...

I almost never try to WILD on galantamine. I wake up (sometimes with alarm since I tried to take it earlier and earlier in the hope that I'd be more tired), pop the capsules, and immediately aim directly for sleep, hoping for a DILD, and many times it's worked out well. But many times it hasn't.

I in general don't like the idea of supplements beyond just vitamins, so I don't want to be taking piracetam: drugs to get you "high" on LDing, then drugs to get you down….don't really like that idea.

WBTB @ 5 hours even with no supplements at all can result in insomnia for me, so that's just my special challenge I guess. But on galantamind (which has B5 in it, supposedly which causes insomnia), I'm wired wide awake, even when trying to aim directly for sleep and DILDs. I do hope to get some galantamine without anything else in it to give it a try and see if it's any better.

Originally Posted by SearcherTMR

you achieved lucidity for the first time with a combo of galantamine+tACS, then went on to have about 7 lucids every 10 attempts with this combo, then discontinued galantamine and reached a 100% rate of lucidity (is that correct?) using only tACS, and then you stopped trying and never had a lucid again as you concentrated on your daily stuff.
Is that about correct? If so, tACS might have actually been quite effective in your case...

Yes, you have summarized it very well except about never had lucid again. Now when I am in REM dream I am somehow able to recognize its a dream and turn it into a lucid one. Not all the time but with intention and will...it is all about using the tACs power of association during REM and awaken the ability to recognize when you are in REM
Attached image shows a typical REM tACs activation cycleSleep pattern.jpg

^^ Ok, I am good with this info Jeff. Seems after all that you are almost a natural in LD.
You just never seriously attempted before, then galantamine and tACS got you going, and now you are off without crutches. Good for you - although I am not sure how helpful tACS can be for the rest of us. Perhaps as you suggested, many trials are needed to get benefit from it - most likely I will give this another try in the near future using your parameters.
Thanks anyway for the clarifications!

Originally Posted by SearcherTMR

^^ Ok, I am good with this info Jeff. !

Wish you all the best! One last thing is to have some sort of a reality check, for me it is something like look in a mirror and see yourself with the blindfold on. a sort of an Aha! moment while in REM mode.

Hi everyone!

I think it's about time I give a short update on my trials with tACS, as no-one else seems to update here, either with trials or news...
So, after having some difficulty with the Raduga technique (anxiety leading to insomnia), I resumed trying to get lucid with tACS.
I used Jeff's settings this time (1 sec on, 2 sec off, 3 stims) and I had one successful and one unsuccessful (slept throughout the stimulation) attempt. Nevertheless, the following nights, I suffered insomnia (after WBTB) again, so I didn't have another chance to see if it works...
While trying to figure out how to deal with this, I thought of using a tACS setup to automatically put me to sleep and then bring me back to 40hz lucidity - the idea came from the binaural beat sweeps and I thought that it could be even more efficient using a tACS signal. So I build the PC-Speaker version that can play any waveform - including ones with variable frequencies. I made a sweeping recording, going from 10hz down to 3 Hz (to put me to sleep) that after 30 minutes went quickly up to 40hz (and then 1 sec on, 2 sec off) that would hopefully induce lucidity. I also had to adjust the signal intensity, as it is felt different at different frequencies - and I wanted to keep it just sub-sensory at all times. Unfortunately the idea didn't work...
I never fell asleep, even after trying different waveforms (square and saw - as sine was quite uncomfortable and difficult to balance) and was stuck to insomnia in every attempt...
So, during these last trials, I didn't have many chances to see if Jeff's settings actually give results - the initial success might just have been because of the extended alertness and not the 40hz stimulation, I can't be sure. Anyway, I will stop these trials for now - again - and I will be off to trying other methods in order to deal with my anxiety and resulting insomnia - and most likely go for the Raduga technique again...

P.s. If anyone has any tACS related news to share - except for the Luciding fraud updates - please post here to keep this thread alive!

The guys from Luciding are handing them out now. One customer (someone from the german lucid dreaming forum) tested it last night and he had a lucid dream. He said that he felt a noticeable pre-lucid state which made it easy to go to the lucid state with a RC. Yes, that all could be placebo, but it sounds really cool. Lets see what time will tell us.

Anecdotal reports really don't mean anything without a full disclosure, and even then, it's the long-term results that are important.

^^ Hey, Wolf! I was about to post the same news but you were first!
Seems I was wrong about Luciding after all - at least in part.
So, indeed they have started shipping the finished devices to real customers - I thought they never would...
But if we review what they have said up to now, we can have an idea what to expect from them:
The initial promise was:
"... You will get lucid for 100% and will remember your experience after the awakening for 100%".
In other posts they advertised "99% chance of getting lucid".
Then they published "real test results" showing about 40% chance of lucidity - but hey, even that is more than good.
Then they promised just bright, 3D like dreams disappointing everyone - but then they said it was an advertising technique...
And now, in a few days we will have the first real customer's reports.
I am really interested to see how this goes, as we are either in front of a lot of disappointment (after perhaps some initial - expectation related - success) or a new era in Lucid dreaming.
Time will tell.
Btw, Lucid Sage is also reporting making progress in his device, so we can just wait and see...

Do you have any pointers to the LucidSage device?

^^ Not something specific unfortunately.
The only info I have is from his *Link Removed* where he reports having hired another engineer to speed up the finishing of the device, that he now invests more time in the project, that it still is in a non-good looking prototype - but working - stage and is starting first test with the intention to launch a Kickstarter campaign. The podcast by the way is quite interesting as it discusses all the recent Ludid dreaming related Kickstarter campaigns. That's all that I know about it...

Ugh, podcasts...1 hour of time spent to gather maybe 2 minutes of useful information, and you have no idea where it is buried. Thanks for the info.

Hi Guys,

It seems like Luciding has changed their business plan and device will be one-time-purchase if i've understood them correctly
yameta.jpg
Now question is whether to buy Luciding or Aurora device or perhaps both
I wonder which one is more effective

Maybe they decided that guaranteeing lucid dreams every night was a bad business model, generating thousands of irate customers paying but not receiving the dreams. In any case, I'm very happy to see the "service plan" model gone.

I envision a pop-up notification window appearing in the dream as things fade away:

^^ LoL!
Well, the initial plan could not practically work anyway, you could just not report your lucids and keep the subscription forever as there is no way they could know if you became lucid or not...
Basically it seems to me that the initial kid's team with the really simple and honestly terrible looking prototypes and procedures is slowly but steadily giving way to a more mature team in the post-investment period and both the new devices as well as the whole process seems more reliable and promising. I wish I could read their beautiful new web page but Google won't translate it from Russian.
Anyway, I think they are heading the right way now and I honestly expect to see great results in the near future from them!

Hi,
I've been experimenting with magnetic 40 Hz stimulation (so far without success) using a PEMF (magnetic therapy) device at first, later building another one by myself. I've currently stopped experimenting because it is a bit tiring. Also, I could need some support from the forum. Such a device can be easily built and then be activated during REM by using a timer. You need a smartphone + frequency generator app; some kind of amplifier (e.g. from an old stereo set); a copper coil. You can get a coil from an old crt TV.

The advantage of this method over the transcranial approach is that it is much more comfortable, since you don't have to wear electrodes of any kind, the magnetic field from a nearby coil easily going throught your head. So far I'm not sure about the required intensity and to what extent magnetic waves can entrain brainwaves.

I had a high school chemistry teacher who liked to blow things up in class. He was pretty strange. He told his class weird things that he did, but I just now realized that one of them is apropos my LD hobby. He said that he slept with his head in between electromagnets in order to affect his dreams.

Hi ikky and welcome!
I thought that PEMF devices were quite noisy to sleep nearby.
What about your devices? Are they quiet enough?

Hi FryingMan. Do you by any chance recall this teacher reporting any lucids with his setup?

Hi all,

there are high power PEMF devices (such as the Americans favor) that use capacitors which make a sort of clicking sound. The low power PEMFs are mostly soundless. Mine makes a humming sound if I do a high frequency, e.g. 100 Hz, but you only hear it if you put your ear close to the pad. My device can do 25 Gauss max, compared to beyond 1000 G that some high power devices can do.

I'm sure the magnetic field affects the brain in some way, otherwise the "god helmet" wouldn't be working. In the tries I did so far I just slept through the 40 Hz. But maybe the intensity was too low.

I suggest you make youself such a device and then we can start experimenting. Besides the 3 components I already mentioned you also need a few meters of two-core cable.