Caffeine!?

[UnrealReality]

I'd taken half a 200mg prolab caffeine pill, so 100mg (I'm 5'1-5'2, around 94 lbs, so overall petite). I've been completely lacking energy lately, and took it for that purpose. I also wanted to exercise and had zero motivation. I took half the pill as stated, and it kicked in after an hour. I exercised for hours. So here comes the good part concerning DREAMS!!! I took the 100mg around 7:30-8pm at night. I exercised and just danced around listening to music till about 11pm. By the time I showered and attempted to go to bed it was around 2am since I wasn't very sleepy. NOW..... around 3am, I decided to turn off the tv and try to go to sleep, I didn't want to pull an all-nighter. It felt like immediately, 10 minutes after shutting my eyes, I realized my thoughts were floating like they do if you let them directly before going to sleep. I was AWARE of the random dreamy thoughts. I didn't even realize how dreams begin until last night. I've taken Galantamind once in the middle of the night and it felt a little strange, but nothign like this. Once I realized I was aware of my thoughts and how they resembled dreams due to being able to recall being in a room with people who looked like dolls, it felt like if I concentrated hard enough I was about to enter the dream. But, during this, I began experiencing going into SP. Breathing and body getting heavy, etc. But what shocked me the most (I never am aware naturally during SP and have never felt vibrations or anything, so I'm a total noob as far as this is concerned), it was that the ONE time I had my first reality-check induced lucidity, I immediately got 'transferred back' and felt that process and was astounded with the way it physically felt to feel like 'entering' back into my body. I felt something very similar to THIS last night, just simply going OUT vs coming in, and I didn't allow myself much more because I kept getting shocked at how strong the feeling was with a simple caffeine supplement so I'd try to move like an idiot breaking the process. Let's not even get started on dreams. I've never remembered so many vivid dreams in one night (but no LD) Has anyone else ever done/tried the same with caffeine? What were your results, what did you feel?

[Ev]

Caffeine works well with vitamin B6 to lift mood and give me energy. I can feel really down and then half an hour later it's not so bad anymore. I've also experimented with caffeine pills in college, and monster energy drinks. Funny thing is when I have energy I do not notice that. From the sound of it, you've experienced NREM1 and NREM2 sleep. Caffeine is actually supposed to decrease the amount of time you spend in REM, so there's less probability of clear dreaming. ZEO guys had a chart once about REM time vs caffeine intake during the day. In general, I'll hypothesize that such experiments are not sustainable. PS. SP is a term for a medical condition. What you are looking for is WILD transition phase. this is a brief period of intense body/mind hallucinations that accompanies sleep onset if you are WILDing. It comes (over me) suddenly and unexpectedly, it is impossible to mistake for anything else. It is unlike the typical body tinglings that happen as parts of the body "fall asleep", it is major awareness event. It sounds like you've experienced something similar. PPS. Do you have an estimate as to when you started to see major vivid dreams?

[UnrealReality]

Ev- Thank you so much for your response! So much helpful information in one. That is crazy strange, it seemed to have the opposite effect on me. I'm going to attempt the same tonight, I just took another half caffeine pill right now, and try to go to bed slightly earlier than yesterday. Thank you for the correction on SP! I've never been prone to being aware/experiencing sleep paralysis, other than the tingles and limb numbness when I become awake. What you stated describes it perfectly. I've heard so much about SP and how that is the key to LD, but the hallucinatory negatives some people experience (e.g. dark figures, "scary" feeling, etc) have made me paranoid. The most shocking thing was being aware while my mind began having these random thoughts. I've never had a WILD, now I might understand such a transition better. I've practiced counting forward and backward lately and have caught slight hint of random thoughts, but never like yesterday night. I seemed to be able to stay more mentally aware. And yes, I can tell you for certain since every time I woke up, I'd look at the clock. I should mention, they had a more 'nightmarish' feel to them than my usual dreams. And if they weren't nightmarish, then they had a dramatic tone. My first one occurred 2 hours after going to bed (which was 5 a.m.), and the next feel like the entire night, but I know they were towards the morning, so 9:30 a.m. until about 11 a.m. when I decided to officially get out of bed. I dreamed I was a refugee escaping the native homeland on a float and it was an entire story-line of me and two other people and one of them drowned in the process, and I made it back to land. The "land" wasn't a sandy shore but a hotel. It then proceeded to the hotel elevator, then having a conversation with my cousin about her murdering her dog (HORRENDOUS! That was the nightmare). Another nightmarish one was a troop of U.S. suicide bombers. It went on and on. I also didn't wake up tired or felt any negatives like I did when I tried galantamind.

[Ev]

You are welcome! The negatives of WILD are easily ignored, just let it envelop you, and if you feel like you failed, just do a reality check a couple minutes later. The same feeling would be coming back over and over until you fall asleep. The little image fragments that you see may indeed transform into larger dream sequences, and if you do that, then you may not feel the transition (DEILD) hallucinations. I realize the overall feeling of the dreams that you've described, and I had similar dreams of atrocities, blackness, pestilence, gore, etc and other things commonly associated with "bad" stuff. I'm not very touched by that while within a dream, but writing it on paper, it does look really weird. This is one of the reasons why I started this thread: http://www.dreamviews.com/f11/dream-...rposes-125947/ I believe that this experience is caused by either some part of the brain activated or some chemical/neurotransmitter combination. After all, we are what we eat When doing such experiments, it's a good idea to keep a detailed dream journal, so you can see how your sleep pattern changes as a result of such experiments. You are messing with your body's neurotransmitters and chemistry, and while the body is very resilient and can restore its cycles, this process takes some time, and keeping a detailed dream journal would help you understand if vivid dreams today are worth whatever is coming in the next few nights .

[MarineRecon]

Wow that sounds cool. I drink caffeine (pop) before I go to bed usually and I find when I do I have some of the sensations you described.

[lucydity]

caffeine apparently extends the time period in REM? jesus no wonder some of my dreams are so long and vivid i drink extreme amount of tea and coffee

[MarineRecon]

I just had three cans of Mountain Dew so I hope Ill get a couple LDs tonight.

[lucydity]

Just now read Ev's post and is caffeine decreases time spent in REM i might try it, i drink rediculous amonts of caffeine and my dreams are always very vivid and long so maybe if they improved it would be crazy.