Alyzarin

So, I decided to do another ridiculous supplement test this time. I took 80 mg of melatonin at 9 PM, and I washed it down with thin mints, for good measure. The result was interesting. First of all, my first dream of the night was lucid. That's pretty odd, especially considering the melatonin... not that I really mind. For the rest of the night I noticed that nothing overly trippy happened, except that all of the dream scenes were very, very vivid and had mostly bizarre video game themes. I was also a bit delirious whenever I woke up, which caused me to lose one or two dreams from memory before being able to write them down, so I actually had quite a few dreams this night. And I could've had even more, but I had to wake up early again, so....

#1 - I've Yet To Make This One Work >:T [DILD]

I remember being at a school and walking down a hallway somehow having control over what was playing on the intercom, and I was using it to mess with someone by blasting loud music whenever they started talking. Eventually I got to the class I was walking to and became lucid. I wasn't incredibly aware though, because I kept texting my friend N throughout it, and I can't remember what we were talking about now. At first I just stabilized a bit, and then I kept trying to summon a joint or a pipe into someone's hands so we could smoke, but it never worked. Eventually I just sat down next to one of the guys there and started cuddling with him, but soon afterward I woke up.

And yes, let it be noted that 80 mg of melatonin was not enough to stop me from waking up several times throughout the night.

#2 - Dream Fragment [Non-Lucid]

I think I was playing as a video game character, or maybe meeting one, who was super violent and was accused of attacking someone over one thousand times "outside of battle"...? Or something like that, and I believe there was a scythe involved too, but it's hard to remember exactly.... I almost lost this one, I just barely was able to grab ahold of the memory.

#3 - Bobolo [Non-Lucid]

I was trying to help my cousin K with a school paper based on some kiddie game website called Bobolo that was specifically about some kind of disease or diseases, and I was slowly realizing that this topic wasn't really going to be usable to make a very good paper, but I didn't want to point that out to her because I felt bad that her paper was due the next day. What I remember of the website I could most quickly compare to Maple Story, but I wouldn't say it was exactly like that. There was also some set of medical record scans that I was able to unlock and look at at one point, but I wasn't able to make our what any of them said.

#4 - I Would Definitely Play This Game [Non-Lucid]

I was with my cousin G, who was living at some kind of trailer house I'm unfamiliar with with his immediate family now. We were in his room and I was playing some video game with pretty strange maps. I'm fairly certain that the way I was walking around and the character I was using were based on Phantasy Star Online, but the maps had colored grid squares with area effects that were very clearly (I even remember thinking it at the time) based on geo panels from the Disgaea series. The way the character jumped also reminds me of a Mario game thinking back on it now, but not enough to say it was based on that. I was excited about something on it, but I can't remember what now, and then I logged off and talked to G about watching kids do something pointless (the conversation is pretty hazy in my memory), and then I left the house. I got in my car and started trying to figure out how to get home while blasting some really crazy dubstep song which actually sounded pretty badass, but just as I was starting to find my way the dream faded.

At this point I woke up and, after I got out of my mildly hypnotic state, my libido was running pretty strong. I rolled over and started basically molesting my body pillow for a minute, but I tried to do this passively so the energy would wear off and I could fall asleep again. Eventually I started drifting and had some light hypnagogia, I think of some text or something? I didn't make note of it, so it's hard to remember. And the same with not long after, I rolled over and had more hallucinations, I think it was some kind of ladder pattern running horizontal across my vision, or something... but then my mom came in and woke me up because I have stuff do. Ah, well. Not a bad night.

I have been completely swamped for the past few days, but I've still been trying to remember my dreams and smoke less before going to bed. So here's what I got from the last four nights.

Feb. 18

I want to say that I took 50 mg of zinc a few hours before bed and 10 mg of melatonin at bedtime for this. I think it was this night....

Almost Like A Lucid.... [Non-Lucid]

This dream was long and I don't remember a lot of the build up to it, but I do recall that around when my memory comes in I had the perception that I was viewing something that had happened earlier in the dream again from a different perspective, like I had gone back in time to watch it. I'm not sure if this event had actually happened earlier or not, but it sure felt like it did. I was standing in front of a building in some downtown area watching a crowd of people walk through the front doors, and among them was the past me. I also saw this girl walking not too far from me and decided to possess her, but she got into the building before I could get up to her. I easily rewound time and caught her before she went in again and entered her body. Then I just kept walking into the building to see what all the fuss was about. The inside looked just like some kind of mini-mart like a 7-Eleven but maybe just a little bit fancier. As I walked around I started thinking about some imaginary superhero story I was apparently making, specifically in relation to the villain. I had an idea about how to start them out with something like mind reading or telepathy and move it up to body possession through some kind of power increase, but I can't remember exactly what it was now. At that point the dream became a little less vivid and I shot forward through the wall (smoothly phased) and started flying over the field I was next to, since this place was now a stop on a highway out in the middle of nowhere, and as I was admiring it I woke up.

Feb. 19

I'm fairly certain I took a 10 mg melatonin here, too.

#1 - I'm Sure He Can Handle It [Non-Lucid]

I was hanging out with my friend N when we somehow became aware of the fact that our mutual friend R (who I met N through) had been taken hostage somewhere. We were in a house that I believe somewhat resembles my aunt and uncles' old house from like fifteen years ago, but I barely remember it. I decided to call his cell phone to see if he could pick up, but his voice message had been changed to some guy with a really heavy British accent talking about how we had reached some kind of game development company or something. I tell N that he must have been taken hostage by British criminals who had changed his message so that they could pretend to be a legit company and no one would know to save him, and that we have to go rescue him right away, but added that "I still have a class to go to today. " I turned my head and saw a TV with a commercial playing in the corner of the room. The audio to it was talking about something along the lines of making your own robot, but all the video was showing was a guy wrapping himself in plastic and trying to mold it to make armor out of it. I instantly feel that R might've seen this commercial too and had the same idea, and so he may already have been able to escape on his own.

#2 - Lucid Dreaming Tutorial [Non-Lucid]

The main thing I remember about this dream is walking around the park by my house with my mom and coming across these kids, like three or four boys around eight to ten years old if I remember correctly. They asked me how to fly in a lucid dream so I showed them, though I did something totally different than I actually do in a lucid (which this was not), which was like this multiple jumping thing kind of like in a Mario game. Despite thinking that this was my normal routine, I could tell that it felt really odd as I was doing it, though I didn't know why. However, I still did manage to fly, but they didn't quite understand my method. I just told them I'd see them again some time and teach them more later on, because I guess I was busy at the moment.

#3 - Dream Fragment [Non-Lucid]

I was giving someone recommendations and tips about which Nippon Ichi Software game to play.

Feb. 20

Poor Judgment Calls [Non-Lucid]

I didn't actually write this one down, so my memory of it is kind of faint now. Basically what I remember is that first I was at my house with my cousin K, then something involving Marona from Phantom Brave happened (I think she might have been my cousin at first that turned into her?), and then I was with JB, this guy I used to hang out with who was pretty sociopathic. We were in my room and my parents kept bothering us, and we were trying to get them to leave us alone so we could have sex (eep ). We never got them to go away before I woke up, though.

Feb. 21

#1 - I Wonder What It Was.... [Non-Lucid]

The part of this dream before my recall really kicks in was at a store, but that's about all I can remember about it. What I do remember is being at a family party at my house, and everyone was gathered in the living room to congratulate this guy I don't recognize for doing something.... I'm not sure what it was, but I know that I felt that either I deserved it or at least he didn't deserve it, or something along those lines. I was being sort of rude and went to the kitchen to sulk alone because I couldn't stand to be in the room for all that, but at one point the guy came in and tried to make me feel better and I started just trying to get over it. My cousin A walked in and started saying something about these bowls of grapes and cherry tomatoes that were sitting on the counter by me and managed to squeeze some open and wear them on the tips of her fingers just to be funny, and then they sort of just absorbed into her fingertips and disappeared and she left. >___> I turned around and my friend M's mom was there too, for some reason (it didn't even look like her, I just perceived that that's who she was). She started telling me about where she grew up, but I don't recall anything she was saying. The dream sort of shifted as it was falling apart, and I got a third-person flash of a Facebook page where someone was telling this girl A that I met recently that she was beautiful and an inspiration to everyone, and then I woke up.

#2 - If Only This Worked In Real Life [Non-Lucid]

I was driving around with some random guy and Linkzelda, and I was trying to show the guy how to get to our imaginary school campus by following Link's directions. At one point we parked and me and the random guy got out of the car at this apartment complex, and this guy who I somehow immediately knew was Jewish came up to us begging for help. He had a gun and said he had run out of bullets for it and was being chased by a group of people, and there was some situation with more guns in an apartment upstairs. The guy that we were showing the campus decided to be a hero and ran off to that upstairs place, and the Jewish guy ran off frightened as he saw the group of people coming after him again. At that moment I realized that they might see me if I'm not careful, so I started whispering to myself "I'm not here, I'm not here...." and getting into a meditative state. I dropped the perception of my body and started floating up away from the scene, but then I looked down at one of the guys running by and got sucked into his body. The dream jumped around a little and I was in some hazy perception of something about a guy and some really attractive woman with guns, but it's so blurry that I can't really recall what was going on now.... And that's the last thing that happened before I woke up.

Final thoughts.... I'm noticing a definite increase in the amount of dream control techniques I employ in non-lucids these days. And it's not just from the examples shown here, it's been happening more and more lately. I wonder if it's because of the way I try to drop awareness in lucids anyway and just run with it; maybe I simply recognize the similar state of mind and use it without acknowledging what it implies?

Supplement Dose: 10 mg Melatonin, 250 mg Choline, 50 mg Zinc, 400 mg Niacin, 100 mg Inositol, 100 mg Vitamin B6, 800 mcg Folic Acid, 500 mg Vitamin C

Dream Fragment - "Walking around an apartment complex with R explaining to him why DMT is special?"

The Secret Compartment [DILD]

The first part of this dream is hazy, but I was doing something at school which then became a mall. I vaguely remember seeing people I've known since elementary school, and then I told this girl MH who has the same last name as me that she's have to put something up my butt. (A quarter, I believe? ) Shortly afterward I became lucid, however, and I was walking around in some big department store section of the mall. The dream was quite vivid at first but rather unstable, and to save it I walked around singing "I can see clearly now, the rain is gone....", which worked like a charm. I was fully lucid in the sense that I had full comprehension of the fact that I was in a dream and none of this was real, but I still don't think my rational mind fully turned on as I was making some strange decisions. I decided that I wanted to steal a TV which would surely serve me no purpose for some reason, so I grabbed it and started heading toward the exit (the one that actually leads outside, not back into the mall). However, as I was walking up to the censors a thought occurred to me: if I walk out of here knowing I'm stealing this, the dream will probably make the alarms go off and I'll have to get out of here quickly, and that might cause an adrenaline rush which could wake me up. I opted to find a better way to sneak it out to see if I could get past the censors without a fuss. Also, when I wasn't looking the TV turned into a toy gun. I never really focused on it intently so my memory of it is hazy, but I want to say it looked like this one more than anything.

However, my mission didn't change, and for some reason I still wanted to steal this. I walked around until I found an attractive female DC. *cough* I then grabbed her, pushed her over, pulled down her pants, and shoved the gun into her ass. Hooray, it fits! My plan from this point on was to make her walk through the censor and look like they're just going off randomly because she's not stealing anything, then walk through and get it back out of her, but then I woke up. ._.

There were a few more dreams, but I guess I was lazy and possibly having false awakenings because I vaguely remember intending to type them down, but there were no further notes than those. >w<

Spoiler for Reflections:

Well, this was actually the second night that I took that insane amount of supplements, but the first time I had smoked too much weed so I didn't really remember anything, though I did wake up feeling amazing. This time the dopamine boost seemed especially significant to me. A couple of the times when I woke up I felt that my heart rate was slightly increased and my hands felt "tight", like they can from good MDMA. I also felt a bit of euphoria. Even though I smoked some weed yesterday too and that may have distorted my recall a bit, I'm thinking about bringing it down a notch for tonight to see what the difference is. It almost feels like I might be pushing this aspect a little too far, and maybe I should swap out a little dopamine boosting for some acetylcholine action instead. I suppose we'll see.

Supplement Dose: 10 mg Melatonin, 50 mg Zinc, 250 mg Choline, 100 mg Vitamin B6

#1 - Hyperdimensional Tentacled Alien Reality Factory [Non-Lucid]

This dream was fairly long if I remember correctly, but as it was early in the night and has a significant ending I've forgotten much of the beginning. My old friend D and I were back at our middle school, though we were still our same ages as now and didn't seem to think much of it. We got in my car, which was parked right in front of the school (in the parking lot), and we drove probably less than 100 feet, parked in a different spot, and got out and started walking back to my house instead. The park in between the school and my house seemed odd; the layouts of everything were arranged incorrectly and there was a ridiculous amount of very confusing construction going on. It seemed that in every direction there were lines of constantly moving shapes and out-of-place colors and textures (which is kind of hard to describe). The trees in the forest also took a very different path than they actually do. Of course none of this tipped me off to anything, I just turned to D and said something along the lines of "Wait, why are we walking? We could just go back to the car and drive there." We went back and got in and slowly got on the road in line with the other constantly-moving vehicles, though we had to drive on the sidewalk over lots of construction to do it, and we became part of the Escheresque conveyer belt just like everything else. As we approached the area where there was normally a bridge that crosses through the foresty part of the park, instead we were carried (because the road dropped, so we were more like floating now but it was more of a telekinetic pulling sensation) through what I can really only describe as some kind of yellowish-beige hyperdimensional caverns that also appeared to be some sort of fantasy town filled with enormous (like, their heads were bigger than my car) tentacled but vaguely humanoid alien monsters that emitted an aura of being some kind of hyperspatial entities with various astral powers. As we were pulled further into this it became clear that all of this was actually just part of a gigantic plane of perception that existed as a singular object which was simply modifying its own structure but was still just one thing.... And then my recall fades out and soon I woke up. X)

#2 - New Phantasy Star Dungeons [Non-Lucid]

I was hanging out with N, R, and J, and R and J had been playing Phantasy Star Universe apparently and N was showing me how we could use our PSPs to connect our Phantasy Star Online (which is not even a PSP game) files to their Universe files and together we could all play on brand new maps, including an insanely detailed forest where we fought a boss that I can't remember now, and sort of a Star Ocean-like medieval town that was in a circular shape and caved in to a sewage drain in the middle where we battled some kind huge red robot monster that was designed to have these really curvy claws and body structures.... Also hard to describe, but I thought it looked cool. >w< However, R and J had passed out for most of it, and N was slipping in and out of consciousness, so for the most part it was either him and I or just me playing. Near the end, N commented about how we need to "slow down on the rum" for some reason, but then I woke up.

Dream Fragment - I don't think this dream ever fully formed, it really was a legitimate framgent. What I do remember is that I'm pretty sure Linkzelda was there and we were talking about schizophrenia, and I vaguely recall either putting on or already wearing a two-piece bathing suit that releases dopamine, which sounds insanely awesome. XD

#3 - Karaoke Game [Non-Lucid]

My cousin K and some friend of hers had left a karaoke game at my house and I played it with her friend since K had already left I suppose, but I didn't really know any of the few songs they had already unlocked so I wasn't doing very well. Later the girl just kind of vanished and I went to turn off the game, originally thinking it was in my GameCube but then realizing that it actually had its own system set up next to it. I looked through the menus a bit more and noticed that it was a Disney game and the characters were all kids and moms. I specifically remember seeing a little boy based on Mickey and a tall, completely black-and-shiny-skinned voluptuous woman based on Minnie. o.o I turned the game off and wandered into the kitchen and started getting really nauseous for some reason. I looked at the clock and noticed that it was almost 11:30 AM, and I thought to myself that it must be because of all the dream aids I took. () I went to grab a cookie to eat to try to make the nausea pass, but then I woke up, thankfully not nauseous for real.

Spoiler for Reflections:

Well, this was an interesting night. First of all, all of the dreams were extremely vivid, even the fragment as much as it possibly could be. There were multiple times throughout them where I had to read things off of various surfaces and it was all 100% clear and legible. Background details such as the placement of objects in my house were also highly accurate, and even included things like the container full of cookies that were only added to the environment within the last couple of days, and the GameCube in the living room that I've only used like once since moving it out there recently. As for the purpose of the experiment.... Are my dreams subconsciously forming the way I want them to? Yes, I would say so. (Especially the bathing suit that releases dopamine, ohmygod yes. ) There was definitely more of an alien quality to them, particularly the first two, and the way reality was pieced together in basically all of them matches ways that I would want to influence them (it's kind of hard put into words how, though). The first one was just amazing, it feels like it's been forever since I had a dream like that.... Take me back to the factory, oh magical tentacled overlords!

Attached Thumbnails

 

Supplement Dose: 10 mg Melatonin, 50 mg Zinc

Spoiler for Why I Took These Supplements:

I've decided to start a new experimental regimen. I've been doing a lot of thinking about the connections between hallucinogens and dreaming, especially after doing a lot of research and testing with menthol, and what it's really brought me to is the relationship between dopamine and prolactin. As far as I can tell, dopamine is like the chemical of the subconscious.... It connects us to our thoughts and desires, brings our imaginations to life. Prolactin, on the other hand, controls how much desire we actually have, and I mean that on a rather deep, subconscious level. Dopamine and prolactin are normally inversely correlated, but they can both be active at the same time. My theory was that having both dopamine and prolactin going would make for a more general enhancement of a dream or hallucinatory experience, but it would also make them rather wild and uncontrollable, or at the very least impulsive. Dopamine, however, while it is very impulsive in its own right, would allow for an experience that more naturally formed around our desires when not inhibited by prolactin.

For example, I recently decided to do research into the pro- or anti-prolactinergic effects of various psychedelics. The well-known ones that I've experimented with that I was able to find information on include DMT, psilocin (from mushrooms), and LSD. DMT and psilocin each give me trips that are totally uncontrollable, and often are alien and bizarre. Psilocin gives me me a considerably more "connected" trip than DMT, and is often very sexual and shows me amazing visions that do reflect my subconscious, but overall it's more like I'm going along for the ride than anything. LSD is a totally different story. Whenever I'm on LSD, reality forms to my desires without me even having to do anything; the world simply bends and twists until it's reshaped itself to explore my every fantasy. It's not a conscious method of control like using powers in a lucid dream, it works on the subconscious level in the sense that the dream-like state itself is formed in exactly the way that you would form it if you were doing it manually, and since it's just happening for you and your subconscious is creating it it's even better than you could possibly create with your conscious mind. Unsurprisingly (to me, anyway), DMT and psilocin increase prolactin levels, while LSD decreases them.

So how does this apply to the supplements? Well, I got to thinking.... Menthol raises prolactin levels and potentiates D2 responses. This is why I believe it creates some of the same connection to desires as dopamine (like the sexual effects), but it also makes them more sensual than fiendish, and it adds lots of visual effects like RobStar commonly mentions. It also definitely does make me more impulsive while lucid, and there's certainly nothing wrong with this; the "pure" sexual feeling is one I've already grown quite fond of. However, I still have the desire to test my theories further and see what a high-dopamine/low-prolactin state of dreaming would be like. This is difficult to do normally.... Drugs that increase prolactin tend to increase REM (like menthol), whereas drugs that increase dopamine tend to decrease REM. However, that doesn't mean there's not a way around it. The plus side is that increased dopaminergic activity itself will decrease prolactin levels if unopposed, so all that's really required is to find a way to raise dopamine levels and increase REM at the same time.

That's where the supplements come in. Melatonin directly opposes the effects of dopamine, particularly at D2, to suppress REM and induce non-REM sleep. Therefore, the REM rebound effect it creates later is the result of a direct increase in the dopaminergic activity of dreams to make up for lost time. So that's how that works. Zinc is another cool one, I think. Zinc is an NMDA antagonist, and this alone may add something to it but it's not my main goal; however, it does mean that chronic use of zinc will upregulate D2 receptors, and that should make for more enhanced dreaming overall. In addition, zinc appears to be a positive allosteric modulator of dopamine receptors, especially D1 and D2. This means that it doesn't actually provide any effects by itself and will not create a dopaminergic response (i.e., it won't wake you up), but it will enhance the ability of agonists at the receptor such as dopamine to create their response. So in other words, it makes the dopamine at those receptors more effective. It's also known to decrease prolactin levels with continued use. Together, I believe these two supplements, especially in chronic use, may be able to give me the kinds of effects I'm looking for. I'm also planning to add new ones to the stack to increase the effect, such as vitamin B6 to increase the production of dopamine where the brain needs it, and vitamin E to further reduce prolactin levels. I'm also considering going on the no fap challenge during this (which is why I've listed the entry as "Day 0", as I'm already unable to officially start today) so that my dopamine receptors become more sensitive and my daily prolactin levels drop. Hopefully, this will turn out to be a very successful endeavor and give me dreams that are more tailored to my desires without me even having to intervene!

#1 - Latex And Superpowers [Non-Lucid]

There was a lot going in this dream leading up to this point, but where my memory really comes in was at a cafeteria on a college campus. I was really late for lunch so even though I looked around a bit I didn't really get to eat anything. At one point I went and waited by a doorway for M who was apparently on the other side of the wall but being held up by something, and it randomly occurred to me that I was wearing something like this:

Though, I can't remember if it was those colors exactly; I didn't pay much attention to myself. Two other girls walked up also wearing latex outfits and heels and I recognized them as more friends of M. Eventually the three of us decided to go see what was taking M so long and "get her out of trouble". (I wrote that in my notes, followed by "(they thought she was too young)", but I'm not exactly sure what it means now.) After a short talk I guess I forgot about M, and my friend J walked up and tried to kiss me on the cheek, which really weirded me out considering that it was coming from him. Our mutual friend S who was a grade below us in school was there too, and she claimed that she decided to get "happy and drunk". I randomly jumped up on her back so she was giving me a piggyback ride, and I told her that with me there we'd be able to phase through walls so she didn't have to worry about that. We started walking through walls randomly and talking about college, but around that time the dream was starting to become unstable, and soon I woke up.

Visualization came extremely easily after this dream. I probably could've done a WILD if I wanted to, but I was sort of focused on something when I woke up.

#2 - The Amazing Future Smeargle [Non-Lucid]

This entire dream took place in third-person, and thus a lot of it is hard to recall now. I had the feeling that I was playing some new Pokémon game, but it was just that the screen was taking up my entire perception. Essentially, the plot was about some insanely powerful Smeargle who was completely dominating all of the Pokémon in the world in the future, and so the legendary beasts sent it back in time to get rid of it, but as a result others followed it to continue trying to beat it while certain organizations were trying to capture it for themselves. By this point in the game I already had it on my team, along with a few other fully-trained Pokémon, but I can't really remember what they were now (but I do remember something about fighting the legendary beasts). The Smeargle really was kicking ass; I'm pretty sure its moves were Fire Blast, SolarBeam, I want to say maybe Earthquake, and something else I don't quite recall now.... A terrible spread, but it was doing pretty well in-game. X) Not long after a battle ended, I woke up.

Also, thanks for the idea for this, RobStar. It's going to come in handy.

Spoiler for Preliminary Reflections:

Alright, so day 0.... The first dream interests me the most, though the second one is worth noting too. I haven't really had third-person dreams of that caliber in a while now, and I have to wonder if that was related to increased D2 activity. Melatonin has definitely given me some OBE-like dreams before. But, like I said, it's the first dream that I find really significant. First of all, this is the second time recently where I've felt that consequences weren't quite so important and just jumped on someone's back. However, in the first one I was trying to be playful, even if I was doing so in sort of an odd way, and I had reason to believe that nothing mattered because I was "back in time". In this one I just totally didn't care at all, and I knew that we'd be able to phase through walls easily. The rules of reality definitely didn't apply to me in this dream, and I was aware of it somehow. At no point did I become lucid, at least not fully if this counts at all. It was more of a... "this is my reality" type of feeling. Furthermore, there's the matter of the latex outfits.... It's entirely possible that this is just incubation from the sexy hawt females thread, but nothing of that sort has ever really happened to me before. I can say for sure that the incidence of myself and other girls wearing those outfits increasing definitely correlates with what I would expect from increased dopamine and decreased prolactin (and it in fact extremely accurately reflects some of my LSD experiences ).

So, of course, this is only the very first trial, and it's far too early to say anything yet. However, those are my current thoughts. I can't wait to see what kind of dreams I have tonight!