Alyzarin

So, I tried taking 1500 mg of aniracetam at midnight to see the effect it would have on my dreams. My advice would be that if you are sensitive to hallucinogenic states of mind (like I am) and/or have a history of panic attacks and general anxiety (like I do), that you DO NOT try this. In my previous experiences using aniracetam as a nootropic, I had noticed that it seemed kind of like piracetam but a bit more trippy, it just has sort of a dissociative energy to it. Now I know that I shouldn't take more than a standard dose (750 mg) or possibly even that if I'm not willing to deal with that. :T

Basically, as it was setting in, my thoughts started racing. I also realized that it may not be good to take a good dose of something that pushes a lot of oxygen to the brain while trying to go to sleep, but that's my bad. I was zoned out and into a mild hypnagogic trance (I get very light, transparent hallucinations easily) when suddenly the weird patterns I was watching became really strong and pushed me into alertness. I sat up thinking "Okay, that was odd. >_>" After that there was an abrupt shift in consciousness, I honestly did a RC to make sure I wasn't dreaming. It didn't really feel like a dream though, more like a trip. In the same way that hypnagogia can involve things like loud noises or images that appear really quick and then vanish in a way that makes them immediately feel really distant, I started getting sensations of chest pains that would last barely a second, then feel like they almost never happened in the first place, and I started to hear my heart beating and it sounded somewhat erratic. Though I've never had it quite as fleeting as this before, I've been here a million times... the point where I have to suddenly get myself under control or I'm going to launch into a panic attack.

I forced myself to get a grip, and started doing some of my normal calming exercises. The anxiety and sensations didn't fully go away, but it didn't make me totally freak out or anything. I frequently was getting the unsettlingly strong dissociative feeling of having all of my senses pulled away from me, like I was about to snap into an anesthetic OBE, but this also came and went pretty quickly. It took me a long time to fall asleep after that, and I think I had one dream before the first one I logged but I can't really recall anything about it. However, all of my dreams after that were considerably more vivid than they had been the past few days, or even really more than any dreams I'd had in a while.

I'd always wondered about the supposed 5-HT2A and D2/D3 action of aniracetam. I'm still not sure if they've verified it yet, but I'm more willing to believe it interacts with those receptors in some way now. It was a lot crazier than I expected.... I know people take doses much higher than that normally and are fine, too. I guess I'm just really sensitive to its effects. If I try it again in the future, I'll probably stick to the 750 mg doses, and probably a couple hours before bed. It does seem to have an augmentative effect, but it needs to be used correctly.

Anyway....

#1 - Meeting Up With Laura [Non-Lucid]

I was hanging out with this guy J I met in high school but haven't seen much of since graduation, and I was supposed to be meeting up with some girl I don't know named Laura soon. I asked J if he wanted to go to her house with me and he said sure. This part of the dream is hazy, but we got in my car and I drove us there, and somewhere down the line J turned into D. We got to her house, but she wasn't there! Her parents and my parents were, though. They were having some kind of breakfast feast with a bunch of pans on the stove that included hash browns, eggs, and mini pancakes, possibly among other things. I went into Laura's room and gave her a call on my cell (I think) and it turned out she had actually gone to my house looking for me, so I felt bad about missing her. :T I told her we'd go bowling to make up for it when I got back. I saw her as I was talking to her, but she's hard to remember. At this point my mind started associating her with Laura Palmer, from Twin Peaks, and she was blonde like her but she didn't really look like her otherwise. I thought to myself maybe we can bring some drugs or alcohol to the bowling alley to surprise her, that'll make her happy. After I got off the phone I went back and saw D pigging out on all the breakfast food. I told him we needed to head out and that he should make those pancakes he was getting be his last plate, and he said "Even worse, I think they're Chinese." and laughed. At the time, I knew what this meant.... It was some reference to the way they were cooked. I have no idea what it means now, though. After that, we were getting ready to leave and I woke up.

#2 - Talking About Disgaea [Non-Lucid]

I spent the night at someone's house talking about drugs or something, then in the morning when I woke up and walked out the front door (into a big auditorium-like building, on the second floor ) there was a huge band/orchestra event going on, so I wanted to get out of there quickly. I distinctly remember walking past this chibified version of another J I knew in school, and he even had a squeaky voice to go along with his look. I ran into an old friend (some random DC?) and the scene changes to a huge department store, and she gets mad at me for not forcing her to play Disgaea before when she thought she wouldn't like it because she said she finally decided to try it after all these years and loves it. She asks for some teaser details about what she can expect out of the game, so I gave some vague information about the plot and some cool stuff you can do in the game, which were amazingly accurate considering I was saying this in a dream, but then the dream ended.

#3 - Glitchy New Pokémon Game [Non-Lucid]

Playing a copy of an unreleased Pokémon game that I somehow downloaded on to a flash cart. (Even in the dream I admit to not remembering how I got it.) I refer to the game as Black version, but I think I might have meant Black 2. It looks cool, but because it's a dream it's extremely glitchy and not consistent at all. Yet somehow, I managed to realize that if you keep going back and retrying the options you were pressing over and over again intending them to work, they eventually would. I don't remember much about the content, though I was actually able to read everything perfectly fine, and I remember seeing a picture of Link (in child form) from his art in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Meanwhile, my parents are also walking around the house (I'm moving around while playing) and arguing about whether or not someone will be able to fix some issue if my dad contacts her, but I can't remember exactly what.