Hullo, all,

So a few weeks ago I had a lucid dream - first time in quite a while (years). I had horrible insomnia and was doing meditation when I must have slipped (unknowingly) into a string of short WILDs. After that, my interest in lucid dreaming was piqued again (in my early twenties I was interested but lacked the patience to really develop anything out of the lucidity techniques over a period of time).

I'm also depressed - chronic moderate to heavy depression - and on cymbalta as a medication. It's both an SSRI and SNRI, and my guess is that the Ne inhibition is what's been causing the insomnia. The lucid dream described above happened after a long period of sleepless nights.

Anyway, I've done some research into vitamins/supplements for lucid dreaming and noticed that they tend to congregate around Serotonin (ST) and Norepinephrine (NE) systems.

There are, however, other neurotransmitters involved in sleep: for example, I bought a bottle of "Dream Sleep" from my local Walgreens for a pittance (~$3). Active ingredients were your standard 5-HT and melatonin, plus GABA.

GABA is interesting because while it's the main inhibitory neurotransmitter, it does not cross the blood/brain barrier. So the first question I've got for the medical/neurological types out there is: could/does GABA have secondary effects outside the CNS? For example, would/could GABA cause a broad inhibition of sensory data from making it in/out of the brain? Since lucidity rides on that thin line between wakefulness and sleep, and bodily sensory data is likely to push you off the knife-blade into wakefulness, would GABA work as a useful adjunct to promote bodily restfulness?

Second question, related to the first: can/does GABA's secondary action at peripheral tissues and organs have a "cascade" effect that might influence sleep structure? For example: GABAergic systems have been found in the testes and ovaries. I haven't looked into the systems sufficiently, but perhaps this mediates the release of testosterone in the early morning hours, when REM sleep is more likely? I would suspect that the increased testosterone levels in men and women at that time tend to promote wakefulness as well as friskiness

Third question: GABA pharmacokinetics. It's a non-question, but I thought I'd ask it anyway: what effects, if any, would there be from GABA metabolites? Anything that could cross the B/B barrer and influence things? I'm doubtful since GABA is made from glutamate, so I don't expect the metabolites of GABA to share effects though - because we're talking about the sliver of experience between wake and sleep - perhaps this has some effect on GABA/glutamate ratios, that is, sleep:wake ratios as far as these neurotransmitters are involved?

Fourth question: histamines. Or rather, antihistamines. They also act on the body's sleep/wake cycle, as anybody who's taken OTC sleep meds (benadryl - diphenhydramine) knows. Personally, the diphenhydramine doesn't put me to sleep, helps to keep me asleep, makes dream-recall a real pain, and leaves me a zombie in the morning.

Diphenhydramine isn't the only one though. For example, I am currently prescribed Hydroxyzine for anxiety and chronic pain. It's not done much to help with those, but I've definitely noticed an effect on sleep/wake, mostly that it helps keep me asleep without much grogginess in the morning. It's a potent inverse agonist on H1 (histamine class 1) receptors with the anticholinergic properties of similar antihistamines. Interestingly, it also has strong anti-serotonergic effects (at 5-HT2a and 5-HT2c).

Last night, I had regular S-Sleep for about 4 hours, and came up at 4AM to go to the bathroom. Before returning to sleep, I took ~125mg of hydroxyzine with ~225 mcg Huperzine-A (I should add that I don't have the finances for galantamine; I have significant nausea from the huperzine so it's a sprint back to sleep before that hits me). This produced a very vivid, highly sensory, prolonged lucid dream, complete with false awakening and *no* periods of intervening wakefulness between REM episodes (at least none that I can recall).

Background: I've been meditating for 12 years, and begun working on developing lucidity and awareness while asleep and/or dreaming over the past month or two. I'm 6'1", 170 lb white male. I do not take drugs or alcohol other than those prescribed in the amounts prescribed (with the exception of the hydroxyzine this time). I sometimes will take supplements, but have not done so lately. I'm a (mostly) ex-smoker; I have a cigarette now and then, find them disgusting, then go for a few days before I feel like having one again. One of those where I can stop if I want without withdrawal symptoms, but don't mind the occasional smoke. I've had mostly WILDs. Last night was... well, the first part of the dream was WILD. I recovered lucidity after the false awakening from reality-testing.

So I'm wondering if anyone else has explored the histamine family. You'd ideally want something that acts as a strong H1 agonist without crossover mACh effects. Perhaps the H1 antagonist Alkylamines? Low side-effect profile, but heightened CNS activity.

By the way: interestingly enough, my chronic pain condition is the best "dream cue" I could ever have. A mixture of parasthesias and pain, those sensations are absent in dreams. I don't really have "legs" at all - I seem to float everywhere. Are there any folk on here who are amputees, or have chronic pain conditions? I'd be curious to know how dreaming and lucid affect their conditions. I'd be especially curious to hear from amputees who have phantom limbs, and how dreaming/lucidity affects that. Being a psych major with an interest in neuroscience, I'm wondering if lucid dreaming could be used as adjunct therapy for amputees. You have a chunk o' brain that needs to adjust to the fact that no arm's connected any more. With lucid-dreaming, could you speed the neural plasticity to avoid the pain and tension phantom limbs cause? Should you attempt to use lucid dreaming to "keep" the sense-memory alive?

Oh, and: Hello, all!