Thread: Modafinil for lucids aids?

No. It is a stimulant.

Who in the world said LDing gets harder with age? I get better every year for the last 30 years running. I am 45.

Smoking cigs should not have a negative effect, but pot will.

Thank you for your reply. Actually some bits of information here and there says that lucid dreaming abilities gets harder with age...
Example like www/wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324468104578246013675170372

DV also has posts mentioning it... www/dreamviews.com/education-center/63150-lucid-dreaming-gets-harder-age.html
Many of the LD report in this forum seem to come from late teenagers or early twenties.

Your post make me felt hopeful... LOL...

Anyway, smoking is bad for health and I should find ways to stop/ reduce it. I don't do pot... hard to find in Singapore.

(sorry... wasn't able to post as a link becos of newly registered issues)

When I purchased 5-htp it said it would take five days to work. The first five days I took it, it gave me bad insomnia. After that I noticed a marked improvement in my mood and the insomnia went away.

You got insomnia using 5-Htp?! It knocked me out like a sleeping pill...

Yes I did. Sometimes I react strangely to supplements and herbs, that could be why.

I got a lucid dream this morning. I was walking in my auntie's neighborhood when suddenly I find the building a bit odd and that's where I realized auntie doesn't live here for nearly 2 decades. I'm dreaming.
Sivason is right... seem like age isn't much a problem after all. Of course I used the G/C combo last night and it worked for me. I will go for a 72 hrs break before next attempt. The only thing I did differently is using GPC choline rather than CDP. So the combination is 5 htp 100mg sleep for 5 hrs and Galatamind 8mg with GPC 600mg. The mind was so clear that there's no way I could not realized this odd dream.

How do I change the title?

I had some insanely vivid dreams the other night due to Modafinil. I'm going to be experimenting in very small doses for lucid dreaming, I'll keep you posted if I have any results worth mentioning!

Oh... you have to be very careful with it... I will cause insomnia and you will be wide awake for the next couple of hours.

Modafinil affects and interacts with chemicals more related to wakefulness than the ones implicated in dreaming (specifically recall and vividness). Typically the drugs and supplements with the most drastic/effective effects on dreaming are cholinergic, and function on some level or another as an acetylcholine agonist, iirc, more often than not, nicotinic (rather than muscarinic, the two are specific sub-types of acetylcholine neurons). For instance, galantamine is one such drug who functions as a nicotinic acetylcholine agonist. Some people also use nicotine patches, and as you can probably guess, it is a nicotinic acetylcholine agonist as well (the namesake for the sub-type). Modafinil is a very, very weak dopamine agonist (almost clinically negligible), and most research so far indicates it interacts with orexin neurons, which is a chemical that simply produces wakefulness, as opposed to stimulation, like you might think.

Honestly, compared to galantamine and nicotine, modafinil is much, much safer to experiment with (unlike the former 2, which are classified as stimulants, modafinil is classified as a wakefulness promoting agent). However, it is a controlled substance in the United States (only schedule IV, but still). Just be careful with what you're doing. Honestly, I think it's only going to disrupt your sleep, I doubt it'll help too much. I've experimented with adrafinil in the past, which is a prodrug (a drug that does nothing on its own, but breaks down into an active one) of modafinil which isn't scheduled in the US. It didn't help any with dream vividness or lucidity when I took it. I think nootropics are a better bet since most are cholinergic, but cholinergic drugs can seriously be dangerous to mental health (including galantamine and nicotine). First of all, taking too much can have a negative effect on cognition; taking more than what works can have a worse effect than not taking any at all. Secondly, many people who take cholinergic nootropics on a regular basis report feelings of being suicidal. So, if you try any more besides galantamine out, be seriously careful.

As far as modafinil's side effects go, just make sure not to take too much at a single given time. Taking more than 2 doses of modafinil (the few times I tried it) or adrafinil (when I tried it out for 2 months as a supposed nootropic) rarely helped anything at all (it didn't make me any more awake really, and I could barely tell I took any more), and taking 3 always guaranteed a terrible headache that would persist for several hours. I know this website isn't about abusing drugs, but anybody thinking you can and that modafinil might be recreational will be sorely disappointed, and probably wind up with a terrible headache. One final thing to mention is that adrafinil might cause liver damage (big emphasis on might); I haven't found anything substantiating this, but it's popped up a few times in what I've read about it. I think it's just something born from the fact that it's metabolized by the liver into modafinil, and ignorant people who aren't very savvy about how drugs and the body work think it's like alcohol and the liver. Essentially, there was no mention of it in actual scientific literature, but I saw people on various message boards bring up that it could be. Very few drugs, if any, aren't metabolized by the liver, and there don't appear to be any metabolites that are hepatotoxic, or alternatively that cause liver toxicity by being highly reactive and depleting essential proteins (talking about adrafinil specifically here, modafinil isn't suspected to cause liver damage). Stay safe guys!

Originally Posted by snoop

Modafinil affects and interacts with chemicals more related to wakefulness than the ones implicated in dreaming (specifically recall and vividness). Typically the drugs and supplements with the most drastic effects are cholinergic, and function on some level or another as an acetylcholine agonist, iirc, more often than not, nicotinic (rather than muscarinic, the two are specific sub-types of acetylcholine neurons). For instance, galantamine is one such drug who functions as a nicotinic acetylcholine agonist. Some people also use nicotine patches, and as you can probably guess, it is a nicotinic acetylcholine agonist as well (the namesake for the sub-type). Modafinil is a very, very weak dopamine agonist (almost clinically negligible), and most research so far indicates it interacts with orexin neurons, which is a chemical that simply produces wakefulness, as opposed to stimulation, like you might think.

Honestly, compared to galantamine and nicotine, modafinil is much, much safer to experiment with (unlike the former 2, which are classified as stimulants, modafinil is classified as a wakefulness promoting agent). However, it is a controlled substance in the United States (only schedule IV, but still). Just be careful with what you're doing. Honestly, I think it's only going to disrupt your sleep, I doubt it'll help too much. I've experimented with adrafinil in the past, which is a prodrug (a drug that does nothing on its own, but breaks down into an active one) of modafinil which isn't scheduled in the US. It didn't help any with dream vividness or lucidity when I took it. I think nootropics are a better bet since most are cholinergic, but cholinergic drugs can seriously be dangerous to mental health (including galantamine and nicotine). First of all, taking too much can have a negative effect on cognition; taking more than what works can have a worse effect than not taking any at all. Secondly, many people who take cholinergic nootropics on a negative basis report feelings of being suicidal. So, if you try any more besides galantamine out, be seriously careful.

As far as modafinil's side effects go, just make sure not to take too much at a single given time. Taking more than 2 doses of modafinil (the few times I tried it) or adrafinil (when I tried it out for 2 months as a supposed nootropic) rarely helped anything at all, and taking 3 always guaranteed a terrible headache that would persist for several hours. I know this website isn't about abusing drugs, but anybody thinking you can and that modafinil might be recreational will be sorely disappointed, and probably wind up with a terrible headache. Stay safe guys!

plus, it really is very expensive.

Originally Posted by sivason

plus, it really is very expensive.

Not if you buy Modalert by SunPharma, it's as potent as Modvigil but a hell lot cheaper. I used to take it for productivity and wakefulness, did not notice any effects on my dreams though.

Speaking of nootropics, I've tried Oxyracetam, Piracetam and Aniracetam and none of them had any effects on me. Weird, it seems that my body isn't affected by racetams.

But as far as supplements go, I'd suggest you try Huperzine-A (would suggest you thoroughly research this one before trying it) & Mugwort (a Chinese herb). The others, Choline and 5HTP have been mentioned here.

All the best

I've not tried modafinil with lucid dreaming so can't comment on that. But the age thing yeah using supplements it's easy for me to have long lucid dreams, and im > 35. The only difference for me when getting older is that I seem to not handle fast speed very wel any more in the dreams (falling, racing), but this could have other reasons than age. I've learned to simply not do it during a lucid dream.
If you intend to use a stimulant to help with lucid dreaming you could also consider a low dose of "simply" caffeine when getting up to WILD, it can help you skip deep sleep when WILD-ing. I use 25mg (0,025 gram) myself and it works well for me.
As for Alpha GPC I've seen it reccomended over other choline sources for lucid dreaming, as it's able to deliver choline accross the blood-brain barrier, making it faster and more effective during an attempt. So that might have helped you get better results as well the second time.

Best of luck