Supplements & results log (Galantamine, Alpha GPC, Caffeine, others)

Hi all,

I've decided to pick up supplements again to help with getting lucid, and figured it might be helpful to some to share my results. I think every "body" is different so what works for me might not work for you, but maybe it will give you some ideas to experiment with if you are so inclined :)

Source of my choices
I've done a lot of reading about supplements, and based on that I've picked the below choices. If you want to do some reading of your own about possible combinations and what to expect and why, I recommend this research paper trying out different combo's: https://www.physicsforums.com/attach...ams-pdf.19148/

Used supplements
Based on the above and on my own experience in the past, last Friday I started experimenting with:

- In the afternoon around 15:00, a high dosage B-complex supplement (I've seen B6 rumoured to help with lucidity);
- An hour before bedtime vaporizing some herbs to help me fall asleep (I'm always hyperactive in the evening, not sure if this is helpful or unhelpful for the lucid dream attempt in itself, but wanted to mention it to paint the complete picture);
- Alarm set for 3,5 hours after falling asleep (my personal sleep cycles are 1h45mins, so that's a full 2 cycles);
- Once the alarm went off, taken 200mg of L-Theanine (suntheanine) and waited 15 minutes -> theanine is to help you fall back asleep
- After the 15 mins (this time break was mentioned in the 2nd study I posted), taken:
* 300 mg Alpha GPC -> increases Acetylcholine in the brain to support REM sleep;
* 8mg Galantamine -> Prevents the break-down of Acetylcholine, to support REM sleep;
* Sip of coffee (I didn't have any caffeine powder, now I do and for my next experiment I intend to use 20 mg) -> helps skip the Deep Sleep phase to go directly into REM (dreaming).

Results
- Successful lucid dream: Using the WILD technique I was lucid for around 1,5 hours, an estimate based on how long it felt / the amount of things I was able to do, and the time I went back to sleep/the time I woke up.
- Next day side effects: Colours and taste were a lot more intense, things seemed to "glow", low energy, lack of focus. Wasted day in which I did not get much done. I don't know if everyone has these effects but if you're going to experiment I recommend to not have plans/work/school the next day to play it safe. Used piracetam to mitigate the effects, but also took ALCAR with it which was not a smart thing to do in retrospect. The use of piracetam is recommended in the above mentioned book by Thomas Yuschak, to prevent a build up of tolerance to the galantamine, and to help bring your choline levels back to normal.

Other info
To paint a complete picture I'll describe the other supplements I take for other reasons than Lucid Dreaming, but who knows might have an impact on success rate (I haven't researched this)
- I regularly meditate, partly to practice the WILD technique (visualisation without falling asleep)
- I try eat at least the recommended amount of fruit, vegetables, nuts for nutritional value (vitamins, minerals, ea.) and low tot non amount of meat and fish
- Every day I supplement with vitamins and minerals to help keep me healthy and compensate for defects of eating (nearly) no meat, fish and dairy (I do eat eggs), which are and might be impacting results:
* Vitamin B complex, and extra b12 (b12 not taken for a few days during last experiment)
* Calcium + Magnesium + Zinc
* L-Carnosine
* Iodine + Tyrosine
* Creatine (not taken for a few days during last experiment)

I'll update this thread after any new experiments. If you have any questions feel free to ask, any comments and tips appreciated.

Results for Friday to Saturday 29-10-2016
Schedule (the time falling asleep and waking up from the LD are an educated guess).

22:30 Smoked some herb (vaporizer)
23:30 Fell asleep
03:00 Woke up from alarm
03:10 Got out of bed (should have done this immediately at 03:00 but didn't want to wake gf any more and felt groggy)
03:15 Taken 150 mg of L-Theanine
03:30 Taken Galantamine 8mg, Alpha-GPC 300mg, Caffeine 25mg
03:30 Back to bed
03:45 Reality check, still awake, starting to meditate
04:00 or 05:00 Lucid Dream
05:00 or 06:00 Awake
06:00 Back asleep without writing lucid dream down and without taking piracetam as intended
08:00 Awake and out of bed. Taking 3 grams of piracetam and 90mg of caffeine to try get rid of the side effects and to prevent desensitization to the galantamine.

Results: Successful Lucid Dream for about 60 minutes, did lose lucidity now and then due to lack of keeping myself aware I was dreaming but regained it again frequently too. Like last time the WILD transition from waking to sleeping was very bizar. Also could not use my dream body because it was too heavy to move no matter how hard I tried. Had to move around as a point of consciousness watching the "movie" wherever I felt like going. Could have probably created a dream body at some point during the dream or influence the surrounding with intent, but was fine with the way it was.

Side effects: The side effects are less severe than last time, probably because I fell back asleep for another 2 hours before analyzing them. My sensory input is still slightly altered (that orangy glow), stomach is a bit weird with a slight hint of nausea, thought is only slightly out of focus and I'm not feeling too groggy, pretty much how I would expect it because of the interrupted sleep. I expect this is because I fell back asleep after the lucid dream and been asleep for about 2 hours after. I've taken 3 grams of piracetam and 90 mg of powdered caffeine to try counter the remaining side effects. It's now a half hour later and I can say the side effects are mostly gone and the caffeine has helped me to wake up a bit (remove the groggyness).

Good journal.
How many off days did you take between two attempts?
I stopped my experiment but was doing it the same way, with the same book, great results but decided I didn't want to take too much risks with my brain chemistery.
Be careful to do it with a lot more days off betwen attempts than what is theorically possible thanks to pircetam.
One or two attempts a week during few weeks then a long off period should be ok.

Hi Kaan,

Cheers for your reply, and good to read you got some great results using this regime too. Are you still able to lucid dream without the supplements, and do you notice a difference?
I personally find on galantamine that the waking to sleeping moment is severely messed up, but the lucid dream itself is a lot more stable and longer lasting.

It's been 5 days since the attempt before, and I'm leaving at least 1 day in between per attempt. So the piracetam can clear from my system (takes 30-36 hours according to the study), and so I can recover from the missed (deep) sleep and don't mess up my sleep cycles too bad, by sleeping a restful full night in between trying. I think in practice this means 2-3 times per week depending on the side effects (mostly the lack of energy and focus) and my work schedule (I want / need to be fresh for this).

I'm not too worried about messing up my brain chemistry too much, I'm used to piracetam and choline (normally ALCAR) for years so the only new thing I'm using is galantamine. Which according to several studies is safe (on higher doses than the 8mg I use) and it can actually prevent brain function decline. Having said that, I do notice side effects personally as described in this thread, so I am monitoring them closely. If they get worse or if the regime fails once (for example my body gets used to it and it's not effective anymore), I will take a while off for recovery. And maybe experiment with just using caffeine for example.
What specifically makes you think you'd mess up your brain chemistry? I might learn something.

Recent meta-study on galantamine results, the conclusion for me is that it's relatively safe:
Galantamine | ALZFORUM

If one is not taking piracetam, Yuschak recommends taking galantamine no more frequently than once every 4 days.

It looks like you have a great stack & regimen there. I've been away from supps for more than a year since galantamine always wires me fully awake for hours. I should try taking with L-theanine perhaps, like you do.

Hi FryingMan,

Good advice about the 4 days without piracetam. I personally prefer to use it, partly to get rid of the excessive choline including side effects after the lucid dream. But I understand some people might not want to.

I used the galantamine combo without L-theanine years ago and without the caffeine with much less success, and also after sleeping longer (5 hours 15 mins). This gave me the same issues as you mention, being too awake. Reducing sleep time to 2 sleep cycles (3,5 hours for me) and adding the L-theanine, has made it a lot easier for me to fall back asleep. And I use less choline (300mg) than mentioned in some studies, which still works for me and makes me less wired. Also the meditation makes me more patient, I'm not sure how long I was awake last night (1,5 hours wouldn't surprise me), it felt pretty long. But if I just wait long enough eventually sleep / WILD kicks in.

If you're gonna give it another try I recommend getting L-theanine (suntheanine) and not the regular theanine. I can't remember the exact research but when I was figuring everything out the L-theanine was known to be a lot more potent.

Good luck, am curious about your results if you try again :)

I generally do not take supplements beyond vitamins & minerals, so taking piracetam (which Yuschak recommends) after galantamine seemed like overkill: drugs to get you lucid ("get you high"), drugs to "reset" your brain afterwards ("bring you back down"), all seemed like too much. I'd much rather just wait the four days.

Yes I think that I would need a 3.5 hour waking. 5 hours is already too late. I encounter frequent insomnia at the 5 hr waking even without any supplements whatsoever, if I spend a lot of time recalling dreams or set intention to get lucid too strongly. Interestingly, I have no issues falling asleep at bedtime, so I've been working on dialing up my daily exercise to ensure my body does in fact need more than 5 hours of sleep.

When you say you had less success without the caffeine, do you mean less success at getting lucid or falling back asleep? I'd presume the former!

I'm extremely caffeine sensitive, and am not a coffee drinker. A cup or two of strong green or black tea during the day and I'm up all night. I have entertained the notion of a sip of coffee at WBTB time. If I get manage to catch the 3.5 hour waking I might try the coffee (even without the rest of the stack) to see if I can get right back to sleep before it kicks in.

The recommended dose I've seen for L-Theanine is 100mg, the few times I've tried it I've taken 100mg and found it fairly ineffective (not producing enough drowsiness). Maybe 200mg would be more effective for me.

How much (mg) B6 did you take?

I'd like to find a way to hold a few successful "galantamine LD parties" a few times a month. The dreams really are amazing. I've learned a lot about relaxation in the last several years and gotten a lot better at making it back to sleep after the middle-of-the-night wakings. So maybe it's time or me to try the "big G" again :).

I'd love "only" waiting 1.5 hours. It's usually 4-5 or never back to sleep for me when I take G.

Haha I totally get the feeling about "uppers" and "downers". The way I see it is that the galantamine causes choline overkill, and piracetam undoes this. So it's not activating another system and then competing within your body, which would be bad. I've personally used piracetam for years for its nootropic effects as well, so for me it's not a big hurdle :) Just my point of view, not trying to convince anyone :)

Sorry to hear about the insomnia, sleep problems suck I know them all too well from personal experience. Yeah I meant the caffeine helped me in getting lucid a lot better, I don't know about its effects on my sleep but the research showed that 25mg had no adverse effects on falling back asleep. With caffeine sensitivity, an even lower dose might be something to consider.
As for theanine my capsules itself are 150mg but I think next time I will increase the dosage to 200mg to see if it helps me fall asleep better. Most recommendations I read mention 200-400mg for sleep improvement.
In my b-complex there is 50mg B6 vitamin, which is 2500% daily value. The B6 type is pyridoxal 5-phosphate, don't know if that means anything.

Have fun with the galantamine parties ;) :boogie:
Edit Monday morning: I wanted to try again last night, however my alarm didn't wake me up (must have turned it off and fallen straight back asleep). My next attempt will probably be Thursday or Friday night.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MilkyDance

Hi Kaan,

Cheers for your reply, and good to read you got some great results using this regime too. Are you still able to lucid dream without the supplements, and do you notice a difference?
I personally find on galantamine that the waking to sleeping moment is severely messed up, but the lucid dream itself is a lot more stable and longer lasting.

It's been 5 days since the attempt before, and I'm leaving at least 1 day in between per attempt. So the piracetam can clear from my system (takes 30-36 hours according to the study), and so I can recover from the missed (deep) sleep and don't mess up my sleep cycles too bad, by sleeping a restful full night in between trying. I think in practice this means 2-3 times per week depending on the side effects (mostly the lack of energy and focus) and my work schedule (I want / need to be fresh for this).

I'm not too worried about messing up my brain chemistry too much, I'm used to piracetam and choline (normally ALCAR) for years so the only new thing I'm using is galantamine. Which according to several studies is safe (on higher doses than the 8mg I use) and it can actually prevent brain function decline. Having said that, I do notice side effects personally as described in this thread, so I am monitoring them closely. If they get worse or if the regime fails once (for example my body gets used to it and it's not effective anymore), I will take a while off for recovery. And maybe experiment with just using caffeine for example.
What specifically makes you think you'd mess up your brain chemistry? I might learn something.

Recent meta-study on galantamine results, the conclusion for me is that it's relatively safe:
Galantamine | ALZFORUM

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Well, I'm not much involved in LD practice anymore, even if it's certainly not definitive, I've been out for about a year now.
When I was experimenting with G, A-GPC, 5-HTP and Piracetam I used it as an help for learning to WILD.
I was finding the DILD approach too much random and wanted to get the hang of the WILD technique, was counting on the supplements to learn a strategy that I could use in the long term without supplements.
This worked 80% of the time, but when I didn't use those supplements I barely have any success.
In the end, since I didn't want to be dependent of supplements to have LD, and since I wasn't 100% it's absolutely safe for the brain in the long term, I just stopped.
After that, I just got involved in something else and didn't have the time to keep spending much time in the LD field, including my moderator function in a foreign LD forum (so I also quit my moderator function and barely go on LD forums).
my new passion is sport related so my sleep is now very important, and as you know LD practice is not so good for the sleep (because of the WBTB it involves).
As the winter is approaching my sport practice will decrease and I could come back to my old hobby (started to LD 32 years ago).
good luck for your results.

Kaan

Cheers for your reply Kaan. All about sleep, nutrition and exercise then I imagine :) I read some info that daydreaming (imagination) actually had transferable gains to muscles / physical performance. I wonder how accurate that is and if lucid dreaming would have an effect, you might be able to get the best of both worlds ;)

I've had a good success rate for WBTB WILD's without supplements when I used to meditate daily for 40 minutes :meditate:. Nowadays not daily and less successful, but I'm going to again. As I'd rather go without the supplements too. Might experiment with that in a few months coupled with the caffeine. For now, supplements :wino:

Well it's been nearly 2,5 weeks, time for an update :)

Not experimented for a while, because..
Reason 1: As I had trouble falling asleep on time lately, I've not been experimenting with supplements as much as I would have liked. As mentioned in previous posts it's important for me to get enough sleep due to work, so if I fell asleep late I just decided to sleep the entire night instead of breaking it up to experiment. I've found that listening to music with eyes closed after smoking herb instead of watching TV helps me fall asleep on time. Who would have thunk ;) So hopefully I'll sleep better from now on giving me more opportunity to try this stuff out.
Reason 2: On the days that I did want to experiment, I failed to wake up by my (vibrating) alarm, I must have been too deep asleep. To remedy this, I've now set 3 consecutive alarms going off every 5 minutes from the time set. It worked last night, hopefully it'll stay working.

Sunday 6-11-2016 to Monday, WILD without supplements
Baseline (no supplements, 'natural' WILD): On this day I woke up naturally after about 5h15min of sleep, and decided to WILD. Got lucid about an hour later, which lasted for around 10-15 mins.
Result: Compared to using supplements, the time spent lucid was a lot shorter (normally around 1 hour). Also the experience was a lot less "bizarre" when it comes to what I generally experience when using supplements. There was no struggle getting out of body, no mixing of (fake) physical sensory data with dream experience, etc. Which to add I don't mind if they do happen, it adds to the fun of the experience for me :)

Sunday 21-11-2016 to Monday, supplements without B vitamins etc.
Successful supplement WILD, 3 out of 3 since blogging. Forgot to take my usual supplements during the day, so this lucid dream was fully induced by the below supplements.

21:15 Smoked some herb (vaporizer), listened to music for an hour zoning out on the couch to help me get tired, followed by 30 mins of TV before bed
22:45 Fell asleep
02:30 First time vibrating alarm went off, no recollection of it going off or turning it off
02:35 Second time vibrating alarm went off, no recollection of it going off or turning it off
02:40 Third time vibrating alarm went off, woke up groggy and disoriented, laid in bed for a few minutes to get my bearings
02:47 Taken L-theanine (150 mg)
03:02 Taken Galantamine 8mg, Alpha-GPC 300mg, Caffeine 25mg
03:08 Back in bed, laid awake thinking, followed by meditation around 03:30
03:50 WILD starting about 5 minutes after my last reality check (RC) around 03:44
05:07 Awoke by cat snoring confirmed by RC, taken piracetam 1 gram (NO choline), back to bed, can't get back to sleep
06:25 Out of bed, taken 2,4 gram of piracetam (NO choline) and 100mg of caffeine

Results:
Successful Lucid Dream lasting around 1 hour 17 minutes. Less control and memory recall than the last two times, and the experience was mostly visual (which was awesome too so I'm not complaining too much)

Side effects:
After waking/getting out of bed, tcolors and sounds are slightly more intense, but not interfering with normal thinking and perception. Taking piracetam 2x and caffeine probably helped mitigate the usually stronger effects and headache. Slightly tired as I'm used to around 8 hours of sleep but that's nothing coffee can't cure :)

Possible improvements:
-> Set 6 alarms instead of 3, only the last one woke me up so I got lucky, one more alarm ignored and the attempt would have failed.
-> Take the usual supplements including the B-complex vitamins during the day, as this might help with dream control and memory
-> Experiment with DMAE during the day to perhaps help dream recall, not sure I'm happy with this supplement due to possible side effects
-> Perform stabilizing techniques at the start of the lucid dream to get touch and audio more involved, and collect memory cues during the LD for better recall
-> Meditate more to help fall back asleep after an attempt (too much thinking after the attempt was keeping me awake)

Wow, time flies when life happens, my last entry (and supplement LD attempt) was over 2 months ago :) As I want to get back into lucid dreaming, last evening I pulled the trigger and prepared for a supplement induced WILD again.
Since logging, this has made it the 4th out of 4 succesful wild attempts, 100% success rate. I've used the above regime again, since it's working, meaning:
During day: meditation, vitamin b complex, DMAE
At night, after 3,5 hours sleep: 25mg caffeine, and after 15 minutes alpha gpc and galantamine.
Edit for clarification: Next day, piracetam and caffeine to clear the galantamine from my system and to wake me up.

My intention is to try 3x per week now (in reality this could be once a month lol). I'll keep logging the results and post them back once every 3 months or something or on request as someone might find it useful, but not more often so I don't keep bumping this tread with the same information.

Also I want to post a warning to use the correct dosage of caffeine. 25mg = 0.025 gram, you really need very very little. Although this stuff might sound harmless as it's found in coffee etc, if you overdose this stuff is lethal! So please be cautious, use a high precision scale, and only use 0.025 gram (= 25 mg) or a similar amount that works for you. To compare, coffee usually has 0.050 - 0.100 gram (50-100mg) in a single cup. That means if you use a gram for example, thats comparable to 20-10 cups of coffee in a single dosage. Anyway sorry for all the alarm bells, just want everyone to be safe :)

Cheers, Chris

3x a week is a bit too much to me, even if you use piracetam after each attempt, which you don't mention.
At least, yushak claims that piracetam can clean (sort of) the system from all the extra acetyl choline, but like someone mentioned that, i'm not sur it is proven.

Yeah 3x a week does sound a bit much, as you mentioned I do use piracetam as recommended by Yuschak still to clear my system afterwards to help it stay effective (that was less clear than I thought, when refering to my previous regime). I take this together with coffee / caffeine to clear the side effects and help me wake up.
I'm also logging the side effects and succes rate, so if either gets (slightly) worse, I'm immediatly taking a break to reduce tolerance and possible long term side effects.

From what I've read, piracetam seems pretty harmless (even beneficial) and has been around for over 50 years to prove its safety, and galantamine is also used as alzheimer medication with relatively minor side effects as mentioned on for example, so I'm not too worried about long-term negative side effects;
https://www.drugs.com/cdi/galantamine.html

That said, I'm personally pretty affected by the galantamine and lack of sleep due to WILD combo. After I get up, colours have an orangy glow, and I'm very tired / groggy. Also memory performance is decreased (it's harder to recall stuff).
Piracetam for me clears the discoloration and wakes me up a bit, but I have lower energy than usual after usage. So even though both piracetam and galantamine are indicated as relatively safe, I notice enough of an effect to closely monitor how I feel / perform.
Having a good night's sleep after a WBTB/WILD fully clears any negative effects for me.

So to summarize, I'm also concerned about long term frequent usage, and am closely monitoring the situation. So far I have reason to believe it'll be ok, but data is king and might prove me wrong :)

Cheers, Chris