Silene Capensis question

I tried some silene capensis at the beginning of the year. That was during a time when I had been having some success already with lucid dreaming, and was hoping the herb would enhance the experience. I found that silene capensis gave me different kinds of dreams than usual (different themes anyway) but it didn't seem to increase lucidity.

Actually, during my experiment with silene capensis, my lucid dreaming seemed to decrease, and I'm still not sure that I'm back entirely to where I was. Then again, not long after this I got really busy with grad school and stopped putting as much effort into lucid dreaming which might have been responsible for this decrease.

Now I'm kind of worried about trying it again. I have heard that it's effects can be permanent, and I would hate to accidentally lose my ability to lucid dream! Does this seem like a valid concern? Has anyone else experienced a decrease in lucidity with silene capensis?

Silene Capensis has for me been a booster of light in dreams, meaning that everything seems brighter than normal. This means higher vividness to me, but lucidity itself has not been affected much by it. Nonetheless, I consider Silene Capensis very valuable as a dream enhancer, because with it the experience is much more detailed, and connections between things become much clearer.

The dream enhancing effects are supposed to become permanent after having used it for three months straight, but to the best of my knowledge there is no lucidity-diminishing effect from Silene Capensis. so I would not be afraid of that happening.

My belief is that your loss of lucidity is due to a lowered intention to become lucid, as a consequence of your increased emphasis on grad scool activities. Also, many other factors may play a part. I am for example used to much less lucid dreaming during the summer months, because of the higher temperatures, and the increased sunlight during the night (my location is quite northerly).

I have quite a bit of experience with this root. I agree that it does not aid in lucidity. However I find the complexity and overall "color" and vividness of my dreams to be improved.

To aid in lucidity, I find that it pairs nicely with a modest dose of nicotine via a patch. Applied prior to your WBTB.

You also made no mention of how you were using this? The preferred method as I understand it, is 1/2 teaspoon in the morning for 3-4 days straight.

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Originally Posted by DrTechnical

You also made no mention of how you were using this? The preferred method as I understand it, is 1/2 teaspoon in the morning for 3-4 days straight.

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My note taking could have been better, but it looks like I was trying to do about a tablespoon in the morning. The root pieces I had were really tough though, and was hard to grind up into something that would go into a teaspoon.

As for the nicotine patch, is it safe to use those like that? Nicotine is pretty addictive, I hear.

I still would use any supplements or even herb or anything like that with caution. Also, if you’re taking medications or have any preexisting health conditions or Underlining, it may interact with the Medications...

Best advised to consult an doctor before use. You need to consult you doctor about using nicotine patch that way. ;)
~L

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Originally Posted by cedwards105

My note taking could have been better, but it looks like I was trying to do about a tablespoon in the morning.

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That is getting into laxative territory (the other use of Silene Capensis). For dreaming, the dosages should be well below 1000 mg, which is a lot less than a tablespoon.

Nicotine is a well known lucid dreaming supp. It was popularized in the book by Thomas Yuschak. It is an AcH agonist. Hence it "wakes up" the left side (logical processing side) of your brain. Very similar to what Galantamine does. It's just a different mechanism.

Surely if you wanted to consult your doctor about using it in this manner that would be prudent. But I can take a very educated guess on what he or she is going to say. Regardless, I don't smoke and used to use it was some frequency. Maybe a couple of times per month. And it did not cause any sort of addictive needs.

Volmer's comments are quite correct. Sounds like you were using a VERY large dose of ADR.

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Originally Posted by DrTechnical

Nicotine is a well known lucid dreaming supp. It was popularized in the book by Thomas Yuschak. It is an AcH agonist. Hence it "wakes up" the left side (logical processing side) of your brain. Very similar to what Galantamine does. It's just a different mechanism.

Surely if you wanted to consult your doctor about using it in this manner that would be prudent. But I can take a very educated guess on what he or she is going to say. Regardless, I don't smoke and used to use it was some frequency. Maybe a couple of times per month. And it did not cause any sort of addictive needs.

Volmer's comments are quite correct. Sounds like you were using a VERY large dose of ADR.

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We still don't no much about sleep or lucid dreaming and I would take what Thomas Yushak with a grain of salt. ;)

Yuschak and Stride did some very nice work. Yuschak was a bit of an enigma. I did some research years ago with Scott. Very insightful guy. And his job was way cooler than mine (he designs stuff for Nasa).

I don't think they were too focused on "safety" per say. Rather results. Specifically the relationships between certain supps, nuero transmitters and impact to the dreaming mind.

The notion that increased acetylcholine in the brain "wakes up" the left cortex is a hand waving description but essentially accurate (because galantamine slows down the breakdown of AcH) . Same can be said of introducing an AcH agonist. They effectively mimic AcH. Both scenarios increase nuero activity in the left cortex. I actually bounced that description by my cousins daughter years ago. She is a PhD nuero scientist. And she was copasetic with that general description.

Anyway, the how of it aside, we know these things work. The pairing I mentioned above was very productive for me.