Nicotine patch + Calea Zacatechichi extract
First a little context is probably in order. I have pretty good success getting lucid without any aids at all. If I do a WBTB after 5 hours of sleep, I get lucid maybe 40% of the time. I have solid dream recall at about 2 pages of hand written notes per evening.
Now I've also experimented with various lucid aids. Galantamine and Choline being the best combo for me. Now I've tried other aids Yuschak has mentioned ... Mucuna P., Yohimbe, etc ... with little noticable difference.
I finally got around to trying Nicotine. First the obvious disclaimer. Don't get carried away with this drug as it's obviously addictive. Also, don't bother smoking cigarettes to achieve a result as this doesn't seem to work for people. A transdermal patch is the way to go as it introduces a slowsteady stream of nicotine.
So I tried WBTB and nicotine by itself, twice. The first time was very disruptive to my sleep. Maybe 10.5 mg was too much, or perhaps I was anxious. I did better w/ 7 mg a few nights later. In neither event did I becomes lucid. However my dream recall and cohesiveness was very good.So I decided to try it with something that serves as a potential lucid trigger. I didn't want to combine it w/ Galantamine since I was pretty sure I wouldn't get back to bed (galantamine also has the downside of making a return to sleep difficult as many of you know). So I tried something completely different, Calea Zacatechichi. Now I have never used leaves. I know some people make a tea out of them or smoke them. I have always used a 10X extract, 600 mg - 1 capsule. The effect on lucidity for me is that it bumps my success rate to maybe 50-60% with better dream recall in general. So over three seperate events, I tried WBTB + 7 mg nicotine + 1 Calea cap (patch and pill taken upon waking after 5 hours). I tried this every other evening over 5 nights. This combo exceeded my expectations, big time.
Night one - no lucids but I took about 3.5 pages of notes on my dreams. They were very pleasant and cohesive (didn't jump around much).
Night two - 5 pages of notes. 1 lucid, a DILD. One close call ( I recognized my space/time location had changed, but somehow likened it to a day dream).
Night three - 3.5 pages of notes and one lucid, a WILD. I also knocked out the march basic task ;)
On night two, I had the music effect that Yuschak discusses. Some pleasant new age meditation music seemingly emenating from my head. Frankly, I'm concerned the effect was not as profound by the third try, after all I did it 3 times in 5 nights. I'm also not sure how this can be interleaved w/ galantamine and choline attempts. I know nicotine is an acetylcholine agonist. I think the mechanism by which calea works is unknown, though it is proven to induce more superficial awakenings during the course of the night which may explain the better dream recall aspect. So there you have it. Be safe, and if this sounds interesting - give it a try and please share your data. Short of galantamne/choline, this is easily the best combo I've tried yet.
