Thread: 5-HTP and St. John's Wort

I was about to abandon suppliments for lucid dreams, but I still liked the effects of 5-HTP and St. John's Wort. I decided to try combining them to increase Serotonin levels. I have been doing so for several days now and my dreams are extremely vivid, epic like, and my recall is excellent. I have been taking from 150 to 200mg of 5-HTP daily in divided doses and St. John's Wort in 300 to 600mg daily.

I typically take 50 to 100mg of 5-HTP around noon with lunch and 300mg of St. John's Wort, and again between 6:00 and 8:00P.M. Sometimes I would only take the St. John's Wort at lunch, but sometimes twice. The St. John's Wort was giving me aweful acid reflux though so I went to the Vitamin Shop and found enteric 100mg 5-HTP capsules from Solaray which also contain 210mg of St. John's Wort. The enteric coating is supposed to allow it to be digested in the intestines which seems to be helping the acid reflux somewhat. I've taken these twice so far, just got them yesterday. I plan to take them twice daily so 200mg of 5-HTP and 420mg of St. John's Wort. The label says you can take up to 4 capsules daily.

5-HTP converts into Serotonin, and St. John's Wort is thought to be a natural Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor, as well as possibly a Norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Taking St. John's Wort with 5-HTP seems to knock off some of the sleepiness 5-HTP usually causes so I beleive it definetly increases Norepinephrine as well as Serotonin.

I have had a couple of short WILD's while taking this although I was also listening to a hemi sync meditaition CD at the time, so too soon to say if it will help lucid dreams or not, but my dreams have become almost unreal vivid, and sometimes bizzare.

I just thought I would update this in case anyone is interested. I've been continuing the St. John's Wort, 5-HTP combo. My dreams remain extreme, though I haven't had any more lucids yet. But the recall is amazing as is the visual quality of the dreams. I suspect this may be the equivilant to taking a high dose of 5-HTP, perhaps like 200mg or so at once, which I plan to try soon. I suspect the St. John's Wort, 5-HTP makes extreme REM rebound as St. John's Wort makes the Serotonin stay in your system longer. Last night I had a very vivid nightmare, which isn't good, it was so real. I also remembered a couple of other dreams.


I can't say this combo will make you lucid, but it should give you extremely vivid dreams.

St. John's Wort can interfere with a lot of prescription medicines so I suggest anyone who wants to try it to check up on it first, and start with a low dose. I've taken St. Johns Wort on and off for a long time, though I recently started combining it with relatively high doses of 5-HTP. St. John's Wort produces acid reflux with me, and the new enteric capsules aren't really helping much as I hoped.

Just thought I would let everyone know the effectiveness of this combo has diminished after using it daily. So it would probably be better not to take it daily.