Advanced Lucid Dreaming and Galantamine

I recently read Thomas Yuschak's book 'Advanced Lucid Dreaming' which I'd seen mentioned on this forum elsewhere. It's a beautifully written book, concise and very 'lucid'. As it promotes a routine which includes a mix of Galantamine and Choline I did a quick internet search and ordered what seemed to be the nearest to what Thomas suggested.

Now, about 14 years ago I had one lucid dream using the Lucidity Institute's Dreamlight and although it only lasted about a minute if that, it blew my socks off. However, since that time I've been fairly busy and my attempts at lucidity have been half baked. I also hated the use of a mask as I found it really disturbed my sleeping. I therefore haven't had another lucid dream. In fact recently I can hardly recall any dreams at all and so when the galantamine arrived I was looking forward to trying it out.

I set my alarm to wake me 4 hours after I went to sleep but I woke up naturally about 3 hours after, so I decided to take the pill then rather than wait. I stayed awake thinking about stuff and how I was going to enjoy lucidity but I found it difficult to remain awake and eventually fell asleep about 40 minutes later. Hopefully my ability to do what Thomas suggests will improve as I'm determined to have a WILD.

Anyway, I then proceeded to have a long complicated dream (unlucid) which I awoke from at the end so was able to recall which was nice. I then fell asleep again and a little later entered a lucid dream but for only about 10 seconds. I think my excitement woke me up. Falling asleep yet again I entered another long complicated and extremely vivid dream which was very nice as it involved a sexual theme which is always satisfying. I awoke at the end so was able to recall. I then fell asleep and was harrassed by my two cats for food (I must remember to make sure they dont have access to the bedroom next time I try this !).

All in all I must say this was a good start for me using Thomas' techniques and galantamine and I anticipate that the more I try, the better things will get.

Its a shame that his website isn't up anymore because I think Thomas seems to be one of just a few sincere researchers into this area although I think eventually they will find a more targetted technique (probably physical in some way) that will be more predictable and successful.

As suggested, I'll let the galantamine flush from my system before trying again but I'll post my results in the future.

Well, another successful second session with 3 LDs, albeit 2 of which only lasted seconds and the other about one minute 30. This time I was wakened by my alarm after 4 hours of sleep and I got up, fed the cats and locked them in the kitchen and returned to bed about 40 mins later. Sadly I couldn't manage a WILD and fell asleep slightly disappointed.
There were a couple of interesting things about the longer LD. First, I wasn't sure whether it was an LD or I was really awake, so I looked at some numbers written on an invoice in front of me, looked away and then looked at them again and they were still the same.I therefore concluded that I must actually be awake because when you're dreaming writing changes. However, I was still very confused because the situation was strange and didn't follow waking logic. It then clicked that I was dreaming and I started to enjoy the experience. The other interesting thing was that although I spoke to a couple of people and they replied I couldn't really make out what they were saying although my behaviour continued as though I had understood. Perhaps all your senses need time to aclimatise to the new world you find yourself in. Any thoughts you have about this would be appreciated.

The other element about this process that I find surprising is how I feel for the rest of the day. I had thought that because my sleep pattern was being disrupted I would feel sleepy for the rest of the day but the opposite seems to be true. As I'm writing this I'm very much awake and 'together'. I found the first time I took galantamine I was really sharp for the rest of the day and I'm putting this down to the fact that as I'm 60 perhaps my normal level of ACH is low and the boost I'm getting with galantamine+ Alpha GPC is somehow benefitting me during my waking life too. So, its a win, win situation. I'd be interested to hear from anyone with more knowledge than I about ACH and its effects.

So, I couldn't be happier about my experiment so far. I think I've moved on and I'm looking forward to my next trial which will be next week as my daughter is home this weekend from university.

And, if you happen to read this Thomas, thanks for writing the book and putting me on the path to LDs !!

Four LDs this morning, albeit very short. Two of them with malevolent undertones which wasnt too nice but I soon woke up from them. Most of my dreams are in very dark surroundings (as were my two malevolent ones) but one was a lovely bright sunny day walking down to a beach and this was a welcome change. Sadly it only lasted 15 secs or so. I must find a way of making these longer but hopefully that will come with experience.
There were a few new things, like trying to spin to change the scene. This didnt work in both cases. It was also the first time I heard some strange sounds sort of just behind my head which I knew was heralding a LD. I then started to feel as though my body was being pulled in various directions and I relaxed rather than became anxious. Sure enough I then found myself in a LD. Another LD started by my thinking that one of the cats had jumped on the bed having escaped from the kitchen and as I turned to see I started to fall off the bed and then into the dream. That was a nice experience.
I also deliberately looked at my hands twice and did notice that on one occasion I only had three and a half fingers on one hand. I thought that was strange.
Still, although the LDs havent been that long I'm really pleased with how things are going as I think I'm moving forward.
After the 4 LDs I then had a very long and complicated vivid dream which I eventually woke up from.

This morning both my wife and I tried Thomas' routine and it worked for both of us.
Sadly we had some neighbours who had a load of people round and they left in dribs and drabs over the course of the night so my early sleep was very disturbed. I'm a light sleeper and found this really annoying. My galantamine sleep was therefore not as successful as it was previously, although I had another FA when I thought one of my cats jumped up onto the bed again.
My wife had what she thinks was at least 3 lucid dreams, although she says she naturally has had many more LDs than me. In my experience women seem to have more dreams than men and more vivid ones at that.
Because of the nature of some of my LDs I'm coming round to believe that we have more than two states of consciousness, conscious or unconscious. It seems to me that there are degrees of consciousness and is probably dependent upon certain bits of neurologic circuitry being activated or de-activated. Or there may be degrees of activation. I'm not quite certain which case it is. But I'm quite convinced that if you can have degrees of lucidity (which I think you can) this probably means its degrees of consciousness thats behind it.
It would be great if someone could do a full fMRI study of dreaming and LDing as this would be able to pinpoint to the areas that were activated in the respective cases. If you know of any such study please let me know.
For me, my last attempt was a bit of a step backwards but due to extenuating circumstances.

really interesting stuff (not sure if you wanted anyone to say anything :P) but keep these coming in!! I might have to have a try with this galantamine stuff...

Well, last night's attempt was a total disappointment. Nothing happened at all and I have a couple of theories which I'll talk about in a minute.

Before that, I'd like to refer to my previous effort which I shared with my wife, particularly the effects she felt during the rest of the day which were very different to mine. Every time I've taken galantamine I've felt much 'sharper' than usual during the rest of the day and I've put that down to the fact that I'm 60 and possibly my level of ACh is quite low. It was interesting to note then that my wife, who's just two years younger, didn't seem to have the same response. She felt very tired physically which was probably due to her disturbed sleep pattern but although she didn't feel any less sharp, she certainly didn't feel any sharper. Thinking about it a little more I've narrowed it down to two possibilities - first, I naturally have a much lower than normal level of ACh, hence my very poor dream recall or its something to do with the longterm effects of taking of 'smart drugs' which I've done for a few years, on and off. They've ranged from Deprenyl to Nootropil, the latter which I've taken for the last year or so in a fairly casual way. Now, as some of you may know, Nootropil is Piracetam which Thomas takes after his galantamine induced dream session and is known for assisting choline uptake and has been shown to increase the development of Ach receptors in the frontal cortex. The theory behind taking Piracetam as a 'smart drug' is that as you get older your Ach receptors tend to die off, so piracetam, which helps their formation, can combat the decline. And as we all know, ACh (acetylcholine) is important for memory formation and is associated with 'attention' or as I call it, 'sharpness'.

So, now as I'm writing this, I'm wondering why Thomas would advocate taking piracetam to ameliorate the effects of galantamine when it appears that piracetam actually encourages choline uptake and, if anything, would tend to increase its effects. Well, the theory is that piracetam actually helps to protect against desensitisation of the ACh receptors, so you don't build a tolerance to galantamine. I can follow that but I'm wondering if my longterm taking of piracetam, although very casual and not at a high level, has had some build up effect on my general ability to dream well. And how come my first couple of attempts with gaantamine were so encouraging, and this one was a complete washout ? Well, I have a theory for that.

First though a description of what I did. I went to bed at an early 10:15pm and immediately fell into a deep sleep. I awoke at 02:20 when my alarm went off and I took my galantamine+Alpha GPC pill, then got up and fed the cats in the kitchen. I then checked my emails and browsed the internet for a short while, locked the cats in the kitchen and returned to bed, looking forward to a few good LDs. However, and here is the key to my failure I think, lurking in the back of my mind was the dim recall that two of my previous LDs had some malevolent feelings associated with them and I can remember thinking, albeit briefly, that I didn't really want a reoccurance of anything like that again. I then attempted to induce a WILD but I probably feel asleep about an hour after I originally was woken up by my alarm.

They key to my failure, I believe, was my attitude. And the key to my previous success, I believe, was my attitude. After I'd read Thomas' book I was really excited and positive and once the pills arrived I just knew I was going to have an exciting night with some LDs. And that's just what happened. And on the second attempt. Then on the third attempt, whilst I did have some LDs, two had feelings of anxiety attached to them which I didn't like. Since then its been downhill. I was originally trained as a psychologist and know full well how important your mental approach is to your success or failure in the things you do and I believe my last two 'failures' are because my mental approach hasn't quite been 100%. I may well be wrong but I'm going to give it a couple of days before I make another attempt and will work on my mental attitude in the meanwhile. I'm also going to wait until all the personal elements of the previous day have been really positive and I'm in a positive frame of mind generally.

As I felt pretty positive about things last night I had another attempt after my poor effort last time. This was still lingering a little in the back of my mind but I thought it safe to have another go.

I went to bed at a very early (again) 10:15 and set the alarm for 02:17. I went off and slept like a log until the rather annoying alarm on my iphone woke me up (remind me to change the sound). I did my usual routine of taking my galantamine+Alpha GPC pill, fed the cats (they now get two breakfasts lucky things), had a look at any emails (only spam) and generally wasted a bit of time before going back to bed about 15 mins after I woke up.
As I lay in bed I tried to feel positive and lay as still as possible trying to induce a WILD. Nothing. I just fell asleep.

I woke up with the sound of rain outside and as the light was starting to brighten I thought I'd failed again and was certain that the couple of bad LDs I'd had previously were still working their voodoo and stopping me from doing whatever I needed to do mentally to relax enough to have another. I then drifted off again and woke up a little later with the familiar sound of rushing wind combined with a tearing or searing noise behind my head and the feeling of my body image changing shape and moving upwards from my feet towards the top of my back. I felt if I lay still and relaxed this would allow my dream body to slip into an LD. But it didn't happen and the noise subsided as I became more conscious of what was happening.

Its an interesting effect however and reminds me of something I used to feel when I was in my teens. It was only after I'd read about the effect in Thomas' book that I remembered I'd felt and heard similar things when I was younger but had forgotten about them. I remember too wondering what the hell they could have been when I was a teenager and I never talked to anyone about them in case they thought I was a bit barmy. No books had been published about lucid dreaming in the 60's as far as I'm aware and it wasn't something people appeared to talk about. Strange that because LDing must have been happening to millions of people.

Anyway, a little disappointed that, yet again, I hadn't been able to convert the feelings into an LD, I fell asleep. A short while later, as I was lying on my right side, I opened my eyes just in time to see my arms start to ripple and move as did the pillow. And my body slid to the left and out of the bed into an LD. Yippee I thought. I was being led by a girl in her twenties through the house. Now, normally my dreams are very dark and often in black and white but this time everything was over saturated colour and very bright. I was being led through my house but it was different. There was a whole load of stuff around - furniture, lights and other things like people were preparing for a movie shoot (I used to be a TV director) or a fashion show or something. Everywhere I looked there were twenty-something girls dressed like they were from the 60's and they were all size 8 or 10 and actually had waists, unlike ninety percent of girls today. It was very nice. My girl led me out through some big french windows onto an extensive balcony that overlooked a city but there were a few camera cranes moving around. She backed up to the balcony walll which was about three or four feet high then pulled off her top like it was a one-piece swimsuit. She pulled it down to her waist to reveal a totally beautiful chest which I began to caress. Nice. I've had dreams about women before and have had recurring dreams about one in particular who seems to be an amalgam of every woman I've ever found beautiful. This girl wasn't that woman but she was lovely and had great skin. Anyway, I said something to her which I can't remember and she started replying sensibly and then started shouting stuff which woke me up.

I was pleased to have had such a nice LD and it probably lasted a lot longer than any other I've had. It must have been about two minutes which I know isn't long compared to what many of you experience but it is for me.

As my experience with LDs is growing, it seems to me that, as I've said before, there appears to be degrees of lucidity and although this was undoubtedly lucid, it certainly wasn't what Thomas describes as 'high level'. I didn't seem to have a huge amount of control over what I did, I can't really remember what I said or what the girl said and I can't remember much of the detail. But it was a good LD and I'm thankful that there were no malevolent features at all which will hopefully mean my future attempts will be easier.

Because all this happened at around 05:30 or so, next time I'm going to try waking up a little later so the galantamine gets into my system after more deep sleep. I can't wait.

Last night's attempt was a complete cock up on my part. I'd decided to wake up one hour later than normal, after 5 hours of sleep rather than 4 to see if that made any difference. But for some reason I set my alarm to wake me up 6 hours after going to bed which meant I woke up at 04:40 and by that time the birds were singing and it was quite light. However, I decided to take my pill and try anyway. I did my usual stuff, got up, went to the loo, fed the cats, looked at my emails etc and then went back to bed at 05:00. Then......nothing.
Well, nothing isnt completely accurate. There was one moment when I thought I was going to enter a lucid dream but I just woke up instead. My body felt as though I was on an elastic band and I was bouncing around the bedroom. It was a neat feeling and I was very aware of what was going on and thought it would lead me into an LD but sadly I just woke up. Next thing I knew was the central heating coming on at 06:30. And that was the end of that.
What I seem to have learned however is that the pill seems to take a long time to take effect in my case. Rather than an hour or so, it seems to take about 2 hours. So next time I'll set my alarm for a 5 hour gap and I'm going to dissolve the capsule contents into some water and see if that helps speed up absorbtion into my system.
Hey, ho.....

As yesterday was a bit of a cock up on my part, I decided to try an experiment today and took a pill as I went to bed to see what the effects would be. Thomas suggests we have at least 4 hrs of sleep before taking galantamine as its important for the body to have its deep sleep and the immediate production of ACh is not a good idea as it will hinder deep sleep.
I went to bed at about 23:15 and went to sleep fairly quickly as always. I then woke up from pretty heavy dream which I cant remember the details of a few hours later and then had quite a fitful sleep until I re-awoke at about 05:15.
Not the sort of night I'd want again. No even vague attempts at lucidity and a poor quality of sleep in general.
Well, it was an experiment and I'd suggest taking galantamine this way won't help you achieve lucidity.
I'll take some piracetam today to help the body rid itself of the excess ACh. And I'll wait the 48 hrs for the galantamine to be burnt off.

What do you think of galantamine so far? More than the placebo effect, does it really affect your lucid dreaming? I´ve also read Thomas book and find it really interesting. I´m trying to become good at LD:ing the natural way first before I begin experimenting with supplements, but it´s interesting to read about your experiences!

I can only go on my own experiences and I've tried a lot of things. I don't really care if its a placebo effect but its the one thing I found that works for me and I can understand the logic behind it.
I'll continue experimenting with different routines until I find out what works best but at the moment I'm finding Thomas's guidelines seem to be the most productive.
I've just come across the book 'The Spirit Molecule' which I've ordered and should arrive tomorrow, so I'll be interested to see what he says about DMT.
Personally I don't buy in to the concept of a non-local consciousness or 'spirit' world but I'm sure it'll be an interesting read.
Sadly (in many ways), I believe our consciousness is a product of our neurology and all the allusions to other 'dimensions', 'higher planes' etc is merely wish fulfillment. It would be great if I were to be proved wrong but I doubt I will.
And from my own point of view the concept of being able to be conscious whilst dreaming is enough to be getting on with.

Oh dear. I've just started reading 'The Spirit Molecule' by Rick Strassman MD that arrived this morning. My first impression is that dear old Rick has taken a few too many psychadelics and needs a bit of a reality check.
He writes from the perspective that there is such a thing as a 'spiritual' world which is separate from our usual physical world and assumes all through the book that this is a given fact. He also assumes that psychadelic experiences are somehow manifestations of this 'spirit' world. My own view is that psychadelic experiences are simply manifestations of neurologic processes gone awry in the same way that your PC will sometimes experience 'glitches' because of certain software issues.

Timothy Leary and many others have been drawn in to thinking that the psychadelic experience is somehow 'spiritual' simply because during the experience their limbic system has created a feeling of peace, connection with others and they've seen interesting and different things. However, they've come to the incorrect (imo) judgement that the psychadelic drug has somehow allowed them to contact this 'spirit' world rather than just accept the experience for what it is - a temporary 'glitch' or aberrant process.

As a species we're always looking for meaning, often when there is none. Like the nonsense that is God, Allah and the other myriad beings that may have created us or guide us.

Humans are a work in progress rather than a finished item and are evolving through a combination of happy accidents and mechanical processes. What I'm personally interested in is my own development in terms of understanding my consciousness and its relationship to the rest of the world and how I can make the most of the relationship. Sadly, I doubt this book will bring me much enlightenment on that score but I'll finish it anyway.

I dont want to harp on about this book I'm reading and I'll make sure this is the last post about it but I just need to read you this one bit which will give you an idea of where this Rick Strassman is coming from.

Its documented that DMT is secreted from the pineal gland at the time or close to the time of death and, he writes, " there is a shift away from identification with the body ". No problem there in my view. But then he starts to go off on one and says, " The consequence of this flood of DMT upon our dying brain-based mind is a pulling back of the veil normally hiding what Tibetan Buddhists call the bardo, or intermediary state between this life and the next. "

Pardon me ? What next life ? And why jump to this conclusion for which their is virtually no evidence whatsoever ? Now he's got going reducing his otherwise pretty good scientific investigation to a load of mumbo-jumbo, he then really starts to go off on one. A few paragraphs later he states this, " What is left over settles onto the next physical life-form that seems most appropriate for subsequent processing of unresolved issues".

Aufwiederzehn pet. That's quite enough of Dr Strassman. Back on the medication for you me lad.

So, after that little diversion, back to lucid dreaming and last nights experiment.

I went to bed at 22:40 and set the alarm for 4 hours later (rather than 5 which I said I'd do). I awoke with a bit of a stomach ache probably due to a gruyere cheese sandwich I'd had just before I went to bed. I love gruyere but sometimes I do get a bit of a stomach ache afterwards. Anyway, I decided to continue nonetheless. Went to the loo, fed the cats and then, as I suggested in a previous post I was going to dissolve my pill in water to see if it got into my system quicker. I get my galantamine+alpha GPC mix in a capsule, so I undid it to reveal, not a powder but a fluffy white mix which is impossible to dissolve in water. It just floats to the top. As you're probably aware, galantamine is extracted from plants such as snowdrops, so I assume this fluffy stuff is like dessicated plant but I may be wrong. Anyway, it was difficult to get out of the capsule and some refused to be drawn out so I decided to use two capsules. I mixed the fluffy stuff as best I could in a small sherry glass (no, I don't drink sherry, or any alcohol in fact but they were a present) with water and then drank it only to see 50% of the stuff stuck to the glass afterwards. So I did this about 6 times to make sure I got it all down. But I dont think I did. I took about 80% altogether but I estimated that 80% of about 1.5 pills is about the same as 1 pill (its 1.2 pills but who's counting ?).

I then did my usual round of wasting time and went to bed about 20 minutes after I got up. I fell asleep and probably sooner than on previous attempts entered a lucid dream. Only just. By that I mean I was aware I was dreaming and pretty conscious but probably not totally so. I seemed to wake in one of our other bedrooms. It was bright but definitely black and white. I heard some voices on the other side of the closed door and went to open the door. When I got the door partially open I could hear the voices much louder and had a slight sense of foreboding, so I immediately woke up. I then fell asleep again and a short while later had a similar experience. This time I woke up in the bedroom I was in, or a similar version of it. Again I heard voices on the other side of the door and when I opened it the voices were quite loud and I woke up. I fell asleep again and woke up normally at my usual time.

Two things I got from this. First, by taking the contents out of the capsule and mixing it with water I feel it induced a lucid dream earlier than before, although the whole practicality of it is a pain. So I doubt I'll be doing that again. Secondly, and this for me is quite interesting, is why when I have a lucid dream is it more likely than not to start somewhere close to where I am located ? Normally my ordinary dreams are far away and have nothing to do with my home yet at least 50% of my lucid dreams start with either changes to my body shape in bed or I become lucid in my home surroundings. I find this difficult to explain but will think about it.

So, although in many ways this can be seen as a failure, I think my stomach ache probably had an influence on what happened. In fact I seem to recollect reading somewhere a while back that some people in the past have put stones onto their stomachs and lain on their backs in an attempt to become lucid, so somewhere along the line there seems to be a relationship with what is happening in the stomach and lucidity. Stomach problems are also associated with nightmares from what I can remember. I may be talking out of my rear end but it rings a bell somewhere and if anyone has any added information please feel free to post.

Nothing. Absolutely not even a sniff of a LD.

I'd gone to bed very positively and generally the last few days have been good. I fell asleep at around 23:00 and was awakened by my alarm at 03:19. I did my usual stuff and then went back to bed at about 03:50. And very positive at that. The next thing I can remember is waking up from a long and complicated dream at around 06:30. That was when the central heating fired up, the rain started outside and it was light. So I simply lay there in and out of sleep for the next hour or two and got up at 08:15. How rubbish is that ?

It seems to me there are a few possibilities:
1. My system has become acclimatised to the galantamine and it has no effect. In which case I'll either have to up the dose or wait longer in between trials.
2. Its all a placebo effect which is now run its course.
3. The pills I've bought are not all they seem. Perhaps some have no galantamine in them and some have, either deliberately or otherwise.
4. Perhaps the couple of times I've had malevolent LDs have made me block any further ones.

Personally I think the most likely is 1. and so I'm going to wait a few days or a week before I try again. Its funny though because this theme has followed me all my life. More often than not, when I try something or learn something new, I do really well at the beginning and then it tails off quickly. So perhaps its just the way I'm built psychologically. Anyway, I'll give it a miss for a week or so and see what happens after that.

Well, last night's attempt was a welcome return to a pleasant experience. Whether or not it was lucid I don't really know but it was extremely pleasant nonetheless.
I'd left it 4 days since taking galantamine and my theory why the previous couple of attempts had yielded poor results was because of my tolerance build up. Thomas says in his book that you can build a tolerance to galantamine but I didn't anticipate I'd build one so quickly. I went to sleep at 10:15 and was woken up by my alarm at 02:40. I did my usual stuff and returned to bed at 03:00. I did try to elicit a WILD but I think I probably do it half heartedly and so I think I need to work on that area a little. I fell asleep normally and I suppose about 60-90 mins later started to feel my body shape moving and strange sounds. I think I remember feeling as though I was going under water but I then found myself in one of my usual complicated landscapes with derelict houses and lots of people milling around.

At this point, although I knew I was dreaming, I don't think I was fully lucid and estimate I must have been about 50% conscious. As I've been discovering, lucidity isn't a binary thing - either ON or OFF. There are definitely degrees of lucidity. I know others have talked about this too, suggesting 'stages', and I have to agree. In this case it must have been the lowest stage but pleasurable all the same.

I soon found myself in the arms of a girl. Don't ask me why (or how in fact) but I suppose it could be wish fulfillment. Look here, I'm 60, have been married for 40 years and miss the touch and feel of young skin. I really dont find the desire odd and I'm sure most blokes of any age have the same desires as me. There was no sex involved in this case but it was nice. Sadly I can't remember much more of the detail and I suspect this is due to the low level of my consciousness. When I woke up I felt as though the experience had lasted longer than previously but its a shame it couldn't have been a little more lucid.

One of the great side effects of these experiences is the 'afterlife' of the dream episode. By that I mean the retained memory of it and how it affects the rest of my day and proceeding days. Other than the couple of negative experiences, my lucid (and near lucid) dreams have a really positive residual effect on my life and I hope that in time I'll become more practised so they'll be longer and more lucid and therefore will have an even greater effect.

Well my last attempt last night was very disappointing but perhaps I learnt something from it.
I went to bed at 23:15 and had my alarm wake me at 03:15. I got up and did my usual stuff, including checking my emails. As it happens I got an email I'd been waiting for which was a link to some software I'd ordered. I was quite excited about getting the application and loaded it on to my PC. Its some automated software and I got it up and running and watched it work for a while. I went to bed at around 03:45 but found it difficult to sleep as I was thinking about a load of stuff.
I really tried to concentrate on having a WILD or even just thinking about LDing later on but my mind was racing about all over the place. I finally went to sleep quite a while later rather than my quick ten minutes later.
Then....nothing, not even a normal dream to remember.
So, what do I take from this ? Two things. First, I probably shouldn't wake up so fully and perhaps I shouldn't stay awake so long and/or so excitedly.
What seems to have worked best for me in the past is to stay up around 10 to 15 minutes so I don't allow myself to be totally alert. Shame it didn't work out this time but hopefully this will have been a good lesson.

Well my latest attempt has proved to be a bit of a humdinger because I decided that in the light of my previous poor showings I'd double my dose of galantamine. And boy did it have an effect !

I went to to sleep at 23:15 and was woken up by my alarm at 03:15. I took two of my normal pills, thats in total 1200mg galantamine and 16 mg of alpha GPC and double the recommended dose. I did my usual stuff and then went back to bed about 15 mins later and feel asleep after quite a while and longer than my usual few minutes.

So much happened that I sadly can't remember much of it but I had about 6 or 8 LD episodes, albeit for only a minute or two at the longest. The first episode started like many of mine do with my body image moving around from side to side and my becoming conscious. I felt I was rising up from the bed but it was absolutely pitch black and I didn't like it that much. So I woke up. It lasted about 15 seconds. By that time I noticed it was getting light so I assume it was around 05:00, or about and hour and a half after I went to sleep again. About normal for me.

I fell alseep quite quickly and soon found myself moving off my bed again to the right. The room was almost pitch black again and was full of stuff. Stuff was piled up everywhere and it was difficult for me to move around. It was interesting to note that it was the same room I was sleeping in rather than anywhere else and I've generally found this to be the case since I started taking galantamine. It seemed to be just like it should be and I remember thinking that I needed to be quiet or I'd wake my wife up. I went to go upstairs and held on to the bannister and found that I could just pull myself up the stairs without having to tread on the steps. It was as though I was a ghost. It was that realisation that woke me up.

The next episode was very strange. After I fell asleep again I became consciously aware of some images in my field of view. If you can imagine the corona of a full eclipse of the sun, it was like that but blue in colour and slightly to the right. It was moving round and round and was accompanied by an odd pulsing sound which I thought might be related to my heartbeat but which didnt seem to be. I've found that weird sounds often accompany the start of an LD episode but in this case it just continued for a short while and I woke up.

When I fell asleep again I had lots of visual images and patterns which were quite nice and then I had a semi LD. It was really a very vivid dream which involved another dream girl. There was no sex this time and she seemed to be an amalgam of all that I've ever liked in a woman and there was a really nice emotional link between us. Sadly I can't remember much of what happened although there is a distinct emotional feeling which has lingered on which is nice.

There were a few other brief episodes which I can't remember much about and then I woke up quite tired at around 10:00 which is really unusual for me as I normally wake up at around 06:30.

My head now (11:45) still feels very buzzy and I feel very slightly drunk. Its quite odd. I dont know if this is anything to do with the fact that I had a glass of red wine at around 21:00 last night which is unusual for me. I dont drink very much and have the equivalent of about two bottles of red wine a year. I dont drink any other alcohol and dont like its taste.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience although the general dream overtones were a little disturbing. I dont really know if I'm moving forward but I'm certainly learning stuff and will continue my quest. There is no doubt whatsoever though that this galantamine is doing things which no other stuff or method has been able to and its worthy of my persuit.

I dont know if its the galantamine or coincidence but since taking my double dose I've become increasingly irritable and short tempered and so I've decided to put on hold my trials with it until a little later in the year.