The Effects of Aniracetam on Dreams Alone and in Combinations

**~~Alyzarin~~** · 02-26-2012 10:58 PM

I thought this might be an interesting study to give a shot, as I have a good amount of aniracetam lying around at my house leftover from use as a nootropic, and I should be able to easily get more (I haven't checked on the site in a while, but I assume it hasn't changed, and I can always go somewhere else if it has).

I've heard a lot of talk of racetams enhancing dreams before, and I've observed this effect from piracetam before. As I've said, I've used aniracetam as a nootropic before but I would dose early in the day, which I think lowered its ability to effect my dreams, if it does have significant effects. I thought aniracetam would be an interesting choice for this as well because it supposedly has a wider range of receptor activity than piracetam, having anti-anxiety effects that are attributed to activity at dopamine, serotonin, and nicotonic acetylcholine receptors (that last one being an especially big flag in my book).

I decided to give this a test run last night, with 750 mg, one capsule worth of what I have. This was the standard dose I was told to take for nootropic effect, but it is my intention to start higher than this for this study, I just felt the need to do a trial first. I also take two choline supplements during the day, one right when I get up and one in early the afternoon. I don't believe this has an appreciable effect on my dreams, and that's not why I take it. However I may change the dosing times to have one be at night during part of this experiment if it seems to be going successfully so far. I observed a difference in my dreams last night, though I can't say for certain whether or not this was due to the aniracetam. Perhaps notably, my first two dreams had elements of nightmares. The dream journal entry can be found here if anyone wishes to read it.

So that's it for now. I'll be reporting back with further findings, and if it gets far enough I'll start trying it in combinations with cholinergics and other dream enhancers. Feel free to contribute if anyone else has any experience with this compound.

**tommo** · 03-04-2012 05:58 AM

Try taking choline with it too.... ok just re read and I see you're going to do that lol

It should help dramatically. As choline is the actual chemical which causes the effects of these nootropics.

**ShadowOfSelf** · 03-05-2012 05:46 PM

So how's it going?

**~~Alyzarin~~** · 03-05-2012 06:01 PM

It's not. I ended up getting drunk a couple times and I didn't want to skew the results, and I've just been kind of distracted. I'm going to try to start tonight though. The last few days my recall's been fairly poor, so maybe that's a good sign that I should use this opportunity to see the most possible increase in vividness.

**ShadowOfSelf** · 03-05-2012 06:22 PM

Ah man lol well gd luck!

**~~Alyzarin~~** · 03-05-2012 07:59 PM

Thanks!

**~~Alyzarin~~** · 03-06-2012 06:40 PM

Alright, well that was interesting. I took my 1500 mg last night, and I won't be doing that again. I'd say that for most people this will proably be fine, but I have sort of a unique problem in this sense. I think I'll lower it back down to 750 mg for the next trial and change up my pattern a bit. It did definitely make my dreams much more vivid, though. Here's the link to my DJ entry, followed by the part detailing my non-dream-related experience with the aniracetam and some overall notes.

DJ Entry

Originally Posted by Alyzarin

So, I tried taking 1500 mg of aniracetam at midnight to see the effect it would have on my dreams. My advice would be that if you are sensitive to hallucinogenic states of mind (like I am) and/or have a history of panic attacks and general anxiety (like I do), that you DO NOT try this.

In my previous experiences using aniracetam as a nootropic, I had noticed that it seemed kind of like piracetam but a bit more trippy, it just has sort of a dissociative energy to it. Now I know that I shouldn't take more than a standard dose (750 mg) or possibly even that if I'm not willing to deal with that. :T

Basically, as it was setting in, my thoughts started racing. I also realized that it may not be good to take a good dose of something that pushes a lot of oxygen to the brain while trying to go to sleep, but that's my bad.

I was zoned out and into a mild hypnagogic trance (I get very light, transparent hallucinations easily) when suddenly the weird patterns I was watching became really strong and pushed me into alertness. I sat up thinking "Okay, that was odd. >_>" After that there was an abrupt shift in consciousness, I honestly did a RC to make sure I wasn't dreaming. It didn't really feel like a dream though, more like a trip. In the same way that hypnagogia can involve things like loud noises or images that appear really quick and then vanish in a way that makes them immediately feel really distant, I started getting sensations of chest pains that would last barely a second, then feel like they almost never happened in the first place, and I started to hear my heart beating and it sounded somewhat erratic. Though I've never had it quite as fleeting as this before, I've been here a million times... the point where I have to suddenly get myself under control or I'm going to launch into a panic attack.

I forced myself to get a grip, and started doing some of my normal calming exercises. The anxiety and sensations didn't fully go away, but it didn't make me totally freak out or anything. I frequently was getting the unsettlingly strong dissociative feeling of having all of my senses pulled away from me, like I was about to snap into an anesthetic OBE, but this also came and went pretty quickly. It took me a long time to fall asleep after that, and I think I had one dream before the first one I logged but I can't really recall anything about it. However, all of my dreams after that were considerably more vivid than they had been the past few days, or even really more than any dreams I'd had in a while.

I'd always wondered about the supposed 5-HT2A and D2/D3 action of aniracetam. I'm still not sure if they've verified it yet, but I'm more willing to believe it interacts with those receptors in some way now. It was a lot crazier than I expected.... I know people take doses much higher than that normally and are fine, too. I guess I'm just really sensitive to its effects. If I try it again in the future, I'll probably stick to the 750 mg doses, and probably a couple hours before bed. It does seem to have an augmentative effect, but it needs to be used correctly.