Best brand for galantamine?

[ZAD]

I read Yuschak's ALD: The Power of Supplements a couple of months ago and have been wanting to try the Galantamine + Choline combo. The only problem is that I can't find a Galantamine supplement anywhere in person. I've checked healthfood stores, nutrition stores, pharmacies, etc. and only tonight did I finally manage to find choline bitartrate, although it's 350mg which seems like an odd dosage. However Yuschak recommends 250-500mg so I'm sure it's fine. I've resolved to purchase Galantamine online, preferably 8mg. I see a lot of people using it here, so I'm wondering, what brand do you use? Thanks! EDIT: I'd also like to talk about other lighter "supplements" I already occasionally use, like Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea, which when paired with honey seems to make my dreams more vivid (and definitely relaxes me). I also have used apple juice successfully in the past. Does anyone else use apple juice or tea+honey before bed for LDing? If so, how much and when? Or are these just placebos that add to the "ritual" of LDing?

[Sageous]

Hmm... nobody responded to an easy one... GallantaMind is made by Life Enhancement, who is pretty reputable. Gallantamind comes with choline, and, happily, it does not include other often unhelpful ingredients they tend to put into this stuff. It should be available on Amazon, but I think iHerb also sells it. One caveat: I never read Yuschak's book, but hopefully in it he said that gallantamine does not make you lucid, it only helps; you still must have your mind in the right place. Good luck, and I hope my response wasn't too late!

[Voldmer]

In Europe, Galantamine is very difficult to get hold of (it is prescribed for Alzheimers), but www.intellimeds.net has it (well, currently they're out of stock). I tried to purchase it recently from them, but they took only crypto, which I did not have. By the way, in my experience Galantamine is so stimulating that falling asleep afterwards is almost impossible. In my view 8 mg is too much; go for 4 mg instead! My secret tip for enhancing chances of lucidity through ingestion is Guayusa; it's a coffe/tea-like beverage, which contains both caffeine (mentally stimulating), and L-theanine (mentally calming). It works remarkably well. Best taken at WBTB-time.

[ZAD]

Thanks for the advice Sageous and Voldmer! GallantaMind is made by Life Enhancement, who is pretty reputable. I see two options on Amazon for Galantamind, both by Life Improvement and both very steep in price: Galantamind Plus ($150 for 180 capsules[!], but has a lot of filler and no Choline) Galantamind ($151 for 90 capsules[!!!], and has what seems like a good dosage of both--8mg Gal., 200mg Ch.) I want to try this supplement but I don't know if I'm $150 committed; also it's a pretty high quantity of something I'm not sure even works. Do these really have any added benefit over the more reasonable Relentless Improvement or DreamTech? One caveat: I never read Yuschak's book, but hopefully in it he said that gallantamine does not make you lucid, it only helps; you still must have your mind in the right place. Yuschak does definitely cover this, and emphasizes that these supplements can only help get your brain chemistry "tuned" or optimized for LDing. He does however claim that Gal. + Ch. will give "High Level Lucids" once you do get lucid, defined in one of the first chapters as longer-lasting, more vivid, easier to recall, etc. (depending on the supplement combo). He also explains what's happening with neurotransmitters based on the supplement combo, timing and peak plasma levels, tolerance, etc. I would really recommend giving it a read as it's free and pretty short if you skip the chapters you're not as interested in, for me the Nicotine, Yohimbe, Mucuna Pruriens. Also, since getting lucid is not really a big problem for me, but rather acheiving what he terms High Level Lucids, I'm quite interested to try this and see if what he's claiming is true. By the way, in my experience Galantamine is so stimulating that falling asleep afterwards is almost impossible. In my view 8 mg is too much; go for 4 mg instead! My secret tip for enhancing chances of lucidity through ingestion is Guayusa; it's a coffe/tea-like beverage, which contains both caffeine (mentally stimulating), and L-theanine (mentally calming). It works remarkably well. Best taken at WBTB-time. Thanks for the advice on 4mg, I'll look for that specifically (that way if it's too little I can still stack up to 8mg). I had never heard of Guayusa, will have to try and find it around somewhere.

[Voldmer]

An alternative to Galantamine is Huperzine A, which is a lot easier to get hold of, a lot cheaper, and has similar action neurochemically. I've never found it as extreme as Galantamine, but that could be a dosage issue.

[NyxCC]

What dosage would you use for Huperzine?

[ZAD]

An alternative to Galantamine is Huperzine A, which is a lot easier to get hold of, a lot cheaper, and has similar action neurochemically. I've never found it as extreme as Galantamine, but that could be a dosage issue. I did find this in several of the shops I was looking in for Gal. I think maybe I'll try this in the meantime before deciding on a brand for Gal. I do wonder how well it pairs with Choline though. What dosage would you use for Huperzine? Seconding this question as well.

[Voldmer]

What dosage would you use for Huperzine? On the order of 100-200 micrograms. I do wonder how well it pairs with Choline though. It can certainly be used without any Choline supplementation, but it works well with both Lecithine and Choline Bitartrate. Keep in mind that the effect of Galantamine and Huperzine is to knock Acetylcholinesterase out, so that whatever acetylcholine is present will survive longer than it normally would. Supplying extra Choline could be going over the top. I would start off without extra Choline, before adding that to the show.

[gab]

I have used both, with pretty much same results. Got WILDs and a tons of long DEILD chains. At times when I didn't get lucid, I was thinking maybe that capsule/tablet didn't have enough of the active ingredient, but I'm more inclined to think, that it just wasn't the right time with right conditions. GalantaMind by Life Enhancements - capsules - 4 mg - also has vitamin B5 - and 100mg of choline citrate - online (amazon) Galantamine by Relentless Improvement - tiny pills, much easier to swallow than capsules - 4 mg - online (amazon) I have also used choline by Twinlab - choline bitartrate - 300 mg - can be found in Health stores, like Sprouts and Alpha GPC by NOW - 300 mg Alpha GPC is a choline, and this one can be used as a lucid trigger by itself. I did get a WILD with just that a few times. But I have also gotten WILDs without any supplements. I feel though, that Alpha GPC did help. My combo is: 600mg Alpha GPC 4-8mg galantamine Since Alpha GPC and GM have different times of reaching peak concentration, I don't take them at the same time. I go to sleep for about 3-4 hrs. Then I take Alpha GPC, go straight back to sleep for another hour. I wake up, stay up for about an hour, then take GM and go to sleep. It takes me about an hour to fall asleep. If I fall asleep about an hour after laying down, that's exactly when GPC reaches it's peak after 3 hrs, and GM after one hour. If anybody is interested, some more details here https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/gab/index11.html

[GordanFreeman]

I'm gonna give mine suggestion as well. This is full complex for increasing one brain power, but be careful not to become like Mojo-Jojo XD Natrol Memory Complex Tablets, 60. Here a link to amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Natrol-Memory.../dp/B000Q3ZZOC I don't think I will ever get the bravery to try galantamine, because of the fear of messing with my mind. You can say, I'm not into drugs, but more natural blend like L-theanine, long release melatonin, lemon balm(100mg/3mg/100mg) are fine. If you sleep to much with this, you can add 10-20mg caffeine, it's perfect for WILD and VILD.

[ZAD]

Galantamine by Relentless Improvement - tiny pills, much easier to swallow than capsules - 4 mg - online (amazon) Okay, glad someone has tried the Relentless Improvement brand, that makes me feel a lot more comfortable pulling the trigger! It can certainly be used without any Choline supplementation, but it works well with both Lecithine and Choline Bitartrate. Keep in mind that the effect of Galantamine and Huperzine is to knock Acetylcholinesterase out, so that whatever acetylcholine is present will survive longer than it normally would. Supplying extra Choline could be going over the top. I would start off without extra Choline, before adding that to the show. Excellent point here, I'll keep this in mind. Thanks everyone for the info & insight! After the holiday season is over and I'm done with all the traveling and feasting, I think I'll perform once-weekly trials based on these suggestions. Here's a rough layout of what I'm planning, I'll post status updates after each trial: Trial #1: (Dec 31-Jan 6) Huperzine A, 100mcg taken during WBTB. Trial #2: (Jan 7-Jan 13 Huperzine A again. Depending of the success of the first trial, may up the dosage to 200mcg and/or add Choline since I already own that and have achieved a short WILD the only night I tried it. Trial #3: (Jan 14-Jan 20) Galantamine only, 4mg taken during WBTB. Trial #4: (Jan 21-Jan 27) Galantamine 4-8mg depending on #3's success, Choline 350mg taken during WBTB. Trial #5: (Jan 28-Feb 3) Galantamine 8mg, Alpha GPC 600mg taken as described by gab.

[ZAD]

Update: I did none of these things lol. Busy new year and haven't been focusing LDing at all, although I've had 33 spontaneous LDs so far this month. I do plan on trying Trial #1 sometime soon, hopefully in February.

[NyxCC]

33 is a great base! Good luck on your trials in Feb!

[zelcrow]

Good luck from over here as well! I'm interested to know how it works for you.

[ZAD]

Trial #1: (Feb 17) Huperzine A, 100mcg taken during WBTB. Slept 11pm-5:30am, then got in bed again at 6:30am. Had some trouble falling asleep after taking the HzA. I used MILD with a mantra one of my mantras (probably "When I look at my hands, I remember that I'm dreaming") a couple times then just let my mind wander for a few minutes before trying to clear it. It probably took about an hour or so to actually fall asleep, and right before I actually fell asleep, I gained awareness of the transition. Because of this I consider what follows to be a WILD. I was phased into a square, smallish room with tile floors and beige walls. I remembered that I've always wanted to try spiderman powers in a lucid, so I had a classic "how to shot web" moment, and surprisingly it worked on the first try! I couldn't necessarily feel the web coming out of my wrist, but I did get pulled over to the wall and was able to climb it, which was really awesome. After this I had a DEILD, then woke up completely. From there I was awake for a few minutes and then WILDed again(!!!) followed by another two DEILDs. Pretty awesome. The dreams after this were nonlucid, but carried a certain dark storybook vibe that I love to see in my dreams. So, does 100mcg at WBTB = 5 lucids (and WILDs at that)? Probably not as I had 5 lucids spontaneously the night before as well (a mixture of DILD and DEILDs). I'm not really sure how to test this with an accurate control. But in any case the dreams seemed to be very solid, although the length was no different from my average (somewhere between 10 seconds and a minute). It seems like when I take supplements (Choline alone, HzA) WILDs are much more likely, even if I'm not intending for them to happen. In any case I plan to repeat this phase and possibly add choline bitartrate to the mix. Following Yuschak's advice on Galantamine since HzA works similarly, I'm going to give it a safe 4 days to a week between tries as I don't want to build up a tolerance. I'll update here when I try it again. My secret tip for enhancing chances of lucidity through ingestion is Guayusa; it's a coffe/tea-like beverage, which contains both caffeine (mentally stimulating), and L-theanine (mentally calming). It works remarkably well. Best taken at WBTB-time. Voldmer, I forgot to mention in this thread but I did try Guayusa (Numi brand) and quite liked the effects on waking consciousness (seemed like I was more focused and distraction-free). I have only given it a go once or twice at WBTB time so far since I don't really have the motivation to steep tea for 10 minutes and down a cup of it while I'm barely awake Will have to try it a couple more times though, and maybe combine it with L-theanine as you suggest. Out of curiosity, do you use a different brand/premade blend or straight up guayusa leaves? I saw several options online but went with the one I found in-store.

[zelcrow]

Very cool, Zad. It's interesting some of these supplements seem to make WILDs so much more likely to occur. I recently finished Yuschak's book, but I'm thinking I should give myself some more time to develop my LD abilities before I introduce supplements. Looking forward to reading the next trial.

[Voldmer]

Voldmer, I forgot to mention in this thread but I did try Guayusa (Numi brand) and quite liked the effects on waking consciousness (seemed like I was more focused and distraction-free). I have only given it a go once or twice at WBTB time so far since I don't really have the motivation to steep tea for 10 minutes and down a cup of it while I'm barely awake Will have to try it a couple more times though, and maybe combine it with L-theanine as you suggest. Out of curiosity, do you use a different brand/premade blend or straight up guayusa leaves? I saw several options online but went with the one I found in-store. I've mostly used powdered leaves, but recently I've started on a batch of whole leaves. I have in recent times also tried an extract (very concentrated), but with little success. My approach with leaves (whole, or powdered) has always been to start the steeping process just before going to bed. Then, at WBTB-time, the brew is quite strong (but, surprisingly, not bitter).

[ZAD]

Thanks zelcrow! I would definitely suggest getting comfortable with LDs before diving into supplements. If and when you do, please keep us posted! It's always good to have an extra guinea pig! My approach with leaves (whole, or powdered) has always been to start the steeping process just before going to bed. Then, at WBTB-time, the brew is quite strong (but, surprisingly, not bitter). Interesting, so do you cold brew the leaves or start hot and let it sit? I've read online that cold brewing white/green tea should take 6-8 hours and black tea should take 8-12, so I'm not sure where guayusa would fall under there. However it also can't hurt to oversteep when brewing cold. Tonight I'm trying with a single teabag in a normal cup of water. Who knows if it will work, but your post got me curious. Will drink at WBTB tonight and post results in the morning.

[Voldmer]

Interesting, so do you cold brew the leaves or start hot and let it sit? I always start with hot water.

[ZAD]

I always start with hot water. Probably a good idea...mine came out weak except for the first taste lol. Although the "ritual" of it was nice and would probably serve as a good placebo. Will try again tonight.

[Darkmatters]

I'm thinking I should give myself some more time to develop my LD abilities before I introduce supplements. ^^ YES!! Definitely do this. I started using Galantamine and other supplements when I wasn't there yet - was only having one or two lucids a month. Then I became dependent on the supps and whenever I didn't use them no more lucids. And really the supps didn't help all that much, and made the quality of the lucids really weird - a lot of paralysis (in the dreams I mean, not SP), tilting, leaning, unable to walk right, feeling extremely sleepy in the dream and really stupid/unable to think well. What I now think happened was this - I relaxed my efforts and my practice because I thought of the supplements as a sort of magic pill, even though I didn't think I did. Weird, I know, but you can have a different conscious idea of something than what you really believe subconsciously. The supps kept artificially pushing me into weird distorted lucidity that I didn't really like and wasn't very satisfying. And when I stopped, I had lost all my momentum and the good practice habits I had developed before. I just didn't have the oomph I needed to get back to that point. Sorry, I can't serve as a shining example of how to do it right, but at least I can be a warning of what NOT to do!

[zelcrow]

That was really nice to read, Darkmatters, and give me even more pause before getting into supplementation. It's interesting that supplement use seems to change LDs on a qualitative level. After your experience with supplements, how did you get back to a point where you were able to effectively bring back your practice habits in a meaningful way? Though I'm not using any supplements at the moment, I still am going through a rut where the positive habits I've had have become very difficult for me to maintain. I don't really know why. What I mean is my awareness throughout the day seems diminished and harder to achieve, my prospective memory training is a little more difficult to keep in mind, and induction methods are harder for me to focus on while attempting to fall asleep. I'm unsure of how to really get back into the swing of things. I'm sorry if this is too tangential to this thread!

[Darkmatters]

how did you get back to a point where you were able to effectively bring back your practice habits in a meaningful way? I didn't. But that's because, after having my first high level lucid I decided I don't care for them and in fact that I actually prefer regular dreams to lucid ones in general. That's because of my interest in psychology and dream analysis - I suspect lucidity probably interferes with the generation of analyzable material (I could be wrong). I'm not saying "Why would anyone want to lucid dream, surely it's undesirable?" () - just made that decision for myself after having some experience with it. I still sometimes do go lucid though, just randomly, or I might suddenly notice something weird like that I can breathe underwater, or just recognize the dream state and become lucid. And I sometimes flirt with the idea of trying again, though I think I'd need to change my attitude first about high-level lucids and the analyzability of lucid dreams in general. As for how to get it back - don't be discouraged by my sad tale - if you like lucid dreams there's nothing to fear. You just need to bring back up your interest - your love for them, as strong as it originally was. It's possible something you're doing (maybe the prospective memory training?) is making it a lot less fun and killing your passion for it. You just need to find creative ways to rekindle that intense desire. Different methods work for different kinds of people. You need to find ones that work well for you, and if something you try kills the joy then dump it and try something else.

[zelcrow]

Oh, okay. For whatever reason, I assumed you were still actively pursuing LDs. But that's interesting. Nice quote you threw in there! Haha! Sometime I'd like to know a little more of your thoughts on the analysis potential with LDs versus non-Lds. Maybe I will relinquish the prospective memory training for a bit and see if that helps ease things up a little. Thank you for your input!

[Darkmatters]

I really don't have much more thought behind it - just a basic idea that dreams get harder to analyze if you're lucid. Not really sure why I think that either - I've seen people say the opposite, people who have loads of experience. Sometimes I suspect the real underlying reason is some kind of fear I have about really unleashing what might lurk there in my unconscious. But I don't know what I would be afraid of specifically - maybe just my Complex PTSD from being raised by a narcissistic mother - I learned very early in life that opening up and revealing real emotions is dangerous - it'll be used against me in many ways, subtle and otherwise. Looking at my DJ just now I see I kept on using supplements for a good long time after what I was calling my high level lucid (which a lot of people would definitely say wasn't, and now I'm not sure why I called it that). It's weird when you keep a journal, it shows you how memory can re-frame things over time, as we change the narrative of our lives. When you go back and read something you see how you understood it at the time, which can be quite different. No telling if one is more 'right' than the other, aside from maybe loss of accuracy for specific details. Interestingly, the "high level lucid" is the 1st dream listed in my DJ (the new one, after they discontinued the old DJ system and we had to start fresh in the new one). I didn't call it that in the DJ, and thinking about it now it really doesn't seem high level, aside from really good visual resolution, especially after a few stabilization techniques.* If you click on my name and to see my DJ it's the first one (it's blog style, so read from the bottom up - or is that just the way I have it set up to show for me?) At that time I had just read Yuschak and was carefully listing all supplements and anything else that might affect dream quality, and I had quit supps for a while some time earlier but after reading Yuschak bought some new ones and got back to it with a vengeance. You can read about the weird crippled quality of the lucids if you want - most of them I'm either blind, paralyzed, or otherwise strangely handicapped. But in spite of that it's clear I enjoyed the lucidity anyway. Still have the supps - I wonder if they've lost their potency? I might get back to it - reading this was fun. * Remembering better now - I called it high level partly because so much happened and it was by far the longest lucid I ever had. I successfully stabilized by feeling textures and eating glass as a song in the dream told me to do. But it wasn't high level in the sense of truly understanding the nature of dreams (I suppose you don't get all that the first time you go high level) or having any control. And mainly what I disliked about it was how frustrating and how boringly realistic everything was compared to 'regular' dreams. I mean I could fly around, but aside from that everything looked boringly normal and didn't change except when I turned my back once. Most of my normal dreams are far more fun and entertaining, with weird dreamlike distortions of things that I enjoy quite a bit. Is that turning my back on higher level consciousness and turning instead toward deliberately lower consciousness? Maybe. I need to think about why I would want to do that - I think it could answer a few other questions in my life. Sorry I'm using this thread to psychoanalyze myself - sometimes I can't help it!