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    Alyzarin

    L-Arginine Trial

    by , 03-09-2013 at 03:47 PM (6041 Views)
    Alright, so this time I decided to take 500 mg of L-arginine before going to bed to see what the effect would be.... This one wasn't based so much on neurochemistry research so much as just going off of anecdotal evidence. Vivid dreams are not infrequently reported with L-arginine. My trial with it was interesting.... My first impression was that it had been unsuccessful. I awoke after roughly seven hours of sleep without memory of any other awakenings and no dream recall at all. You know, often even when you don't remember your dreams you can still remember that you experienced something, you just don't know what it was. Not so with this... I had a totally blank slate. I remembered thinking a couple things, but that's it. I wasn't even sure if those were actually parts of dreams or not. I also woke up very much "in the mood", another reported effect, so I figured that that would probably be the end of it and I wouldn't really get anything out of it because I generally have a hard time falling back to sleep in that case. Then I rolled over and passed out very quickly.

    And here's... what I got.

    Emotional Responses [Non-Lucid]

    My memory first really steps in when I was locked in the bathroom in my house in the dark, lying in the bathtub. Probably related to the fact that I took a bath last night, but there was no water in it in the dream. The fact that it was almost pitch black makes this part of the dream a little hazy in my memory, but otherwise the dream was quite vivid. I had some memory of what exactly was going on.... Basically, there was this evil witch, or some other dark force, who was haunting our house, and she worked by using illusions to play with your emotions and lure you into her traps. I guess that's what was going on here, because there were bats flying all around the bathroom and I was freaking out. Likely inspired by the fact that I watched The Dark Knight Rises last night, too. I kept trying to imagine the bathroom door opening up hoping that it actually would somehow, and trying to get the bats to do things with my mind because I guess I realized that it was just another illusion, but it wasn't working. Finally I took a chance and overcame my fear and just ran for the door and made it out to the hallway. I met my mom there, and we both ran out to the main part of the house.

    Let me give a quick description here.... At the end of this hall, immediately to the front and left is a little walkway after the front door, and just beyond that is the living room. If you go right and follow the walkway to its end you get to the kitchen and eventually the laundry room, and just beyond the kitchen in the same direction as the living room is the den. Finally, there's a bar in its own little square design placed directly in the four corners of these rooms, so you can continuously walk through all four of them without changing direction if you just walk around the bar over and over again. Got it? Alright, so basically, my mom and I went right into the kitchen and my mom started frantically searching for things on the counter. All of the lights in the house were still out except for the distant one in the laundry room, and she started telling me to look for the "seven-fruited" something.... I can't remember exactly what it was, but the point was that it would hold seven souls, or seven fragments of the witch's soul, or something like that that would basically mean that she was somehow weakened without it, and it would be actually be just some basic household object we wouldn't just have immediately suspected. My mom ended up running through the den into the living room and searching through presents or something beneath a tree that didn't look like a Christmas tree but was exactly where ours always was, and I followed her because I was afraid that she was going to get caught in an illusion somehow since she was freaking out. I started looking around the house to make sure nothing was going on since she was lost in her own world.

    I stepped back on the walkway where the hall ends and looked down into the kitchen again. That's when I saw him.... My cat that just died in waking life was sitting on one of the machines in the laundry room and just staring right at me. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew this was wrong, but I was struck with an overwhelming desire to run up to him, and I called out to him as I did so. (Yup, I'm the dumb girl that dies in this horror movie.) As I was looking at him this weird phantom double of his face kind of burst out at me and made me feel kind of like this trance state blip, and then the scene had changed. We were in some creepy kitchen that I was unfamiliar with and I was a little nervous, but I didn't care. He was sitting on the kitchen counter now, and I ran up to him and started holding him and petting him, but something was wrong.... He felt real but he was totally still and lifeless, and his head was really turned or twisted to the side in a bizarre way. He didn't try to move or respond to anything that I did and I was becoming emotional, and then I felt this ominous feeling starting to creep up on me... but then
    I woke up.

    I'm not sure if I'll be trying this supplement again yet.
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    Categories
    non-lucid , nightmare

    Comments

    1. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Oh hey... that's intense. Wow. I'm sorry you caught such a rough dream!

      Whatever this supplement's effects are, it's clearly not the party-time lucid aid that menthol seems to be. I took a quick look around and yeah, there really are a lot of anecdotal L-arginine and vivid dreaming reports. Huh. That is interesting. I couldn't find any obvious mechanism from a cursory search, but that's no surprise... it usually takes some time to puzzle this stuff out.

      A lot of the reports I read had people taking a much larger dose than you did. Not that I'm encouraging you to increase! You already had plenty of experience there, I think. Maybe it's one you could revisit after your emotions aren't so fresh and raw.

      I don't know, it's always hard not having a theory as to what might be going on. It's like how one WBTB I took DMAE because I had some lying around and wound up having an LD. Then it happened again, and now I'm pretty much duty-bound to figure out why it worked (or if I got placeboed).

      You have a huge breadth of supplements. I'm surprised you don't have bodybuilders sneaking in and raiding your stash!
    2. Alyzarin's Avatar
      Oh hey... that's intense. Wow. I'm sorry you caught such a rough dream!
      Thanks. It did leave a bad taste in my mouth upon waking. But at least it was just a dream....

      Whatever this supplement's effects are, it's clearly not the party-time lucid aid that menthol seems to be. I took a quick look around and yeah, there really are a lot of anecdotal L-arginine and vivid dreaming reports. Huh. That is interesting. I couldn't find any obvious mechanism from a cursory search, but that's no surprise... it usually takes some time to puzzle this stuff out.

      A lot of the reports I read had people taking a much larger dose than you did. Not that I'm encouraging you to increase! You already had plenty of experience there, I think. Maybe it's one you could revisit after your emotions aren't so fresh and raw.

      I don't know, it's always hard not having a theory as to what might be going on. It's like how one WBTB I took DMAE because I had some lying around and wound up having an LD. Then it happened again, and now I'm pretty much duty-bound to figure out why it worked (or if I got placeboed).
      Yeah, you got me there. I just figure we'll either come across the mechanism eventually, or it could just be working on something that we don't understand yet. There's sure to be some supplements that effect dreams in ways that we haven't discovered yet, just like how no one knows how calea works if I'm not mistaken.

      I probably won't be increasing the dose any time soon, but what did you find people using? I just took a single dose of what I have, I didn't try to plan it out any further than that.

      Hmm, DMAE.... I wonder. I have read separate reports that suggest that it may be as simple as DMAE -> phosphatidyl-DMAE -> phosphatidylcholine -> choline -> acetylcholine, but I have to wonder about that. If it does have a legitimate effect, I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with its metabolite dimethylglycine's stimulant effect. From my understanding it may actually lower acetylcholine levels, since it blocks the uptake of choline and prevents it from being metabolized. I'm not sure if anyone knows the real reason though, there's been a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty around DMAE. Let me know if you find anything!

      You have a huge breadth of supplements. I'm surprised you don't have bodybuilders sneaking in and raiding your stash!
      Heh... you're not wrong. After a quick search, this is what I can find lying around my room:

      Spoiler for My Catalog:


      And I've got Mucuna pruriens (L-DOPA) and acetyl-L-carnitine on their way, and when I get a little more cash I'll be ordering some arachidonic acid.
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    3. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Yeah, you got me there. I just figure we'll either come across the mechanism eventually, or it could just be working on something that we don't understand yet. There's sure to be some supplements that effect dreams in ways that we haven't discovered yet, just like how no one knows how calea works if I'm not mistaken.
      Yeah, I have never heard any kind of serious explanation for what's going on with Calea Z. Hey, how'd you like it? Xanous didn't seem to get much out of it, which disappointed me. I love the (pure fantasy) idea that there's this exotic, nearly-magical Central American dream herb out there that can unlock these amazing, transcendent dream experiences.

      I probably won't be increasing the dose any time soon, but what did you find people using? I just took a single dose of what I have, I didn't try to plan it out any further than that.
      Among the set that posts lots of pictures of themselves flexing and says "bro" a lot, I saw a guy talk about take 7 grams right before bed and having really vivid dreams. So a pretty significant dose!

      Hmm, DMAE.... I wonder. I have read separate reports that suggest that it may be as simple as DMAE -> phosphatidyl-DMAE -> phosphatidylcholine -> choline -> acetylcholine, but I have to wonder about that. If it does have a legitimate effect, I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with its metabolite dimethylglycine's stimulant effect. From my understanding it may actually lower acetylcholine levels, since it blocks the uptake of choline and prevents it from being metabolized. I'm not sure if anyone knows the real reason though, there's been a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty around DMAE. Let me know if you find anything!
      I definitely will! Like you, I was also underwhelmed by the DMAE -> ACh pathway theory so I've been on the hunt for more certainty. There was a research study back in the late 80s that investigated its impact on lucid dreaming. If I don't find answers, I may be curious to pay the toll at the pay-wall and see what they found.

      Heh... you're not wrong. After a quick search, this is what I can find lying around my room:
      Ohhhh my! What a stash!! That is awesome.

      Hang on to that piracetam... the FDA started tightening the noose on it recently, and it disappeared off of Amazon just a few weeks after I bought mine! Piracetam banned and removed from Amazon.com - Braintropic
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    4. Alyzarin's Avatar
      Yeah, I have never heard any kind of serious explanation for what's going on with Calea Z. Hey, how'd you like it? Xanous didn't seem to get much out of it, which disappointed me. I love the (pure fantasy) idea that there's this exotic, nearly-magical Central American dream herb out there that can unlock these amazing, transcendent dream experiences.
      I love calea. I've never had anything but great success with it. One of my friends, and a few of my old friends that I don't see anymore, also swear by it. Obviously I can't guarantee that it'll be the same for everyone, but it always gives me a very specific effect. Basically... it's like the dream world's processing power becomes so high that everything is pointlessly over-detailed. For example... say that you're in a normal dream scene that's taking place in a crowded environment, like a public street. In a normal dream there might be a lot of people there, but most (if not all) of them will be completely ignored or nondescript, right? Keep in mind that I'm talking about a non-lucid setting, so all of these people are just totally lost to background noise. On calea, I'll be in that same setting but every single person that walks by in the background, and there will be a TON of them, will not only be vividly detailed and stick out in memory, but will have their own phenotype, fashion sense, hair style, and series of random objects or shopping bags being juggled between their hands. And that's what I mean by pointlessly detailed.... There's so much!! One time I got lucid with it while at a theme park and I was Hulk jumping between the roofs of all the different buildings there, and essentially it was like there was so much detail that my brain ran out of RAM and just had to keep recycling the same data lol. I was laughing my ass off because I was just watching the crowd as I jumped and every so often it would just start to be the same people over and over again.

      Another thing is the adrenaline rushes. I've never been able to stay asleep through stimulation the way I have on calea! The first night I ever used it I had a dream that I went to a rave on roller skates where I actually took ecstasy and ended up rolling really hard and made lots of friends, and then I drove home and went to bed, and then I woke up in my real bed. It took me a few minutes to realize that it hadn't actually happened because it was so vivid. I also had a dream once where people were chasing me and an old high school friend down and the adrenaline was pumping really hard, it was like an action movie, but I stayed sound asleep through the whole thing.

      And then there's the trippiness, which is one of the rarer but still significant aspects for me.... That D2 rave I just did in the other DJ comment thread? Calea is the only thing that's ever made my dreams have the same kind of feel to them.... There was this one in a psychedelic dimension with a pink background where there was F-Zero-type racing going on and I felt myself as a third-person perception as this princess wearing black and white striped clothes and all this stuff that just... that just.... *sigh* You know I said in that rave that concepts like perfection become normal? Yeah.... I love calea.

      I'm probably going to end up smoking some tonight now!

      Among the set that posts lots of pictures of themselves flexing and says "bro" a lot, I saw a guy talk about take 7 grams right before bed and having really vivid dreams. So a pretty significant dose!
      Wow, that is a really high dose!! I may have to consider bumping it up at least a little bit then. o.o

      I definitely will! Like you, I was also underwhelmed by the DMAE -> ACh pathway theory so I've been on the hunt for more certainty. There was a research study back in the late 80s that investigated its impact on lucid dreaming. If I don't find answers, I may be curious to pay the toll at the pay-wall and see what they found.
      That would be pretty cool to see, I'll look forward to hearing about that if you do. ^_^

      Ohhhh my! What a stash!! That is awesome.

      Hang on to that piracetam... the FDA started tightening the noose on it recently, and it disappeared off of Amazon just a few weeks after I bought mine! Piracetam banned and removed from Amazon.com - Braintropic
      Oh wow, I wasn't aware of that. I'll definitely hold on to it then. Thanks for the tip! =)
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    5. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      I came to this thread to raid the Goodies Catalog that you so kindly provided above. (Love it, BTW! ) But I just had to comment on this:

      One time I got lucid with it while at a theme park and I was Hulk jumping between the roofs of all the different buildings there, and essentially it was like there was so much detail that my brain ran out of RAM and just had to keep recycling the same data lol. I was laughing my ass off because I was just watching the crowd as I jumped and every so often it would just start to be the same people over and over again
      I love it!! You ran your mental GPU right out of RAM. That's cool that it was so extreme that it was actually a noticeable effect that your conscious mind could observe. I get such a kick out of the brain observing itself like that.

      Speaking of the limits of mental hardware, I had this one dream where I was flying over these multi-layered, mostly-transparent tessellations of glass-like hexagons. As my view zoomed out to see more and more of these surfaces, the "frame rate" of the dream began to slow down. As this continued, I briefly became lucid. But I felt all insecure about my brain having a low framerate. The thought got me sort of upset and I woke up.
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    6. Xanous's Avatar
      Yeah, I have never heard any kind of serious explanation for what's going on with Calea Z. Hey, how'd you like it? Xanous didn't seem to get much out of it, which disappointed me.
      Maybe it's because I don't smoke it and maybe (now with some new information from the menthol thread) I boiled out all the goodies. That first night I got a mild lucid and I had actually put some in capsules. I plan to try it again one day but I may go for the liquid extract. Or I may try smoking it just once.
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    7. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Maybe it's because I don't smoke it and maybe (now with some new information from the menthol thread) I boiled out all the goodies. That first night I got a mild lucid and I had actually put some in capsules. I plan to try it again one day but I may go for the liquid extract. Or I may try smoking it just once.
      You know, the whole menthol boiling discussion made me think the same thing! Do you remember how you thought that the taste of Calea "wasn't that bad"? Calea's foul taste is so legendary that in retrospect that may have been a sign that something was off.

      So the next time you try it, if the taste makes you want to cry, you're probably doing it right.

      It's too bad that we know so little about what's really going on with calea Z. Until we know better, we probably have to assume that the good stuff can boil off just like menthol.
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    8. Alyzarin's Avatar
      Quote Originally Posted by CanisLucidus
      I love it!! You ran your mental GPU right out of RAM. That's cool that it was so extreme that it was actually a noticeable effect that your conscious mind could observe. I get such a kick out of the brain observing itself like that.

      Speaking of the limits of mental hardware, I had this one dream where I was flying over these multi-layered, mostly-transparent tessellations of glass-like hexagons. As my view zoomed out to see more and more of these surfaces, the "frame rate" of the dream began to slow down. As this continued, I briefly became lucid. But I felt all insecure about my brain having a low framerate. The thought got me sort of upset and I woke up.
      Eep, I almost passed this over!

      Believe it or not, I thought about exactly what you described here immediately before I read it lol. Because when I read your post first I re-read what you quoted from my part, and I stopped to think back on it. I thought to myself that it was likely just a sheet of repeating hexagons that my mind added detail to to create a series of faces and made big enough that I was entirely in just one unique set within the hexagon field, but that field was only so big and so when I got too far away from it I saw where it ended and began repeating in every direction.

      The mind loves to use tessellations like that, and hexagons seems to be one of the most common bases by far. The next time you experience something like that you should keep going higher and higher and higher. That slowed framerate sounds just like what can happen while tripping, just as the patterns are becoming more intense like that. You may end up seeing or experiencing something pretty psychedelic!

      I love that it got you upset though.
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    9. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Ahh! That hexagon dream was so old that I hadn't thought of how it might apply to what you've mentioned before about psychedelics and the fractal patterns that they tend to produce. That's a great explanation for your "repeating faces in the crowd" calea dream.

      If I get back to something like this, I'll try to have the presence of mind to zoom out (or in!) and see what I can find. I make no promises on any matters which concern emotional maturity, but I'll try to be a big boy this time if I feel like my brain is producing a low framerate or has a really low polygon count.

      Fractals are one of the ways that huge amounts of data can be represented in a relatively limited space. It makes total sense that the brain would employ them. Not to personify evolution, but there's something really satisfying about the fact that nature "chose" such an elegant approach. It's one of the many tricks that lets the brain be, as Emily Dickinson said, "wider than the sky".