Thread: Awake in Dreams: Acetylcholine

Having conducted extensive experiments with supplements over the last 10 years (a lot of it for lucid dreaming purposes), I do have a lot of experience with affecting Acetylcholine levels.

Just briefly, my two main personal observations:

• Choline sources do not directly promote lucidity, but they do promote vividness. Types I have used are: Lecithin, Choline Bitartrate, Alpha-GPC, DMAE (this one is subject to some scientific debate as to its ability to supply Choline).
• Anything that counteracts Acetylcholinesterase boosts lucidity (e.g. Huperzine, Galantamine).

I find it interesting that supplying Choline has one effect, but removing the molecule that destroys Acetylcholine has a quite different effect.

Ahhh ... Yes, Voldmer!

So, am I correct in assuming that boosting choline levels, which promotes vividness, increases the chances of lucidity with the potentiality of a chemical 'domino effect', whereas acetylcholinesterase antagonists such as Galantamine directly promotes lucidity?

Thank you for your input, here. You have certainly peaked my interest! It sounds to me that the mitigation of the enzyme that disables acetylcholine is more beneficial to the practice of lucid dreaming (or it seems to expedite the process) than the supplementation of choline (which is also useful).

For the sake of avoiding misinformation, can you provide me with some links with more information about Galantamine? I also wonder about recommended dosage with these substances, what is safe, etc. It must differ, of course, from person to person, but there must be a healthy balance to be maintained here.

I keep hearing positive things about Galantamine ...

Apparently, Huperzine is a great booster, too, as it seems to improve cognitive functions even in people with Alzheimer's.

On a side note, for everybody, consider egg yolks, avocados, dark chocolate, spinach, kale and nuts in order to promote brain function, cerebral health, and to avoid mental decline with age.

I agree that increased vividness from supplemented Choline could trickle down into enhanced probability of lucidity. Basically, because the dreams are more vivid, they trigger a more substantial psychological involvement, and this could provide the spark for lucidity. Personally, I have experienced this quite a bit from Lecithin, but not so much from other Choline sources. I do suspect that quality of supplement may have been of importance here (not all brands are equal).

I don't have any particularly useful links to hand about Galantamine. Here in the EU, Galantamine is only available as a prescription medicine to Alzheimers patients (maybe to sufferers of other forms of dementia as well). I obtained it from a US-based retailer years ago (8 mg capsules), and did my own experiments. One result was that Galantamine has an almost magical effect on dream vividness and lucidity, but another result was that it feels 10 times as stimulating as caffeine, and most of the times I could not sleep after having taken Galantamine. Another DV' user, FryingMan, did have similar experiences. If you search for Galantamine here on DV you will find several stories from experiments undertaken by members.

Huperzine A is my current weapon against Acetylcholinesterase, and it works, but it is much less potent (in every way) than Galantamine. For me, it is much more useful because I can actually sleep after ingesting it.

Thank you so much for the extra info—it warrants further commentary; so I will come back. I just wanted to briefly say that I had to edit my response above as I made the mistake of saying 'acetylcholine inhibitor' instead of 'acetylcholinesterase inhibitor'—which is what Huperzine and Galantamine are. I completely missed that. All rectified.

My current stack is:
100mg - 5HTP 30 mins before bed

Sleep 4-5 hours wake up
4mg galantamine
500mg choline (bitrate)

- induces lucids pretty regularly. Take 4-5 days off before using again.

I wonder, how long are you using these supplements?
Several years ago I had and used various ones (galantamin, alpha GPC, cholin, 5-HTP, ... - basicaly everything Thomas Yuschak mentioned in his excellent book) and it worked pretty well.
BUT
From that time my LD occurence just vanished and I did not experienced LD for years basically. Now I just struggle to get back on track but for time being I´m just not successful.

Originally Posted by Lucidreaman

I wonder, how long are you using these supplements?
Several years ago I had and used various ones (galantamin, alpha GPC, cholin, 5-HTP, ... - basicaly everything Thomas Yuschak mentioned in his excellent book) and it worked pretty well.
BUT
From that time my LD occurence just vanished and I did not experienced LD for years basically. Now I just struggle to get back on track but for time being I´m just not successful.

This is a really good example of a lesson for lucid dreamers. Supplements cannot replace diligent practice. In fact, because they work so well (I know! I've had my fair share of Galantamine lucids), they can cause us to get lazy. [Not saying that's necessarily what happened to you, Lucidreaman. ]

I think it's okay to use supplements in moderation. I personally wouldn't take it more than once or twice a week max, if I'm going to at all (and I haven't since Lucid Dreaming Day). In moderation, with continued practice, it can be good for motivating purposes. It's motivating because when we get lucid we're reminded what we're working for, and helps us advance our lucid goals. It also can help set a lucid pattern.

I don't know the long-term effects on the brain, though. I would also be hesitant to use them long term just because using a substance can cause the body to stop producing the substance naturally. Then, it can take a long time to get back to normal after stopping supplements.

I will just add, that in that time, before I opted for using the supplements, I was having about 2-4 LD a month.

And, what also makes me a bit uncertain about their long term influence and starting using them nowadays again, is that since the book publication there are no informations about Yuschak's explorations or follow up. And one would expect that he could come up with some very interesting ones because his book was quite optimistic about the overal outcomes. I feel just some void here in this regard.

Regarding my getting back on track, my weakness is mainly being not able to persuade myself to write down the journal. I AM actually pretty lazy in the midnight when I wake up from some dreams, after all. :-)

A little caution should always be urged with any product that is being promoted. Hyperbolic testaments to the efficacy of supplements in aiding lucid dreaming should be taken with a pinch of salt. If your choline levels are raised, then you are likely to experience a mnemonic boost which promotes consciousness in the REM stages of sleep. But that is it! Acetylcholinesterase antagonists such as Huperzine and Galantamine do not guarantee lucid dreams—especially if ingested without any practice.

I can vouch for what Voldmer says -- galantamine dreams are wickedly strongly vivid, "more real than waking" style, but my brain on galantamine for me is like watching fireworks with my eyes closed (literally, the imagery is just crazy), and I'm so wired that I almost never (maybe 1 in 20 times? and that's after hours of trying to stay relaxed and calm) can get back to sleep. I'm also very sensitive to caffeine in waking life, maybe that has something to do with it (just a little bit makes be quite wired and even nauseated). I usually took the recommended stack of melatonin at bedtime, 4-5 hours sleep, 4-8mg galantamine, and AlphaGPC with Choline Bitartrate (all per Yuschak, the OP should definitely pick up his book if you're interested in pursuing supplemented LDing).

I'm also not a huge fan of supplements (but think once in a while for a boost is fine). I think they're fine for helping to correct dietary deficits, but long-term what fosters lucidity most in dreams is being lucid while awake: self-awareness, purposeful attention, reflection, memory work. BE-ing a lucid person.

Just wanted to share something new I learned about acetylcholine. Apparently when you work out, your muscles use up most of the acetylcholine in your brain. It can take a while to recover. So, many athletes take Alpha-GPC before a work out. I wonder if that's what's been messing with my recall some nights. I might take a light supplement before working out and see if it helps with recall on those nights.

Originally Posted by MoonageDaydream

Just wanted to share something new I learned about acetylcholine. Apparently when you work out, your muscles use up most of the acetylcholine in your brain. It can take a while to recover. So, many athletes take Alpha-GPC before a work out. I wonder if that's what's been messing with my recall some nights. I might take a light supplement before working out and see if it helps with recall on those nights.

I hadn't heard that. That may explain the "deep dreamless sleep" phenomenon after working out. I wonder how long this effect lasts -- does muscle synthesis during the recovery-adaptation phase of strength training on rest days also burn excess acetylcholine? I also wonder about the trade-offs: exercise reportedly also feeds the brain with blood (carrying glycogen) and oxygen, so not working out also is bad for dreaming.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I hadn't heard that. That may explain the "deep dreamless sleep" phenomenon after working out. I wonder how long this effect lasts -- does muscle synthesis during the recovery-adaptation phase of strength training on rest days also burn excess acetylcholine? I also wonder about the trade-offs: exercise reportedly also feeds the brain with blood (carrying glycogen) and oxygen, so not working out also is bad for dreaming.

Well. I've been doing strength training for 3 1/2 months now, 3x a week with a trainer. I train in the evenings. About 2 months ago, I noticed my recall lessening. My dreams are less vivid. I used to recall 3-5 non lucid dreams a night. Now I remember 0-2 non lucid dreams.

However... I've been getting lucid like mad! Going from 3-4 times a month to 2x a week. This week alone, I was lucid 2 nights ago, and again multiple natural lucid dreams last night. WTF??? Sometimes I only remember 1 dream, but it's a lucid. My only guess is the exercise is somehow also helping. I mean, I could be wrong, these are just my observations. It could also be affected by my changes in diet, but the pieces of puzzle here fit too nicely to ignore, don't you think?

^^ The evening timing may have something to do with it. Recall does go in cycles, and recall quality is closely associated with stress. I recall reading in other threads that you had some work-related stresses, that may be occupying your mind? I know that for me, any sort of online argument leads to crap sleep and crap recall -- I end up composing rebuttals in my head all night long. I've got to stop. Heeeelp!

Originally Posted by MoonageDaydream

Well. I've been doing strength training for 3 1/2 months now, 3x a week with a trainer. I train in the evenings. About 2 months ago, I noticed my recall lessening. My dreams are less vivid. I used to recall 3-5 non lucid dreams a night. Now I remember 0-2 non lucid dreams.

However... I've been getting lucid like mad! Going from 3-4 times a month to 2x a week. This week alone, I was lucid 2 nights ago, and again multiple natural lucid dreams last night. WTF??? Sometimes I only remember 1 dream, but it's a lucid. My only guess is the exercise is somehow also helping. I mean, I could be wrong, these are just my observations. It could also be affected by my changes in diet, but the pieces of puzzle here fit too nicely to ignore, don't you think?

Maybe you should make a note of when the lucidity happens, relative to when the strength training is taking place. For example, could the lucidity be happening one day after the exercise, as a kind of rebound effect?

In my experience, weight training at night leads to lots of tossing and turning at night, so I avoid that. But I have not studied the effect on lucidity.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

^^ The evening timing may have something to do with it. Recall does go in cycles, and recall quality is closely associated with stress. I recall reading in other threads that you had some work-related stresses, that may be occupying your mind? I know that for me, any sort of online argument leads to crap sleep and crap recall -- I end up composing rebuttals in my head all night long. I've got to stop. Heeeelp!

I did have some work related stress, and during that week my recall and lucidity suffered. However, the recall changes have been going on for a couple months. I've written about it in my journal, and in at least one post, too. Too long to just be stress, especially when it started during summer break. At first I thought it was fluoride related, now I don't think so. Then I considered other options and stumbled across this information.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Maybe you should make a note of when the lucidity happens, relative to when the strength training is taking place. For example, could the lucidity be happening one day after the exercise, as a kind of rebound effect?

In my experience, weight training at night leads to lots of tossing and turning at night, so I avoid that. But I have not studied the effect on lucidity.

Actually, I do make note! But, not the specific times. I have lucidity calendar, and mark which days I get lucid to track my progress. I started it in June. Here's my progress:

Color coding key:

Green = 1 night lucid in the week (may have had more than one lucid in that night).
Black = no lucid nights that week.
Purple = 2 lucid nights that week (may have had multiple lucids in a night, but at least two separate nights lucid).

Starting here, at this point my work out schedule was in the morning, and also changed days:

Week of June 27-July 3rd: 1 lucid, on Wednesday.
Week of July 4-10: No lucids.
Week of July 11-17: 1 lucid on Friday.
Week of July 18-24: 1 lucid on Sunday.
Week of July 25-31: 1 lucid on Thursday.
Week of August 1-7: 2 lucids, both on Monday.
Week of August 8-14: 1 lucid, on Friday.
Week of August 15-21 No lucids.

At about this point, I increased my workouts from 2x a week to 3x a week, and also got a consistent schedule (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays). I also shifted from mornings to nights due to work starting.

Week of August 22-28: 2 lucids, on Monday and also on Friday.
Week of August 29-Sept.4: 2 lucids, Wednesday and Thursday.
Week of September 5-11 - No lucids - STRESS week.
Week of September 12-18: 2 lucids, Monday and Wednesday.
Week of Sept. 19-25: 2 lucid nights so far, Tuesday and Wednesday, Wednesday I had multiple lucid dreams (3-4).

I am going to continue taking data and see how this progresses.

Originally Posted by MoonageDaydream

At about this point, I increased my workouts from 2x a week to 3x a week, and also got a consistent schedule (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays). I also shifted from mornings to nights due to work starting.

Week of August 22-28: 2 lucids, on Monday and also on Friday.
Week of August 29-Sept.4: 2 lucids, Wednesday and Thursday.
Week of September 5-11 - No lucids - STRESS week.
Week of September 12-18: 2 lucids, Monday and Wednesday.
Week of Sept. 19-25: 2 lucid nights so far, Tuesday and Wednesday, Wednesday I had multiple lucid dreams (3-4).

I am going to continue taking data and see how this progresses.

The data is of course limited at this point, but do keep going! So far, your succes rates (for getting lucid) appear to be:

On a training day: 37.5%
The day after a training day: 50.0%
Two days after a training day: 12.5%.

There could certainly be many other factors involved than the work-outs, so quite a bit of additional data will be necessary to get a clear picture, unless a highly distinct patterns emerges.

That is so cool! Thank you.

I tried Huperzine A today for the 1st time (250mg Alpha GPC before going to bed, then some reading, falling asleep and 200mcg of Hup A approx. 30 minutes after falling asleep). I was really worried about possible side effects and because Hup A is active much longer than Galantamine, I decided to take it in the evening to combat problems with falling asleep.

Interestingly, I was able to sleep on it without any problem, I actually felt pleasantly sleepy for most of the night, never as aware as I normally do in the morning. It was like it removed both of my extremes - being too awake after micro awakening vs. being too tired - and kept me in a narrow band in the middle.
I noticed the dream in the 1st REM period. Then nothing, for a long time. Approx. 5.5-6 into my sleep, I was thinking that it completely removed my dreams. I also did some thinking about the nature of my sleep and decided that I am probably asleep, not awake. The sleep was somewhat trance-like, with passive awareness, but not too mentally active. And time was passing slower than normally at night, my time estimates were always off.
Then I got some middle of the night insomnia, at my usual time, but while I felt awake, I wasn't as alert as I am normally during these episodes.
When I finally got to some dreaming, I realized I was probably dreaming earlier too, I just didn't realize that I was. The dreams felt very shallow, not immersive, daydreamy. On the other hand, the stories were more coherent, like there was more memory present. They were also unstable, sometimes overlapping with normal sleep/feeling my body/being aware of my surroundings. Like the hard line between non-dreaming sleep and dreaming sleep getting blurry.
I was thinking about WILDing but I had no idea what to do. All I know from normal WILDs - when I am making progress, what is HI, what is a dream etc. - just didn't apply in this state. I wouldn't be even able to recognize the transition into the dream. I think the transition was super-smooth and possibly in-and-out at the beginning of the dream. I tried to interact a little bit but it was like interacting with a dreamlet, dissolving it. Waking up from a dream felt like snapping out of a daydream.
I didn't really think about it too deeply though. The passive awareness was somehow muting. My usual hyperactive ADHD thoughts weren't there. I was more observing than anything else.
Another very interesting thing was my tolerance to outside noise. They are doing some roadworks close to us. Normally, I wouldn't be able to sleep with that and it would be very annoying to me. But I was able to be just passively aware of the noise, without caring. Sudden loud noises still woke me up/snapped me out of dreaming but didn't make me more alert. Even now, my husband is telling me how the noise is annoying... I am aware of its presence but I don't mind.
I needed to sleep a little bit longer to feel ok. After 8 hours of sleep, I had a light headache, after closer to 9 hours of sleep, I am ok. No nausea, so that's good. But the cognitive effect will last at least the whole day. I don't feel smarter or more attentive, I feel different than normally but I am not sure if it is worse or just different (probably not better though).

Conclusions: It is not for me but I think I will try it once more, to get more familiarized with the state of my brain on high acetylcholine. I sometimes get the dreams like I got and I sometimes have very smooth transitions, so it's something to think about. It also makes me rethink the difference between various sleep onset imagery and dreams. It's good to know that acetylcholine levels can change a lot how these things feel.
I am not sure it will ever be useful for me for lucidity. Maybe I am a too light sleeper and this makes my sleep too light to be useful. But I will give it a try to see if lucidity has a stabilizing or destabilizing effect on these shallow-feeling dreams.
I can see how it can be useful for WILD, at least for someone who gets deep and stable REM. The trance-like sleep is just perfect for WILDing. My usual conscious NREM is much less stable, it's much more in and out, with the mental activity fluctuating.

I'm wondering if anyone here has read Advanced Lucid Dreaming: The Power of Supplements by Thomas Yuschak. He used to be part of the Lucidity Institute's forum community in its heyday and developed groundbreaking work that went beyond Stephen LaBerge's research on cholinesterase inhibitors with the purpose of inducing lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences.

I did read it through and through as I translated it into my language (Czech) for fellow dreamers here.
What puzzled me is that there is no follow up to this work which at the time of publication showed immense potential.
And I personally almost completely lost the capability to dream lucidly. (But in my case there could be some other reasons I have to say.)

I have. Yuschak himself disappeared suddenly from public view, causing much speculation that he may have fried his brain on all those supplements!

His work is the one I always refer people to who are interested in such things. There is no denying the brain-altering effects of a properly timed galantamine/choline(s) stack. The 2-3% of the time I tried it where I actually managed to fall asleep again and dream were really intense LDs. Most of the time unfortunately I would just stare at the fireworks-level hypnogogia it induced until I gave up falling asleep, sometimes after 5 hours of trying.

I think working on generating vivid and lucid dreams naturally via training the brain to *be* lucid and pay attention to detail yields much longer-term and more satisfying results. Holding a "G" party/night once in a while though, for those who can get back to sleep on it, makes for a fun time for sure!

Originally Posted by Summerlander

I'm wondering if anyone here has read Advanced Lucid Dreaming: The Power of Supplements by Thomas Yuschak. He used to be part of the Lucidity Institute's forum community in its heyday and developed groundbreaking work that went beyond Stephen LaBerge's research on cholinesterase inhibitors with the purpose of inducing lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences.

Yes I’ve read the book. Was insightful, any questions?

Can you summarise the best recipe from Yuschak? What was the best thing you took from it that made you think, 'I have to try that!' Let me know but I will get it eventually. I'm currently reading Daniel Love's at the moment.