Live data from Hacker News

Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

journals.plos.org

111–120 of 231 posts

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#111
This has been known for more than 10 years. Goes to show that science is still catching up to what the lucid dream community already knows.

This book from 2006 detailed Galantamine and other nootropic stacks that stimulate lucid dreaming long before noots were "cool":

http://a.co/f30L9Ub

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#112

I wonder if the induction of lucid dreams could become a commercial endeavor? Viewing it as an alternative to technological virtual reality, people would start buying products which induce dreams instead. Companies would subsequently market and patent items which enhance visual experiences in dreams. The future is daunting.

Especially with all the hype around VR, I’ve long suspected that a device or process to reliably induct lucid dreams would be a hugely valuable invention. I suspect many people who have explored lucid dreaming would agree.

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say you likely haven't lucid dreamed, because it's a you-really-know-it feeling. You realize you are dreaming "Oh, I'm dreaming right now. I'm lying in my bed, and dreaming this place", and you can decide to do things - but you also have to be careful not to become too lucid and wake yourself up (usually I do this by calming myself down) and not to fall into a "real" dream (I find that spinning in circles makes y…

I had a dream where I was in my bedroom and noticed that it was arranged in an old way that I had since rearranged a month ago. I suggested to myself that I was in a dream and tried to wake myself up. I woke up into yet another dream where the room was in its current arrangement. I woke up shortly after for real this time, into reality. I woke up to the sun beaming through the window into my eyes. Maybe I was more lu…

Just a fun anecdote: I once had a dream where I met someone who was introduced to me as being me, although he looked completely different. I thought it was a really boring "philosophical" statement about how we all have many sides to ourselves, got a little angry about how pseudo-intellectual this dream was and decided to wake up. I decided I didn't want anything to do with that dream and forced myself awake. It was a very odd feeling to force my eyes open into the real world, when in the dream my eyes were already open!

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#114

Just throwing this out there. I've had hundreds of lucid dreams and it's the most amazing experiences I've have in my life. It takes practice to 1) figure out you're dreaming with some level of reliability 2) learn to take control 3) train yourself not to get too excited so you don't wake yourself almost immediately. I believe the first step is to train yourself to recognize a dream. It becomes easier once you've don…

I had only a few lucid dreams. In that moment I was pretty sure to be lucid, but after waking up, it felt like a dream in which I just thought I was lucid.

How do you differentiate between the two? Is it even possible?

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#115

Just throwing this out there. I've had hundreds of lucid dreams and it's the most amazing experiences I've have in my life. It takes practice to 1) figure out you're dreaming with some level of reliability 2) learn to take control 3) train yourself not to get too excited so you don't wake yourself almost immediately. I believe the first step is to train yourself to recognize a dream. It becomes easier once you've don…

I guess the experience is agreeable to you? I have lucid dreams sometimes, and something about it is very unsettling to me. I sometimes have non-lucid nightmares where I can feel myself losing my mind, with uncontrollable visual hallucinations and a sense of falling apart mentally. I also have nightmares where I wake up from a dream, only to realize I'm still dreaming, over and over again. Somehow the lucid dreams I…

Almost always exceedingly wonderful, better than anything 'IRL'. Except for lucid nightmares which seem to start out as regular nightmares anyways. Sometimes I'm able to overpower the nightmare and go fully lucid, other times I can't and its horrible. Way worse than a regular nightmare because I'm fully aware of whats happening.

Its definitely unsettling at first. I started lucid dreaming by chance at ~11 so I guess I'm used to it. I don't think much of it when I look away from the window and it turns into a flock of birds, just roll with it ya know :)

I think the false awakenings are part of lucid dreaming. The awareness that you're not actually awake yet is a small step from control of your dreams.

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#116
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done this deliberately in the past and had some fairly wacky side-effects Such as?

I used to read lucid dreaming forums. A lot of people complain that their sleep becomes less restful, the more they lucid dream. Also that it becomes impossible to have a night without lucid dreams once you get enough experience, so you can't catch a break.

I experienced this for years, but it never seemed to actually affect "rest". I'd have multiple intense dreams per night, waking up often between them. But not feeling sleep deprived at all, if anything the opposite. However i was also in my early 20s so maybe it would be harder now.

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#117
post #114

Just throwing this out there. I've had hundreds of lucid dreams and it's the most amazing experiences I've have in my life. It takes practice to 1) figure out you're dreaming with some level of reliability 2) learn to take control 3) train yourself not to get too excited so you don't wake yourself almost immediately. I believe the first step is to train yourself to recognize a dream. It becomes easier once you've don…

I had only a few lucid dreams. In that moment I was pretty sure to be lucid , but after waking up, it felt like a dream in which I just thought I was lucid. How do you differentiate between the two? Is it even possible?

Its pretty clear to me at least. I can sometimes remember the moment I figured out I was dreaming. With some great ones being jumping through a closed window and off a skyscraper.

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to lucid dream pretty naturally, then stopped because I started getting very regular sleep paralysis. Nowadays when I do end up lucid dreaming (most often by accident) I notice a fairly significant drop in sleep quality. Even worse, I sometimes lucid dream, then "awaken" into another dream where I'm not lucid and those experiences really fuck with me. On a different note I'd love to get a high quality sleep-tr…

Learning to lucid dream is basically giving yourself a sleep disorder on purpose. Having done this deliberately in the past and had some fairly wacky side-effects, I think it's worth people considering the negatives if they style trying to induce lucidity.

I could believe it ruins sleep quality definitely. Even with experience it's hard to keep your mind from fully waking during periods of lucidity. I've managed to go an hour or two many times but it invariably ends with me waking at a random time in the middle of the night

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#119

Just throwing this out there. I've had hundreds of lucid dreams and it's the most amazing experiences I've have in my life. It takes practice to 1) figure out you're dreaming with some level of reliability 2) learn to take control 3) train yourself not to get too excited so you don't wake yourself almost immediately. I believe the first step is to train yourself to recognize a dream. It becomes easier once you've don…

Are you sure it's really the same level of detail, or do you just think it's the same level of detail?

Re: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

#120
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had only a few lucid dreams. In that moment I was pretty sure to be lucid , but after waking up, it felt like a dream in which I just thought I was lucid. How do you differentiate between the two? Is it even possible?

Its pretty clear to me at least. I can sometimes remember the moment I figured out I was dreaming. With some great ones being jumping through a closed window and off a skyscraper.

That seems terrifying. How do you separate that experience from the real world if you're say standing on the edge of a roof or bridge? How do you know _for sure_ you're dreaming and it's ok to jump?
Post reply on HN