Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An Experience with Modafinil

erowid.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 363 posts

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#51

Post by asdff »

smegger001 wrote: post #10

I read this and cant help but think this man a highly irresponsible person. I generally approve of anyone modifying their own consciousness on there own time. And I get what he did ended up harmless and even beneficial, but if you are going to experiment with psychoactive pharmaceuticals, do it on you day off for your first ever does. This guy not only went to work under the influence of drug that he didn't know what…

To be fair this isn't some unknown substance and the author clearly did their homework, looking into personal accounts and reading clinical studies.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#52

Post by asdff »

smegger001 wrote: post #30
hervature wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say the same thing if it was the person's first time with caffeine? Because Modafinil is a stimulant and used to treat narcolepsy, one could argue that going to work tired and treating people would have been more dangerous. I agree with you that he definitely should have done it prior but this is relatively low on my scale of recklessness. It is not like the effects weren't known. Just the severity of his r…

Entirely different. Caffeine is a very well studied substance with widely known effects, it has been used for literally centuries by a sizeable portion of the human population.

This is also a studied substance with known side effects. The author mentioned looking into the literature for clinical data before purchasing.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#53

Post by asdff »

travisjungroth wrote: post #41
whalesalad wrote: post #16

My personal experience was that modafinil was actually activated or significantly potentiated by caffeine. The stack together was like speed.

Caffeine seems to stack with every stimulant. In my experience, in a way that isn’t really nice.

It makes a great stack with a sativa however. The hippy speedball.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#55

Post by ck2 »

Note if you are a NCAA athlete or subject to USADA/WADA rules, Modafinil (aka Provigil) is strictly banned in competition.

Don't destroy a scholarship/career messing with stuff without knowing the consequences.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#56

Post by a9h74j »

3a2d29 wrote: post #48
Flankk wrote: post #2

Is this person insane? Four hours of sleep and six cups of coffee per day? Lay off the drugs and get a good 8 hours sleep.

Only partially related, but I am so surprised that lack of sleep seems to be normalized in the medical industry (or at least appear to be, I am not a doctor). I would think we would want doctor's brains running at 100%

Just had a surgery. Was joking with the nurse that they will study the exact temperature for a warm air-blanket and every other variable, but will never study how much sleep a resident needs to get.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#57

Post by gunshai »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #39

Tried it a few years ago. It does work. The feeling of laser sharp focus and high energy is quite pleasant and is clearly helping to work for long hours. But it ended up with a severe burn-out in my case. Not 100% sure it was the Modafinil, but retrospectively I think it made me drain my batteries a lot quicker. My advice, if you need to work a lot, the best nootropic you can get is good sleep, healthy food and a bit…

I think it's best to schedule breaks and to set strict rules when taking modfinil. For instance I would not recommend taking it after a certain time period after waking up.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#58

Post by nojs »

ei8htyfi5e wrote: post #25
brotchie wrote: post #12

Modafinil is a pretty amazing drug. The come down after one use isn’t too bad. But if you’ve been using it daily for a week, the comedown is BRUTAL: pretty much feel like you have zero energy and feel like laying prone for 8 hours. Once did 48 straight awake on it and felt wide awake 36 hours in… Distinctly remember the 1st time I took it. Was perhaps 8pm at night and I swore it was 8am in the morning and I’d just ha…

I took it heavily in grad school. Prescribed off label for adhd. You can be in any state of exhaustion, take a modafinil, and an hour later feel like you just woke up on a Sunday morning after sleeping in. It’s nuts. The military uses it for fighter pilots. You can take it for days and only lose minimal amounts of reaction timing. At my peak, I stayed up for finals for a week straight with maybe 2 hours of sleep tota…

> I stayed up for finals for a week straight with maybe 2 hours of sleep total

I’m confused when I read anecdotes like this. Are you staying you literally slept for 2 hours over the course of 7 days, averaging 17 minutes of sleep per night for a week? I think that’s very unlikely!

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#59

Post by inter_netuser »

ipnon wrote: post #49

What's remarkable to me is that modafinil is less toxic than caffeine[0], and possibly even less addictive[1], but we all know which is illegal for recreational use and which is coffee. Regulations are sticky. The FDA follows the precautionary principle. Political game theory incentivizes restricting what the electorate can do rather than giving them more freedoms, and being blamed for whatever harm may fall upon the…

Caffeine would be illegal to possess, if it were invented yesterday.

80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#60

Post by gunshai »

brimble wrote: post #36
marcan_42 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one thinking there is something seriously wrong with an education system if students have to resort to drugs that keep them awake for a week to succeed in it? I mean I'm not exactly anti-medication but... wow.

"Have to", maybe not. Will perform better if they do, probably. Will be outcompeted by others if they don't, many of whom only did better because they used drugs, yes. It took me half a lifetime to really come to grips with it, but fact is, winners absolutely do use drugs. William S. Sessions' anti-drug arcade game ads lied to me.

I hate that I feel so congruent with this comment.
Post reply on HN