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An Experience with Modafinil

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Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#121
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You remember the topic and the name of the PI but still can’t find this study? I am relatively certain that’s because it does not exist. The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I can totally believe that if you give someone who’s never done drugs a high dose of caffeine and tell them it’s cocaine, they might beli…

OK, I don't have any data either but I'd be pretty surprised if there were a lot of murders by people trying to acquire cocaine. I mean, it could be true?

If you were seriously addicted but not high at the time, I expect you might feel agitated, but also kind of sorry for yourself / miserable and not so much in a murdering frame of mind.

Large amounts of money (which large amounts of cocaine can be exchanged for), on the other hand...

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#122

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.

Cramming is less "required" then "an alternative way to get a good grade than working all semester long."

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Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#123
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe school shouldn't be a competition with winners and losers.

That is impossible because there is limited supply of the things you want to achieve with your education, e.g. a tenure track position, and the demand is always higher than the supply.

Shhh don't tell them, let them stay unambitious. It makes it easier for the rest of us.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#124

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…

Does skipping sleep during finals affect your ability to recall the material long term?

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#125

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.

Cramming is less "required" then "an alternative way to get a good grade than working all semester long."

It wasn’t a paper test and cramming. I had to create a product from scratch. I could have made a simpler product but I’m type a and challenged myself. 3D modeling, waiting for a 3D printer to complete, designing and manufacturing creating circuit boards, programming them, setting up a server, modifying the printed case by hand to insert glass, iterating when tolerances aren’t right. …it was a lot of work.

But now I get to make cool shit for a living.

Honestly believe if you give me enough time and money I can make anything. Worth it.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#126

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.

And in modern day, we have FDA, which is a very-tough-to-get-by filter for public medication.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#127

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…

Funny. The couple of times I took Modafinil, it might as well have been placebo. Absolutely no effect. I gave the pills away. I have ADD, and am prescribed 60mg Adderall XR/day. OTOH, I have slept on 30mg Adderall XR a couple of times, so maybe I'm just "built differently" w.r.t. The Stimmies.

There’s a genetic component - don’t remember which gene, but only some are subject to its effects.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, this is rubbish. One of the reasons Modafinil is useful is that it will help you stay awake and alert for long periods AND when you want to sleep you still can do. It isn't like speed.

You know not of what you speak.

~15 years of taking Adrafinil and then Modifinil on prescription and "recreationally" says otherwise. The actual effect of a drug and then the psychosomatic effect of those who expect it to have a certain effect are two very different things.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#129
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You remember the topic and the name of the PI but still can’t find this study? I am relatively certain that’s because it does not exist. The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I can totally believe that if you give someone who’s never done drugs a high dose of caffeine and tell them it’s cocaine, they might beli…

I'm not sure if it was Volkow, or even if she was a PI. She does a lot of research at the NIH on drugs of abuse, but I'm not sure it's her paper. I am quite certain the study exists, because I recall her talking about the findings, and then reading the abstract.

I have high confidence that you will never find this study, and that it doesn’t exist. I’m not accusing you of malice, but I think you must be misremembering something.

But I’d love to be wrong. That would be a very interesting result.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment That is complete bullshit.

Curious - do you have something to back that up? Caffeine is pretty toxic ( I think the LD50 is something like 200 mg/KG of body weight. 20 grams would kill most people) and I don't find it surprising that an IV mix would have pretty serious effects.

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