Skipping nights on dissociatives - what does it to your brain?

[dopamimetic]

So it's not exactly the first time I am doing this so I can confirm it is working, and leaves me with no ill after effects. I can maintain something like a 36/8h wake / sleep schedule when dosing on dissociatives, for weeks and more.. kept this up for I think 3 months or so until my supply run out (okay there was a depressive hangover) but now again, it feels like I am getting much for literally nothing .... no signs of sleep deprivation or whatsoever. Then I read about people dying from being unable to sleep. When doing stimulants, one feels the drain of energy pretty soon but here, while I feel some biological day/night swings for sure, I'll be as refreshed tomorrow morning as if I had a good night of sleep .. so what the fuck's going on here?

Dreaming while awake?

 

[dopamimetic]

I'm right into another dreamig-awake disso night.. Nobody else experienced this weird feature?

 

[dopamimetic]

I am really curious about this. It looks like nmda antagonists do something I need very much but I can't narrow it down. When staying off dissociatives for some days, a week or so I become hypersomnious, like I could sleep 16h every day and still have no energy.. Feeling restless but tired, depressed and anxious without reason.
Now the nmda antagonists so the very opposite. They put me into some kind of hypomanic state but one that never goes out of control or becomes fully manic. Just that I need less and less sleep with increasing dosage, have more energy and feel more optimistic, happy, relaxed and at peace with myself and the world, somehow. Its not just delusional as cognition dies increase measurably, it's difficult to explain this in short but I think it's confirmed. Maybe rather that when staying off dissociatives, my cognitive abilities will decay pretty fast, leaving me in a bad state of knowing I could perform better but not how or why it is how it is.

Can this be excitotoxicity, and of what origin? Like for some rare neuronal diseases NMDA hyperactivity and excitotoxicity is guessed as the cause for symptoms pretty much matching with my own, and unfortunately leading to real cell death and motoric impairment when remaining untreated. I don't really habe irrational fears about illness or whatever it's just such a heavy real difference that keeps me from sleeping well..

I don't know how to get attention of med professionells, I have tried different occasions but it always ends with a diagnosis of mental illness and/or drug abuse.

Besides that I somehow really fear they wont check me until it's too late and organic damage has been done, even if it would stay purely mentally it's a question of quality of life. I just don't want to live as a retarded Individual when I could have the ability to study and be a productive member of society.

Just nobody listens to or believes you when you need to tell them you found out accidentally by "abusing" grey market designer chemicals that they help you so much and make you smarter. Sounds like a can of bullshit, doesnt it?

Also I just need a prescription for some potent nmda antagonist. I hatte it to see all sort of people on opioids but having to fear of police and law enforcement myself all the time even when I don't want to trip but just function..

Think I've posted it previously but very interesting about this topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1810584/ (borderline personality disorder appears to be mediated by nmda receptors)

 

[Blowmonkey]

I have no idea, this looks like it should go here though:

Activation of NMDA Receptors in the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus Produces Light-Like Phase Shifts of the Circadian Clock In Vivo

Although there is substantial evidence that glutamate mimics the effects of light on the mammalian circadian clock in vitro, it has been reported that microinjection of glutamate into the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus (SCN) region in vivo ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[dopamimetic]

Oh, interesting. They mess with the circadian rhythm for sure, yet it's somewhat special that apparently I get more for next to nothing over a sustained period of time which drugs usually don't do..

Feels like it's more than just a shift of phases as I really need much less sleep while on nmda antagonists. It baffled me to read that people on meth managed to stay up for like two weeks or so but for sure they will get paranoia and other symptoms, every meth user I have spoken to either admitted to have strong symptoms after just 48-76h (hearing voices, paranoid delusions like seeing cops every where etc) or pretty much acted and looked like they must have.

I have never pushed it so far as my longest uptime was I think 4 days but as already said, subjectively without aide effects. Didnt do any reaction tests unfortunately, there must be some worsening but I'd say much less than without drugs. Tiredness Was equal to the level of nmda antagonist, as it got metabolized out tiredness increased and almost instantly went away upon redosing (DCK or 2-FDCK nasally, they hit within seconds)

Oh man do I miss the dissociatives. I am currently on holidays and don't feel like risking anything in a foreign country...

Their psychological reinforcement is somewhat special too, as it appears to be pure reinforcement without withdrawal symptoms at all and rather a positive antidepressant afterglow, depending on the substance (the more stimulating ones like 3-MeO-PCE or MXE are more prone to cause a depressive hangover imho)

 

[polymath]

I didn't get sleep before something like 4 AM last night because I was high on DXM. It produces the kind of 'hypomanic' euphoria that makes sleeping difficult and makes you feel like some kind of divine entity that could shoot lightning bolts from its hands if wanted... At the peak of the effect there's too much anxiety for it to be pleasant, unless I take some kind of opiates or sedatives with it.

 

[dopamimetic]

Oh yeah.. I too remember anxiety from DXM above a certain dosage, probably mediated through its relatively potent norepinephrine reuptake inhibition.. Yeah, DXM is also maybe the one with most similarity to classical stimulants, said anxiety, rapid heartbeat etc.

The arylcyclohexylamines are quote different, equally stimulating but with much less 'force' and almost purely mentsl. Feeling very naturally, some are even relaxing and disinhibiting instead of tensing and anxiogenic. I even began to dislike GABAergics (BZDs, Ethanol) since I got to know the deschlorinated ketamine analoges.
For people not knowing them its maybe hard to imagine as previously I thought of e.g. (lower dosage) amphetamine to be a clear and superior stimulant to caffeine or ephedrine but the glutamatergic stimulation is at least as much different. Also the stereotypy which is common on amphetamines when used repeatedly or in higher doses is absent, with tolerante and getting used to the initial memory inhibition of nmda antagonists, they become somewhat nootropic. At least for me they help me much with cognitive flexibility, creativity (called this 'the disso flow' where much of all these self-critical thoughts stopping you from being creative are silenced) and stuff like learning and using foreign languages.

Of course its not unlimited and the memory inhibition remains to be a limiting factor, sometimes I tend to' forget' what I've done in dissoverse until I dose again - which is somewhat contradictory as it can't be real inhibition or things would be lost once for all. My theory for this is that with increasing dissociation it becomes harder to recall the memories when sober as they get encoded differently, along with the altered sense of time and space.
Maybe someone can explain this more scientifically?

 

[checktest]

Sleep drive is encoded by neural plastic changes in a dedicated circuit

Prolonged wakefulness leads to an increased pressure for sleep, but how this homeostatic drive is generated and subsequently persists is unclear. Here, from a neural circuit screen in Drosophila, we identify a subset of ellipsoid body (EB) neurons whose ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/31504971/ An NMDA activator (vs. Ketamine Antagonist) was beneficial for plasticity

Involvement of Ca(2+)-Dependent Hyperpolarization in Sleep Duration in Mammals - PubMed

The detailed molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of sleep duration in mammals are still elusive. To address this challenge, we constructed a simple computational model, which recapitulates the electrophysiological characteristics of the slow-wave sleep and awake states. Comprehensive...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Could interfere with the adaptations driving sleep, i.e. you may not perceive the need for sleep as much. Also sustained hypomania as a possibility. Many of those dissociatives have disinhibitory and stimulatory mechanisms. The comedown doesn't sound promising. What about the possibility of affecting your perception of bad effects?

I might be wary of the perception of functionality and actual reflexes on later hours awake. Let alone questions of memory disruption and long term memory. What is sustainable?

Sleep can aid many molecular processes and is beneficial for general homeostasis, independent of what may be perceived. As a chronic insomniac with a strong family history of many diseases, I tend not to read too closely...

Sleep increases chromosome dynamics to enable reduction of accumulating DNA damage in single neurons - Nature Communications

Do single neurons require sleep and what is the conserved cellular function of sleep? In this paper, the authors use real-time imaging of chromosomes in individual cells within live zebrafish to show that sleep increases chromosome dynamics, which are necessary to reduce DNA damage that is...

www.nature.com

Sleep modulates haematopoiesis and protects against atherosclerosis - Nature

The fragmentation of sleep in Apoe−/− mice induces monocytosis and accelerated atherosclerosis due to a reduction in hypocretin that otherwise restricts bone marrow CSF1 availability.

www.nature.com

Perhaps state-dependent memory, where certain circuits may predominate, could be a factor. Also the functional activity of doing the dissociative and related connections.

As for a prescription NMDA antagonist, I've been on memantine (up to 20mg) from my psych and it can be a pretty consistent augmentation for OCD (still not officially sanctioned in some areas but good research). Mixed for depression. Some psychs may do it for you, though I doubt they would support any use for an abnormal sleep schedule in the 36/ 8 hour range. [Or any non-24 hour sleep cycle] Perhaps with a regular sleep schedule it could be given. Of course there is that memory long term depression study with memantine and other factors to give pause.

 

[Asante]

How the flock do you not go psychotic? You must have a brain out of machined tungsten. I pride myself in doing 4 years of a two-day MXE session twice a month, but in the end insanity caught up with me so I had to quit all dissociative use because of "diminishing returns" which included standing naked in midwinter in the street, talking and gesturing lively to cops & ambulance personnel that there was a big conspiracy against me ^_^
Total PCP freakout on MXE, if it wasn't for my spirit guide telling me to -stop approaching the cop and follow instructions- I would have gotten tazed

Those 4 years were Legend, I wouldn't have wanted to miss them for the world, they made a MAN out of me, I got through the perinatal and ego death process into the transpersonal, which LSD couldnt do, I consider the cops vs 365lbs MXE Velociraptor confrontation as well as the week and a half of loony bin and aftercare well worth it even. Well paid.

But: I also went from solid dark blond to light gray-haired in those 4 years. I AGED SIGNIFICANTLY, both in a good way and in a getting older way.

DON'T DO TWONIGHTERS BACK TO BACK, SUPERMAN.

At least take 2 weeks inbetween uses if you bloody well can at this point - addiction permitting. Consider handing your stash over to your best buddy and letting him be your apothecary to dose you up twice a month so you won't have to worry about self control.

You are closer to the dissociative singularity than I am. It took me 3 twonighters back to back to finally get a drug psychosis.

You are methylating the fuck out of your DNA by pulling so many 48 hour days.

If you occasionally pull an allnighter, it makes you HARD, just like a boxer's brain is hardened against brain9injuries because of frequent punches to the head, but too much and you're gonna bite off ears tyson style.

 

[dopamimetic]

Interesting post … sorry to read what you've gone through. For me, interestingly, the dissociatives have lost their psychotomimetic properties almost completely. Have to say though that I have had atypical(?) reactions straight from the beginning, for example independent of dosage I never ever got a true hole but a more lucid and controlable variant of it I have never read about in any trip report. No physical incapacitation either with the arylcyclohexylamines. But I've had my bad experiences too for sure, when I was younger, more sensitive and knew less about dose and interactions..

What do you refer to with methylating DNA, does this mean staying up for too long does increase cáncer risk? But then again, this is about what I wanted to ask with this thread - that it feels so heavily different to stay up with dissociatives in my system than without.

I know the chance for these things to be damaging is much bigger than not. Still have to deal with very heavy depression/anxiety issues that are stated to be damaging on their own, and they mess up my life for sure. I am just so much more with these chems, despite countless attempts to prove myself wrong. For once it's not just a drug-induced delusion. I think. Maybe.

Just don't know any other way to deal with these conditions. I have been at the point to decide about killing myself or was admitted to intensive psychiatry more than once, things that couldn't feel further away with just some hours on a dissociative. I crave this energy so much.. and am so tired without. What leads to the question if I am indeed in a pretty deep addiction circle that just is very different to what's known, given that tolerance to most drugs resets pretty rapidly while for dissociatives it lasts almost forever.. so, if in bad luck, recovery would take equally as long...

Then again, we have so many people being functional alcoholics (makes an interesting comparison. What makes a more heavy body load, a good daily régimen of ethanol or of some arylcyclohexylamine that is not ket), on methadone for decades etc.. so why not a deschloroketamine substitution?? Oh well, the law. But beside that?

Still uncertain about the bladder effects of (2-fluoro)deschloroketamine. Other than with regular K (which might have been impure though) I do not see any relation to intake and physical side effects. For sure I could have a better overall health, yet this got no better during periods of abstainance and does not worsen when using.
Dissociatives are strong painkillers for sure, but in a strange way. I have burnt myself while on opioids because of not feeling the heat, something that never'd happen on dissociatives when not doing crazy high doses.

Oh well.

Thanks too @checktest, Will have to check later.

I have tried memantine in the past, up to 40mg/d and up to 70mg acutely. Sadly it does not work for me. It feels like an "empty" dissociative, having the signature and all but none of the positive effects. It does help with hangovers though, and thinking of this I have to try it again. Thought it did a good job sparing out MXE years ago when it was available, but then switched to only memantine and effects faded off slowly but steadily.

Oh, and had my only and one true manic episode after some asshole doc decided to quit the memantine 40mg/d suddenly after a year or so (I kept believing it would help. Maybe it did a little, but not much enough and nothing for anxiety.)

 

[MoFo_S]

NMDA Antagonists are mood modulators. They push your mood toward the manic end of the spectrum, and that mood modulation lasts for at least a few days, if not a week or two in my experience. Wherever you are on the spectrum when you take them, they will push you towards mania. If you are super depressed, you will be a bit less depressed. If you are normal, you´ll get a little hypomanic. If you are already hypomanic, you may hit full mania / psychosis, which is hell.

But, if you are depressed or dysthymic, they can be a live saver. Just remember to keep doses low, only order minimum quantities, and monitor your state by checking in with others. Yes, they will cause you to lose sleep. You can miss a night or two here or there, but you know you are missing too much when you start to get crazy hypomania symptoms, and people start commenting on it. If none of your regular friends have mentioned anything, you´re probably fine. Are you spending tons of money or giving gifts away to anyone? That is a symptom of mania.

It usually takes a while to get to mania though, like days and days of continuous use. Using a couple days a week in low doses is usually OK, as long as you sleep on the days off. Hypersomnia on days off is normal and good. I usually feel tired but OK on the days after use. I sleep more, eat a bit more, and get back into a normal rhythm.

Also, try not using too late in the day. Don´t take any doses after the afternoon. That usually allows me to get a few hours of sleep at night. But, you may wake up after only a few hours, feeling weirdly wide awake. This is normal. Just remember to take plenty of days off when you stop using.

If you feel the mania coming on, force yourself to sleep. Sleep counteracts the mania. Take sleeping pills if you have to. And follow my rule: at the first sign of oncoming mania, flush your stash immediately, then force yourself to sleep as soon as it gets dark. This will ward off the mania in my experience.

All of this can be remedied by keeping doses low, sleeping at least fairly regularly, remembering to eat, and only using when you really need to, like during depressive or dysthymic episodes during winter. Also, some dissos are way friendlier than others in my experienece. O-PCE is pretty friendly as long as you keep doses low. 3-Meo-PCP can be risky, as can 3-MeO-PCE and 3-HO-PCP.

Notice the studies showing that for people in depressive episodes, missing a night of sleep causes a sudden disruption to the depression, which lasts until they sleep again? Sleep deprivation can weirdly increase mood for short periods.

Good luck, stay safe, keep some sleeping pills around (doesn´t have to be benzos, doxylamine works well), and stay out of the psychward. But, if you do end up there, tell the nurses I said hi!

 

[MoFo_S]

By the way, the dissos aren´t really making your more intelligent - they are just improving your mood, which makes your own assessment of your intelligence rise. Depression is a form of mild psychosis. The dissos temporarily reverse that psychosis. They can make you seem more intelligent, more social, more charismatic, more attractive, etc. Really the improved mood is just changing your self perception, and creating self-fulfilling prophecies (I feel awesome tonight, I´m going to make so many friends, people pick up your positive vibe and it comes true etc). That is my experience.