Phenibut and Dreams?

[Redditor1666]

What mechanism of action is involved that allows phenibut to produce such vivid, dark/sinister, gory, sometimes even lucid dreams for so many of its users?

I am pretty knowledgeable when it comes to this type of thing, but I'm baffled by this one. I've quit phenibut, and have been trying to use melatonin to recreate something close to the dreams that phenibut does, but its just not happening. I've taken small microgram doses to huge handfuls of melatonin (knowing its near impossible to OD on) and still nothing more than colorful, intense, confusing, strange, trippy oddness have come from my melatonin trials. The closest I came was last night when I was in my bed, on my friends couch, and an alternate dimension that merged both places in time/space. Which was really cool, but not what I was after at all.

I'll compare my melatonin dreams to an LSD trip and my phenibut dreams to an MXE-hole. I might even go so far as to compare my melatonin dreams to a day in Pee Wee's Playhouse and my phenibut dreams to something more along the lines of a Tim Burton film.

With the phenibut, everything becomes surreal, both familiar yet not, you are both in the dream and your body, you sometimes come to in real life (or perhaps another dream inside a dream inside a dream,) there is a lot of darkness in these dreams most times. I've made elaborate escape plans from federal prison and successfully escaped with my best friend and fled to Mexico on phenibut, I've stabbed someone in the eyeball because they ghoulish and I wanted them to go away, I've been surrounded by the police accused of crimes I have never committed before while trying to evade them for miles on a bicycle and I couldn't get anyone to help me out because no one believed I was telling the truth (I got framed by the police themselves in a sense-long story kinda based on true story,) I killed someone then a nuclear war began and the world began going all sorts of crazy with robots collecting energy from the nuclear waste everywhere, my skin was melting, there were bases everywhere that belonged to different countries all over Earth.
To elaborate further, these dreams on phenibut were usually so realistic that I would wake up still under the premise that the world was ending or that I was in Mexico running from the feds, or that there was a demonic entity such as the one I had stabbed in the dream present.
If anyone would like to discuss the dreams more in depth let me know, they all feel like they just happened yesterday still. Idk if I will ever forget them to be honest. Its as if they were encoded in my memory as actual happenings not simply dreams.

What on EARTH is the reason for this. The only thing I can think is because of the fact that it is a strong GABAb agonist which would inhibit glutamate transmission similar to how NMDA antagonists act. Similar to with benzodiazepines and alcohol, however without the amnesiac effects associated with them. This allows us to remember the dreams more vividly perhaps?
I'm actually beginning to wonder if phenibut is an NMDA antagonist itself. Has anyone every tested this in a lab?

Please help me understand this phenomenon!
Thank you Bluelight!

 

[DiacetylEros]

Phenibut's primary mechanism of action is a Voltage-Gate Calcium-channel Blocker, with it's secondary MOA being a gaba-b agonist (with a gaba-a bleed over at higher doses). I have had much experience with the drug, I was at a time taking an oz a day (I know, insane), quit for a couple months and then would take 5-7grams once a week. It was weird as the first-time both me and my friend took it together (4grams) we both experienced opioid-like painkilling, and that shit-eating grin and connectiveness of *real* MDMA, except without the stimulant amphetamine effects or the depressant effects of opioids. It was very wakeful and pleasurable. However, neither of us ever experienced that again; instead it felt more akin to heroin where we would nod off and have "waking dreams" like you described that were vivid, but as soon as we would snap out of the nod our recollection was gone. Unlike your experiences.

Neither of us, both being dissociative-heads ever experienced the classical signs of NMDA-antagonists (I've experiment with DXM, phencyclidine, 3-MeO-PCP/E, and Ketamine and MXE in particularly extremely extensively and also never experienced anything like a K-hole that you describe). What intrigues me most about your experiences is that most gaba-agonist's suppress the serotonin sub-receptors responsible for dreaming, never mind dreams as vivid as yours. I know this from daily experience as I've been taking 5-7mg of clonazolam daily for 5 months (insane again.. I know) and the ONLY time I dream is if I miss my nightly dose, and the dreams are as vivid as you describe to the point that months later I can recall almost every detail of them photographically.

The problem with phenibut is the lack of concise scientific data on what specific receptors and sub-receptor sites it hit's, other than GABA and VGCC pathways. And since it is only an Rx drug in a couple countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet rather than the Roman (?) alphabet, there is such a lack of people able to translate these scientific articles on it's other mechanism's of action (if there are).

It could be that it effects your brain chemistry far differently than most people, as my experience with it has mirrored every person I've met who has tried it. That would be my best guess. What is your typical doseage by the way? As one parallel I can draw between phenibut and dissociatives is, that the effects are dose dependant; with lower doses producing more euphoric-stimulant effects and higher doses euphoric-depressant effects.

I wish I could help explain this phenomenon as well as I am intrigued, but alas I cannot. I can however say that your post was a *very* interesting and thought-provoking read.
D.E.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

Belsomra/Suvorexant (orexin receptor antagonist) is well known to produce very vivid dreams when first initiated

To put it in laymen's terms I think part of it has to do with what parts of the brain are still awake and what parts are more inhibited/asleep.