how can I become smarter?

[trainman04]

I am tired of being stupid. I have a hard time understanding concepts, my memory is terrible, my grammar is horrendous and lots of other things....
I actually did a real IQ test.. I scored 90. Some say iq tests are not accurate but who knows thats all I can go by . I feel like crap.

I feel that dopamine is Key to high IQ. Thus I wanna increase it with drugs. I am tired of being dumb.
What do you guys think of this dopamine combo? Modafinil + Selegiline + Pramipexole + Entacapone + Disulfiram and Adderall.

What are other ways I can become smarter?

 

[mb-909]

I am tired of being stupid. I have a hard time understanding concepts, my memory is terrible, my grammar is horrendous and lots of other things....
I actually did a real IQ test.. I scored 90. Some say iq tests are not accurate but who knows thats all I can go by . I feel like crap.

I feel that dopamine is Key to high IQ. Thus I wanna increase it with drugs. I am tired of being dumb.
What do you guys think of this dopamine combo? Modafinil + Selegiline + Pramipexole + Entacapone + Disulfiram and Adderall.

What are other ways I can become smarter?

What do you exactly mean with "smarter"? Do you want to improve your memory, understanding and grammar?

Memory: Cardio-training, meditation, mindfullness.

Understanding: You-Tube videos, TED-talk, lots of books...

Grammar: Reading novels, writing poems and so on.

Being smart is not something, which solely relies on your genetics. There are people, who are gifted and can process information faster than others, but even those have to study and educate themselves to get smarter. It takes patience and a lot of practice to get smart in an universal sense, regardless of your genetic starter pack. Drugs do not help in that regard.

Another direction: Why exactly do you want to get smarter? To impress yourself or others? You do not need to push yourself so much. Most of the time you do not need to be logical smart, but social smart. Empathy and sympathy with life is way more satisfying in my opinion than cold rational thinking - I am just talking about the continuum of those extremes. At least that is my personal experience. I am rather dumb like a brick and surounded by thousands of other dumb bricks than being all knowing, but unable to share any of my thoughts in a manner that anybody understands me.

I still think that there is the possibility that you have some sort of anxiety, which itself can lead to a decreased IQ. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/leading-emotional-intelligence/201104/where-did-my-iq-points-go

Cognitive behavioral therapy with a psychotherapist you can get along with might be your best bet to improve your smarts.

 

[trainman04]

What do you exactly mean with "smarter"? Do you want to improve your memory, understanding and grammar?

Memory: Cardio-training, meditation, mindfullness.

Understanding: You-Tube videos, TED-talk, lots of books...

Grammar: Reading novels, writing poems and so on.

Being smart is not something, which solely relies on your genetics. There are people, who are gifted and can process information faster than others, but even those have to study and educate themselves to get smarter. It takes patience and a lot of practice to get smart in an universal sense, regardless of your genetic starter pack. Drugs do not help in that regard.

Another direction: Why exactly do you want to get smarter? To impress yourself or others? You do not need to push yourself so much. Most of the time you do not need to be logical smart, but social smart. Empathy and sympathy with life is way more satisfying in my opinion than cold rational thinking - I am just talking about the continuum of those extremes. At least that is my personal experience. I am rather dumb like a brick and surounded by thousands of other dumb bricks than being all knowing, but unable to share any of my thoughts in a manner that anybody understands me.

I still think that there is the possibility that you have some sort of anxiety, which itself can lead to a decreased IQ. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/leading-emotional-intelligence/201104/where-did-my-iq-points-go

Cognitive behavioral therapy with a psychotherapist you can get along with might be your best bet to improve your smarts.

but what in the body makes a person smarter than someone else? Or should I say what makes a person easier to understand conecepts than someone else? there has to be a factor.

 

[sekio]

There is no magical "intelligence factor", although intelligence is correlated with general health in that it is hard to learn if you have beriberi or cancer sapping your energy 24/7. It's not directly correlated to happiness either, plenty of depressed people are intelligent and plenty of "simple" people are quite happy, and the reverse is true too.

Intelligence is really more dependent on environmental exposure to novel ideas, and promoting an attitude that "learning is good, and anyone can learn anything given the proper resources". It's really up to you to cultivate a sense of curiosity, be open to new ideas and don't be afraid to discard old ideas if the evidence doesn't support them. Look up definitions of words you don't know when you find them. Spend some time each day browsing a topic that interests you, be it genetics or programming or botany, Wikipedia is excellent for this kind of stuff and even has a version which is written in very simple, basic English.

Going to a library near you and reading there is also a good way to learn new things, some people find that they absorb information better from physical books and don't like reading off screens. And at a library you can ask the staff to help you find books and even help you to research topics, too! College or university professors can be contacted for help on specialist topics, and are usually happy to discuss with you or send you papers they have written on the topic. There are also search engines for scientific citations like PubMed, I use it quite often, and people on this forum are usually more than happy to explain or discuss papers cited from there.

Drugs will not make you any smarter, they can give you the energy to study but they won't directly increase intelligence at all. Dopamine has many studies showing that it is a reward horomone and not a magical happiness/intelligence chemical.

Everyone can become good at something, given they spend enough time and effort on it. I did not learn chemistry or cell biology in a single day, it's been a long process

 

[Tonberry King]

I'm sorry in advance.

This is going to come off harsh but it needs to be said - You cannot dope your way to understanding!

You must experience what is called "life" before you can make any sense of it. Sitting in lonely rooms and patting yourself on the back(getting high) will not make you a smarter person, sorry.

Get off the phone or computer, put the drugs down for just a day, and go try to enjoy something new. The best way for me to learn is to put myself outside of my comfort zone. You can read all you like but until you can put that information to work then what have you really learned? Don't center your day around getting high and just do things you do not normally do. Do something humiliating like bag groceries or flip burgers, it will teach you humility. Find a bum and just engage in basic conversation; not too difficult and can be very humbling. Always engage the older people you meet whenever possible. They have been through and seen more than you; very much you can learn from the elderly. These are all simple things that can kill time and you might learn something.

Now for the REAL advice: Pay Attention!
This is the best advice you can give any that want to learn. Keep your eyes and ears wide open and watch everything and everyone. The universe is always teaching us all day, every day. Whatever you put your time into-give it your full effort + full attention and you are sure to learn something new.

 

[trainman04]

I guess you both have some good points. But like why do smart drugs increase dopamine? This make me think dopamine is involved with intelligence somehow , not the key factor but just part of it. Doesent like the prefrontal cortex keep growing until you are like 25 and thats critical for thinking or something..maybe stimulating the pfc can help a little. Doesent like smart drugs increase activity in the frontal lobe.

 

[losangeles1993]

ive seen a lot of posts on here...butt this one leaves me flabbergasted

 

[Tonberry King]

I guess you both have some good points. But like why do smart drugs increase dopamine? This make me think dopamine is involved with intelligence somehow , not the key factor but just part of it. Doesent like the prefrontal cortex keep growing until you are like 25 and thats critical for thinking or something..maybe stimulating the pfc can help a little. Doesent like smart drugs increase activity in the frontal lobe.

Altering your brain chemistry will not put knowledge up there like you assume it will. YOU have to put the knowledge in there yourself buddy, no way around it.

 

[barrano247]

Id suspect that the way you should use this knowledge of dopamine's role in intelligence is by understanding that you can train your brain into using the proper dopamine pathways by simpily flexing those intelligence muscles. Perhaps you have certain factors that have carried your neurological activity away from the golden ratio of signaling activity in various pathways, but the most rational way to fix this is to simpily use your brain the way you want to with great dilligence. As far as we know, psychedelics are the quickest booster drugs for intellect, and sparingly using those substances may aid in your path towards better cognitive function. Still, as others have said you have to do the majority of the training of your brain yourself. Try to isolate factors in your life that may be working against you, by increasing your exposure to abstract rational concepts and working out habits that inhibit your progress. Also, explore lifestyle changes like exercise, yoga, meditation, diet, and try to avoid using chemicals as a crutch.

 

[doxylamine]

What do you guys think of this dopamine combo? Modafinil + Selegiline + Pramipexole + Entacapone + Disulfiram and Adderall.

Perfect! All that's missing is the L-DOPA but pretty much all the above drugs for Parkinson's, ADHD, excessive daytime sleepiness and alcohol abuse are definitely the key to intelligence when combined together. Don't listen to what anyone else here says, it's a big secret that people try to suppress around here but it's true and all you need is those drugs and you'll be a genius overnight! Worked for me! Even better to use is Tolcapone instead of Entacapone and Tranylcypromine instead of Selegiline. Desoxyn will produce better results than Adderall too. You really, really want specifically the Drugs of Last Resort to make this combo shine, and make sure to inject all of them into your carotid arteries.

Hey, here's a fun fact. Did you know that the word sarcasm isn't actually in the dictionary? Neither did I, until I took this combination. Blew my freaking mind!

 

[pofacedhoe]

troll thread

 

[JessFR]

I am tired of being stupid. I have a hard time understanding concepts, my memory is terrible, my grammar is horrendous and lots of other things....
I actually did a real IQ test.. I scored 90. Some say iq tests are not accurate but who knows thats all I can go by . I feel like crap.

I feel that dopamine is Key to high IQ. Thus I wanna increase it with drugs. I am tired of being dumb.
What do you guys think of this dopamine combo? Modafinil + Selegiline + Pramipexole + Entacapone + Disulfiram and Adderall.

What are other ways I can become smarter?

You can't become smarter. You're just as smart as you are. I mean sure, overall intelligence can fluctuate a bit, and with age your capabilities can diminish, but for the most part for your adult life your underlying intelligence is static.

Just stop worrying about it. High intelligence is overrated. Work on being the best person you can be. I'd say there's a lot of personality traits that mean a lot more than intelligence. Empathy, honor, honesty, charity. Etc.

Oh and your grammar and spelling don't have much of anything to do with your intelligence. And yes, IQ isn't a great measurement of intelligence.

Also, you may be smarter than you think.

My brother thinks he's stupid. He does really poorly on tests and says the same shit you do about having trouble with concepts. But he's not stupid. He's extremely smart. But his low self esteem makes him think he's stupid and his certainty that he's not able to grasp abstract concepts is a lot of the reason he struggles. He struggles because he expects to struggle and over complicates concepts by assuming he can't possibly be understanding them when he already does.

It's sad. He's so sure he's stupid and incompetent. And those beliefs result in him sabotaging himself. I'm sure he would do poorly on an IQ test too. And I'm absolutely certain it's bullshit. He's my brother, I know how smart he is. And he's way smarter than most people. He just sabotages himself and doesn't see that he's doing it.

For example, say he were doing an IQ test. I know what would happen, hed get frustrated, tell himself he can't do it, second guess himself so he gets the wrong answers. Then provided he doesn't give up half way because he thinks it's pointless, he will take the low score as proof he was right. When in fact if he'd just trusted himself he'd have done a lot better. The low score is entirely unknowing self sabotage.

 

[Goodwalt]

I guess you both have some good points. But like why do smart drugs increase dopamine? This make me think dopamine is involved with intelligence somehow , not the key factor but just part of it. Doesent like the prefrontal cortex keep growing until you are like 25 and thats critical for thinking or something..maybe stimulating the pfc can help a little. Doesent like smart drugs increase activity in the frontal lobe.

If you can understand and elaborate complex concepts like this one... you're not dumb. You just need to find something you love, study it until your eyes fall off, and then find someone who's willing to pay you for knowing it.
It's not that hard, people do it all the time hehe.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

But like why do smart drugs increase dopamine? This make me think dopamine is involved with intelligence somehow. Doesent like the prefrontal cortex keep growing until you are like 25 and thats critical for thinking or something..maybe stimulating the pfc can help a little. Doesent like smart drugs increase activity in the frontal lobe.

However the goal is a meaningful increase in function rather than an increase in activity. Drugs that increase dopamine and norepinephrine can help some facets of cognition such as working memory but dopamine and NE elevations functionally increase cognition within the confines of the Yerkes-Dodson law. Too little DA/NE or too much DA/NE in the PFC is bad for cognition, there is a sweet spot.

Some people may already be running low on DA/NE (ADHD/ADD patients can hypoexpress dopamine receptors for example) so for those people taking a DA/NE booster may help, but an average person may already have fairly optimal DA/NE levels in the PFC.

One situation is that when some parts of the brain are hyperactive (the default mode network) the parts of the brain responsible for cognition (the executive control network) may not get activated as much or function as efficiently. In that situation, its better to try to think about increasing the activity of the executive control network and decreasing the activity of the default mode network rather than neurotransmitter levels. This can be accomplished principally with mindfulness meditation. Stimulant drugs can also tend to increase activation of the executive control network for ADHD patients but this may not apply to you nor I.

 

[SnowBump]

Take my advice with a grain of salt but if you're looking for an easy pill or drugs that could possibly make you "smarter" look into Nootropics.

Again you can't simply take a pill and lose 100 pounds.. Analogy for taking a pill and gaining knowledge.

You can take things like adderall but all that will allow you to do is focus more and maybe cram more information into your brain, hence why college students often take adderall to stay up and cram a bunch of info in their head before a test etc.

Bottom line is Supplements and drugs like Nootropics/adderall can aid in your journey of gaining knowledge, but there's no easy pill. You still have to put in the work.

 

[Kdem]

I hope this doesn't come across in the wrong way ...

Stop smoking, and start studying. All the way to a university degree and postacademic education, if you can. And healthy living will help.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

Advice is to study, read, beginning with simple primers, such as say, if you wanted to become more knowledgeable in
chemistry, for example, you could start with high school textbooks on chemistry to learn the basics, and then read
increasingly detailed, increasing more complex material. Same goes for any topic, start with the basics, master those
and then seek out more complex, in depth material.

Also, regarding switching from entocapone to tolcapone would be beyond stupid, very, very dumb suggestion, also these drugs are contraindicated and could be dangerous with a nonselective/irreversible MAOI. Tolcapone was withdrawn from the market in many countries because of its propensity to causing hepatotoxicity, with some people ending up with fullblown liver failure because of the drug.

Studying, reading, asking questions here, reading here are very good ways to start increasing your knowledge of pharmacology
I learned a lot in this subforum, and still do. Admittedly I had somewhat of a head start, already having a good understanding of pharmacology, toxicology and chemistry, because they were already interests of mine, and because I am autistic, that gives me an edge in terms of intelligence, but the principle holds whether one is autie/aspie or NT.

As far as any drugs go, LOW dose stimulants can help as study aids, and the likes of the 'racetam family nootropics can help with retaining what is learned and consolidating it in memory. AMPAkines could also be of use, as they facilitate LTP (long term potentiation, a process vital for learning and memory. Some of them, the low-impact AMPAkines appear fairly safe, the high-impact AMPAkines unlike the low impact type, induce BDNF release, (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) which induces both antidepressive effects and promotes neuronal survival, differentiation and formation of new neuronal connections, but also, must be kept at low doses, because high doses can lead to seizure and excitotoxicity through excessive activation of AMPA type glutamate receptors.

Low dose AMPAkines could help with your studies, and there are always the 'racetams, these, with the exclusion of nefiracetam which is reported to cause testicular damage, appear to be quite safe. If I were to reccomend any of them that I have tried, pramiracetam would be the best I've tried, although phenylpiracetam is one I'd love to try, and reportedly has some stimulant effect. Aside from pramiracetam, aniracetam (this one is fat soluble and best taken along with fish oil capsules to aid absorption) is another good one. A good idea to take a choline supplement with this class of drugs.

Plenty of other nootropic drugs which whilst they won't make anybody smarter themselves, can be used to facilitate more effective learning, but only as an aid to effort being applied to learning.

 

[LandsUnknown]

The IQ test isn't that accurate. There's cultural bias in the test as well as biases towards "book learning" as opposed to practical intelligence and street smarts. So, I wouldn't focus on your IQ that much honestly when considering how smart you are. Also, 90 is a fairly average score and not indicative of being "stupid".

As for drugs making you smarter, dopamine boosting drugs like adderall are likely to make you more focused. This can give the illusion of being smarter since you're getting more done. However, they don't actually do anything with neurogenesis and I wouldn't say they make you smarter really. Adderall is known for its ability to increase mental performance though, especially if you actually have ADHD. Although, it doesn't work for everyone and some people get bad side effects.

Modafinil should NEVER be taken with adderall or while adderall is affecting you. Taking them together would be really rough on the heart and could send you to the ER. Modafinil boosts wakefulness and improves focus somewhat. I also wouldn't say it makes you smarter, but it is very long lasting and can help you to get a lot done over a long period of time. Modafinil is subtler in its effects than adderall and also doesn't give the buzz/mood lift that adderall does. It also tends to make you obsessive according to some people. Though, some people say that about adderall as well.

I'd pass on the other stuff though. The more you start mixing drugs/medications, the bigger the potential for interactions and side effects that may be dangerous. Other than the modafinil and adderall, nothing you mentioned strikes me as the sort of thing that would improve focus or do much of anything along those lines. All that adding them is likely to do would be to increase the risk of interactions. If you want to experiment with drugs to enhance performance, take one drug at a time rather than a cocktail of drugs.

 

[Ozle]

I am tired of being dumb.
What do you guys think of this dopamine combo? Modafinil + Selegiline + Pramipexole + Entacapone + Disulfiram and Adderall.

What are other ways I can become smarter?

A good start would be understanding why this idiotic combo is very bad idea.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

Disulfiram isn't going to help people for the most part. Its just an aldehyde dehydrogenase inhibitor, given to alcoholics who have physically detoxed, but essentially, need a guy with a baseball bat behind them all the time to prevent relapse. After the pisspot gets his skull cracked frequently enough, he learns to put two and two together, as in 'I drink, I get the shit kicked out of me'

It does have dopaminergic effects, but the potential for nastiness is too high. Just think, you want to go out socializing, you remember 'no alcoholic drink' but before leaving the house, you wash your mouth out with mouthwash, many of them are strongly ethanolic (I could mention one or two sold round here that would strip the enamel from your sink when you spit the stuff out) and (assuming you make it that long) you then go puke in your date's face before collapsing on the floor.