Nootropics The Big & Dandy Nootropics Thread (Stack 2)

[Volsam]

I've heard a few times that taking cholinergic and glutamatergic nootropics can seriously potentiate classical psychedelics. For those of you who have combined classical psychs with nootropics, what nootropics were you using, for how long, and at what dose? And did it potentiate the classical psych experience any, or not significantly affect it, or even diminish it?

Noopept, phenylpiracetam and in lesser extent pramiracetam cause excruciating glutamatergic headaches with most psychedelics, especially lysergamides. Aforementioned noots potentiated looped thinking and hypomania. I like using them by themselves or in combo with low dose stimulant, they are great for increasing focus, attention, reducing appetite, increasing initiativeness and provide a mild level of stimulation themselves.

CDP-Choline was fine in low doses combined with psychs until it started causing chest pains and other side effects of acetylcholine overexpression so I discontinued it's use entirely.
I prefer lecithin and eggs as a choline source, Centrophenoxine is also really good, but dont take too much of it or it might make you depressed!


My favorites to go with Psychedelics are:

Aniracetam - great music potentiation and slight increase of visual activity, no noticeable side-effects combined with different variety of psychs.
When comboed with a psych, use about 400-800mg, by itself - about 800-1600mg.

Centrophenoxine - adds cold analytical vibe, greatly enhances memory recollection for me, adds minor stimulation and increases initiative function.
When comboed with psych, use about 100-200mg, by itself - about 200-400mg.

Oxiracetam - very nice and sparkly addition to psychedelic adventures. A much better version of Piracetam (which becomes obsolete when you have Oxiracetam) - increases memory recollection, pattern recognition, visual effects. Not by a huge margin but noticeable enough. No noticeable side-effects combined with different variety of psychs.
When comboed with a psych, use about 500-1000mg, by itself - about 800-1600mg.

Agmatine Sulphate - not really a nootropic as far as the molecular structure goes but it is very nice and interesting substance acting in many ways: as a natural neurotransmitter on it's own, NO - promoting vasodilator, weak NMDA antagonist and imidazoline receptor agonist (MDMA also posses good affinity for imidazoline receptor for example). Goes nicely with pretty much everything. Increases general effects slightly, "smoothes" things over.
Pretty much always take about 500mg of it, sometimes more, sometimes less.

Magnesium - is another notable supplement that is often considered a nootropic. It is a good remedy for body loads, vasoconstriction, cramps and such things. Make sure to use the bioavailable form of citrate, glycinate or similar, not the oxide one - this one most likely will just work as a mild laxative. :D


I should mention that certain psychedelics, such as DMT for example, do not really go with nootropics at all - it becomes too weird, too complicated, hard to bear with experience. It also might happen with any other psychedelic, there are just too many variables at play.

- Does Gingko Biloba also trigger dysphoria in you ? I will now avoid products with it, because the trade-off is way off for me

Yes it certainly does to me. It also makes me feel cold and robotic. I dont use it for that particular reason too.

- Did anyone realize a positive effect from consuming choline-derivates (CDP-choline for instance) ? I got the feeling, that it is all placebo. I rather eat a lot of eggs rather than buying expensive placebo (?) supplements

Plenty of effects, in fact, too much in my taste - it easily can cause acetylcholine overexpression symptoms, such as chest pains, tightness, muscle cramping, eye ticking. I prefer Lecithin, eggs and occasional Centrophenoxine as a source of choline.

- How high do you guys rank Huperzine, I guess it is essential in a stack ?

I use it pretty much exclusively when I go to sleep to have more dreams and to wake up more refreshed with less hours. It has numerous interactions and you gotta be very careful on redosing as it seems to last quite long. I like experimenting with it though and it's high potency definitely allures me

I suppose I would just want to extract the good stuff from it (caffeine, theanine, antioxidants?)
I just had a pouch of about 3 oz in the pantry that my ex had left and since I?ve gotten heavily into making kratom extracts I figured I would just give it a shot. I?m not a tea drinker but I like the idea of putting things in convenient little capsules.
So I did end up trying it. Seemed to work out fine. It dried nice and easy; much more so than kratom. I started with a quarter gram and felt nothing. Tried a half gram next day and maybe felt a little something. Today I?ll try a full gram.
While making it I realized it?s probably just the same as this stuff I used to buy at the vitamin shop. Oh well, it was fun, but it?s so inexpensive to buy in capsule form that if I ever want it again I won?t bother to put all that effort into making it.

I know very little about nootropics, just recently started hearing the word but I?m very curious.

A lot easier to just purchase a green tea extract or matcha tea extract - different standardized extracts out there that are pretty cheap and very effective. Fun to work with powders yourself though, I totally get it!

 

[Xorkoth]

Oh yeah, agmatine, I like it a lot. It's a great adaptogenic nootropic, it substantially helps to revoke drug/alcohol hangovers and it just makes me feel better/more functional regardless. I just bought a big tub after being out after going through my first tub a while ago, and I'm really glad I got it again.

I've also tried oxiracetam, and I agree it's very piracetam-like. Probably better, but I do really like piracetam and have the most experience with it of any nootropic.

Magnesium I don't consider a nootropic, but you're right that it can be great for bodyloads, also if your muscles are sore in general, and if you want to relax for sleep without taking an actual drug. It's a surpringly effective muscle relaxer.

My stack lately has consisted of about 150mg of caffeine, 500mg of curcumin, 250mg of resveratrol, 25mg of piperine (black pepper extract, to massively increase oral BA of the previous two), 1 gram of agmatine, a gram or so of kelp, and ~500mg of cordyceps mushroom (and occasionally a reishi mushroom extract). I am out of -racetams at the moment. Though I may have some aniracetam somewhere and if I can find it I'll give it a try today, I have never taken it much and would like to get more familiar with it.

I also take 5-HTP whenever I've done a serotonergic stim/empathogen recently.

One that's really interesting is galantamine... it's a nicotinic receptor agonist, it doesn't get you any sort of high but if you take it before beds you'll have way more intense dreams, multi-layered things, from what I understand it's sort of like sleeping with a nicotine patch on. Not the most restful sleep but much better at improving dream recall/lucidity than any other thing I've tried.

 

[Ziiirp]

I use it pretty much exclusively when I go to sleep to have more dreams and to wake up more refreshed with less hours. It has numerous interactions and you gotta be very careful on redosing as it seems to last quite long. I like experimenting with it though and it's high potency definitely allures me

Re: Huperzine. Thanks for the info. I got a blended product with lots of caffeine and Huperzine in it. It makes me sleepy and I wondered, where that comes from ... They seem to have messed up the Huperzine dosage.

 

[Lachdanan]

Anyone able to get a hold of this thiophene analog of Modafinil? The journal is behind a paywall, but there may be more interesting structures to be tasted here.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.7b01313?src=recsys&journalCode=jmcmar

 

[Tranced]

What's the name of the nootropic that was pretty big in maybe around the mid 2000's. I'm sure it was said to be quite effective, and that at one point people thought it might have some kind of adverse effect, maybe on the heart. IIRC it began with the letter h. @Shadowmeister , I could swear I've heard you talk about it being one of your favourites before, perhaps quite recently.

 

[Xorkoth]

Hydergine. Ergoloid mesylates. Albert Hofmann invented it as well and once said he took it daily, I believe. It was my favorite nootropic, hands down. It was like a low dose of LSD. I was depressed at the time and it really helped me. It's too bad it's really expensive.

 

[Aeon Psyche]

Is Fluoro-Phenibut worth trying if you don't notice effects from regular phenibut? Phenylpiracetam? What to expect? Fasoracetam? I have very little experience with nootropics.

wait what, hydergine can make you trip slightly? I thought this was widely available and not worth using ...Hmm

What about Noopept?

Am I wasting my time with these substances? With my brain damage I suspect I would not notice much or anything beneficial to me...

 

[Xorkoth]

fluoro-phenibut is actually more like fluoro-baclofen, it actually more resembles baclofen. It's more of a pure GABA-B agonist like GHB (but not as good as GHB). Much shorter lasting and quicker to hit, more potent, more acute. That said I prefer phenibut which, IMO, is one of the best drugs there is. Neither of them is a nootropic at all.

Fasoracetam is supposed to help upregulate your GABA-B receptors. I have some and have used it to try to help recover from phenibut abuse.

Hydergine is not easily available but it's about the most effective nootropic I know about. There are also other claims such as it regenerating cell mitochondria which should decrease the effects of aging, though I don't know how much that's true. On the other hand Hofmann took it daily and he lived til 102 and was still traveling around giving speeches at age 100.

Noopept is one of my more preferred nootropics, when snorted in 10mg or so (or oral at 100mg or so, it's not very BA orally), it produces a quickness and ease of thought and some energy. I quite like it, it's more noticeable than others I've tried. Of course it's difficult for me to imagine you not noticing effects from phenibut. Phenibut is a rather subtle yet powerful effect if you dose right. Some people seem to expect all drugs to be like BAM NOW I'M HIGH and none of the nootropics are that way so you may be disappointed with the whole lot. What the nootropics are good for is making your brain work a little more efficiently and in some cases, in mitigating damage to your brain.

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

Weird how phenibut can have so differing effects on people.

500mg made me an unmotivated, sleepy and stuttering mess. 1g felt like poison, passing out, being extremely weak, headache, never touching it again.

 

[Xorkoth]

Whoa weird. 500mg does virtually nothing to me, 1000mg can produce light good effects, but 1.5-2 grams is the sweet spot, it makes me utterly fearless and highly sociable and the confidence makes it very easy to make new friends, make business connections, and play music (I am often doing these 3 things at one when playing shows). It's also very euphoric and motivating. If I take more than that, it becomes shitty feeling (overdose). I gave my friend 500mg at our last show and he said he only realized the next day but that he felt far more social and confident than usual and played the best show of his life. When you dose it right, you don't even really feel like it's a drug, it just feels like you feel on top of your game like you're having the best day,

 

[Vastness]

Fasoracetam is supposed to help upregulate your GABA-B receptors. I have some and have used it to try to help recover from phenibut abuse.

Would be very interested to hear of your experience doing this, ie, dosages, Phenibut and Fasoracetam frequency and whether you feel it made a difference.

I got some Fasoracetam for the same reason and have been using it sometimes at the same time as phenibut, sometimes on days without, sometimes before bed, usually between 40-80mg per dose. Honestly though I just don't know if it's making a real difference or not.

I am a big fan of phenibut also and do take it pretty often - maybe 4/7 days a week, between 1-2g - maybe at least 8 months out of 12 for several years now... so I feel like it must be having some effect on my brain... but overall I'd be hard pressed to point to any significant negatives. I have occasionally felt that it is having a negative psychological impact of some sort, but retrospectively (ie, looking back on times I felt more stressed about other stuff) I'm not so sure. But honestly for me I feel like phenibut is a nootropic... although I don't rule out that being a mild long term dependence that's built up and eroded my sans-phenibut baseline level of cognitive ability.

 

[Xorkoth]

Yeah I love phenibut and have a long history of skirting (and failing to skirt) dependence. I haven't used fasoracetam consistently enough to tell if it helps. The time I actually fully quit phenibut for like 6 months, I had fasoracetam but forgot I had it and never tried using it for the very purpose I got it for. Right now I'm using phenibut about once a week, whenever I play a show. I still get rebound withdrawaly feelings partway through the week from it so I think I haven't given it enough of a break but it's a valuable enough tool for me and the rebound is light enough that I'm alright with it. I'd like to try to use faso in a regimented way, and then not, and compare.

 

[Aeon Psyche]

fluoro-phenibut is actually more like fluoro-baclofen, it actually more resembles baclofen. It's more of a pure GABA-B agonist like GHB (but not as good as GHB). Much shorter lasting and quicker to hit, more potent, more acute. That said I prefer phenibut which, IMO, is one of the best drugs there is. Neither of them is a nootropic at all.

I've tried and abused baclofen for the ghb like effects, I would swallow a whole box over the whole night and be quite high. I have continued it's use so much that I started getting withdrawl from it in the form of cramps, as it is a muscle-relaxer, my body would cramp up so much, I could not walk, My throat would turn 360% like an owl's head and almost every other body part was
affected, I used for an attempt to quit smoking as it has it's positive qualities to quit drinking and as I noticed, just as much with nicotine addiction. I have passed out from it a few times just like
ghb would put you in a temporary coma. Someone threw his fist at my head but i did not wake up, Now. If I would use two pills, i know I will faint and be in a short comatose state.
I do not even want to touch fluoro-baclofen. The withdrawl could have killed me if it wasn't for my temporary immortality within this life.

 

[Xorkoth]

Shit man yeah, stay away. No wonder you didn't feel phenibut. To me phenibut is a lot like GHB but WAY less intense and much more subtle, but it opens me up in a similar way. Fluorophenibut is more like GHB outright except much less good. I finally got to try GHB last summer and I went through 200 grams and broke all my rules and ended up dependent, and I used phenibut to wean off and then recently jumped off phenibut by using some gabapentin occasionally. Now I get some rebound from when I use phenibut or gabapentin (which I do when I play shows because it's just so good for that), but then I feel fine. GABA-B agonists are no joke.

 

[Vastness]

Right now I'm using phenibut about once a week, whenever I play a show. I still get rebound withdrawaly feelings partway through the week from it so I think I haven't given it enough of a break but it's a valuable enough tool for me and the rebound is light enough that I'm alright with it.

Just to confirm - you're using phenibut once a week but still getting withdrawals? I'm reading "partway through the week" as basically in between weekly phenibut doses, so, a couple of days after dosing...?

This is kind of surprising to me if so, I wouldn't think you would get any negatives really with that kind of usage. Although if I'm honest with myself it's pretty rare I go more than 3 days without dosing, so perhaps I just haven't given myself time to notice the withdrawals... I also use a whole cocktail of other nootropics on a semi-regular basis which obviously muddies the waters even further as far as what exactly is going on in my own brain...

I think with phenibut the rebound is subtle enough that it's not always obvious that it is a rebound, which is kind of a double edged sword I guess, on the one hand it's easier to ignore the gradual erosion of chemical-free wellbeing, but on the other hand because any feelings of badness cannot be put down to phenibut definitively, it does not manifest as a definite compulsion to do more phenibut... at least in my experience.

In contrast to, for example, kratom, which I have intermittently experimented with, most recently during a 3 month or so break from phenibut at the beginning of this year. In my experience this has a really obvious fade and an obvious day-after rebound listlessness and "down" feeling, which I found (probably fortunately) quite off-putting.

I'm quite curious about F-phenibut but it sounds a lot more "druggy", and not really anything special, so I'll probably stay away.

 

[Xorkoth]

Rebound/very light withdrawal are kinda hard to tell apart but the thing is, I've been physically dependent on GHB and phenibut recently, and I've now fully withdrawn phenibut 3 times in my life. Generally it is accepted that there is a kindling effect when you start to involve past physical dependence, that makes it easier to get there again.

Yeah F-phenibut is no phenibut. It made me walk a little unsteady and reminded me of GHB except a lot less euphoric. Basically a much more rapid "hit" than phenibut (like 30 minutes) and over in, say, 6 hours, also the feeling was not nearly as wholesome and sparkly. Like I said it actually more closely resembles baclofen than phenibut.

 

[Perogies]

Has anyone tried fasoracetam or coluracetam and psychedelics? I have read varying reports on racetams and psychedelics and wondered if the two that I have would change the nature of the trips I am going to be having in the next few months with 4-aco-dmt, 4-ho-mipt, 4-ho-met. I am also going to be experimenting with DPT, MET, and MiPT. Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[Ganjcat]

would these drugs help with anxiety and depression?

 

[Xorkoth]

Nootropics, you mean? They can for some. It probably depends on what is causing your anxiety and depression though. Do you know what's causing it for you? Or is it just there and you don't know why?

Has anyone tried fasoracetam or coluracetam and psychedelics? I have read varying reports on racetams and psychedelics and wondered if the two that I have would change the nature of the trips I am going to be having in the next few months with 4-aco-dmt, 4-ho-mipt, 4-ho-met. I am also going to be experimenting with DPT, MET, and MiPT. Thanks in advance for any input.

I have not. I combined piracetam with 2C-E once and had an unexpected complete ego death, most overwhelmingly psychedelic trip of my life. 2C-E is always intense but other times at that dose (18mg) were nowhere near as strong. I never combined 2C-E with it again but I have combined other psychedelics with piracetam before and since that trip, with results inconclusive, which suggests a small interaction if any. I haven't tried any other racetam with psychedelics.

 

[Hexagon Sun]

I have mixed piracetam with different phens and triptas and everytime the trip was on overdrive and a bit too much just after the piracetam kicking in. It seems the racetam intensifies the psychedelics in a somewhat uncontrolled way. For sure more experimentation is needed but I wont be doing it again. If you plan to do so go on the safe dosages and settings (and report your findings)