Last year for academic purposes I went on a heavy long-term nootropic regimen, it went a bit like this:
1-1.5 g piracetam qAM or BID PRN
250 mg choline qAM
240 mg Ginkgo Biloba Extract containing 20%(?) Ginkosides qAM
1 Vit-B Complex
Too much espresso
I did not respond well to the piracetam. WAY too much mental stimulation, I felt like my neurons were burning through so much glucose. I did experience some memory enhancement and, in the vein of Reimann Zeta's account, a sort of chemical thesaurus effect. I also found my general demeanor to tend towards nervousness, pronounced social anxiety juxtaposed with extreme extroversion, and annoying verbosity.
The chemical did have an amazing effect on the depth of cognition, every idea seemed Platonic in form, and the volume of thought production was downright overwhelming. I would say that this could be considered a "psychedelic" effect of piracetam, as I think back on it now, I can see a striking similarity between the cognitive effects of piracetam and the cognitive effects of certain psychedelics, 2C-E comes to mind, and LSD, but the similarity there is less so.
I'll explain: My thoughts come very rapidly and there is a web of interconnectedness, such that each idea generates a slew of of new somehow related ideas almost simultaneously; the information just rushes through so fast and there is so much connectedness that there is no time to encode anything and make use of it later. For me at least, piracetam is a most inefficient tool.
Xorkoth, your piracetam+2C-E report came to mind just now when I considered the 'information rush, interconnectedness, depth of perception' psychedelic effect of piracetam; is it possible that the 2C-E potentiated the piracetam, instead of the other way around? Or that it was a unique synergy rather than a potentiation of one or the other? I'd also be interested in your best estimate of your ability to recall the experiene in full, although since the report is stored electronically, you'd have the advantage there.
And I've always seen really high dose quotes for piracetam, but right around the time I stopped taking it for all of the detrimental sides, I would be 'off-baseline' at or below 150 mg.
Took a summer break from nootropics and this year I've been focusing on plant-based nootropics, my stack goes like this:
1-1.5 g chocamine qAM-->gets me strongly and smoothly dialed in, and it's got more antioxidants than green tea, plus the euphoria and increase in libido.
120 mg Ginkgo biloba w/ 20% ginkosides-->less is more with ginkgo
150 mg Bacopa monnieri BID-->a really excellent nootropic. Very calm, collected thoughts, and marked improvement in memory storage and recall.
Lots of Fish and Flax Oil
The occasional 500 mg of rhodiola, especially during weeks with multiple tests or papers due.
I recently cessated my 2-8 mg daily nicotine for general health purposes.
400 IU Vitamin E qD or BID
500 mg Vitamin C qD
200 mg ALA if I'm feeling toxic, like I ate too much tuna and need to chelate those heavy metals.
Also 2-300 mg GABA and ZMA nightly to promote healthy, restful sleep.
And since I have placed an emphasis on my overall health and stuck to nootropics of plant origin, my mind has generally been more orderly, I am of more even temperament, and cognitive tasks have become easier to manage. For a more quantitative measurement, I can compare my GPA in fall of 2006 (2.583) to my current GPA (3.833), though there are too many confounding variables to attribute this change to a substitution of nootropics. Maybe I was experiencing toxic effects from piracetam? Come to think of it, I was still using aspartame with alarming frequency during that period, excitotoxicity has certainly been attributed to it. Could the piracetam exacerbate excitotoxicity from an overdose of L-phenylalanine?
I definitely want to try Hydergine, I tried a flavored nootropic mixture powder that I believe contained hydergine and that at least was a most excellent formulation.
5-HTP is a shitty substance, it seems most here agree. I've always benefited from post-MDMA 5-HTP supplementation, but my attempts at 5-HTP alone for sleep promotion and mood lift have all resulted in an uncontrollable appetite for carbohydrates and fats and a feeling of being emotionally disconnected to the people around me.
I would be very much interested to know your thoughts, especially those on my adverse reaction to piracetam. And that really is all that I have got to say about that.