• Neuroscience & Pharmacology Discussion Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Recent Journal Articles Chemistry Mega-Thread
    FREE Chemistry Databases! Self-Education Guide

  • N&PD Moderators: Skorpio

The Science Behind “Nodding”

I think a nod, though highly subjective shares some common elements if we compare like with like, ie - a gentle dihydrocodeine nod is qualitatively different from a hard morphine nod. Gentle nodding, which is often enhanced by xanax-type benzos in particular are hypnogogic in nature, may require person to sit and relax to bring them on, give that pleasurable detachment.

A Hard-nod in BL parlance is where the nod can occur in mid sentence, standing up, going to make the tea. This seems to have a more disassociative feel, ludic-dream type quality, with the 'nod' lasting longer (again, benzos seem to have a qualatitve effect).

I'm not sure how this adds to the thread but its clear from my experience that there are different types of nodding, with adjectives like hard, gentle, mild being used. I think hypnogogia of some sort is perhaps the 'sine qua non' of nodding but beyond that I'm not sure - this is worth investigating as its one of the more pleasurable elements of an opiate/oid high which might give insight into the initial psychological addicting pattern of various opiates/oids.
 
numinous (pronounced /nuːmɨnəs, njuːmɨnəs/) (from the Classical Latin numen) is an English adjective describing the power or presence of a divinity.

Etymology Etymologically, numinous comes from the Latin word numen, which originally, literally meant "nodding", but was associated with meanings of "command" or "divine majesty". Its earliest known use as meaning 'divine majesty' dates to the middle of the seventeenth century.


ADD was not probably the best place for this but I've been looking for an appropriate thread to bring up the fact that the word most used by academics for feeling the presence of divinity descends from the word for "nodding". Yeah , maybe it was about an authoritative gesture rather than a euphorically bobbing head. Etymologies get fuzzily, one might say noddingly indistinct after a while.
 
I can just see Caliguala after indulding in the poppy-seed pies of the conquered North Eastern terittories 'nodding hard' all afternoon comitting thousands to death or torture by his nod's royal ascent.

Great bit of info, I'm myself fond of the term numinous, as (you correctly point out) does much of academe - it's so uncontroversial even Hitchens and Dawkins admit to its existence.

I wonder is the same etymological stem brought us NOUMENA, those objects of pure reason that Kant so eloquesntly distinguishes...maybe he was 'on the laudenum' all along 8o
 
^If Caligula had been drinking a little more poppy tea and a little less lead acetate I think Rome would have been a lot better off haha.
 
numinous descends from the image of Jupiter nodding his head in approval (a ratification of his will). "nodding out" is unrelated slang.
 
very rarely am i able to experience a nod on oxycodone, swallowed or insuffilated. i suppose IV might have better chances but i've never tried. the only time i can remember really experiencing a nod was one of the 1st times i took 100mg of oxycodone at once and it was pretty intense.

since most recreational opiates work on the mu-opoid receptors which also depress respiration, could the 'nodding state' have something to do with lower blood-oxygen levels which is known to cause disorientation and hallucinations? i'm sure the reasons are more complex then that, but this is all i have to contribute to this thread right now.

someone figure this out plz :D
 
IV oxycodone definitely made me nod out... I remember I used to slam it, lit a cigarette and woke up when the cigarette was burning my chest... I constantly had burn marks and a shirt full of holes when I did oxycodone...
 
It seems obviouse to me, that it is just the brain entering REM sleep instantly. I never really nodded out very much even in my 2 years of heroin use. I always used in moderation, and the times I did nod, I usually had smoked weed, this happend to me in class after smokin some tar then havin a joint on the way to class, and I would not be able to keep my eyes open for the LIFE of me, having strange micro dreams and weird thoughts of things that did not exist. This caused me to quit smoking weed, cause I was actually scared of how intense these nods would be, I couldnt keep a single eye open AT ALL. I would fight it sooo hard and would fail.

I just recently started nodding again :) first off suboxone a few months back, very mild nods. And more recently Hydromorphone and morphine Super Nods, which is way more pleasent than the weed induced nods. Only 10mg of Methadone makes me nod mildly every time some point in the day.

I also was nodding really hard from 8 mg hydromorphone, 100mg morphine 20 mg methadone and 15mg oxy. I tried fighting it, and it was again hard. I gave up and me and my girl decided to pass out, the instint we turned the lights out and I shut my eyes on purpose for the first time, I was struck by jolting hallucinations. I was hearing music coming from my cell phone which wasnt on, and heard kids voices and loud foot steps outside. Then I saw a blue ghost over our bed. I told her to turn the lights on and she did and they all went away, yet I was left with a strange apiration where I was seeing the ghost, like my vision was warped where it had been. Again when the lights turned out, I closed my eyes and almost immediatly heard her talk this strange giberish, like something from the tower of bable, completely made no sense and was no language, it sounded so scary like a demon talking in her voice. I asked her if she was doing that, of course she wasnt. freaky, and intense.
 
I believe there's different kinds of opiate nods. From my past experiences, with some opioids a nod can lead to sleep, and with others, particularly in opioid naive users, a nod can make it difficult to sleep or prevent one from entering real sleep.
 
seep said:
Are you guys aware that Wikipedia has a pretty elaborate article on this? The article does need a drug-induced hypnagogia section, and if anyone can find research such as is described by WSB15, feel free to edit it in.

I like the convert-rapid-eye-movement hypothesis, which was verified by EEG in 2008:



The difference between regular hypnagogia and opiate-induced hypnagogia may be little more than a difference in the fragmentation of episodic memory during the phenomenon. In other words, this happens to everyone, but being on dope helps you be aware of it happening. So in essence, it is a perception phenomenon. Because of this, I've always lobbied for opiates to be studied as hallucinogens.
Click to expand...
Yes, hypnagogia is definitely the closest experience to nodding from a sober perspective. I think hypnagogia, nodding, and dissociative visions are all rooted in the same essential underlying processes.
 
I'm afraid I don't have much science to add here, but since people are chipping in with experiences: it seems to me that nodding is a very opioid-specific phenomenon. None of the dissociatves I have tried, not even ones with considerable opioid activity like 3-MeO-PCP, have ever resulted in such a state, so I doubt it is an NMDA-antagonist thing.

It also doesn't seem to be a particularly kappa-dependent thing, as Pentazocine made me feel "strange" but never had me nodding.

Curiously, I find Tramadol (when not used chronically) to be one of the most powerful nod opioids.
 
Allegedly, nodding-esque states can be reached on anticholinergics:

http://taimapedia.org/index.php?title=DPH#Hallucinations

Short periods of in which users report realistic (but not trippy/delirious) dream-like scenes of everyday things. (This author found it similar to nodding(What do you mean, it's completely like nodding, except without any feeling of pleasure, but there's no other way to describe it and it's not a blackout, that's when you have no recollection for a period of time, you can remember what happened so that wouldn't apply. I know opiates are fuckawesome but that doesn't mean the term nodding becomes so high and mighty that it can't be associated with any other drug.(A user mentions that when he opiate nods, his eyes are almost exclusively closed, making it more like a half-wake dream, while on dph his eyes can be (mostly) open and just as- if not more- vivid)
Click to expand...

Some ibogaine reports on erowid sound similar to this. I've never done opiates, though, so I have nothing to report.
 
Last edited:
When I said that the same underlying processes are probably involved I meant the dream-like vision aspect of the nod rather than the drooping of the head. I always figured the head drooping was just from being really sleepy. I think most 5-HT psychedelic visions, on the other hand, involve somewhat different processes -- mostly simply because the content of the visions seems to be far more densely symbolic and directed than dissociative, anticholinergic (based on reports I've read), or opiate induced visions, which tend to be more random in their presentation and "hypnagogic" in style.

That said, I have had directed and densely symbolic hypnagogic visions, most often in response to my attempts to remember dreams. The visions contain a number of symbols that cue the dream memories. For example, when I once attempted to recall a dream where I discovered upon remembering that I had kicked a baby as part of the dream narrative I had a hypnagogic vision of being inside a submarine (descending into the subconscious "ocean" in real time as I attempted to remember the dream) and seeing two baby footprints on the porthole window, where I was to understand a baby came up from the depths and kicked off the window. This vision was immediately followed by recalling the full dream. Perhaps the real difference between all these drug based visions is the antecedent psychological state leading up to them, i.e. a sleepy euphoric stupor in the case of opiates, and a stimulated introspective state and/or a state of ego dissolution, as is often the case, in the case of 5-HT psychedelic mediated visions.
 
Last edited:
I take diphenhydramine with my suboxone, and it definitely increases the nod, but always eyes closed. As I fall asleep, I frequently find myself thinking I'm somewhere else (work, parents house) and jerk awake thinking wtf am I doing here?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top