A couple of years ago when I was still hardcore into nootropics I made a couple of posts on a private board that I'd like to share with you guys now instead of letting them end up archived into obscurity. Note: I am not a doctor and nothing you read in this article should be construed as reputable medical advice. You should consult your healthcare practitioner before taking any drugs or supplements.

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December 22, 2006

Piracetam

I would like to begin my discussion with the topic of Piracetam, quite possibly the most underrated drug in existence and IMO a valuable tool. In a prior thread I posted about nootropics, which is the family of drugs used for cognition enhancement, but I'm not sure it was useful to everyone. I'm going to talk briefly about this wonderful substance and my experience on it.

Piracetam is a legal (uncontrolled) substance in the United States that was invented in the 60's. It is a GABA derivative and works on the acetylcholine system in the brain. How exactly the drug works is still unknown, but it is believed that it causes increased cognition in the cerebral cortex by facilitating faster ATP production in the brain. It also supposedly stimulates the corpus callosum, the bridge between the two hemispheres of the brain, thereby causing increased whole-brained thinking. I'll get back to that point in a minute. Piracetam is non-toxic and safe in high doses. No serious side effects have been associated with this drug.

Piracetam has been used to treat Alzheimer's disease for years, and has proven more effective than placebo. However, few studies have been conducted on healthy human beings and the methods used to measure changes in intelligence are suspect. Therefore, evidence of increased intelligence in healthy individuals is usually limited to circumstantial evidence and person-by-person testimony.

There are too many studies to list, but a brief glance at PubMed - http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ will reveal a number of interesting findings about Piracetam.

Piracetam has been reported to:

- In some cases completely cure alcoholism with a 0% chance of relapse. How this works is unknown.
- Cure marijuana addiction.
- Cause vivid/lucid dreaming.
- Cause increased creativity.
- Help with memory and slightly increase IQ scores.

My experience with Piracetam:

Last spring I was taking about 1600 mg (a low dose by some standards) of Piracetam a day along with 300 mg alpha-GPC (acetylcholine precursor). Piracetam is potentiated by substances that metabolize into acetylcholine. Alpha-GPC is one of the best ones out there. To find out more you'll have to do your own homework. In my personal journal I noted several odd effects of the drug such as:

- "Seeing shapes inside of objects" (such as the creases in a person's shirt or the geometric shapes that define a window). I attributed this effect to increased right-brained thinking caused by stimulation of the corpus callosum and noted that this might be a good artist's drug.
- More vivid and meaningful dreams
- Increased concentration at work, especially when programming difficult pieces of code and in my "zone"

- Better use of the English language, more elegant, fluid speech when in conversation. Better recall of vocabulary.
- Clear-headed thinking, even when pissed-ass drunk (studies have shown that Piracetam is a potent neuro-protectant, even against harmful substances such as alcohol and benzodiazepines that literally damage your brain)
- Substantially decreased desire for alcohol, and more terrible hangovers when I did binge drink (I'm not sure whether or not Piracetam causes alcohol to metabolize into more -aldehyde metabolites than it normally would, thus causing this weird "Clockwork Orange" effect where I'd get really sick after binge drinking)
- Increased feelings of "connectedness" with other people

So why did I stop taking it?

After a couple of months of heavy lifting I felt that the drug might have been causing me to burn more calories (increased brain ATP production) than I normally would, thus interfering with my workouts. In hindsight the problem was probably record stress levels, atrocious diet and lack of sleep. Going off Piracetam was probably a mistake.

What's next for me?

I am currently taking a small dose of a prebuilt stack called OrthoMind, which combines a whole bunch of useful cognition supplements. I am going to slowly start going back onto my Piracetam/Alpha-GPC combo over time and take note of the results. And after a while, I will start exploring Piracetam's potent cousin, Aniracetam, which I'm told is the real "money drug" for cognition enhancement.

misc notes:
A lot of dirty ravers report enhanced highs when combining Piracetam with traditional recreational drugs such as ecstasy. I don't do ecstasy so I can't comment on this.

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May 08, 2007

Piracetam Update

After being off nootropics for a couple of months I decided to take a mere 800mg of piracetam an hour or two before I went to bed and see what happened.

The results were nothing less than shocking. The dreams I had last night were some of the most vivid and spiritually relevant that I've ever experienced in my life. And I recall a certain point in the night where I woke up and suddenly started spontaneously recalling memories from my early teenage years in vivid detail. Not only that, but I was also recalling the exact emotions that I was feeling at the time the memories were formed!

Now granted, I have a very sensitive neurochemistry and most people wouldn't feel squat on 800mg. Actually most people who use piracetam take in excess of 2,000mg per day. But still, it goes to show the potency of this 40+ year old drug and the ineptitude of the scientific community in that they still don't really understand how it works or specifically what it does.....

- J

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May 11, 2007

First Experience With Aniracetam

For anyone who cares...

This last Wednesday I tried piracetam's cousin aniracetam for the first time before going to my usual Texas Hold'em game in the suburbs. I took a 300mg cap of alpha GPC at about 6:30pm just to get acetylcholine levels up and then at 7:30pm I took 750mg of aniracetam with a fat-containing meal (liver and onions, oh boy!). The reason it's best taken with a fat-heavy meal is because the drug is lipid soluble and I believe that you need that for your body to process it more efficiently.

In all honesty I was a little disappointed. Most people who've taken aniracetam have said "this is the money nootropic--good stuff" or "I literally felt my brain wake up". I didn't feel anything substantial on it and if anything it made me a little bit zombied out. But apparently it did work because by 9:30pm--just as the levels of the drug were peaking in my blood--I was mopping the floor with my opponents. I was doing stuff I never do in poker: switching playing styles at the drop of a hat by going from conservative to aggressive and back again, etc, folding on big hands when I "read" that my opponents have better hands, being able to bluff like a pro, and so on.

So in my experience it really does work. Also, like it's cousin piracetam, aniracetam has neuroprotective qualities and seems to be able to mediate the effects of neurotoxins like alcohol, which explains why people feel "surprisingly lucid" even when pissed-ass drunk. The biggest disadvantage is that its half life is so short--only a couple of hours.

Once again, taking this won't make you into Albert Einstein and shit won't start flying around the room like in Lawnmower Man. But any competitive advantage is an advantage. More personal experiments to follow...

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May 30, 2007

Piracetam Update

For the past couple of weeks I've been microdosing (taking a 800mg capsule) on Piracetam before going to sleep.

The results have been nothing short of remarkable. The dreams I have are extremely vivid and typically of a deeply spiritual nature. There is something to this that obviously is not understood as of yet. I never thought it could have such use for consciousness expansion.

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Where I'm at now... well, I'm not taking nootropics at the moment because I'm looking to keep my supplement load at a minimum until this detox thing kicks in and my skin clears completely. I still have a bottle of aniracetam and a bottle of orthomind sitting in my pantry if any of you live around Chicago and care to give it a shot. L8ter, - John