Huperzine-A

[qma]

This is actually the first "smart drug" I have become very interested in trying out. Has anyone tried it? If so, what is the verdict? Huperzine-A is a natural alkaloid extract of Huperzia serrata, a Chinese plant. It has been used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine for treating senile dementia. [...] uperzine-A does not create dependency and is therefore suitable for long-term use. It also has longer-lasting action, is absorbed faster, crosses the blood-brain barrier more quickly, has few or no side-effects and does not produce liver toxicity. Taking huperzine-A leads to significant improvements in memory, concentration and learning capacity. [...] Huperzine-A’s unique properties make it a potential treatment for a number of age-related cognitive deficits. Healthy individuals may choose to take a reduced dose for preventive purposes or to improve their cognitive performance. From this site Wikipedia page

 

[qma]

Supposedly it also makes it easier to enter "lucid dreaming", which is awesome if its true.

 

[HgaleK]

Originally Posted by qma

Supposedly it also makes it easier to enter "lucid dreaming", which is awesome if its true.

It works okay at increasing the vividness of dreams. Stimulants (such as caffeine) and narcotics are both known to increase the vividness of your dreams as well. B12+Melatonin before you go to bed may get you to vivid dreams more efficiently, as will waking up momentarily about 3 hours before you would normally wake and then passing out again almost immediately. The wakeup/pass out works well for causing lucidity because you tend to enter REM quickly after falling back asleep. Try to look at your hands when in a vivid dream and it may cause lucidity or partial lucidity.

Don't look at sites peddling products to make your judgements- most are full of ****. Look up research articles.

There are frequently reported side effects with huperzine-A. Some of them are fairly serious. Do your research. There is anecdotal evidence to support its use in increasing learning capacity, but it's significantly overhyped. Give methylated B vitamins a try first (please look in to proper dosing, side effects, signs of toxicity, etc.)

Do NOT mix it with choline sources. There is a very real chance of hitting ridiculously harsh (read: suicidal) depression fairly quickly.

In general you shouldn't be touching this stuff unless you've done your book work and have some understanding of the mechanisms involved.

 

[qma]

Originally Posted by HgaleK

It works okay at increasing the vividness of dreams. Stimulants (such as caffeine) and narcotics are both known to increase the vividness of your dreams as well. B12+Melatonin before you go to bed may get you to vivid dreams more efficiently, as will waking up momentarily about 3 hours before you would normally wake and then passing out again almost immediately. The wakeup/pass out works well for causing lucidity because you tend to enter REM quickly after falling back asleep. Try to look at your hands when in a vivid dream and it may cause lucidity or partial lucidity.
I thought looking at your hands was a method for prolonging the lucid dream (similar to spinning around), while looking at text and/or a analog watch twice "confirms" the dream-state and makes it lucid. Could be my memory playing tricks though.

Originally Posted by HgaleK

Don't look at sites peddling products to make your judgements- most are full of ****. Look up research articles. There are frequently reported side effects with huperzine-A. Some of them are fairly serious. Do your research. There is anecdotal evidence to support its use in increasing learning capacity, but it's significantly overhyped. Give methylated B vitamins a try first (please look in to proper dosing, side effects, signs of toxicity, etc.)
I did do some research on papers, but I admit it has been very half-hearted. Can you elaborate further on the supposed overhype? Most papers I have seen (abstracts only) clearly reports on significant memory improvements.

Originally Posted by HgaleK

Do NOT mix it with choline sources. There is a very real chance of hitting ridiculously harsh (read: suicidal) depression fairly quickly. In general you shouldn't be touching this stuff unless you've done your book work and have some understanding of the mechanisms involved.
I havent been able to find any experiments tested on humans, and thus no information on suicidal depression as side effect when combined with choline sources. Where did you find this information?

 

[HgaleK]

Originally Posted by qma

Thanks for this!!
I thought looking at your hands was a method for prolonging the lucid dream (similar to spinning around), while looking at text and/or a analog watch twice "confirms" the dream-state and makes it lucid. Could be my memory playing tricks though.

Anything that requires a significant amount of details may be warped in a dream. You're unlikely to notice it unless you're quite familiar with it. Your hands tend to look all sorts of funky when dreaming (I normally have multiple fingers and they are the same size/shape). Looking at a clock normally pulls me from the dream.

I did do some research on papers, but I admit it has been very half-hearted. Can you elaborate further on the supposed overhype? Most papers I have seen (abstracts only) clearly reports on significant memory improvements.

You need to look in to the language of these things to really understand what they mean. Here is a fairly basic example of how a study may look like it's saying one thing while meaning another. Significant in the context of a study means that the probability of results occurring by chance is less than 5%. You also need to look in to the context of the studies. Most nootropics are sold using studies based on dementia and Alzheimer's. There aren't many studies evaluating performance changes in healthy, fully functional adults.

I havent been able to find any experiments tested on humans, and thus no information on suicidal depression as side effect when combined with choline sources. Where did you find this information?

Per your wikipedia link "Huperzine A is also an Acetylcholinesterase inhibitor." There are several things that you should notice here if you're going to be playing with chemicals.
2) "Acetylcholine" This is a chemical involved in many processes having to do with your brain. Many nootropics involve messing with this
1) the "-ase" suffix. This means an enzyme. In this case one that is used to break down acetylcholine.
3) Inhibitor: it prevents the thing in front of it

We may gather immediately that this inhibits the enzyme used to breakdown acetylcholine, thereby increasing acetylcholine levels.

It's now a good idea to read up on acetylcholine and see what we're flooding our body with.

Finally we google until we find reputable looking literature on the chemical in question: http://www.acnp.org/g4/GN401000095/CH.html

Here you can teach yourself OChem for free so that you can have some idea of what's going on.

 

[qma]

Thanks man. Really appreciate this info! I love it when this type of knowlege appears.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

There is another way to go about lucid dreaming and that aside form the techniques mentioned look up a book called Encounters with the Soul;Active Imagination as developed by C G Jung by Barbara Hannah.

The technique basically involves remaining conscious while entering the REM state, not for the faint hearted. But it produces some interesting results and can be informative.

 

[chet31]

Originally Posted by qma

I did do some research on papers, but I admit it has been very half-hearted. Can you elaborate further on the supposed overhype? Most papers I have seen (abstracts only) clearly reports on significant memory improvements.

If this chemical produced SIGNIFICANT memory improvements with no side effects, pharmaceutical companies (as opposed to supplement companies) would have been all over it a long time ago. This is true of most supplements, BTW.

 

[Thomas11129]

Huperzine A is a nootropoic actinic that is acclimated to advance memory and action Alzheimer's Disease.The actuality comes from the huperzia serrata plant, which is a blazon of below moss frequently begin througout Asia.