Are Nootropics pseudoscience?

Microdosing psychedelics for at least a couple weeks sometime in my life like a lot of the Silicon Valley guys do might be a worthwhile experience. (In spirit I'm a Silicon Valley guy, but California doesn't really call for me. They have enough people like me there, I think.)

But 2C-E? It's more interesting than any of the other 2Cs I've seen around (including the popular 2C-B), but like mescaline, there's something somewhat dark and sinister about it, in my opinion anyway.

Why do you prefer that one in particular?

No

I've had depression on and off since I was 5 (28 now). No anti-depressant has ever made me feel better and I've tried loads. Should I give nootropics a go?

>said the hippy drug addict on maine street

you need some pussy bro, have you got one?
tits and pussy

trust me

I've lost count of the women I've slept with, but I've never been in love.

Try psychedelics. They essentially do the same thing as SSRIs and are good for your mental health when used responsibly and if you don't have family history of something like schizophrenia. They'll likely bring long-term or permanent changes to personality regardless, as the research suggests.

You should also try Ketamine or its analogues. There is evidence that it is effective for treating depression.

Otherwise you might need something atypical if you don't have simple major depressive disorder. I'm bipolar and SSRIs send me into flights of mania and make me act impulsively.

Ketamine has a short duration. It works really well for depression but the short duration makes depressed people re dose before tolerance resets. Depressed people are also more likely to become addicted in general. Basically tolerance increases until you get off, then you withdrawal and are much worse than before. If you just keep re dosing there is the possibility for negative effects that are mentioned in the article below. personal experience would agree. They mention the possibility in this article.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4592658/

LSD is cool, but it can really lock you into thought cycles that can be depressing.

Undoubtedly

you're really shitty at counting if you can't count to 0 you fucking faggot

Zero isn't a real thing.

neither is your sex life.

You neither need to take ketamine every day nor would I suggest that you do. The antidepressive effects of one low-dose of ketamine can last well over a week:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269881113478283

K isn't really a drug with addictive potential or withdrawal symptoms, I mean, maybe on the order of cannabis or coffee or something.

As far as LSD goes, you're only going to get thought loops on heavy doses, not when you microdose (i.e., threshold or slightly below threshold doses). You wouldn't want to administer anyone heavy doses every day anyway unless you're trying to make someone your MK-Ultra mind slave.

The headspace is INCREDIBLY CLEAR. My ability to focus on small doses of 2C-E far surpasses my ability to focus while sober. I also play chess regularly, and my chess rating increases 100 points or more literally every single day I small-dose it. Significant anti-depression. A feeling of natural contentment with my own existence. Colors appear more saturated and with more contrast.

It's just fantastic.

Also, I've never gotten the dark / sinister feel from phenethylamines or LSD. I do get that feeling with literally every tryptamine I've tried though, from DMT to shrooms, to a number of the 4-subs.

Shrooms can definitely give a sinister vibe like a spooky carnival ride.

Maybe I'm misremembering 2C-E. It's been many years since I've seen it. I see a few trip reports saying it's similar to mescaline but not as many as I thought there would be. Lots of people are saying it's very visual, but I've never been much of a hallucinator (maybe moreso when cannabis is thrown into the mix). Too bad it's scheduled now.

I'm sure you've tried 4-AcO-DMT. I find it very human and healing. Many experiences I'd describe as empathogenic. It gets straight to connecting you to the universe, none of the weirdness like with lysergamides. Lysergamides are sinister in the sense that they feel like they're little trickster spirits that descend upon you and try to mindfuck you as much as possible at times.

Maybe I should pay more attention to my baseline mood before going into some of these things. I just know 4-AcO-DMT would never give me an experience that I would describe as "too intense" no matter how much I took while the lysergamides absolutely would.

0 literally isn't a thing by definition. but "isn't" is just as real as "is". Just like it's really true that there isn't a 3 headed clown next to you right now.

multi-day full fasting and does more for your brain than any nootropics ever will. And you can even drink coffee during them.

Nootropics fall into two categories:
>legal placebos (muh racetams, muh herbs)
>heavily-controlled drugs that actually work (adderall, lsd microdoses)

I do this sometimes when studying, although I use Hoodia to suppress my appetite (it works really well for me, and gives me a boost in energy too)

4-AcO-DMT is awesome. Short trip, but leaves me feeling motivated as hell for the whole day. And there's definitely a "too intense" thresh-hold for it, but it definitely is pretty laid back and meditative in "normal" doses (i.e. under ~30 mg).

2C-E does get intense. The dose-response curve is steep, and I usually won't touch anything more than 15 mg at a time. I mostly use it for microdosing though. Its nootropic effects at 1-2 mg are second-to-none.

Btw, I'm not particularly visual myself. If I'm not tripping at night, my visual field stays mostly the same on most substances. My trip experience is almost entirely headfuck, introspection, increased appreciation of beauty, etc. Consciousness-altering things. Not so much "hallucinatory" things.

Would you mind elaborating? What does fasting do for the brain? I'm curious.

Took 5htp. Really fucked with my mood levels. As soon as I stopped I went back to normal.

Currently taking ashwagandha, not bad. I do feel slightly more calm. When I say slightly note that I daily drink half a gallon of coffee. It also helped with muscle soreness (doms) on my weight training routine. If I stopped coffee I'm sure it would make me feel even relaxed.

Matcha tea seriously makes me happier after I drink it. I think the more antioxidants you have the better you feel overall.

Forgot to add: the "sinister" feelings I get on tryptamines arise from them making me more aware of my own mortality. My subconscious (and sometimes my actual conscious thoughts) will get me thinking about death and various unsettling facets of existential philosophy.

On the other hand, lysergamides *can* feel sinister, but more because they make me hyper-aware of my own body and its ailments, and sort of stir up some hypochondriac-type fear within me. It's usually not all that bad though.

Phenethylamines (mescaline and its analogues in particular) feel much more lighthearted.

It puts your body into a hyper alert state which allows intense concentration. its theorized to be an evolutionary adaptation for primitive hunters.

I am the guy you quoted, and the reason I'm pro-fasting is it increases focus personally.

I've also read some studies that I can't find now that linked Intermittent-fasting, and extended multi-day fasts, to increased neurogenesis. Combined with regular cardiovascular exercise this can be really good.

I should have been more clear. 4-AcO-DMT gives me the feeling that it would just physically aggravate my head or induce an ill feeling at extremely heavy doses before it would give me the same roller-coaster experience of fear as a heroic dose of LSD. It's a very dreamy substance.

>Forgot to add: the "sinister" feelings I get on tryptamines arise from them making me more aware of my own mortality

I do get this a lot with tryptamines, and I absolutely hate that aspect of them. I guess I would describe that as more of a feeling of melancholy than the depersonalization/derealization mindfuck experience (what I'm certain schizophrenics feel) that I get with lysergamides and that I believe you're describing as well, which I suppose is what I would call sinister.

I'm overemphasizing the grisly experiences I've had with mescaline-related substances, what McKenna called the "meat locker" (not specifically referring to mescaline-related substances). That was more of my most recent experience with one, so that's probably why I'm overemphasizing it. They have a somewhat distinct feeling from lysergamides though. I'm not sure I would describe them as "lighthearted," but in general they seem to have less of an emphasis on the inner mind-warps such as thought loops or bizarre life narratives sometimes casually induced by lysergamides and less of the potential bluesy rumination as tryptamines (but also with less potential feelings of slipping into meditation or universal connectedness that I can get with tryptamines and lysergamides as well, I suppose). Although it could simply be that I haven't taken as high of doses as I've had with tryptamines or lysergamides because I've had experiences akin to a lysergamide at higher doses.

trazodone small dose every evening as a sleeping aid.

Try homegrown organic mushrooms.

You're going to hurt yourself eating unverified unknown purity of x when you're actually trying to help yourself.

reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/66fo1w/antidepressant_trazodone_is_one_of_two_wonder/

More or less. Other drugs work because the body is meant to be in a balance - it can be over active and underactive and both are bad - yet a drug can disrupt this. Say mdma, it makes you hyper social and happy because the brain has measures to not be this - but your brain is designed to be as smart as possible. There is no benefit to it withholding intelligence.

The best you can really get are just things that stop you feeling tired.

There's a lot of evolutionary benefits to preventing and/or suppressing many different forms of intelligence.

there is also a thing called Semax

it might contribute a placebo effect

I know that modafinil and paracetam both have had results improving cognition in double blind tests.

Your autism isn't intelligence.

I think this is an overly simplistic interpretation of the brain and drugs.

The brain changes as it reacts to the environment. It isn't locked away from it in a perfect and pristine, hermetically sealed container called the skull. Everything we consume and absorb into our bodies is psychoactive on some level, and our brains evolved to adapt to our environment as our environment interacts with it.

Relative to what problems we are trying to solve, the same environment can hurt us or it can help us. As it's all context-dependent, there is no optimat way our brains are supposed to be to navigate all possible circumstances.

For example, MDMA is very promising for treating PTSD. Is it useful for people with PTSD to take MDMA in a therapeutic setting to cope with their mental problems so as to improve their mental health and quality of life and help them function better in other circumstances because of this improvement? It absolutely can be.

> modafinil
> grind teeth and urinate a lot
> no positive mental effects whatsoever

Yes but then all you are talking about is good health, nutrition and habit to keep your brain working well. By that standard getting 8 hours of sleep is a nootropic.

Not what I'm talking about. For example Individuals with a significantly higher relative IQ is not conducive for group cohesion. You're not going to find a mate if you ponder the properties of triangles all day while the rest of the men are out hunting.

I was talking about drugs in general.

you probably took the full 200mg pill right?

Gotta take like 50mg. 100mg at most. Anymore than that and you are bouncing around like a crack addict all day.

Is choline one?

So what's the chance of having some sort of mental breakdown on these things.

Pretty low unless you are using stims

even for someone who has their brain fucked up off of a hit of weed?

Weed to me feels like how other people describe LSD, and I have no problems with noots

any experiences with Super Male Virality (™)

No. I don't remember much from pharmacy classes but no. Nootropics help your memory during the learning process, although not much. Just don't overdose.

bump

Someone reply you shitters

Yes, to a certain extent

>
>(In spirit I'm a Silicon Valley guy, but California doesn't really call for me. They have enough people like me there, I think.)
>but like mescaline, there's something somewhat dark and sinister about it, in my opinion anyway.

You are without a doubt an autistic insane retard IRL. The way you type makes it so obvious.

So I bought Noopept two weeks ago and I am super impressed. I tried most of the racetams, and they are utter shit. Complete waste of time.

This stuff is fucking good though. It doesn't really add anything anything good, but I would say it removes bad things. What I mean by that, is it removes depression, removes fatigue.

I cranked out my masters thesis like a machine on this stuff.

'
>You are without a doubt an autistic insane retard IRL

Thanks m8, I'm glad you were autistic enough yourself to notice my contrived and purposely self-reflective writing style and sperg about it.

okay, I laughed

Microdosing 2C-E seems interesting asf. Wonder what 2C-C would be like.

Do you get much or any bodyload at 1-2mg ?

Why are 5-subs so much stranger than 4-subs also 4-MeO-DMT when ?