Maybe a bit over the top, but you get the idea! I love learning new things, but I want razor sharp focus and the ability to process, and remember that info...
it seems like you are trying to pop a pill and get some kind of immediate focus/rush of clarity and intensity. don't you think this is abnormal and there would be long-term risks associated with any medication/supplement that delivered such a response?
don't you think improving your brain is an incremental process that would occur slowly overtime rather than like some light switch flicked on or off w/ a chemical?
im just curious...
I agree. The ancillary question (although this should be a first order consideration) is what permanent improvements one gets from a substance that gives such an acute response. Increased neurogenesis certainly does not result in immediate improvements. It takes delayed conditioning for neurons to be recruited and integrated into the matrix.
Those half-life correlated gains are the low hanging fruit, but that fruit is mostly rotten.
On that note... I'd recommend the natural route. Gotu Kola, Ashwagandha, and especially Bacopa have good Western clinical evidence backing their effectiveness, as well as 2000 years of use documenting both their cognitive effects and safety. The best thing about them is that they seem to offer whole body improvements.
Ergots, LSD especially seem like they would be very useful abstract reasoning, disparate element association, and pattern recognition. I've read really interesting reports on long term use. I used Hydergine over a 6 month period, and it was an amazing experience (at a dose of 10mg a day I believe). The fibrosis possibility scared me off.
Pot may be good, although it never gave me cognitive benefits until after prolonged nootropic use. My brain is definitely not the same it once was. I can feel this. It is far more confused, but far more capable. It is like I am putting together the pieces of my mind that were scattered by the many new islands of activity.
I would recommend both Piracetam and Aniracetam. I'm sure they confer long term benefits, but I think they are far more on the structural side; these effects certainly don't manifest themselves acutely after the wash-out, but I now have some synesthesia, a developing photographic memory (which started after maybe my 4th or 5th month of using aniracetam and hydergine together), and improved creative reasoning. I was able to do things like commit to long term memory 200 digits of pi in ~ 1 hour (although the retention of that 2 months later was admittedly only ~ 50%, however there was no recollection of the sequence during that time; a complete hiatus). Never could do it before the use. Also I began to write poetry at a high enough level to get into the most advanced poetry class at a major, well-known university. Had to submit an 8 poem portfolio. It was good enough that I was accepted although the submission was 2 months late (2 weeks into the class), and I had no experience writing poetry, never taken a class, and only read 1 poet (although I knew some disparate pieces).
Choline is obviously a must, and I would recommend either higher doses of phosphotidylcholine or CDP, because they have effects on systems other than ACh/AChE.
LSD I really want to try, but can't seem to find a source. Damn.
However, if you go the nootropic route, you absolutely have to use your brain, train as much as you can. Eating 1g/lb of whey protein wont do jack on its own, but if you train a heck of a lot you'll see great gains. This is a similar thing I think.
We are at least one paradigmatical technological shift away from delivering intelligence in a bottle, and even then the range of the effect will depend largely on cognitive exercise. That will probably come with genetic engineering. The best we can hope for right now, with the right nootropic use and serious cognitive exercise, are some real epigenetic, permanent effects in brain metabolism, and 2-3 standard deviation shifted IQ because of the combination of supplementation, and cognitive exercise (including meditation, n-back, studying, and much more). This is no Algernon. You won't learn a language in a week if you can't get past Spanish 3 right now.
Edited by AlexK, 19 November 2009 - 12:54 AM.
