Around 12 years ago I had a massage by a Russian masseuse. Nothing out of the ordinary. I had maybe 8 before that over a span of 7 years and a few afterwards. This particular one is of major interest to me and perhaps related to nootropic enhancement. I play guitar and sight read almost constantly. I have been doing that for around 20 years. I am not the best of sight readers but get by decently. After that particular massage I instantly noticed that my ability to sight read at performance speeds without any hesitation or mistakes had skyrocketed. It was as if I could not make any mistakes. There was this perfect connection between my mind, fingers and the notes on the page. After spending so many years sight reading it was such a shock to be able to effortlessly sight read the same tunes that were never effortless. There was this mild feeling of exhilaration and power that went along with playing the music. As I recall nothing else was affected. The world did not seem a brighter place, empathy and intelligence remained the same for other activities. I thought I would try to get some ideas here since oxytocin is in the news for muscle regeneration and of course oxytocin is released perhaps in large quantities during a massage but it is known to wear off in minutes so unless their are secondary effects perhaps it was something in the massage oil. Lavendar, lemon balm, nutmeg oil and a large number of other extracts are routinely added to massage oils. It was "exactly" like the movie Limitless but restricted to just music sight reading.
The effect lasted for as many times as I picked up the guitar for one afternoon and a bit into the next morning. I am not an expert but for this to happen whatever it was would have to have crossed the blood brain barrier. I can imagine that some masseuses have their own custom formulations to keep their customers returning. Like an idiot I did not go back for more.
What kind of cognitive enhancers are there to found in herbal extracts? What are the possible secondary effects of oxycontin that would last for 12 hours or so? What neurotransmitter agonists or antagonists might have been the source?
