I woke up few moments ago. I had about 9hrs of sleep and one of those long dreams. I think that the 20g of Piracetam (10g +10g = 20g) that I took during the day has something to do with the slow development of my dream storyline and its length. It seems to me that I may be closer to turning these kind of dreams into lucid or semi-lucid since I had few situations (in the dream) where I was close to falling from a very high mountain/cliff (I remember when I was about 10-15 [now I am 34] I started lucid dreaming when realizing that I was not dying when falling from high cliffs (later on I began to fly, etc once I was realizing that they were just dreams).

Anyways, I am planning to take 30g of Piracetam today (15g +15g) since I am still not detecting anything special when I am awake.

AA

In the afternoon I felt sleepy, so I went to take a nap (around 4pm). At the end of about 3hrs nap I woke up from a dream.

The last part of the dream:
Some girl was asking for shortcut directions to some destination. I was pointing in the direction of the destination while struggling explaining to her about the roads that could lead to that place. Somewhat I ended up in her van/truck and she simply went off the road and was driving toward the direction I pointed. The ride ended on some edge below which there was a fancy living room. We went down stepping on few big couches (they were kind of like big steps about the hight of the human length. At the bottom I met her parents who were preparing some kind of dish or salad with red tomatoes of various sizes. They wanted me to try/eat some tomatoes. There were kids around eating red tomatoes from their plates. I wanted to eat some but i wanted to put them first in the plate and I could not find any clean/empty plates around.

Around that 'time' I woke up.

After that dream I was thinking of Piracetam molecules, anthropomorphizing them, as if they saying: "Hey dude, we are roaming around your body and fixin' some cells; we do the fixin' best when you are asleep. Here you go boy have these dreams so that you get to like sleeping more."

Soon I will take the other 20g Piracetam of today's dose.

Next day plan: 60g total (30g+30g) since I still haven't noticed any slight adverse effects. However, I am not going more than 100g/day (if I were to continue increasing the dose). 

AA

I am following the 100gPiracetam/day 'program'. It goes well with alcohohohol, especially with beer. If you put it in beer or put the beer in it that thing/mixture bubbles up.

I felt kind of euphoric today. As I was driving with 'my' yellow punch-buggy (yellow VW beetle) I noticed some kids hitting each other and one girl screamed at my face: "I am fucking being hit every time you drive in this street". Today I learned from a kid that the car I was driving was rare and thus kids could get the 'max points' by spotting one of these. Damn! I had no idea about this kid stuff. The reason I bought the manual yellow new VW was: efficiency and safety (easy color to spot; and .. reflective [think summertime]).

Anyways, as I got out of the car I noticed that my chest area was more pronounced (a little bit forward). I felt like I 'owned' this planet.

AA

Nah! I think I'll be around till at least our Sun burns up .... ha ha ... and, besides, Piracetam 'is supposed' to have antiaging effects.

Thanks Alex,
Your reply reminded me of an ICMM paragraph:

"For example, a growing intelligence with its security unquestioned (as it should be, in the care of a greater intelligence) will base its own concern about survival upon experience and availability of information. Anxiety over possible threats to survival, safety, or well being forces a prediction-judgment-guess program to run on every experience before the experience has taken place. Such a program screens every situation for its danger value and takes guesses based on the opinions or signals of others. There is no unquestioned exploration of the unknown, which is the big giveaway sign of pure intelligence. "Come down from there at once!" shouts the anxious grown up, "You’ll fall!" and, programmed as we are to do what is expected of us, of course we fall. –‘Would you have still broken it if I hadn’t said anything?’"

I got a little bit nervous when reading the 'don't-s' and I am thinking of lowering the dose to 80g/day for maybe few days and then slowly continuing lowering it. 'My problem' is that I still haven't noticed any adverse effects. The reason I am taking it with some alcohol is to 'make sure' that that stuff reaches 'every' cell (thinning the blood with alcohol and nattokinase; perhaps I should try some aspirin too). I am also taking 1g/day of resveratrol (I've been taking resveratrol for years). My rough temporary goal is, by drifting epigenetically, to put my body in physiological state similar to a 10-15 yo boy, and perhaps (a more ambicious goal) drift to a 'better' species.

AA

Alex, the 'positive effects', that some people gets taking piracetam (example, some people feels they have more verbal fluidity, and thought'flows' easier) are only experienced when someone is taking it (the drug), or are evidence of some kind of "internal change" (in the brain)? ... I mean some positive change that last when someone LEAVES the drug.

Sometimes i can't avoid to imagine the anology of anabolics with grow muscle, when the effects only last when someone is taking it ..BUT ..in that period someone has more strenght, better protein synthesis etc etc, and can grow muscle faster and train harder when is taking it .. and when they stop taking it, they 'keep' a big part of the 'gains made' ..

Can taking nootropics be employed to achieve something like this? .. Or the actual nootropic are not enough advanced for such 'comparation'?

Because if not .. i see it more like a cup of coffe, when you only take it when you need a boost, wake up, or something like that ..

At the moment i'm writing this, i remember a post of you when you said that drugs must be used only to achived some particular state of mind or to 'enhance' it ..

Sakiro:

Complicated question = long answer, get coffee.
Knowing the path:
First, everyone is different. That matters more than most doctors would like it to. 10% of the human  population can take as much codeine as they like and it won't even touch the sides. Others get long term pain relief from 50mg.
Second, all substances that effectively signal the system affect the brain, either directly or indirectly via body changes. What happens depends partly on your genome. If a gene simply isn't there, it can't be turned on or off, right? Results also depend on our current 'background' chemistry including things like cortisol levels, blood sugar, available nutrients and so on. Our current rate of metabolism has an effect too, as does mood and even what we are currently doing (eg., exercise or rest, concentration or daydreaming).
Then there are interactions with other drugs, including stuff like coffee, alcohol, tobacco, sugar, pain killers, sleeping tablets from the night before, cannabis you smoked a week ago.
So you'll see that nobody is going to get exactly the same results due to all these individual differences.
Most substances affect us both at the time of taking and after we stop, usually in different ways. We may not notice the 'after effects' unless they are unusual, or they may be well known (such as, if you want to get a hangover, drink loads and then stop.) If you carry on drinking the next day, you won't get the hangover but you're only kind of postponing it  :  )
Sometimes the after effects are more fun than the drug (like eating oysters), and sometimes a drug is only used for its after effects (for example vaccinations).

There are two main kinds of changes effected by drugs; genome changes and brain wiring changes. Often, but not always, both happen together.
Some drugs can make permanent changes to the genome if used long term. Alcohol is particularly likely to do this because methylation is a major affector of genes. Low GI carbs can do it too which is what we take advantage of in low GI diets. Omega 3 can affect genome changes, and so of course does cortisol. Even the humble Vitamin D affects over 2000 genes.

The same is true with anabolics. I wouldn't say they cause 'better' protein synthesis; just 'different' protein synthesis; i.e., proteins are being used for different things, and this is not necessarily an advantage (more free radical damage and faster burnout = shorter life). Records of horses racing on steroids will show you that. (Never bet on a 'doped' nag; they drop dead suddenly in middle age and embarrass everybody.)
I also see no evidence that 'benefits' of anabolics like strength remain if the lifestyle changes, having seen a good friend stop steroids and stop working out and turn very quickly into a lardass. But a lot depends on the individual.

Some drugs can make permanent changes to brain 'wiring' and/or body phenotype, and this can be used for beneficial purposes of growing denser networks. It isn't the drug itself that affects the change so much as the activities it may enable us to do. For a simple example, let's say someone wants a denser N2 and bigger muscles, but they find it difficult to start exercising or stopping eating burgers. Small amounts of amphetamine can put them into an energetic frame of mind and so they exercise, building up the body and N2. The behavior is what makes the change, and that's exactly the same with mental behavior -if we take LSD and have lots of creative ideas, N3 & N4 wiring will grow denser. That's a permanent change to the brain but it will only remain so if we continue exercising creative abilities AFTER we stop taking the drug.
This is an example of how drugs can be used to achieve a particular state of mind that can be recaptured after the event without the drug. This is the best way to train your networks to do things they couldn't do before. For example if someone can't do the relaxation response because they've never experienced true relaxation before, they can try using cannabis or alcohol to reduce the anxiety and then do the relaxation response exercise and they might find they can do it.
Experience is the valuable thing. Once we've had the experience of a given state of mind for a particular activity, it's much easier to recognize when we're going in the right direction to achieve that state again, I mean this is simple feedback, right? It's 'building a bridge' between the known and the unknown; making it familiar enough for us to recognize again.
So a drug can give us an example of what it feels like to be more relaxed, or more energetic, or more creative, and then we start to recognize when we're 'going in that direction' all by ourselves. Once the brain recognizes a state, it can start to copy it. This is exactly how I learned to meditate. I didn't really know what 'meditation' or the relaxation response meant because I'd relaxed my body but I'd never experienced that state of mind. So I used relaxants to 'shut down' the chattery front networks and was able to release the relevant transmitters and experience that inner silence and the wonderful high the relaxation response can give you. Once I knew what it felt like, I could meditate without drugs. That's a great way to use drugs for fast learning.
But there is never a hard 'rule' such as “drugs must only be used for...” (you'll understand why now that you know how different we all are).
Drugs should be used for any beneficial purposes, whatever they are for the individual. Being dependent on anything is never good, but sometimes can't be avoided in order to remain alive and sane. We are all dependent on food and water, and currently that's inevitable.  :  )

Walking the path:

Here's a little body hack that will show you the difference between theory of the unknown and experience of it:

Have you ever wondered how martial arts masters feel when doing their thing? Presumably that's currently unknown to most of us, right?
Stand at ease and slowly raise your arms in front of you to shoulder height and lower them again. Do this 2 or 3 times, and notice how your arms feel.
Now stand facing a wall and place the back of your wrists against the wall. Push against the wall (as hard as you can push without causing pain) with the back of your wrists for about 15 seconds. Rest for 5. Push again for 15, rest for 5. Push for 25, then immediately step back and do the 'arm raising' exercise again and notice how your arms feel.

That's how a martial arts masters' arms feel when doing this exercise. Now you've had the experience, you can FEEL the difference between master and beginner, right? You're able to imagine what that feels like when it's your whole body, not just the arms...(and if you do martial arts, you'll now recognize that feeling when it starts to happen naturally after a critical mass of  practice affects the genome.)

Nice post to read, and i'm glad because i read exactly what i was "hoping" to read. That drugs can be used to do some 'mental tasks' that whitout it can be very difficult to learn how it feels, and later like you explained it 'copy it'.  You said a lot of more things that enriched the answer too, thanks.

Don't you think that the research of nootropics or smart drugs (for us, neurohackers) are directly related to alzheimer disease? i mean .. the day that they can found a true cure for alzheimer probably we will get the best nootropic?

Cerebrolysin is getting a lot of 'buzz' in some forums (and some interesting experience of some users).. you have some experience with it alex? Personally I'm 'scared' with thing that requiere to inject needle in my venis sadly! (ok .. now if i remember well i think the injection is intramuscular)

Cheers.

I have been 'stuck' in taking ~30g/day of Piracetam. Overall I feel better than prior to not taking Piracetam. I may continue to listen more to my gut feelings on how much g/day or for how long to continue a preliminary 'plan'.

I read Alex's 'Hacking the genome'. It is encouraging to 'hear' my thoughts resonate with his writing(s).

AA