Nicotine Dreams - The Effect of Nicotine Patches on Dreams

[Mr X]

explanation :
this experiment is very simple, to determine if https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine has a consistent effect of causing vivid dreams and to check if nicotine helps the participant remember dreams.
i think the nicotine patches will cause vivid intense dreams in all persons participating. i do not know if they will help with remembering dreams however i suspect the intensity of the dream itself will help make the dream more easily memorable.

objective :
participant consumes nicotine via patches while sleeping, participant records their experiences on the patch and the experiences of sleeping with no nicotine patches over the course of one month. four reports are to be made by the participant.

qualifiers :
people who do not smoke tobacco, people who do smoke tobacco, people who have quit smoking for long enough to not be at risk of nicotine addiction due to this experiment.

dis-qualifiers :
pregnant people, people who have recently quit smoking.

warnings :
participant may experience vivid dreams or nightmares, sleep disruption, and possibly not feel rested the next day. take that into account when choosing days to participate.

resources required :
-8 nicotine patches, purchased from a pharmacy/chemist, preferably a name brand. (researching online for what brands are sold in your country before going to the store is recommended.)
-1 month. 2 nights per week.

details of the process :
-participant should say in this thread that they are participating. from that day, they have 4 weeks (4x7 days). two days per week the participant should use the patch, spaced out days would be best but is not required. posting to ask for advice on what patch or dosage to use before committing to the 4 weeks is ok.

-participant should indicate if they are a smoker, non smoker or ex smoker.

-8 nicotine patches are required. depending on what is available locally the strength of the nicotine patch is up to the participant, it can vary over the 4 weeks but the strength of dosage must be recorded. you do not want 24 hour patches, so patches designed for less than 24 hours are what is wanted.

-patch should be applied at least 60 minutes before trying to sleep. it should not be removed until the participant is awake.

-participant should keep a journal of dreams for the entire 4 weeks. this is to determine if the nights on the patch are significant.

-reporting all journal entries is not needed.

-participant should make 4 reports of their experience in this thread, one after each week (2 patch sessions), and the final report at the 4th week. reports should include date of experimental nights.

-content of dreams can be included in reports, and lucid dream attempts are encouraged but not required.

mr x.

[Mr X]

ok,

monday the 26th of october is my starting date for this experiment.

will report what strength and type of patch i use after the first week.

i am not looking forward to having nightmares if that happens, but if it does i can live with it. i have recently had experiences of bad sleep disruption and nightmares without nicotine, so what ever happens i will deal with it. i have also done things that i know cause me nightmares in recent weeks, such as taking vitamin d tablets. pretty sure im pretty desensitized to nightmares for now. my point is - bring on the intense dreams.

i am curious if the patch nights are different from other nights.

x.

[Mr X]

hello,

report 1 part 1 -

almost as soon as i posted this experiment, i noticed an flaw.

-participant should keep a journal of dreams for the entire 4 weeks. this is to determine if the nights on the patch are significant.

as far as i know, keeping a dream journal is an common system for people wanting do lucid dreams or related things. so it seemed that the journal part could be what results in remembering dreams, not nicotine. although it is also required, how else to tell if the nicotine has any effect other than compare it to nights with no nicotine.

i am just saying that was a concern from the start, that the journal keeping would be what causes any enhanced dream recall. and that is what happened so far.

part 2-

no patch on day 1,2,3,4,6.
patch on day 5 and 7. friday and sunday.

from day 1 i started remembering my dreams much more easily. when i woke up i went straight to my pc and made dreams.txt, and typed down what i could remember. which was an pretty big detour from my normal morning routine. i could remember lots of details, compared to the usual nothing at all.

that was the only dream where there was a f4 character, which was mr j asking me why i had been having nightmares.

that night ended after, according to my notes, 12 to 13 hours sleep. by the end my mind gave up producing content, and it just repeated a scene, a house.

i have to say remembering dreams does give some interesting insight into ones own brain. i noticed lots of repeating themes in the dreams i could remember.

by day 2 i was dreaming about trying to remember my dreams. on day 4 i dreamt waking up and going to type notes of what i could remember, only to wake up and go an type the note of that dream.

patch 1 -
when it came to the first patch, i was excited. it put it on about 2 hours before sleep, had trouble getting to sleep because i felt alert.
it was by far the night with the least intense dreams. as had become expected, there was a half way point of the night, where i would of best used a voice recorder to note the details, as they were forgotten. then the second round of dreams towards the end. intense in some ways, very realistic dreams that i could remember when typing into the journal. by far the least intense dreams of the entire week, as i was alert during the dream, and generally unfussed.

day 6 had very strong intense dreams.

day 7, last night, produced a long list of memory details in my list. again calm not really bothered or not really intense dreams. the first half of that night resulted in the dream stopping on an image of a house again. i had to get up to urinate and get some water to clear my mind and reset things, then back to sleep for the run of dreams i could later remember.

so that is my report. first two nicotine sessions have actually been the least intense dreams of the week. being alert while being asleep was an effect. although i actually slept really well on those nights, after the first patch i was very tired the next day.

the dream journal for a month thing seems to be having the biggest effect so far. that alone could be a worthwhile experiment.

act 1 dreams tended to be about something big. like some big concept or something trying to be intergrated into the mind. i might start using a voice recorder on an old android device to try to remember those bits in week 2 or 3.

will post a pic of the patches for technical details.

mr x.

ps.
the person i live with has started remembering their dreams more. and having terrible nightmares that dont bother them.

edit - pic added, with a few things thrown to show it is an original pic.

[tally-ho!]

here, x
 victorious delight!
the Buddha hisself is tripping with your patch

seems he enjoys as well other schismatic ritualistic stuff - like, piercing his ears, cutting his hands off, burning with nicotine hell fire...

[tally-ho!]

(luckily it's not Muhammad i got into troubles with... Buddhists are peaceful loving people, no? 

[tally-ho!]

404...
how expected!

here he comes again - the burning Buddha (but no fire from within for the masses...)

[tally-ho!]

 הַקּוֹל קוֹל בּוּדְהָא
וְהַיַדָּיִם יְדֵי יָמָא

[tally-ho!]

~

[Mr X]

report 2

week 2 was pretty uneventful.

no patch on day 1,2,3,6,7 (days 8, 9, 10, 13, 14)
patch on days 11, 12 (thursday and friday).

day one of the week had lots of remembering of dreams. although by then i was experience dream journal fatigue.
days two and three had very little dream remembering compared to other days during the experiment.

both patch days resulted in considerable dream remembering (compared to some of the other days of the week, but on par with day one and seven, if anything day seven was the strongest dream memory day, but it is hard to quantify what counts as "strongest memory day")
again the first patch of the week resulted in feeling very tired the next day.

during patch 4 (second patch of the week) dreams, something happened that could of sparked a nightmare, but i remained calm.

day 6 was the first day of the experiment that i couldnt remember anything. i wrote 4 notes in the journal but that was just general things, barely even memories.

i think that as a smoker, the patch is keeping me stress free during sleep. as i went with a middle ground patch, i think i am not taking a strong enough dose of nicotine to cause nightmares.

there were 7 patches in the box i bought. so i will need to buy more for week 4. in week 3 i will try double patches, and in week 4 try the strongest patches.

in week 1 remembering dream content during the day due to events or thoughts or consumption was very common. considerably less so in week 2. overall intensity of dreams has also been wavering.
i think i might be getting bored with the content my mind produces while asleep, due to repeating themes and noticing that nightmare fuel isnt that nightmarish. some nightmares seem to be just insecurities blown out of proportion by the mind. and other nightmares dont scare you if you take the stance of "i dont give a fuck".

mr x.

ps.
z, i dont know what you are talking about, why the pics 404ed, but please stay on topic in this experiment thread.

[tally-ho!]

Mr x:
ps.
z, i dont know what you are talking about, why the pics 404ed, but please stay on topic in this experiment thread.

i'm talking about deus-ex-macina - or otherwise somebody (admin? external power?) who adamantly deleted  my pics.
how can i stay on topic when my content is deleted?

advice?

[Mr X]

report 3

report 2 was a day late, so report 3 a day early doesnt matter.

week 3 had some interesting results, the nicotine worked and produced crisp intense dreams, nightmares and strong memory retention.

as it is hard to quantify memory, and this is not exactly the most scientific experiment, i will present week 3 data in numbers.
each day i wrote down what i could remember from my dreams in dreams.txt, the following is word count numbers for each day. the number of words used to note down the dream memory.
see if you can guess the patch days, and the double patch day.

day 1 -(15) -74
day 2- (16) -92
day 3- (17) -102
day 4- (18) -16*
day 5- (19) -477
day 6- (20) -597
day 7-

on day 5 and especially 6 i just stopped typing into the journal as it was taking too long, first thing in the morning. i could of kept going. sometimes going back to type a sentence or so for things remembered hours later during the day.

the difference this week, aside from double patch, was that by day 5 it had been about week since i cut down smoking significantly. not fully quit but about a 90% reduction.

so this time, the dosage/tolerance was about right on patch 5. very clear intense dreams, bordering on nightmares. for the most part i resisted the shift to nightmare mode but it kept things at an strong uncomfortable intenseness.
even classic things like monsters in the dark was actually pretty enjoyable as i couldnt quite shift into nightmare mode. probably the worst parts were dreams of social situations i didnt want to be in.

what was interesting was being able to remember content from act 1 dreams all the way through the night until i woke up and typed down very clear memorys. there was even some lucidity towards the end.

i have to admit i was overall pretty happy with the patch doing what i had expected it to do from week 1. so double patch time.

day 6 was strong, clear, crisp, intense, nightmares. and i have to admit, it was fun, i wanted more at the end. i spent about an hour after waking up to try to sleep more for one more dream. even after that hour i could still type the biggest dream recall of the experiment so far.

the dreams would typically be something normal, like grocery shopping, then escalate to something nightmarish, such as violence. it was like a roller coaster, like the dream part that night with the roller coaster, making you get that feeling in your gut or chest as you drop. and that feeling is so strong and intense it can make you wake with fright.

double patch also made it hard to get back to sleep after each wake up.

a notable side effect of the experiement at week 3 is that i have too many memories. daily life memories, and tons of dream memories that are generally useless.

i will have to see after week 4, but i think a stronger patch or 1.5 (cut a patch in half) of the current patch would be my sweet spot.

that is report 3, i can edit in day 7 data later.

-

 a side note, in week 1 one of the repeating themes were about some people i dont think about much. i dont think about them enough that during the day i thought things like "huh, why i am repeat dreaming them". dreams with those people in them were generally about packing, getting ready to go somewhere.

those people tried to find me in the past week or so, they contacted my assistant to say they were heading overseas. not claiming psi or even sync, just thought it was interesting as i wouldnt of known if not for being able to remember dreams.

mr x.

[Mr X]

report 4
part 1

experiment is over now, i did the 4x7 days. i am looking forward to not keeping a dream journal.

week 4 was a mess.

patch 7 (25mg) resulted in nightmares and sleep disruption. i got one good memory from act 1, then woke up after about 6 hours of sleep. over a 12 hour period it was very difficult to get back to sleep.

when getting to sleep i would very quickly have a nightmare that would make me wake up, and then about an hour or more to get back to sleep.

with so much time to think while trying to get back to sleep, i was pretty annoyed at the experience. at some point i got up to get water and take an extra sedative, paracetamol codeine and doxylamine.

one nightmare, when i was cornered and had few options to fight back, i was clawing at someones eyes, eye gouging, and i woke up, with my finger nails dug into my mattress. that happened within minutes of falling asleep, waking up resulted in over an hour before drifting off again.

i wanted to give up, as each wake up meant some time commitment to get back to sleep. i wanted one more dream, some payoff for the time spent. it was eventually worth it due to a lucid dream that lasted a few minutes. in that dream i had given up and got up and went about my day, with the plan to type into dreams.txt, but eventually realized i had woken up in the wrong house, it was a dream and so on.

it was very fun to be in a very lucid dream as real as normal life, i had maybe 5 or 6 minutes before the nightmare started. as i was about to bash someones head in with a coil of fencing wire i hesitated, as it all seemed so real, then popped back into being awake and being annoyed at not being able to sleep.

patch 8 was not much. i think i over sedated for that. still got plenty of memory from it, not intense, not close to real nightmares but some minor uncomfortable content.

week 4 also included the only day with no report, had to get up and go in the morning with no time to use the journal.

that is report 4 part 1, part 2 will be about the experiment overall, and i will collect the word count data for the whole 4 weeks as i have not much else data to present.

i will just say now, i would be interested to see what happens if anyone else were to do this experiment or a modified version.

mr x.

[Mr X]

report 4
part 2

a flaw with the experiment was that in the journal i only recorded wether or not a patch was used, how long i slept, if the dreams were intense or not, and the dream content. there were lots of other variables, such as sedation, intoxication, general energy level of the day, food consumption anomalies, holding pattern strenght of that day, and so on, that were not recorded, but surely would make an difference.

dosage seems to be the main thing. a non smoker or full time smoker would possibly find it easier to find the right dosage, possibly. i fluctuated in nicotine intake through smoking during the experiment.

if i had of recorded more info, i would try to replicate patch 5. then a little more. week four had the choice of 25mg 16hr patches or 21mg 24 hour patches, 21mg probably would be good.

pic attached of the 25mg patch.

first 25mg patch i experienced two audio hallucinations. first was most likely hypnagogic (?) hallucination - hearing a loud bang or crack, like a sonic boom or sound of a cannon just as i was drifting.

second was while trying to get back to sleep later, i thought i could hear music for about 20 minutes, but was certainly pareidolia from the fan near my bed that i use for background noise.

as i have nothing to offer but ancedotes, here is the word count for the full month. i was going to present a neat table but it is a pain to do, so here is a simple list. day one is always monday and day 7 is always sunday. patch days are bolded.

week 1 (15mg)
1 - 58
2 - 51
3 - 45
4 - 124
5 - 57*
6-  90
7- 163
week 2 (15mg)
1- 100
2- 30
3- 44
4- 92
5- 165
6- 9
7- 178
week 3 (15mg and 30mg on day 6)
1- 74
2- 92
3- 102
4- 16*
5- 477
6- 597
7- 16
week 4 (25mg)
1- 85
2- 6*
3- 34
4- 24
5- 194
6- 667
7- 192*


it was an intersting bit of mind tourism. a few days after the experiment i can still remember nightly dreams but i am not paying much attention to them or noting them down. i will consider casually trying to find a sweet spot with patches over time. being able to have lots of realistic dreams and even lucid dreams on demand would be a fun option to have.


mr x.