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Witnessing the Birth of New Nerve Cells
Nootropics, LSD & Cannabis
Citation:   Student of Life. "Witnessing the Birth of New Nerve Cells: An Experience with Nootropics, LSD & Cannabis (exp110353)". Erowid.org. Apr 1, 2019. erowid.org/exp/110353

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
20 mg oral Noopept (powder / crystals)
  T+ 0:00 30 mg oral Pharms - Tianeptine (powder / crystals)
  T+ 0:00 500 mg oral Smarts - Phenibut (powder / crystals)
  T+ 0:00 200 mg oral Theanine (powder / crystals)
  T+ 0:00 250 mg oral alpha-GPC (powder / crystals)
  T+ 0:00 100 mg oral Phenylpiracetam (powder / crystals)
  T+ 0:00 150 mg oral Pharms - Bupropion (pill / tablet)
  T+ 0:00 1 tablet oral Pharms - Sildenafil  
  T+ 1:15 2 hits oral LSD (blotter / tab)
  T+ 7:30   vaporized Cannabis  
  T+ 11:30   vaporized Cannabis  
  T+ 19:30   oral Vitamins / Supplements  
BODY WEIGHT: 65 kg
It is time. I've been looking forward to blasting my mind to outer space for a good while. Today is the day.

To prepare, I measured the following nootropics into a glass (approximate, using scoops, Bupropion was taken separately):

20 mg Noopept *
30 mg Tianeptine
500 mg Acetyl-L-Carnitine (ALCAR) *
500 mg Phenibut
200 mg L-Theanine
250 mg Alpha-GPC *
750 mg Creatine HCL *
100 mg Phenylpiracetam *
1 pill (150 mg) Bupropion *
1 pill Sildenafil

The substances marked with an asterisk are specifically there for a cognitive boost, the others to provide a bit of relaxation and euphoria. The sildenafil is there just for personal entertainment and to see if it counters erectile dysfunction during psychedelic use, which I tend to get. In addition, I took antioxidants, a teaspoon of powdered crystal Vitamin C, to help with the oxidative stress associated with increased biomechanical function. To launch the psychedelia, I have 2 tabs of LSD rated 200 ug each (which probably contain less).

Something about myself: I've done my share of psychedelics, I'm 29 years old, vegetarian, in very good health physically, so-so mentally, male. I'm currently studying psychology, biology and biochemistry and am very interested in the mechanics of psychedelics and other psychoactive substances, and I've used myself as a guinea pig on purpose multiple times. It's been interesting at the very least, I admit.

T+0:00 - The pile of powder was downed along with a glass of water at 2:30 pm on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I haven't eaten much today, just some oatmeal and veggie-fruit smoothie. The ingestion was followed by a couple of very nasty tasting burps, as if I was throwing up acid. Not the LSD kind, just generic acid. Is there such a thing as generic acid?

I'm giving the nootropics an hour to work themselves into my system before ingesting the LSD.
I'm giving the nootropics an hour to work themselves into my system before ingesting the LSD.
That way I can also report the subjective effects of the nootropics themselves during their comeup.

To pass the time I grabbed my vaporizator, cleaned it up with some acetone and loaded it up with cannabis, after which I enjoyed a cup of tea and read a book for a while. I felt increasingly energetic, and somehow just way more positive. I've noted Tianeptine to do a very large number on releasing me from any kind of anxiety, and now I've taken a more than double dose, and the added effect of Phenibut must be working towards my improving mood as well.

T+1:15 - The two tabs were placed in my mouth, a quarter of an hour behind schedule, which I didn't care much about. The tabs were kept next to my gums for about 15 minutes, after which I swallowed them. Something I noticed before I took the LSD is that the nootropics very clearly enhanced the intensity of colors and made my vision sharper. Interesting! Just about right now I'm also getting some spontaneous bulging in my pants. Great.

T+1:40 - One thing that I really, REALLY, like to do during the comeup and after the peak of LSD is dance. Which I just commenced. I'm enjoying myself quite a bit, and it gets the body going.

T+2:20 - Started feeling queasy and jittery so decided to take a break. Visuals are definitely there, everything is waving around and I'm seeing some interesting sharpening effects here and there. The body load is quite noticeable, I'm feeling fairly uneasy but that's to be expected of LSD, really.

T+2:40 - I have a wood paneled ceiling that's quite challenging to look at right now. Just about everything looks pretty challenging to look at right now, in fact. Yet, I manage to type.

I'm possibly extremely stupid by putting myself under the razor by experimenting with these things, but hopefully something good will come out of this.

When I look at stuff I see layers peel off them very organically. I tend to get this very consistently between different psychedelics. I wonder if it's something specific to me or something that a lot of people get.
____________________

T+4:00 - It seems that I’m 4 hours into the experience and I've just shut off the music to think things through. Things are not looking to get any simpler, quite the contrary, it feels like my mental capacities are beginning to get into high gear. I've prepared with some carbonated drinks, fruit and fast carbs but that's what's often on offer down here so nothing fancy in the end.

I'm DEFINITELY in what people call a loop. Over and over again. In fact, words on the screen are constantly melting into each other and I’m having quite a quite bit of trouble following what’s going on (I had to edit this part several times). Now that I'm in it, I'm starting to wonder if the loop 'experience' could in fact be a state of neuroplasticity, or a “slice”, or a self-perpetuating cognitive loop, just a state of consciousness that was left looking for its foundation.

I felt extreme time dilation at this moment, I could not tell a quantum state from another. Now, when I really think about it, I've led myself to believe I was actually witnessing the genesis of new nerve cells and how it relates to human consciousness.

Yes.

Now. Listen.

Let’s just think that through for a moment. I actually do believe that I was consciously experiencing the genesis of a new neural connection; and all of the related nerves firing as if to see if a neural connection would survive or not. In this particular moment I could point out which sensory organ it would be attached to (it was a nerve cell in my eye, I could see and feel the pressure in my eye and the very, very subtle changes in my vision). This repeated quite a few times, it wasn’t a singular event, though I had to take my time to figure the pattern with what was going on. All of this had to be catalyzed by a psychedelic so I could feel the connection between all the physical sensations, with my speed of thought slowed to match so my brain had the time to get the slightest glimpse of understanding of what happened.

What I yelled here was HOLY. FUCK. JESUS ACTUAL CHRIST. // THIS // IS // THE // MOTHERFUCKING // IT
____________________________

I spent a full quarter on an hour trying to deal with the emotional and cognitive outburst of this realization (or the rest of the night rather… or maybe the rest of my life).

I’m just a guy with below-average expectations in life: I don’t think I’m that genetically superior, I’ve dealt with long lasting major depression and had no education to speak of. I came from a pretty un-optimal family, and I’d like to say that I was quite dumb before starting experimenting with psychedelics. I just happened upon average circumstances yet an incircumstancial amount of information, and lately an illegal access to drugs, and now I’m looking to start my academic career. Thanks, internet. Anyways, now I’m able to write wordplay, and in a totally different language that I was taught in childhood. That story alone is something that works to prove the effectiveness of psychedelics and the insane adaptability of the human brain.
_____________________________

I now decided to take a sip of mineral water and start munching down on carbs since I’ve typed for a long while without restocking my body. I hoped to reignite the process, and try to achieve a similar state of mind as before. That was 9 PM sharp, T+6:30.

Immediately afterwards the reality before me starts to shift and change. Colors blend into each other, pixels on the screen in a vulgar fashion yet beautifully converging on each other. I could see things in absolutely remarkable detail when I turned my head from the screen. The extent of human capabilities again perplexes me. It is clear to me that the capability of our, or at least my, sensory organs far exceed what we need them for each day. I get the thought that input from the environment and the corresponding nerve pathway has to be clear for the human mind and consciousness to work effectively. Otherwise internal inconsistencies are born that the mind must seek to resolve, or else it finds itself restless.

As I sip through my carbonated water and power through my snacks I constantly see characters in words on the screen disappear or change into some nonsensical substitute, always of the same serif font. This is obviously my mind trying to handle the state of increased plasticity and to create a functional representation of what’s going on. My experience of reality was shifting in front of my eyes to keep up with new neural connections between my senses and their corresponding interpretative neural pathways. I get a feeling of a very acute need to hydrate myself. I pull another bottle of mineral water out of the fridge along with some juice made out of concentrate and the leftovers of an earlier smoothie.

Truth to be told, despite my efforts I can't fully access the state I was in previously. I do notice a certain effect whenever gulping down on water: I tend to get this impression of light and hope. One of the common experiences humans and religions tend to share between each other is that there is a bringer of light that is not very well understood. I have for quite a few months now believed that this is one of the fundamental driving forces behind what makes a human being, regardless of religious affiliation. I personally believe the experience of the “light within” has a lot more biological and genetic connections than we think, but the experience and what it means is largely misunderstood (well, we haven’t had the modern understanding of sciences for all of history, and who’s to say I’m right about this). I do get the feeling that through this path some of the newly formed nerve cells try to realize their own existence, trying to evoke a positive feeling and working with that.

All of this takes a lot of mental restraint. I feel very tired constantly and have to make conscious efforts to keep trains of thought running. At 10:00 PM, T+7:30 it seems that the effects of LSD have largely given up. I still get very noticeable color smudging and spontaneous sharpening of vision when I drink mineral water and eat carbs. I haven't touched my vaporizer today yet. Even the fumes from the vaporizer sitting next to me were enough to make my whole field of vision pulsate with color and blend into itself. Note that I've been sitting in quiet with just the windows open so I haven't commented much on what's been going on in my aural headspace, only visual headspace. Anyways, I proceeded to inhale vigorously and keep the aromatic vapor in my lungs for about 10 seconds.

The cannabis vapor obviously made the situation very different.
The cannabis vapor obviously made the situation very different.
Much more down to earth. It feels like a lot of my worries and headaches are bygones; as if I’m I ready to get over some emotional stuff. This may be in some way the most remarkable vape rip ever, but I just suddenly got the feeling that's everything’s just fine. Like just forget it and have a positive outlook on it. Subsequent inhalations instruct me to relax further. I do. Yet, something suddenly happened.
________________________

T+8:00 - 22: 28 was the point where I lost myself into extreme time dilatation for the second time tonight. I was thrown into seemingly infinite self-defeating or self-reinforcing vortexes of thought.

I was thrown into a torrent of what I can only describe as individual nerve paths somehow trying to find pathways to exist. I was yanked and pulled here and there with along lots of very, very varying physical sensations, along with very much headache. This was exhausting, with every muscle contraction or relaxation making a nerve pathway fight for its whole existence, and I'm constantly told by an increasingly unconscious body to shut itself down as I’m typing this.

Consistently after 22:28 I experienced various physical sensations of existence; as in I could take note of a certain feeling and attribute it physically to a part of a floating representation of my brain, with me being able to point the the physical location of the sensations to be behind my eyes. I imagined I was able to physically place my consciousness somewhere between the prefrontal cortex and the hindbrain. This is weird, but I associated the formation of new neural connections with a “wet”, snapping physical sensation, as if, yeah, this is crazy, I could somehow feel the nerve connection forming and the myelination process happening. At times I would feel this wet sensation all around my body, as if new nerve connections were made between sensory touch organs just about everywhere in me.

I constantly experience this eerie glow from the what I believe is the hippocampal area. I definitely feel an increased pressure when pointing my thoughts at its perceived physical location, along with headache and a very bright visual sensation of light. (In fact, the following morning I still get the same sensation when I close my eyes, meditate and concentrate on the same part of the brain). Eyes shut I feel kind of relaxed, though I’m passing through a mental voyage that’s harder to describe. Maybe our minds somehow construct models of themselves to map our physical position in our universe, and it needs visual data to orient itself. Why would the mind need to know that, I’m not sure, but that’s not the first metaphysical dilemma I’ve encountered today. Maybe the mind just wants to know, much like how curiosity has gotten humanity into quite a few of interesting places, or maybe it just has something to do with our sense of balance and our experience of existence.

The pain could be positioned above the neck and between the shoulders.

I got the impression that I was earlier witnessing a neural connection being formed, and now it’s the other way around; I’m experiencing neural connections either breaking or strengthening. I was locked in experiencing binary quantum states of being, able to somehow see the growth and action of nervous system pathways; one state keeping me operational and conscious and moving, or the other quantum state, doing the binary opposite: letting that particular nerve connection expire which would result in shutting down the associated loop. Now I’m consciously making an effort on a neuronal loop to loop basis pass a “quantum state test” to resist unconsciousness, and I have this weird impression of having to simultaneously do it for every neural connection that’s in my head. That’s a pretty messy explanation, but what can you expect, I was under the influence of psychedelic drugs. This has a lot more to do with quantum mechanics and the quantum representation of the self, but I’m not an expert on that so that’s what you get, I can only say that it’s very exhausting. Anyways, it’s very taxing for my neck muscles and my brain which feels like it’s having a meltdown.
_______________________

00: 21 Still in the vortex, and I am constantly at loss for words. I’ve found it very, very hard to type and to form coherent words and sentences. It was as if I had to reprogram my whole brain to wrap itself on the concept of learning a whole new language.

00:33 - Haven’t inhaled from the vaporizer since what happened at 22:28. One interesting thing I noted when looking into my own eye through the mirror: It was as if the glia cells assigned right next my focus point, the dead center of my own eye, were seeking to build nerve connections to get better data out of the iris, from the perspective of my vision a black hole. It’s as if there’s a mechanism designed to build more complex visual systems when stressed with poor visual input.

Anyways, I experienced further physical sensations of existence: it was as if there was from time to time a completely new association “bubble” of nerves converging on a specific point in my head. I again had physical wet sensations all around this “bubble” and could very vaguely have an impression of physically sensing this bubble kind of finding its own place near the orbitofrontal cortex and creating new nerve connections around it. This keeps happening with different parts of my head, although I can’t offhandedly recall any other brain regions.

Well, it’s 1:30 am and my headache has gone down considerably. I found it very, very hard to type and to form coherent words and sentences during about the hours of 22:28 to 00:40. It was as if I had to reprogram my whole brain to wrap itself on the concept of learning a whole new language.

At 2:30 am, I’m heating up the vaporizer for one last go. I also kept drinking and snacking. The final inhalations didn’t result in the resurgence of psychedelia, I just relaxed and went slowly into slumber. I had some very interesting dreams, yet can’t recall any of them.
__________________________

T+19:30 - I woke up at 10:00 am on my living floor carpet (I had a blanket and pillows though), with my neck feeling sore and my brain still feeling uptight. Upon waking up I put my hand into a bag of crisps and started munching enthusiastically and continued writing this experience report down. Interestingly, I still get the sharpening effect on my field of vision that I experienced last night when looking at the computer screen; things are not wavy anymore though.

I did a personal inventory here and figured that the tail end of the trip was still going on. I ate some fruit, ingested vitamins and essential nutrients in supplement form and loaded my vaporizer for another go.

T+21:00 - At 11:30 am, after eating and editing this text for a bit, I took a rip from my vaporizer. The following effects weren’t anything groundbreaking, no dire changes in vision or spiraling thought loops, but I did get a certain tense feeling in my head, as if there’s something going on in there. Otherwise I felt pretty relaxed.

I get the sinking realization that pretty much *all* psychedelia must be neuroplasticity experienced by our consciousnesses, or a result of the activity of a certain part of the brain being altered. Which is very understandably confusing.

I closed my eyes and relaxed. It was now certain that the trip was still going on at a low state. Random characters in a generic serif font appeared before my eyes in random patterns, flickering from character to character in a very fast fashion (several thousand times in a second, think of this like a refresh rate, herz).

The day was largely spent in a single position, vertically on my bed, making an attempt at napping, though I was lost yet again in dreams, alternate dimensions and behavioral programs that tried to find a place in my head. At 6:00 pm I woke up for a bit to eat and to heat up the vaporizer again (the remnants of the second bowl are in there). After giving my body some fuel to work with I could still see the tiniest bit of the sharpening effect on my screen, implying that the game is still on, albeit the players are getting tired. The final vapors did nothing but enforce the couchlock feeling I had though, telling me that the game’s over instead. So here’s the end for this experience was at 18:30, T+28:00. Oh yeah. The sildenafil didn’t do jack shit after my mental engine revved up.

Exp Year: 2017ExpID: 110353
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 29
Published: Apr 1, 2019Views: 1,778
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LSD (2), Smarts (801) : Alone (16), Hangover / Days After (46), Combinations (3)

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