DOSE:		smoked	Cannabis	(daily)
	200 mg	oral	Modafinil	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

Modanafil Freakout

Background: I am an 18 year old male. I smoke cannabis daily, drink once every few weeks, and use LSD once every month on average. In the past, I used street xanax occasionally to mitigate anxiety. While I’ve always considered myself to be a bit of an anxious person, at the time of the experience I was in a good spot mentally and life wise.

So, I had some Modvigil 200mg tablets that were sent to me as goodies from darknet vendors (I did not explicitly order them). Upon receipt of the tablets, I thought little of them. ‘Lame pills’, I thought, and tossed them in a drawer.

The day of the experience, I was bored and browsing psychonaut forums as I usually do. My apathy towards modafinil was due to its strange representation on the internet-my cursory google searches only told me that it was a anti-narcolepsy medicine.

However, I stumbled upon an article hyping up modafinil’s nootropic properties-namely that the substance acts uniquely on the sleep-wake part of the brain to induce a ‘pleasant, focused wakefulness’.

In the past, I’ve abstained from nearly all stimulants, mainly due to my high levels of baseline anxiety. However, I decided that modafinil might be helpful to counteract my cannabis binge-induced fatigue.

I took it at 16:00-here is a time log of the events following

16:00: I take the 200mg Modvigil pill (late in the evening) as I planned on staying up late that night doing research.

16:45-My fatigue had only intensified-I recall laying on bed, questioning modafinil’s efficacy.

17:30-I proceed to smoke some cannabis, mostly out of boredom. The high is markedly different-I notice that it is clearer, with my thoughts focusing almost like a laser beam. I’m naturally rather inattentive but I feel incredibly focused now.

18:15-I start to deviate from my normal “high-activities” in favor of more energetic pursuits-instead of watching Netflix sitcoms, I find myself intently watching documentaries on youtube.

18:30-My high had long dissipated at this point, which was strange. My cannabis highs had always lasted longer and with a much longer ‘offset’. The modafinil was quickly taking control of my psyche, and not in a good way.

19:00-My mind begins to race with even more ferocity. My focus at this point is so intense that anything I’m doing must be incredibly interesting or else my racing thought loops will consume me and launch me into a panic attack.

I spent the hours from 19:00-01:30 In an edged out state, teetering on a panic attack the whole time. My activities mostly consisted of voracious consumption of youtube documentaries-they were the only things able to hold my brain’s attention. Anything else and my mind would quickly wander and begin to self destruct. I believe this is due to the fact that the videos were of a dense nature and therefore commanded my full attention.

At 01:30, I experienced a mild panic attack. I hadn’t had a panic attack in over 5 years but was able to use some general breathing exercises to mitigate it after about 5 minutes.

However, I never felt able to relax. Smoking cannabis normally quells my anxiety, however, I had been smoking throughout the night only to produce a mild case of munchies and an even harder laser focus on my thoughts. I felt none of the pleasurable stoned feeling.

At 02:00 I was fried from the unusual anxiety (I had problems with anxiety long ago, so the feelings were of a forgotten but eventually remembered horror) and tried to relax. I was able to lay in bed and consume some Netflix sitcoms, albeit still being in intense mental discomfort from my still laser-focused thoughts.

I finally managed to fall asleep around 05:00 and slept until about 10:30. I woke up still ‘energized’ from the Modafinil but also feeling the crushing lethargy from my constant anxiety. I spent the whole day with family, writing off my tweakiness to not sleeping well. The anxiety only began to dissipate later that day. I was still prone to the occasional attack and my cannabis highs were still impacted.

It is now the third day after my dose of Modafinil and the anxiety only fully mitigated at about 16:00 (so +72H from administration)

To sum it up:
Modafinil DOES work. However, I made many errors in my usage of it:
-Taking it too late in the day. It really does act as a ‘reset’ of my sleep-wake cycle.
-Taking too large a dose. I’m small (120lb), and all psychoactives have much greater effects regarding dose on me.
-Not having anything to truly “do”-I’ve been lamenting that I didn’t have a paper or something to write.

For me, modafinil took my bubbling brook of mental energy and temporarily turned it into a roaring series of cascades. While this is a testament to the drug’s efficacy, I believe that my high dose and underlying anxiety resulted in its great magnification of my panic. I do plan on using it in the future in college, however, I will ensure that my doses are halved and that I have plenty of content to focus my brain on.

Exp Year: 2018	ExpID: 112303
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Oct 13, 2020	Views: 2,487
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