Modafinil: Becoming the Best Version of Myself

[Barna]

@Sven I like how you thought this over. I cannot answer any of these questions. I might share a proper review after a few months of using the substance.

The truth is, I haven't thought about the possible outcomes because I'm not so concerned about them. I'm not really afraid of what might happen because I don't believe in negative outcomes in general. I just do what feels good to do right now, I don't feel the fear of consequences. 
So I'm not recommending modafinil, nobody should do anything that I'm doing.  

[Sven]

Yes post back I'm curious.

I too had that attitude about amphetamine by the way (different story all together of course). I got my driving license because of it. I had big nerves. But the way amphetamine affects the body is ridiculous so the effects were easy to observe and say about "Well I'm not gonna do this ever again (at least not regularly by far)." Which I never did.

Modafinil being way less strong might not show it's negative aspects as evidently. So it might be fine for months, but maybe you then get used to the effects and cannot do without.

I'm saying 'maybe' here on purpose because of course Leo had many positive things to say about it and it even being suitable for daily use. Just looking at the whole perspective from an unknowing place. 

anyway I'm sure it's fine so I look forward to your reports later on. Have fun and keep meditating on it as well haha!

[Barna]

I think the reason why you didn't like amphetamine is the same as why I don't like coffee. Because it's a stimulant. Coffee pushes me to burn fuel and let out the energy. It pushes my muscles to move or flex, my mouth to talk and my mind to think. But modafinil has a completely different effect, it doesn't stimulate me in this way, it makes me calm instead. I feel like it calms down all my resistance towards everything. And when I don't have the resistance in me, objects and phenomenons can start to pull my attention towards them. Do you see the difference in the dynamics?  

[Barna]

I think this is also how the lever effect can come into play. If I will get used to living without resistance, then when I won't be on modafinil the resistance is gonna be obvious, it's gonna feel bad. And then I  can consciously let it go. 

[XYZ]

Is modafinil prescribed as an ADD treatment?

Also, how is it affecting your quality/duration of sleep.

[Barna]

9 hours ago, XYZ said:

Is modafinil prescribed as an ADD treatment?

 

I think modafinil is mainly used for treating narcolepsy, as Leo said. I don't know if you can get a modafinil prescription for ADD. 

10 hours ago, XYZ said:

Also, how is it affecting your quality/duration of sleep.

1

Yesterday I took it around 3 PM, I went to bed around midnight and I could sleep easily. I woke up around 7 AM. 
How do you measure the quality of your sleep?  I don't remember waking up at night if that's what you mean.

[Dogsbestfriend]

@Barna Meditation.

On 11/18/2018 at 9:08 PM, Barna said:

@Dogsbestfriend how did you replace it?

 

[Barna]

9 hours ago, Dogsbestfriend said:

@Barna Meditation.

That's not very specific

How? What kind of meditation gives you energy to wake up in the morning and be productive the whole day? Is it one long meditation or few seconds of mini-meditations throughout the day? 

Is it sds or lying or walking meditation? Do you close your eyes or let it open? Do you listen to anything while meditating? 

Do you let your mind wander and observe it or do you focus your mind on something? 

[Dogsbestfriend]

On 11/20/2018 at 8:16 AM, Barna said:

That's not very specific

How? What kind of meditation gives you energy to wake up in the morning and be productive the whole day? Is it one long meditation or few seconds of mini-meditations throughout the day? 

Is it sds or lying or walking meditation? Do you close your eyes or let it open? Do you listen to anything while meditating? 

Do you let your mind wander and observe it or do you focus your mind on something? 

@Barna Mindfulness meditation throughout the day, which you eventually come to accept as 'just being'.

I do about 30 min -1 hour of 'drifting' meditation (no thought, which evolves at some point into a sort of floating in an nothingness feeling) at some point during the day and a small session before sleeping, though usually nowadays this wakes me up so much I have too much energy to sleep then... I naturally want to once I close my eyes so not sure how to change this. Eventually I drift off, usually by doing visualization mediation of calming oceans.

Walking meditation is simply amazing, feeling every fiber of your body in unity and it's expression.. so I do that as well on way to work and after..

I mean it's just a part of my whole day, eyes open eyes closed.. I don't even think of it as 'meditation' perse really, I'm just being in with some variation.. very quiet mind... sometimes at lunch if I have time..

I do some self-inquiry then I let my mind wander, but as time has gone on much fewer thoughts seem to pop up as I fully integrated or resolved them into myself. Lately I started  bit more.. it varies through week on week.

I don't plan it much anymore, just go with the flow, hope that answers your question. 

- granted Modafinil or Waklert are so much easier and much less work, just remember everything has a cost. Not as dramatic the side effects of Limitless  and overall compared to things like cocaine, or whatever it's so much more positive. But you will simply outgrow it at some point, I don't regret using them though! It opened my mind to how you can just flip a switch and boom you're there, fully there with nothing in between, it led me down the path to meditation eventually (that and my natural curiosity''what else is positive' what can be achieved naturally etc'). 

Edited November 21, 2018 by Dogsbestfriend

[bigzbigi]

for me armodafinil does not work while modafinil works really nice. Once i tried microdosing LSD (25 units) and it worked really nice too. I combined it with piracetam and Omega 3 which boost its performance. 

[vela3]

Just ordered some Armodafinil and have been taking Modafinil lately. I had a brain injury two years ago. Thanks for recommending it to me.

Been doing better. Hope progress continues.

[Barna]

@Dogsbestfriend for me meditation means widening the attention into a global awareness. This is the opposite of focusing attention on something. So I still don't really see how can meditation help me to focus on my job.

@bigzbigi @vela3 I tried armodafinil yesterday (half of a 150mg pill). It wasn't noticeably stronger than the modafinil, but after like 6 hours I got a headache that lasted for the rest of the day. The cause of this might be that I was on modafinil before for 7 days straight. Leo was right, the body needs some days off to recover. So I didn't take modafinil or armodafinil today. I'm totally fine, I don't need them anymore to have energy in the morning, I don't feel any kind of craving for the substance. (So today I'm gonna take mushrooms instead )

[Sven]

So how is it now? You had a headache you say, anything else? Did the modafinil indeed have a lever effect for you? Are you feeling the same as before the week or different? If different: positively or negatively so?

[Barna]

6 minutes ago, Sven said:

So how is it now? You had a headache you say, anything else? Did the modafinil indeed have a lever effect for you? Are you feeling the same as before the week or different? If different: positively or negatively so?

Two weeks have passed since I started taking modafinil.

I didn't take it on three days:

• last Friday (I took armodafinil instead and I had a headache)
• last Saturday (I took mushrooms instead)
• last Sunday (I didn't take anything)

On the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the first week I felt a bit of a "crash", meaning that I was really tired after I finished working. This was the only side effect I noticed so far. 

On Saturday I took mushrooms, so I wasn't productive that day, I can't compare it with the working days. But on Sunday I wasn't on anything and I spent the day learning German. I could focus, I didn't feel any withdrawal symptoms. 

On Monday I started taking modafinil again, but this week went a lot smoother, meaning that I didn't feel so tired after work, and at work I had even more energy than the week before. I feel like modafinil is strengthening my brain not only for a day, but also in the long term.

I could notice my improvements the most on the game that we play in the office on "coffee breaks" (I don't drink coffee anymore). The game is called Ricochet Robots, it's a labyrinth game that requires you to consider the whole labyrinth to solve the "puzzle". I was surprised how good I got in it. I not only saw good solutions, but I saw them fast. Before modafinil I was kind of a slow thinker. I was still strategic, my work requires structure-thinking, but I wasn't fast at all. It's like now on modafinil my brain has all this energy and it can use it to boost the speed of the thinking process. And the good thing is that I don't feel like my brain is burning out, but the opposite, I feel like it's used more, so it's getting stronger.

This weekend I won't take modafinil, but I will probably start taking it again next week. I have no intention to stop because right now I feel like it's improving me.

If you have other questions, shoot  

[Sven]

So it feels like it's improving your brain in the long-term rather than burning it out... Sounds good. It sounds really too good to be true still for me. But I did order armodafinil just today to try this out. It sure sounds like worth experimenting with. And if it turns out to not bring anything then I guess nothing's lost. 

Thanks for your post

[Barna]

@Sven you can read this post from hundreds of kilometers from here, on a device that converts radiowaves into digital information, and converts digital information into human-readable characters and renders it onto a surface made of light emitters which are so tiny that they're almost invisible to the human eye. This device can fit into your pocket and does all this wonder without any significant consequences. Isn't it too good to be true?

Modafinil is just another piece of technology. It doesn't have mindblowing effects, it just gives the brain a bit of energy. Is it really too good to be true in 2018?

If someone would read these thoughts from the paradigm of "everything has a price" then for them what I just said would appear as wishful thinking. If a mind believes that "everything has a price" then that mind will find a way to pay the price.

My attitude is a bit different. From my perspective everything serves me as I serve everything. And as I noticed, modafinil serves me well.