In a prior post, I described the herbal supplement galantamine and mentioned that it might help promote lucid dreaming.

After trying it a few times, I’m convinced that it’s pretty effective.

I don’t understand the chemistry behind galantaime, but it works for me. Yesterday morning I woke up at 6:30 a.m., took two capsules, did some writing, and fell back asleep at around 7:30. I promptly passed into a lucid dream state while fully conscious and found myself lying in a super-vivid dream-field with yellow-green trees and golden birds. A lot of crazy dream-things happened after that, but I’m going to keep those to myself. You’ll just have to trust me that they were super crazy.

Fig. 1 – Galantamine pills. Super crazy.

Before you buy galantamine for yourself, however, there are a few potential pitfalls you ought to know about:

• Off-Label Usage. The only government-approved usage for galantamine is to treat Alzheimer’s Disease. While galantamine is available without a prescription online, buying it so that you can experiment with lucid dreaming isn’t something that anybody has scientifically studied in terms of safety or efficacy.

• Possible Interactions. Galantamine is a natural supplement, but there’s a slight risk of drug interactions or side-effects that you should fully investigate. If you order galantamine off the internet like I did, the manufacturer is probably not going to disclose potential issues. PubMed has a good introduction to galantamine here.

• Manufacturer Issues. I did some research into GalantaMind, the product that I purchased from the company Life Enhancement Products, and found that they had received a warning letter from the FDA forcing them to alter their approach to selling galantamine. They’re still selling galantamine, so it’s not clear what modifications they made to get the FDA off their back, if any. The natural supplements industry is sketchy, and Life Enhancement Products isn’t an exception.

• Difficulty Waking. Galantamine has sometimes made it difficult for me to fully wake from the dream state, and reading message boards about the supplement it appears this has been others’ experience too. Even though I went to bed at 1:30 a.m., I found myself continually resetting my alarm until I gave up and just fell asleep for as long as my body wanted to rest. I estimate I slept 10 hours. So this isn’t a thing that you can just do casually; you have to prepare for it, set aside time for it, and be ready to wake up around noon—which is what I ended up doing.

• Timing. My excitement to go on a lucid dream journey has prevented me from falling back asleep sometimes after taking the galantamine. For the most effective dose, you’re supposed to take the supplement a few hours before you’d normally wake up in order to time the dose with the height of your REM cycle. I’ve done this a few times, and I’ve always struggled to get back to sleep because of my anticipation of a lucid dream experience.

So… in the final analysis, is galantamine worth it?

I guess it depends on how badly you want to have a lucid dream.

For me, it’s been worth it. I love exploring different levels of dream-consciousness, and galantamine has definitely provided me with some new experiences and perspectives. For many people, though, it’s probably not worth the money and the time required.

I have about 80 more capsules of galantime, so I may revisit this topic later and let people know how my opinion of galantamine has evolved.