CAWILD - Caffeine Addiction Withdrawal Induced Lucid Dream

[pj]

Moonbeam and I have been playing with something I stumbled on accidentally - the idea of deliberately going into caffeine withdrawal, then taking some caffeine and going right to sleep.

The idea came from a stress test I took last week.  I had to go without caffeine, which brought on a caffeine withdrawal headache.  The stress test ran me to nausea.  I then came home, had a cup of coffee, and felt so awful (with an oncoming migraine) that I lay down for a nap.  I ended up easily WILDing for the first time in a while.

Moonbeam duplicated the effort inadvertently, when she woke up with a caffeine headache and took Excedrin, which has caffeine in it.  She got lucid right after.

We don't know if this is just the age-old caffeine (or any other stimulant) being used to help induce lucidity or if the caffeine withdrawal has something to do with it.  We're going to keep playing with it.

If anybody else has a notion to give it a go, please let us know the results!

[Moonbeam]

An interesting thing was I tried it one night when I had a headache, and I got lucid, but the night I tried it earlier and without a headache, it didn't work.  So I don't know for sure, but maybe the headache has something to do with it.

I'm going to try again, waiting until I have the headache.  What I do is skip my evening coffee, and that will cause me to wake up early in the morning with a headache.  It's easy at that point to take something with caffeine and get back to sleep, and the headache goes away by the time I wake up.  I can't do a real WBTB with a cup of coffee or I'll never get back to sleep, so taking in the Excedrin (or a caffeine pill would work) allows me to go back to sleep before the caffeine kicks in.

[Alex Lou]

My understanding of how caffeine and caffeine withdrawal works on the CNS is limited.  But I can tell you that caffeine changes the amount of blood flowing to the brain.  When you are physically dependent on caffeine and stop taking it, you end up with more blood going to your brain, thus, headache.  Withdrawal also produces changes in quantitative EEG. 

But taking more caffeine should return the addicted to normal since the CNS has adapted to the caffeine.   I have no idea how long you'd have to go without caffeine before the number of adenosine receptors would start to decrease in number back toward normal levels.  But if you got to that point, you might experience caffeine again like a non-addicted person.

[Moonbeam]

But taking more caffeine should return the addicted to normal since the CNS has adapted to the caffeine.   I have no idea how long you'd have to go without caffeine before the number of adenosine receptors would start to decrease in number back toward normal levels.  But if you got to that point, you might experience caffeine again like a non-addicted person.

Evidently not very long; I adapted to less coffee in one day.  That's the strange thing about caffeine; besides the almost complete lack of tolerance, it doesn't take very long to get rid of the physical addiction either.  I think the psychological one is the hard one to break, if you wanted to.

OK, how can this help...maybe this technique can only work every second or third day, so that you can re-establish the addiction to the higher level.  Yea, thanks for making me think of that--I'm going to try every third day skipping the evening coffee and trying to get the morning headache.

I realize I have no idea how caffeine works; I knew there was something with the blood flow to the brain, but I would have guessed the other way around, with the lack of coffee constricting the vessels, causing the pain.  I know I don't know, however.  Something to read about.

[Alex Lou]

That's the strange thing about caffeine; besides the almost complete lack of tolerance

Oh, there is tolerance.  From what I've read, a person who has caffeine regularly will have the same wakefulness/alertness while on caffeine as someone who doesn't consume caffeine.  Because:  caffeine blocks adenosine receptors.  So in the presence of caffeine our bodies construct more adenosine receptors so that adenosine will still have an effect.  We end up with enough receptors to accommodate the amount of caffeine we consume and the normal function of adenosine.

Adenosine is believed to make us feel sleepy as the day goes on, btw.  So you can see why blocking the action of adenosine would give you the familiar caffeine alertness.  However, in those of us with caffeine tolerance, the adenosine still functions even when we drink coffee.  But without caffeine, we have more free receptors for adenosine than someone who doesn't drink coffee.  Effectively we should be more drowsy than a non-caffeine user at those times because of increased adenosine action.

Way too much info, I know.  Sorry.  The only reason I know this is because I had to argue with my Pharmacology instructor who insisted that there is no physical withdrawal from caffeine.

[pj]

Oh - there's physical withdrawal, all right!

Never too much info.  Nobody's forcing anybody to read it.  More info is better!  I guarantee Moonbeam's been researching it already too.

The big question is whether this mechanism can be/is being leveraged to influence our dreaming.

[Moonbeam]

That's the strange thing about caffeine; besides the almost complete lack of tolerance

Oh, there is tolerance.  From what I've read, a person who has caffeine regularly will have the same wakefulness/alertness while on caffeine as someone who doesn't consume caffeine.  Because:  caffeine blocks adenosine receptors.  So in the presence of caffeine our bodies construct more adenosine receptors so that adenosine will still have an effect.  We end up with enough receptors to accommodate the amount of caffeine we consume and the normal function of adenosine.

Hmm.  Whey they say there is not tolerance, they must mean there is a lot less tolerance than other drugs.  I still just need a couple cups in the morning even after all these years, and with a lot of drugs you can need a lot more after a while, or even become completely tolerant.  Like with cigarettes, people end up smoking more and more, or opiates, etc.

I know about how receptors change.  Unfortunately my own receptors seem to change very rapidly.  Or maybe it's my liver enzymes.  Or both.  

Adenosine is believed to make us feel sleepy as the day goes on, btw.  So you can see why blocking the action of adenosine would give you the familiar caffeine alertness.  However, in those of us with caffeine tolerance, the adenosine still functions even when we drink coffee.  But without caffeine, we have more free receptors for adenosine than someone who doesn't drink coffee.  Effectively we should be more drowsy than a non-caffeine user at those times because of increased adenosine action.

Well, I can't argue with the fact that I would be tired without coffee.

Way too much info, I know.   Sorry.  The only reason I know this is because I had to argue with my Pharmacology instructor who insisted that there is no physical withdrawal from caffeine.

No that's fine; I didn't know caffeine worked thru adenosine; I never thought about its mechanism before.  I can't believe a Pharmacology professor wouldn't know that.  What a dummy.

Oh the first night that I did the technique, it worded great.  The second and thirds nights, I woke up, but without a headache, and it didn't work.  I think I had already adapted to less caffeine.  So Alex your right, something changes, and it changes right away.

Anyway, I'm going to try this maybe once a week now and see what happens.  Unfortunately, it won't work for me every night--this isn't the magic bullet.  But hopefully it's one more thing that will work occasionally.  And a very easy thing to do.


P.S. To pj, who posted just before me:  I took the day off work yesterday and didn't read about it yet, but I'll do it today.  I'm glad Alex brought this up; it's weird that I never thought about the most common drug I take and how it works.

[Moonbeam]

From my DJ last night:

CWILD:  I didn't drink coffee last night, and I did get a headache, about 4:00 AM, and took two Excedrin.  I don't remember WILDing, but I went into some sort of trance-like state that I'm sure was a dream, but could have been the same kind of thing that some people can do while they are awake.   It was like knowing that I existed, but having no thoughts, like meditating.  I was even sort of aware that I most likely sleeping.  So I'm counting that as I positive result for the caffeine experiment.  I definitely think this has potential, and think it is related to the withdrawal state, not just having caffeine in the system while sleeping.

[Moonbeam]

It worked again for me last night.  I really built my addiction up with extra coffee over the week, then didn't have any after breakfast yesterday.  I got a bad headache about 3:00 AM and woke up.  I again used the Excedrin, plus I added a choline source and theanine.  I know that confounds it a little bit, but those two things alone are not guarunteed to get me lucid, however they did add to the experience.  Also, I haven't tried plain caffeine pills, or even just coffee, so I don't know if the aspirin/acetaminophen in the Excedrin add anything.  (I doubt it.)

In any case, I think this works, and think the withdrawal part is a key part.  Somebody else ought to give it a try--it's not too bad; the headache goes away in just a few minutes after taking the caffeine.

[Alex Lou]

I'm of the opposite opinion.   I think that the withdrawal doesn't matter.  What does matter is that you go to sleep with caffeine in your system, without being completely tolerant to it.  But the headache does set up a natural WBTB, during which time you can take the caffeine.  Of course, I don't really know .  .  .

[Moonbeam]

Oh, that could be too.  I don't know what would happen to a person who doesn't drink coffee--somebody should try it.   But for me, just drinking coffee, without going into withdrawal, hasn't ever worked.

I wake up every night around 3:00, give or take a half-hour.  So I can easily do WBTB stuff, but I don't like to stay awake very long no matter what I'm doing, usually, or I won't get back to sleep.

You should try it, if you haven't, unless you don't like caffeine for some reason.

[Alex Lou]

I don't know what would happen to a person who doesn't drink coffee--somebody should try it. 

I did try it.  Back before I used to drink coffee/tea/energy drinks regularly:  I'd have really intense lucids any time I'd go to sleep after drinking caffeine.  It was really, really noticeable; no mistaking it.

I would like to try the withdrawal thing myself, but I'm afraid that my sleep schedule is so screwed up right now that I wouldn't be able to tell anything.  To many different factors at play.

[Moonbeam]

I did try it.  Back before I used to drink coffee/tea/energy drinks regularly:  I'd have really intense lucids any time I'd go to sleep after drinking caffeine.  It was really, really noticeable; no mistaking it.

Oh OK.  Well, we knew that some people did use a cup of coffee at WBTB to help get lucid, and I guess it is the non-addicted people that it works for.  PJ discovered a way for it to work for addicted people too.  I think it's really noticable too.  The adenosine receptors must change really fast compared to some, like the nicotinic that seem to take forever to recover.  (Do you know if that's true?)

I would like to try the withdrawal thing myself, but I'm afraid that my sleep schedule is so screwed up right now that I wouldn't be able to tell anything.  To many different factors at play.

Oh shoot.  The thing for me is that it's hard for me to do the stuff I need to do in the evening without that late afternoon coffee.  I don't know how many times a week I could do it anyway, so I can save it for evenings I'm not planning on doing much.  Maybe once a week.  If it works every time, that will be good.

[Hazel]

Hm, but how long would it take to actually get addicted to caffeine in the first place? I'd love to experiment with this, and right now I rarely drink anything with caffeine in it so there's no chance that I'm addicted.

[Moonbeam]

Hazel it should probably work for you without having to get addicted.   We're thinking that it doesn't do anything for people who are used to it, unless they get into a withdrawal state, but for people who aren't used to it, it will probably work anytime.