Vitamins, Herbal Supplements and Probiotics for OBE - Part 1

Vitamins, Herbal Supplements and
Probiotics for OBE - Part 1

 by Bob Peterson

Recently someone in one of the Astral Projection Facebook groups asked for information on supplements that may be helpful for OBEs and/or lucid dreaming. This article is comprised of excerpts from two chapters of my as-yet-unpublished new book Hacking the Out of Body Experience. Due to the length, I broke it into two articles.
(Shown in the photo above: the supplements in the back are what they say. The objects in the front are (from left to right): Mugwort, Boron (white capsule above), African Dream Seed, and African Dream Root.)




Bob Peterson
02 April 2019

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Introduction to Brain Hacking
In ancient religious, spiritual, and occult traditions, devotees obtained altered states of consciousness like OBEs only through years of meditation and hard work (or purely by accident). There were no shortcuts.

There’s nothing wrong with years of hard work and meditation. There are still many purists who believe it’s the only “proper” way to achieve mystical states. Yet many of these so-called purists are already brain-hacking without even realizing it. They wake up every morning to an alarm clock: a device that artificially breaks their sleep cycle. Then they stumble to the kitchen and drink coffee: the brain stimulant caffeine. They listen to music on the car ride home from work: consciousness altering sound technology. They come home and use artificial lights in their homes: mind altering light technology. Then they stare into the artificial blue light of their cellphone to play a game before bed, which alters their sleep patterns. Yet they still think of themselves as purists.

Indigenous people probably invented the first forms of early brain hacking: things like sweat lodges, trance drum circles, ecstatic dance, vision quests, starvation, hyperventilation and special breathing techniques. Later, brain hacks like hypnosis, Kaballah and Kundalini yoga were born.

Some time later, healers and shamans seeking natural medicines discovered “brain hacking” plants that either caused powerful hallucinations (like mescaline) or unlocked expanded states of consciousness like ayahuasca, and psilocybin (magic mushrooms). The authorities of these societies quickly realized that if the common folk could induce their own mystical states and gain access to their own religious truths, they could usurp their authority and control. So they declared these plants “sacred” and locked them away from the common folk. They could only be used by shamans or the religious leaders as part of special ceremonies. They controlled the common people by keeping them in the dark.

In the modern era, science and medicine have uncovered remarkable secrets of the human body and brain that enable us to take shortcuts. I like to think of these as “brain hacks” because to a computer guy like me, it seems a lot like computer hacking. In fact, many people like to think of the human brain as a kind of complex biological computer, but there are many differences that go beyond the scope of this book.

We’ve already talked about several brain hacks already. Things like flotation tanks, sleep masks, and “Koren helmets.” You could even say that meditation is a form of brain hacking because it knocks your brain out of its usual din of internal chatter. In fact, almost all the OBE techniques in this book could be considered brain hacks. But what I’m talking about goes much deeper. I divide brain hacking into roughly five categories:
    • Breath work (like hyperventilation)
    • Sound technologies (like binaural beats)
    • Light technologies (like Nova Dreamer)
    • Dietary considerations (like a vegetarian diet)
    • Vitamins, herbal supplements and probiotics (like galantamine)

Vitamins, Herbal Supplements and Probiotics for OBE

I’ve done a fair amount of research on various vitamins, supplements, herbs and probiotics and their affect on OBEs and lucid dreams. In many cases I’ve tried these myself to see their effectiveness. 

Dream Recall and Vitamin B-6

As far as I know, most vitamins do not enhance your ability to induce OBEs, but there is an important connection here. As I said in chapter 60 (on keeping a dream journal) vitamin B-6 seems to enhance dream recall, which in turn is linked to lucid dreaming, which is linked to OBEs. I’ve done some experimentation with vitamin B-6, and I recommend you either:

1. Take a “Super B Complex” or “B-Stress” vitamin supplement that has a decent amount of B-6 every day. I have pretty good dream recall if I just take this every day and keep a dream journal.
2. Take a larger dose Vitamin B-6 tablet, but never more than 100mg per day or it may cause liver damage. Don’t take B-6 every day. Take it for four or five days, then stop cold turkey for another four or five days, then go back on it again. For some reason, I seem to have better dream recall when I’m either starting or stopping vitamin B-6. If I’m on it too long or off it too long, the effect is nullified. So a “Super B Complex” is a better way to go.

I currently use a B complex that has 50mg of B-6, 50mg Thiamine (B-1), 50mg Riboflavin (B-2), 100mg Niacin, 100mg B-12, 400mcg Folic Acid, 100mcg Biotin, and 75mg Choline, plus a few others.

Vitamin D and Sunlight

There may be a connection between OBEs and vitamin D deficiency. In my first book, I wrote that “Strangely, I usually have fewer OBEs in July. I suspect that’s because July is when I have the least amount of time to practice.”¹ Making time to practice might be only part of the problem; the other problem might be more “normal” levels of vitamin D in my body. Let me explain.

 
Vitamin D is very important for good health, but according to a 2011 study, 41.6% of adults in the US are vitamin D deficient.² Many scientific articles associate vitamin D deficiency with sleep problems that affect sleep quality and quantity, including broken sleep,³ which is often associated with OBEs.

 
Vitamin D is manufactured by the body from cholesterol when your skin is exposed to sunlight, which means it is also a hormone as well as a vitamin. Our ancient ancestors spent a lot of time outdoors, hunting and fishing for food, which means the human body evolved to require relatively high levels of vitamin D. Even a hundred years ago, most people spent many hours a day outdoors farming, which triggered solid vitamin D production. Today, many of us have a vitamin D deficiency because we spend most of our time indoors, out of the sun.

 
Even if you spend a lot of time outdoors, exposure to sunlight in the colder months might not be enough. Here in Minnesota, November is the cloudiest month, averaging just 5 sunny days, and 6 partly sunny days, and the other days are cloudy. December isn’t much better.

 
On the other hand, July is the height of summer in the Northern hemisphere, which means the sun is strong and the days are long, especially in my native Minnesota. People usually don’t have school commitments in July and take vacations from work, which often means they spend more time outdoors, exposing their bodies to sunlight, triggering the production of vitamin D. That might explain why I have fewer OBEs in July: OBEs might be exacerbated by vitamin D deficiency.

 
It’s interesting to note that Michael Raduga, the champion of WBTB and broken sleep, also comes from a place pretty far North of the equator—Siberia—which also has long dark winters, so maybe many of his “Phase” experiences were also aided by a vitamin D deficiency.

 
Do not try to deliberately starve your body of vitamin D for the sake of OBEs because that can lead to many serious health problems, such as depression. All I’m saying is that if you take a vitamin D supplement, it may artificially reduce or inhibit your ability to induce OBEs.

 
I’ve experimented taking vitamin D supplements. In general, I really like how vitamin D makes me feel, but I definitely feel more “otherworldly” and OBE-prone when I’m not taking it.

Raw Potato Starch for More Productive Sleep and Longer REM

In chapter 6 I talked about our 90-minute sleep cycles and how nREM sleep is like laundering your brain, but that’s not the end to the story. Research suggests that taking raw potato starch before bed makes nREM sleep more productive (and therefore shorter).⁴ It’s like adding more detergent to the laundry. It gets your brain cleaner, but in less time. Technically, it acts as a probiotic, feeding the bacterium in your gut that produce short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) used to clean the brain. The bacterium produce two cytokines that regulate sleep. Since the length of the sleep cycles doesn’t change, when you decrease the amount of nREM sleep, you therefore increase the length of REM sleep, which means you have longer dreams.

 
I’ve taken raw potato starch before bed several times. The bottom line is that I wake up in the morning feeling more refreshed, and I have longer and more vivid dreams.

 
You can buy it in almost every grocery store in the baking aisle, or buy it online. What I recommend is one or two tablespoons of raw (uncooked) potato starch, dissolved in a glass of water. You may want to add a flavor squirt like Mio or Tang because it has a chalky taste, like bread flour.

Mugwort for Lucidity

The herb mugwort (Artemisia Vulgaris) has a long history of medicinal uses. Many people call it the “dreaming herb” because it can cause strange dreams, flying dreams, and sometimes lucidity. In the past some people have associated it with witchcraft, but there’s nothing magic about it. It’s just ordinary chemistry. 

You can buy it from herbalists, a new age stores, and some health food stores.

I’ve tried mugwort a few times. The first time I used one tablespoon of dried mugwort leaves in a quart of water. It seemed to have no effect. The second time, I doubled the amount and used two tablespoons, with about one quart of water. It gave me vivid nightmares, but in all fairness, they bordered on lucidity. The third time I followed the same formula, but once again it seemed to have no effect. Many people report success with mugwort for lucid dreaming, so try it yourself.

To use mugwort, boil a quart of water, then add a tablespoon or two of dried mugwort leaves to water and make your own herbal tea. It helps to use a tea infuser ball, but you can also use a coffee filter and tie it at the top. Let the tea steep for at least 30 minutes before you drink it, and only drink it immediately before bed. It has a strange taste, but it’s not offensive.

(To be continued on 16 April 2019)

02 April 2019

1 Out of Body Experiences, Robert Peterson, Hampton Roads Publishing, 1997, pg. 218.

2 Prevalence and correlates of vitamin D deficiency in US adults, Forrest and Stuhldreher, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21310306

3 For example, https://www.thesleepdoctor.com/2016/02/26/low-on-vitamin-d-sleep-suffers/

4 For example, http://searchingsleep.com/resistance-starch-and-sleep/