Melatonin withdrawal increases lucidity.

[Lucid Pirate]

I've been taking moderate sized doses of melatonin for a few months now.

Here is something I posted in another thread:

5mg: More comfortable sleep. No changes in dreams.
10mg: Good Sleep. More vivid dreams. Dream characters are more hostile.
15mg: Fantastic sleep. Less vivid dreams but greater intensity. Dream characters are very violent and will often attack if disturbed.
20mg: Heavy sleep. Slept for 45 minutes longer than usual. Vivid dreams (about the 10mg level). No lucidity whatsoever. Reguar dream signs are ineffective. Dream characters are not violent at all.
25mg: Heavy Sleep. No lucidity. Little to no dreaming.

For the past few weeks I have noticed that I've become desensitized to the effects of melatonin. Where I was taking 20-25mg of melatonin per night, I am now taking 5mg maybe once a week, usually not even that.

I first noticed the effects of melatonin withdrawal when I stopped taking melatonin for a couple of days. The first night that I didn't take it I had a lucid dream that lasted around 15 minutes in dream time. Last night I hadn't taken any melatonin for a few days and I had 2 lucid dreams that lasted around 1 minute each, and another where I tried to phase into the dream but didn't quite make it in.

I'm not sure if it was the melatonin or if it was just a coincidence that I had the LD's. What do you think?

[LightBeam]

Well, usually the reports of people taking about 5 mg of melatonin are increase of vivid dreams. But everyone's body chemistry is different, and maybe you have been taking way higher doses, causing malfunction of some brain receptors. I have worked on clinical research studies for patients with insomnia and one of the side effects they reported was no dreaming. The medical doctors recorded it as "no dream" effect, but from what I know about the astral, I think that they just could not recall their dreams, because the drug suppressed their memory receptors.
So, in conclusion it would make sense that melatonin used as a sleep aid could indeed produce the same effect in the brain. After all our bodies produce it naturally and by taking 25mg, you are overdosing your body, causing certain side effects.

[Stookie_]

Here's my guess: Your body is amazing at metabolizing itself, so when you take melatonin on a regular basis your body will realize it's getting plenty and stop naturally producing it, then when you stop with the supplements you'll have a REAL melatonin deficiency. Not worth it to me. If you use melatonin just for LD'ing, I would only do it occasionally so it doesn't mess with your metabolism and sleep patterns.

[Xanth]

Here's my guess: Your body is amazing at metabolizing itself, so when you take melatonin on a regular basis your body will realize it's getting plenty and stop naturally producing it, then when you stop with the supplements you'll have a REAL melatonin deficiency. Not worth it to me. If you use melatonin just for LD'ing, I would only do it occasionally so it doesn't mess with your metabolism and sleep patterns.

This is the same reason why smoking is so addictive.
It *STOP* the creation process of chemicals which your body relies upon.

There's a simple solution to this... stop wasting your time with chemicals and learn to do this stuff on your own.