Choline Bitartrate For Lucid Dreaming

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🌙 Written by Stefan Zugor, international lucid dreaming expert and teacher. Learn how to lucid dream in 7 days or less.

Dream Supplements And Aids, Sleep Tech And Lucid Dreaming Product Reviews

We’re going to look at the effects of Choline Bitartrate for lucid dreaming, and how you can use it effectively to double your lucid dream count, and have more vivid dreams. You’ll also get improved dream recall.

So what is Choline?

This supplement is not very well known in the Lucid Dreaming world, or at least, if it is people don’t seem to know why it works, it’s just a ‘name’ thrown around like dream herbs, dream pills other such references.

As with ANY of our supplement articles and references to these substances, you use them entirely at your own risk, the effects vary from person to person and SOME people can experience adverse reactions to them. Read our disclosure for more, but just know that this is intended for educational purposes and you should consult a doctor/expert before trying any supplements.

What is Choline Bitartrate?

Choline bitartrate is used with B5 to make Acetylcholine in your body naturally. Acetylcholine is the main neurotransmitter active during REM sleep. The result is that you’ll experience a higher level of dream recall and more vivid dreams.

Choline Bitartrate is naturally found in the body in small amounts and is involved with maintaining and supporting mental functions.

It supports cognitive ability, memory and focus. (Essential for lucid dreaming, right?). The body only produces a small amount and therefore it’s important to get the rest from a healthy diet.

Here are some foods that contain Choline:

  • Fish
  • Eggs
  • Brussel sprouts
  • Dairy products
  • Peanuts
  • Broccoli
  • Meat

So it’s likely that you already consume some amount of Choline. Why am I referencing it only as Choline regarding the food you eat? Because usually it is just ‘Choline’ and then when it’s used as a supplement it’s combined with a salt such as ‘Bitartrate’.

Therefore, Choline Bitartrate refers to just the supplement form, and negates the fact you can actually get it from diet as well.

Nevertheless, it’s great to get it in supplement form as well, as this gives a more powerful does and you’ll experience the effects more.

You’ll notice an improvement in mental clarity, memory, focus and cognitive processing abilities. You’ll just ‘think’ better. So as you can see it clearly would help with Lucid Dreaming, as it would be physically improving the mental functions such as memory and focus/clarity.

Benefits of choline bitartrate

Choline has a number of benefits and effects. The main ones are here:

  • Improved memory and cognitive function
  • Promotes healthy brain activity and improved focus
  • Better memory of dreams (and lucid dreams)
  • Can help with Alzheimers disease
  • Less brain fogginess and haziness
  • Reduce stress and mood swings
  • Strengthens the connection between cell membranes

It’s actually mainly used for treating things like Liver and organ problems. It’s less commonly used to help with lucid dreaming but the link is there, and it’s strong. 

Because Choline is only found in foods in a fairly low concentration, you’ll need to supplement it to get the full benefits. It’s a common ingredient in most nootropics for the above reasons as well. In particular, it’s found in Mind Lab Pro (My nootropic of choice). 

The interesting effect of Choline on dreams is that it makes your dreams WAY more vivid. I’ve been searching for a long time for something that would make my drams more vivid.

Sometimes, it’s hard to focus in the dream and they can appear hazy, or blurry. By supplementing Choline once a morning, you can change that and make your dreams far more vivid.

I also wrote an article about how to make dreams super vivid which you might find interesting, but failing that, try Choline!

Side effects and dangers of Choline

As with anything, there are pros and cons. The side effects of choline are fairly mild compared to something like Galantamine but they still exist. 

  • Change in the smell of your body odour
  • Fatigue
  • Vomiting

But as I said these side effects are very rare. And in fact, if you look at the side effects of almost ANYTHING they’ll include those things as almost a default, but they’re just rare. In most cases you’ll never get side effects from choline at suggested dosages.

Choline Bitratrate best dosage for lucid dreams

The suggested dosage for Choline Bitartrate (for lucid dreaming at least) is about 650mg, rising up to 2g in the case of some men, but somewhere between those two lies the average recommended dose.

Anything above that could be considered dangerous, and shouldn’t be attempted. For best results, we’d say take 800mg daily as well as a healthy diet including Choline as well.

Lucid dreaming tip about food

As with any supplement, start with a VERY low dosage, far less than 650mg and then gradually take more as you learn your tolerance and side effects. Some people react better or worse than others so it’s important to build it up slowly.

I’d also suggest writing your dosage next to that nights dreams in your dream journal, so you can see which dosage is the most effective for you. 

How to use Choline Bitartrate to lucid dream

So it’s obvious that Choline has a positive impact on your dream life and the way you are mentally ‘present’ in a lucid dream.

Here’s how you can use it to have deeper and more vivid lucid dreams. Here’s the best way to use choline to have better lucid dreams:

  • Make sure you’re writing your dreams down. In your dream journal, after each night of dreams, write how much choline you took the night before, and what techniques (if any) you used
  • You might find that a smaller dose works better for you than a larger dose, experiment!
  • Try one of the following techniques combined with taking choline either just before bed, or AS you’re doing the technique
  • Remember that it’s always best to experiment with yourself. You might find that it works best when mixed with dream tea or something like vitamin B6. Test test test!

Interestingly when I take choline I find that I not only remember more of my dreams, but the actual memories tend to stay around for longer as well. I find that I can vividly remember most of my dreams even days after, without needing to look back at my dream journal.

Induction techniques to use choline with

Choline acts upon the body fairly quickly after you ingest it, so you can EITHER take choline just before bed, and then go and use any lucid induction technique, or you can combine it specifically with something like the WBTB and take it in the early hours of the morning.

To induce lucid dreams with choline, you’ll want to make sure you use the following techniques and methods. Firstly, get some choline, and then do one of the following:

Choline WBTB dreams

Because choline stays in your system for a long time, you can combine it with the wake back to bed technique and just keep entering and re entering lucid dreams for up to 3 hours.

Because the effects will stay active in you for a good 6 hours or more, you can get lots of lucid dreams out of this one:

  • Set your alarm to go off after 6 hours of your sleep
  • Wake up, turn the alarm off, and then take a choline pill or two
  • Lay back in your bed, and THINK about lucid dreaming
  • Imagine yourself being in a dream and being aware of yourself dreaming
  • Go back to sleep (by not moving any muscles) and tell yourself ‘I will lucid dream’ or ‘I’m dreaming right now’
  • If you find yourself wake up soon after, just go back to bed and try again. You can ‘dream chain’ in this way, because the choline will stay in your system for a fairly long time

MILD with choline

The mnemonic induced lucid dream is a more natural method. You don’t need to wake up at a particular time, you just need to repeat some affirmations as you’re going to sleep at night.

Take a couple of choline pills before bed, after doing some light meditation. Then:

  • Lay down in your bed, ready to sleep
  • Tell yourself over and over again: ‘I will lucid dream’ or ‘I am dreaming right now’
  • Repeat it so much that you fall asleep with the idea and sentences bouncing around in your head
  • You’ll naturally have a lucid dream a few times during the night
  • If you want to make sure you are aware of these lucid dreams and remember them, you can set your alarm to go off every 3 hours or so

Reliance on supplements (warning)

Before I share some other lucid dreaming supplements and ideas for you, I need to stress how important it is to NOT depend on supplements to lucid dream.

I think it’s far healthier and cheaper to learn to lucid dream without supplements. I know a few people who depend on supplements for things like thinking creativity during waking life, or lucid dreaming during the night. It gets expensive and you end up damaging your skill in the long run.

Much better to just learn the lucid dreaming basics and apply them. Practice the skills every day and you’ll never NEED supplements, unless you want them. 

This also goes for things like binaural beats, or even a specific technique. Don’t rely on any ONE thing to make you lucid. Instead, build the skills and habits that you’ll need. I know a lot of people don’t like hearing this especially on a tutorial FOR a specific supplement like choline, but it’s important.

I have to put this in here, because so many people are looking for the magic bullet or the magic pill. This applies not just to lucid dreaming but life in general. People want ‘get rich quick’ or ‘lose weight fast’ pills. They don’t exist, and you’re just wasting your time.

Does choline work?

Interestingly, despite there being many people and a few studies showing that it has an effect on dream recall, some people don’t believe it!

Some people firmly believe that choline has NO effect on dreams, recall or anything else like that. I would say that it’s hard to know for CERTAIN what’s having an effect. The problem with things like this, is that if you buy a pill that you EXPECT to have an effect on something, you experience the placebo effect.

The placebo effect is one of the most powerful things in the world.

Your mind can create a LOT of different changes and effects on your body, so it’s powerful. Whatever you expect to happen will usually happen, and if you take a pill that supposedly does a certain thing, you’ll MAKE it do that thing.

So be careful, and track your results. It might even be interesting to buy some dud pills (blank sugar filled capsules) and mix them with the choline or get a friend to perform a double blind study on you. This will confirm whether the choline is having an effect or not!

That being said, choline does have an effect, especially on dream vividness and recall, so try it out. But not before you’ve actually learned how to lucid dream. 

Other lucid dreaming supplements

There are some other supplements you might want to consider which can be just as effective if not MORE effective than choline. 

Where to get it

To get choline in supplement form, you can go a number of ways. Firstly, please make sure you know how to lucid dream before trying this, because like any supplement, it can’t just GIVE you a lucid dream. It can HELP you have a lucid dream.

 

Written By Stefan Zugor

Stefan Zugor

Stefan is an international lucid dreaming expert, who shares his lucid dreaming knowledge and experience on this site.

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