Alpha Brain
October 13th, 2011
The question I get asked the most these days on Twitter (now that the MACHINE SHIRTS are finally on sale) is “Does Alpha Brain work” and “how does it affect your dreams”.
First off, I have always been a very active dreamer, sometimes up to 8 dreams a night that I can often recount. Crazy, bizarre, sometimes emotional dreams are always tied together like vines, so when I start unraveling one, it triggers another one, then another, and another, that I inevitably bore someone with. I’ve dreamt jokes that I went on to tell on stage, ideas that I have pitched as movies, long winded fights with popular radio hosts, and even my death. On that level Alpha Brain hasn’t necessarily increased my dreaming, it has just made the dreams I do have somewhat stranger. The lucidity I talked about on Joe Rogan’s Podcast is undeniable and not something that I have been accustom to. Usually when I have shit going on in my life that is bothering me, I dream that I am organizing alligators (I know, it’s weird, but very consistent). On Alpha Brain I tend to dream about the specific event, emotion, or action. For instance I was missing my kids the other night when I had the dream that I was in a photo shoot on Wilshire. In the middle of the photo shoot I realized…”Holy shit this is a dream!”…Normally that would wake me up (it has happened in almost every sex dream when I reach for a condom and think, “Wait this is a dream, I don’t need a condom”), but for some reason it didn’t, so I left the photo shoot, stepped outside…& realizing it was a dream…and FLEW home. Of course, it’s still a dream that my brain is orchestrating, and my brain hates me, so I got lost in the hills…regardless that was a crazy feeling when I woke up and realized I could do that. Another example was the day before I did WTF w/ Marc Maron. I’ve known Marc for a long time but never really knew how he felt about me. I was concerned that the interview might go “Gallagher”. That night I had the most realistic dream I have ever had in my entire life of the interview doing exactly that. In the dream I walked out of Marc’s studio in a high rise, stepped into an elevator, honestly and emotionally distraught by the things I had said on mic about certain people, looked at myself as the elevator doors shut, and saw that I was wearing hot pink neon stripped Kaza workout pants, no shirt, and a matching neon striped headband. I literally cheered up, realized I was dreaming, and in the dream thought, “fantastic, now I know what not to do”. That kind of problem solving in a dream was absolutely foreign to me.
Usually I get one of those a night, and have noticed, that even when I hopped off Alpha Brain (for a couple weeks I took 1-2 in the morning) I had somewhat of a residual effect. The reason I hopped off is that the dreams were beginning to exhaust me. I had a dream one night where I was sitting on a couch reading a book and as my eyes read the words I thought, “This is totally a dream, so I am having to imagine the word my eyes are about to read before my eyes can actually read them…I wonder if I can guess what the word is before my eyes read it?” FUCKING EXHAUSTING, I woke up wanting to take a nap. This, I am guessing, was a by product undeniable alertness that Alpha Brain was giving me through out the day…So much alertness that I was driving my wife crazy. So I would hop off AB at home and get back on AB on the road. As a matter of fact, it is the Alpha Brain that made me want to write a blog this morning before I drive to Phoenix (I just got a new bottle).
Last and most importantly…I am Johnny Placebo. I can eat a sugar pill & if you tell me it was poison, I will feel sick. I get contact buzzes at reggae concerts, so take what I am saying with a grain of salt…I’m not a doctor & I’m not a pharmacist. I’m just a comedian who draws inspiration from his dreams and wanted to enhance them. I like the stuff, I go on and off them, and I’m on them right now.
Enjoy your ALPHA BRAIN or don’t,
Bert
I dig it man! I keep telling myself on my next paycheck im going to order a bottle and today
I just did!
I think you should write more here. Your stories make me and my buddies crack up. We tell them to our other friends that don’t know about you and they crack up. Anyways i’m not trying to choke on your wiener here i just thought you should know that I think people need to be exposed to The Machine and this is a great way to do it. Thanks Kenny
Hey burt. Do you remember a twitter chat the other day about cheering up someone that just got laid off? I was one of the others in that group to get canned. WTF. Alpha Brain better help me dream a new fucking J. O. B.! And no. I was not caught pumping iron in the basement in my boxers. Only the Machine could have a story like that. I love alpha brain and when I “was working” I saw a huge change in the way I was able to organize my thoughts and work through problems faster and with ease. Just ordered some new mood. Have you tried that one yet? See you in tampa at the end of the month. I heard you might have an idea to get out of a bar tab. Love you hate the fucking economy.
Hey Bert. I heard you a couple days ago on your interview with Funemploymentradio.com in Portland, and I have got to say that your I Am The Machine story is the best story I have EVER heard. I hate to say it, but I haven’t had a chance to hear the podcasts since, because I keep replaying your story over and over.
Anyways, I’m an engineering student and I take Nature’s Way daily vitamins. They’re like 10 times the dosage of Centrum and they dissolve really fast. Normally, I only take a fraction of the dosage, but on exam days, I take 2/3’s the dosage or the full dosage, and I have to say, they really aid in me studying Calculus when I need to for 8 hours straight.
Maybe you should experiment on taking them while using your Alpha Brain. They really help with mental acuity in my case, and it sounds like that might be what is exhausting you.
Thanks for dropping in to talk with Greg and Sarah, and thanks for giving me a story to play for my friends. The 20 minutes makes them hesitant at first, but as soon as they hear about you taking the Russian class by mistake, they’re in.
I just popped my alpha brain to write this morning. I have fallen in the pattern of taking them in the am. I need to do some night trials. i like your blog, the only thing it is missing is your absolute fantastic laugh.
All praises to the Machine,
I am a huge fan of Alpha Brain and have been for about a year now. The effect on my dreams is intense. I have had to stop using it during the day because I drive my gf nuts with my nonstop banter and musings, but still rock it hard for nights. I am starting to wory about my subconcious though, because my dreams have been super wacky latly. Last night I was Fighting a chimp in an octagon while Joe ran comentary, and as you know he drops chimp facts like crazy. on the plus side however I wake up super rested, so dream on!
I’ve been using Alpha Brain and it definitely has helped increase my ability to concentrate and has elevated my mood in general. Best way to describe it is that it has a subtle yet remarkable effect in improving brain function overall. Hard to describe because there is no immediate acute effect – at least not for me. “10less” will get you a discount on any Alpha Brain order from their website (code should work on their other supplements too).
I haven’t experienced lucid dreams like you did due to using Alpha Brain, but my dreams have become more detailed and interesting. Personally, I didn’t buy it to have lucid dreams, so I’m still satisfied. It has a money-back guarantee, which makes it at least worth a try IMO.Cheers.
This is fucking great.
I love being an active dreamer despite how exhausting it can be. I have always had intensely vivid dreams for as far back as I can remember, but I never had a truly lucid dream until I started taking Alpha Brain. My first and coolest experience was when the Boyfriend and I were taking a nap, and in the dream I had woken up as I would have normally, but everything was different. It was scaring the shit out of me because I couldn’t put my finger on why things were “wrong”. There were many parts of the dream where I was walking through the house and everything was maze-like and full of puzzles that I couldn’t figure out. My alarm started going off in real life, and it was echoing through the house in the dream, and that’s when I realized what was up. I remember saying, “fuck yeah, I can fly right now if I wanted to” so I lifted my arms and willed myself to “be light” and rose off the ground. The alarm clock won before I got the chance to go through the ceiling, but that “light” feeling stayed with me for a good hour after I woke up. It was so damn trippy.
Nightly adventures aside, Alpha Brain is some good shit.
Speaking of dreams: That “Elvis” dream story that you told on JRE #132 was classic! That whole podcast was awesome and definitely one of my favorites in the JRE series, so far.
But, yea… Alpha Brain is pretty nice. I recently ordered a bottle of Alpha Brain and New Mood and I like them both.
The Alpha Brain made me quicker with verbal replies to people. Sometimes, this isn’t a good thing, lol. However, I was taking the recommended 2-pills/day and they seemed to make me too aggressive. After listening to Aubrey Marcus on the JRE #127 podcast, he mentioned that too much of one of the ingredients makes people a bit aggressive, and that totally made sense to my experience. Plus, they are expensive and run out too quickly if you do 2/day. However, they do make it feel like my “brain seem is running at a higher RPM”.
The New Moods (even though that’s not what this blog post is about and I apologize, but I feel it’s still loosely relevant) are great. I don’t have any noticeable side-effects and they seem to make me more mellow. However, if you want to get that “mellow” feeling, you have to take the recommended 2/day, according to my personal experience.
I’m definitely going to re-order both of these when I get the extra money.