DOSE:

20 mg

sublingual

Pharms - Memantine

(powder / crystals)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

I wanted to contribute my experience with memantine/Namenda not as a recreational drug but as a nootropic and antidepressant. Obviously, for recreational/psychedelic purposes, memantine is not going to be anyone’s first choice, and I don’t think this is a productive use of the compound. Previously I have experimented with MXE and s-ketamine 10+ times and DXM on a few occasions. Of those three, memantine felt most similar to MXE and least similar to DXM.

Memantine is not a good recreational drug because at doses high enough to be interesting, it will incapacitate me for an unreasonable amount of time. I would guess that a dose of 60+ mg would induce moderate/strong dissociation, but would probably have after-effects lasting for two or three days at the minimum. The most I have used in a single day is 40 mg, though I have still achieved dissociative states due to repeat dosing (more on that below).

A dose of 20 mg memantine sublingual solution is absorbed with extremely high bioavailability and begins to manifest its effects over the next several hours. It is a very slow, gradual come-up and it is often difficult for me to place exactly where the experience begins and ends. The effect persists at full strength for about 12-16 hours and then begins slowly tapering off. Definite persistence well into the second and even third days. The long half-life also means that consecutive-day dosing can really increase blood levels. When I ingested ~80 mg over the course of 3 days, I was slightly dysfunctional for about two days afterwards.

I now dose a maximum of 20 mg and try to avoid consecutive day dosing. Memantine’s length is a huge drawback for recreational use but makes it in my opinion perhaps the ideal antidepressant dissociative. I have Bipolar disorder and have previously used low doses of ketamine and MXE as rapid-acting antidepressants and to aid in the withdrawal from opioids. Memantine is well-suited for these uses.

Its length means that it does not even have to be dosed every day to be effective. It has been evaluated for human safety in large clinical trials and at low doses seems to actually be beneficial for cognition and neurological health. Tolerance develops more rapidly to the dissociative and stimulant qualities than it does to the antidepressant action, at least in my experience. Speaking of which, tolerance builds quickly and persists for a long time. It may be possible to continue reaching psychedelic/dissociative states by raising the dosage, but I can’t see that having a good ending.

In low doses, I find memantine to aid with feelings of depression, fatigue, and neuropathic pain. I notice more of a motivation for social events, my job, and my hobbies. Everything seems to sparkle just a tiny bit and everything in life feels “fresh”. For a few hours, I am talkative and energetic to the point that falling asleep would be very difficult. I remember old friends or memories that I haven’t thought of since they happened years back at a much higher rate than I normally do. Memantine seems to potentiate every other psychoactive drug and like other NMDA antagonists can be a useful tool in combating tolerance and addiction.

If taken too many days in a row, these positive effects fade and I start to feel detached, uninspired, and a little disoriented. At higher/repeated doses my motor perception and verbal skills can be affected, though not to nearly the same degree as with ketamine or MXE. My sleep feels disturbed and I have strange dreams.

After this, if I want to once again experience the positive effects of memantine, it is necessary to wait about a week for my tolerance to decrease. That said, in American medicine memantine is given daily to reduce the cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s, so it probably has some benefits that remain even when one has developed a complete tolerance to the psychoactive effects.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 108837
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 25
Published: Jul 23, 2016	Views: 10,979
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Pharms - Memantine (309) : Depression (15), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)