Astral Codex Ten

modafinil

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modafinil

Article

modafinil is a recurring brand in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between January 25, 2021 and February 20, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “I give up on amphetamines and start looking at Ritalin, modafinil, or other options”; “Zembrin beats out modafinil to make it highest on the list”; “Zembrin outperformed modafinil and phenibut on the survey”. It most often appears alongside Adderall, ADHD, modafinil.

Metadata

  • Category: Brands
  • Mention count: 4
  • Issue count: 4
  • First seen: January 25, 2021
  • Last seen: February 20, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Know Your Amphetamines
January 25, 2021 · Original source
When I treat ADHD with amphetamines, I usually start with Adderall/extended release Adderall, even though realistically Dexedrine would probably be an equally good or better choice. If it's not working very well or there are too many side effects, I switch to Dexedrine/extended release Dexedrine. If Dexedrine doesn't work because it seems too strong or the patient "crashes" too hard afterwards, or if I'm worried the patient is at risk of addiction, I will try Vyvanse (or some other solution to stimulant “crashes”); if Dexedrine works less well than Adderall and I am very confused and the patient is in an experimenting kind of mood, I might try Evekeo. If none of these work, a braver person than I am might try Desoxyn. As for me, I give up on amphetamines and start looking at Ritalin, modafinil, or other options.
Inline links: some other solution to stimulant “crashes”
Nootropics Survey 2020 Results
April 28, 2021 · Original source
But I and many other people have had good results with Zembrin, a concentrated extract of kanna advertised for low mood and anxiety. So I asked respondents to specify whether their kanna was Zembrin or something else. Of 37 kanna users, 20 used Zembrin and 17 used something else. The subgroup who used Zembrin reported a mean effectiveness of 6.88, which beats out modafinil to make it highest on the list. After ad hoc Bayesian adjustment, it was 6.72, second only to modafinil as the second most effective nootropic on the list. This really excites me - I've felt like Zembrin was special for a while, and this is the only case of a newer nootropic on the survey beating the mainstays. And it's a really unexpected victory. The top eight substances in the list are all either stimulants, addictive, illegal in the US, or all three. Zembrin is none of those, and it beats them all.
I'm not sure. SSRIs are very effective for a lot of people. But Zembrin outperformed modafinil and phenibut on the survey. I have never heard even the most extreme fan of SSRIs (possibly me, honestly) claim people like them more than modafinil or phenibut. So this is either a bias (people think it's cool to be taking a new experimental plant, but don't like taking prescription medications with a bad reputation), or else Zembrin is either not an SSRI, or not just an SSRI. Of note, there are ways to prepare kanna (the plant Zembrin comes from) that make it kind of a recreational drug of abuse, though not a very addictive one. This suggests it has something more than just SSRI activity.
Sublingual Modafinil Is Not Very Interesting
The Psychopharmacology Of The FTX Crash
November 16, 2022 · Original source
Here the detectives on r/NootropicsDepot recognized it as their company’s old brand of adrafinil7. Adrafinil is a prodrug of modafinil, an unusual stimulant-like drug. That is, your body metabolizes adrafinil and turns it into modafinil after you take it.
Inline links: r/NootropicsDepot, 7
So was SBF effectively on modafinil? Seems likely - many traders are. I won’t lie - modafinil is a good stimulant, during medical residency some doctors (including me) would use it to stay alert through the night shift. It’s not any better than Adderall or anything, just a bit different and easier to get.
Does it affect attitudes to risk? Hopefully you can already predict my answer to that question: all dopaminergics affect attitude to risk in complicated ways we don’t really understand, but for most people these effects will be too small to notice. There’s one case report of modafinil causing pathological gambling, and various contrived studies where neuroscientists investigate how modafinil shifts some technical parameter in a risk curve; these kinds of studies often don’t replicate. I think you can really just stick to your prior of “all dopaminergics affect risk curves in ways we don’t understand, but it’s usually fine when your job doesn’t require perfectly-tuned risk awareness”.
Inline links: one case report, various contrived studies
Lives Of The Rationalist Saints
February 20, 2025 · Original source
St. Clare was so upset about believing false things during her dreams that she took modafinil every night rather than sleep. She completed several impressive programming projects before passing away of sleep deprivation after three weeks; she was declared a martyr by Pope Raymond II.