Update on my tinkering with using high doses of chocolate as a psychoactive drug:
(Nb: at times I say “caffeine” in this post, in contrast to chocolate, even though chocolate contains caffeine; by this I mean coffee, energy drinks, caffeinated soda, and caffeine pills collectively, all of which were up until recently frequently used by me; recently I haven’t been using any sources of caffeine other than chocolate, and even then try to avoid using it on a daily basis)
I still find that consuming high doses of chocolate (usually 3-6 table spoons of dark cocoa powder, or a corresponding dose of dark chocolate chips / chunks) has a stimulating effect that I find more pleasant than caffeine, and makes me effective at certain things in a way that caffeine doesn’t.
I am pretty sure that I was too confident in my hypothesis about why specifically chocolate has this effect. One obvious thing that I overlooked in my previous posts, is that chocolate contains caffeine, and this likely explains a large amount of its stimulant effects. It is definitely true that Theobromine has a very similar structure to caffeine, but it’s unclear to me that it has any substantial stimulant effect. Gilch linked me to a study that he stated suggests it doesn’t, but after reading the abstract, I found that it only justifies a weak update against thinking the Theobromine specifically has stimulant effects.
I’m confident that there are chemicals in chocolate other than caffeine that are responsible for me finding benefit in consuming it, but I have no idea what those chemicals are.
Originally I was going to do an experiment, randomly assigning days to either consume a large dose of chocolate or not, but after the first couple days, I decided against doing so, so I don’t have any personal experimentation to back up my observations, but just observationally, there’s a very big difference in my attitude and energy on days when I do or don’t consume chocolate.
When I talked to Herschel about his experience using chocolate, he noted that building up tolerance is a problem with any use of chemicals to affect the mind, which is obviously correct, so I ended deciding that I won’t use chocolate every day, and will instead use it on days when I have a specific reason to use it, and will make sure that there will be days when I won’t use it, even if I find myself always wanting to use it. My thought here, is that if my brain is forced to operate at some basic level on a regular basis without the chemical, then when I do use the chemical, I will be able to achieve my usual operation plus a little more, which will ensure that I can always derive some benefit from it. I think this approach should make sense for many chemicals where building up tolerance is a possibility of concern.
Gilch said he didn’t notice any effect when he tried it. I don’t know how much he used, but since I specified an amount in response to one of his questions, I presume he probably used an amount similar to what I would use. I don’t know if he used it in addition to caffeine, or as a replacement. If it was a replacement, that would explain why he didn’t notice any additional stimulation over and above his usual stimulation, but it would still lead to wonder about why he didn’t notice any other effects. One possibility is that the effects are a little bit subtle—not too subtle, since its effects tend to be pretty obvious (in contrast to usual caffeine) for me when I’m on chocolate, but subtle enough that a different person than me might not be as attuned to it, for whatever reason (part of why I say this, is that I find chocolate helps me be more sociable, and this is one of the most obvious effects it has in contrast to caffeine for me, and I care a lot about my ability to be sociable, so it’s hard to slip my notice, but if someone cares less about how they interact with other people, they may overlook this effect; there are other effects, too, but those do tend to be somewhat subtle, though still noticeable)
As far as delivery, I have innovated slightly on my original method. I now often use dark chocolate chips / chunks in addition to drinking the chocolate, I find that pouring a handful, just enough to fit in my mouth, will have a non-trivial effect. Since I found drinking the chocolate straight would irritate my stomach and cause my stool to have a weird consistency, I have started using milk. My recipe is now to take a tall glass, fill it 1/3rd with water, add some (but not necessarily all) of the desired dose of cocoa powder into the glass, microwave it for 20 seconds, stir the liquid, add a little more water and the rest of the cocoa powder, microwave it for 20 more seconds, stir it until there are no chunks, then fill up the rest of the glass with milk. There are probably changes that can be made to the recipe, but I find this at least gets a consistently good outcome. With the milk, it makes my stomach not get irritated, and my stool is less different, though still slightly different, from how it would otherwise be.
On the subject of it making me sociable, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the days that my friends receive texts from me, I have had chocolate on those days. I also seem to write more on days when I have had chocolate. I find chocolate helps me feel that I know what I need to say, and I rarely find myself second-guessing my words when I’m on chocolate, whereas I often have a hard time finding words in the first place without chocolate, and feel less confident about what I say without it. I’ve written a lot on this post alone, and have also messaged a friend today, and have also written a long-ish analysis on a somewhat controversial topic on another website today. Based on the context I say that in, I’m sure you can guess whether I’ve had chocolate today.
Update on my tinkering with using high doses of chocolate as a psychoactive drug:
(Nb: at times I say “caffeine” in this post, in contrast to chocolate, even though chocolate contains caffeine; by this I mean coffee, energy drinks, caffeinated soda, and caffeine pills collectively, all of which were up until recently frequently used by me; recently I haven’t been using any sources of caffeine other than chocolate, and even then try to avoid using it on a daily basis)
I still find that consuming high doses of chocolate (usually 3-6 table spoons of dark cocoa powder, or a corresponding dose of dark chocolate chips / chunks) has a stimulating effect that I find more pleasant than caffeine, and makes me effective at certain things in a way that caffeine doesn’t.
I am pretty sure that I was too confident in my hypothesis about why specifically chocolate has this effect. One obvious thing that I overlooked in my previous posts, is that chocolate contains caffeine, and this likely explains a large amount of its stimulant effects. It is definitely true that Theobromine has a very similar structure to caffeine, but it’s unclear to me that it has any substantial stimulant effect. Gilch linked me to a study that he stated suggests it doesn’t, but after reading the abstract, I found that it only justifies a weak update against thinking the Theobromine specifically has stimulant effects.
I’m confident that there are chemicals in chocolate other than caffeine that are responsible for me finding benefit in consuming it, but I have no idea what those chemicals are.
Originally I was going to do an experiment, randomly assigning days to either consume a large dose of chocolate or not, but after the first couple days, I decided against doing so, so I don’t have any personal experimentation to back up my observations, but just observationally, there’s a very big difference in my attitude and energy on days when I do or don’t consume chocolate.
When I talked to Herschel about his experience using chocolate, he noted that building up tolerance is a problem with any use of chemicals to affect the mind, which is obviously correct, so I ended deciding that I won’t use chocolate every day, and will instead use it on days when I have a specific reason to use it, and will make sure that there will be days when I won’t use it, even if I find myself always wanting to use it. My thought here, is that if my brain is forced to operate at some basic level on a regular basis without the chemical, then when I do use the chemical, I will be able to achieve my usual operation plus a little more, which will ensure that I can always derive some benefit from it. I think this approach should make sense for many chemicals where building up tolerance is a possibility of concern.
Gilch said he didn’t notice any effect when he tried it. I don’t know how much he used, but since I specified an amount in response to one of his questions, I presume he probably used an amount similar to what I would use. I don’t know if he used it in addition to caffeine, or as a replacement. If it was a replacement, that would explain why he didn’t notice any additional stimulation over and above his usual stimulation, but it would still lead to wonder about why he didn’t notice any other effects. One possibility is that the effects are a little bit subtle—not too subtle, since its effects tend to be pretty obvious (in contrast to usual caffeine) for me when I’m on chocolate, but subtle enough that a different person than me might not be as attuned to it, for whatever reason (part of why I say this, is that I find chocolate helps me be more sociable, and this is one of the most obvious effects it has in contrast to caffeine for me, and I care a lot about my ability to be sociable, so it’s hard to slip my notice, but if someone cares less about how they interact with other people, they may overlook this effect; there are other effects, too, but those do tend to be somewhat subtle, though still noticeable)
As far as delivery, I have innovated slightly on my original method. I now often use dark chocolate chips / chunks in addition to drinking the chocolate, I find that pouring a handful, just enough to fit in my mouth, will have a non-trivial effect. Since I found drinking the chocolate straight would irritate my stomach and cause my stool to have a weird consistency, I have started using milk. My recipe is now to take a tall glass, fill it 1/3rd with water, add some (but not necessarily all) of the desired dose of cocoa powder into the glass, microwave it for 20 seconds, stir the liquid, add a little more water and the rest of the cocoa powder, microwave it for 20 more seconds, stir it until there are no chunks, then fill up the rest of the glass with milk. There are probably changes that can be made to the recipe, but I find this at least gets a consistently good outcome. With the milk, it makes my stomach not get irritated, and my stool is less different, though still slightly different, from how it would otherwise be.
On the subject of it making me sociable, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the days that my friends receive texts from me, I have had chocolate on those days. I also seem to write more on days when I have had chocolate. I find chocolate helps me feel that I know what I need to say, and I rarely find myself second-guessing my words when I’m on chocolate, whereas I often have a hard time finding words in the first place without chocolate, and feel less confident about what I say without it. I’ve written a lot on this post alone, and have also messaged a friend today, and have also written a long-ish analysis on a somewhat controversial topic on another website today. Based on the context I say that in, I’m sure you can guess whether I’ve had chocolate today.