When I first heard of the ยracetam family of drugs I was extremely intrigued by a nootropic that proported to have no crash, no addictive potential, and relatively few side effects. It was like a drug that completed the human brain.
Aniracetam
Well-documented
Well-documented
Multiple authoritative sources agree on dosing and effects.
- 5 corroborating sources
- 2 ROAs with full dose ladders
- duration data present
- toxicity data (PsychonautWiki)
- classified Research-chemical
Well-documented
Multiple authoritative sources agree on dosing and effects.
- 5 corroborating sources
- 2 ROAs with full dose ladders
- duration data present
- toxicity data (PsychonautWiki)
- classified Research-chemical
Aliases: Sarpul, Sarple, Ampamet, Referan, Draganon
Summary
Fat-soluble compound requiring dietary fat for optimal absorption. Oral bioavailability of parent drug is very low (~10%); most central activity believed to come from active metabolites (notably N-anisoyl-GABA and 2-pyrrolidinone). Users often stack with choline sources (CDP-choline, alpha-GPC) to reduce racetam-type headaches, though clinical necessity is unproven.
Dose Information
| ROA | Light | Common | Strong | Heavy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral | 500-1200mg | 1200-1800mg | 1800-2400mg | 2400mg+ |
| Sublingual | 500-1200mg | 1200-1800mg | 1800-2400mg | 2400mg+ |
Light
Common
Strong
Heavy
Sources
Oral
Dose ladder — PsychonautWikiSublingual
Dose ladder — Light: same as the Oral row (dose.wiki, PsychonautWiki) · Common: same as the Oral row (PsychonautWiki) · Strong, Heavy: same as the Oral row (dose.wiki, PsychonautWiki); no source states these Sublingual figuresOnset, Duration & After-effects
| ROA | Onset | Comeup | Peak | Offset | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral | 20-90 min | 30-60 min | 1-2 hrs | 1-2 hrs | 2-4 hrs |
| Sublingual | 5-30 min | 15-30 min | 1-2 hrs | 1-2 hrs | 2-4 hrs |
Tolerance
Build-up
develops over 1โ4 weeks of regular use
Reset
days to weeks depending on duration of use
Tolerance Decay
Full tolerance
21d
Half tolerance
7d
Baseline
~14d
Patterns are largely anecdotal. Many users rotate racetams or limit use to 2โ4 days/week to preserve effects. Headache propensity appears linked to individual cholinergic sensitivity. Evidence base: community reports and Erowid experience summaries.
Cross-Tolerances
Other racetams (piracetam, oxiracetam, phenylpiracetam)
Effects
Aggregated from 9 single-substance Erowid experience reports; 9 Erowid reports where another drug was taken too are left out
Each bar shows the share of analyzed reports whose text mentions that effect — a mention is not always a first-hand experience (fear of an effect or something witnessed can count). Mentions saying the effect did not happen are left out; that check reads keywords, so it can miss some. The shaded band on a bar, and the small range after its number, is the 95% interval: where the share could plausibly be with other reports of the same kind. Fewer reports, wider band. Tap or hover any number for details. The second value is the Bluelight extractor's per-effect confidence; a dash means the row is Erowid-derived, which has no confidence measurement.
Too few reports for bars: these effects come from 9 single-substance Erowid reports, and a bar is drawn only from 20 reports or more. With fewer, a percentage cannot tell a common effect from a rare one. Counts are shown instead. Why 20?
Effect glossary — · full glossary
Positive Effects 2
3 of 9
–
3 of 9
–
Adverse Effects 1
3 of 9
–
Also reported in combinations. In the 9 Aniracetam reports where another drug was taken too, 1 mentions hospital, emergency services or an overdose, 0 a seizure and 1 psychosis (too few reports for percentages). In the 9 single-substance reports: 1, 0 and 0. These are not in the figures above: they cannot be put down to Aniracetam alone, and a mention is not always something that happened to the writer.
Community Trip Reports
Anecdotal first-person accounts from Reddit, Erowid, Bluelight, and Dose.wiki. Click a source to expand. Reports are harm-reduction context, not medical guidance. Tags summarise each author's own verdict — how reports are classified.
Erowid 8 reports 1 positive 5 neutral 2 cautionary visit
Well-intentioned though misguided prepararation of approximately 2g of Aniracetam, an extremely hydrophobic powder, in a few oz. of fish oil: Knowing it was hydrophobic, erroneously believing it to be lipid soluble, I decided to mix it with fish oil and thereby take two alleged cognitive enhancers at once.
I found myself temporarily exhausted from my commonly researched drugs and decided I would do some reading on the so called ยsmart drugsย or ยnootropicsย. Due to the lack of information one researching these drugs can face, it can become hard to make sound conclusions about making a first purchase of one of these produ...
Writing this at least a month after the fact, so consider the times just loose approximates. 00:00 (07:00am) Took approx 450mg of aniracetam in water. It tasted pretty foul, but had an awesome aftertaste that didn't develop for about five minutes and lasted five times that long.
Due to cost concerns, I hand pack my own piracetam and aniracetam capsules. I normally take one aniracetam three times a day and four piracetam three times a day, for a total of about 1600mg aniracetam and 12 grams piracetam. The piracetam is already a higher-than-recommended dose, due to perceived ineffectiveness.
Aniracetram: I am amazed that I'd not heard of this drug (or this entire class of drugs, the racetams) earlier. I've been a student in a 'hardcore' discipline of science at two top universities, so I could always use any help focusing on my work.
I took Aniracetam in 750mg doses four times daily for a duration of one week. I did not take Choline with the Aniracetam, which is what I believe caused my issues. This is purely a conjecture. I am not a doctor or medical professional of any sort. At first blush the effects were quite positive.
In the morning after breakfast I mix equal amounts of aniracetam and choline bitatrate powders into 4oz of juice, it doesn't really dissolve the aniracetam, but it's easy to chug. Starting at 700mg of each, the effects were good, but caused a fishy body odor soon after because of the choline.
Aniracetam's nerd page
Pharmacology, chemical data, effect profiles, and more
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Helpful Links
Add missing routes to PsychonautWiki Journal
The PsychonautWiki Journal app already has Aniracetam, but its built-in entry only covers Oral. Here are the other routes we have data for. You can't edit a built-in substance, but you can add a Custom Unit for any of these routes to log it.
⬇ Download import file
Import this file as custom substances
and you get "Aniracetam (Substance Search)" with every
route's full dose ladder and timeline, no typing. Works on iOS and
Android (v15+); the format is confirmed by the app's
developer. The manual values below work for older
versions.
Custom Unit doses
- Sublingualcommon ~ 1500 mg
Dose & duration (reference)
Aniracetam: routes the PsychonautWiki Journal app is missing Source: SubstanceSearch (substancesearch.com) Sublingual dose (mg): threshold 150 ยท light 500-1200 ยท common 1200-1800 ยท strong 1800-2400 ยท heavy 2400+ Sublingual duration: onset 5-30m ยท come-up 15-30m ยท peak 1-2h ยท offset 1-2h ยท total 2-4h ยท after-effects 1-4h Note: ranges are harm-reduction guidance, not a prescription. Start low, go slow, and test your substances.
Custom Units carry a single dose per route, so the full ranges live in the reference above. A route's suggested dose is the midpoint of its common range. Ranges are harm-reduction guidance, not a prescription.
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