Long term

[huhwhat]

Hey guys,

I've been training with n-back on and off, mostly off, for the past
few years. I started about 3 years ago and was able to get up to 9-n
back, but on average I would be doing around 6 or 7 n back. Then I
took a break for a few years. Now after coming back, even though I
have had my fair share of partying, boxing, light drugs, even
polyphasic sleep, on my first few tries I was able to get back up to
5-6, and a week into it I am back at getting up to 9 n back.

When I first started out my goal for the first week or so was to be
able to do 2-n without getting any wrong, and struggled with it for a
few days.

I did practice a little bit every now and then, maybe a week out of
every 6-12 months or so, but definitely no more than that. I pretty
much stopped completely.

Just sharing in case anyone is interested.

If the google statistics are still around from way back in the day, my
name on here used to be Nova

[whoisbambam]

huhwhat,

thank you VERY much for sharing this.

Pontus took a break and dropped significantly--i think he was on dnb8,
quit, and then very shortly was at dnb5--i thought this was a very
significant drop and i was concerned cause i thought he should be
doing better since i thought nback would sustain well over time.

your post is very encouraging.

i had to start at dnb1--which i could do well, of course--but dnb2 was
very difficult for me--as a matter of fact, i had started with a
different shareware program, couldnt do it,then found this superior
free product (but i made a significant donation)


after starting mgT, i advanced thru dnb3 rapidly.

ran out of mg threonate.

Now i am on dnb4--usually 60-70% are at 100% with 1-2games started
over, but today i got 55% at 100% (one 70, two 80s) (but i think i
have now been stuck at this level nearly 2 months)

Congratulations on your EXTREME success with your working memory!!!!!

truly amazing.

I probably will never get past dnb6--but i will be satisfied to just
achieve this level.

if you have anything else to share esp. in regard to cognitive
development, please share.

i am hopeful mgT will come in soon--if anybody knows of any other mg
that crosses blood-brain barrer, let me know.

I just found out that curamin does not cross the blood-brain barrier
in humans, supported by clinical trials, but works in test tubes and
animals. I was taking bcm-95 version, but discovered that blood levels
do not necessarily correlate with tissue levels, esp. brain
penetration--and i need it for hippocampal neurogenesis repair due to
excessive caffeine intake and extreme past life stressors that can
damage this region.

so, the c3 complex and bcm-95 versions may not be beneficial.

many of the university studies apparently used an engineered version
with a lipophilic matrix

i had huge lead exposure in 1997 (so i was about 30) and didnt realize
it until now (i didnt realize paint had lead in it up to 1976, and i
chemically scraped and sanded a HUGE home that had water damage/
pealing)

so i have been taking chlorella to reverse that.

I also plaid with mercury a few times as an uneducated, ignorant
child.--lived on a horse farm, a thermometer broke, and i thought the
stuff was cool so i played with it for a week or so with bare hands.

go figure.

You guys think the effects of any of this can now be reversed?

[Gwern Branwen]

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 1:07 PM, whoisbambam <smat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Pontus took a break and dropped significantly--i think he was on dnb8,
> quit, and then very shortly was at dnb5--i thought this was a very
> significant drop and i was concerned cause i thought he should be
> doing better since i thought nback would sustain well over time.

But it does seems to; my FAQ has a section on long breaks:
http://www.gwern.net/N-back%20FAQ.html#do-breaks-undo-my-work

So far no one has reported a long break which resulted in a fall back
to D1B or D2B and then progress upwards as slow as originally.

--
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

[whoisbambam]

Gwern,

yes, but Pontus DID drop significantly and i dont think he is back to
dnb8 yet

so let us assume somebody makes it to dnb8 and stops for 6months

restarts, struggles with dnb3

how long do ppl take to get back to dnb8 or whatever their previous
level was, usually?

a month?

hopefully Pontus updates us






On Mar 14, 12:39 pm, Gwern Branwen <gwe...@gmail.com> wrote:

[brain train]

huhwhat,

 

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[ADDer]

Huhwhat, 9n back appears to be almost impossible thing.. i started
just two days back and could reach to 3-n (probably after a total
exercise of around 2 hours. but 3-n appears so tough that even 6-n
appears unthinkable.

I am wondering what kind of improvement you must be seeing after
attaining this exceptional level. Can you share the changes/
improvement you see in life as a result of this exercise?
also, is there some tricks, work around to improve faster?

thanks,
ADDer

[Pontus Granström]

I am at level six at the moment, I will do some running tomorrow and usually right after I set my personal bests! =)
I'll post you tomorrow.

[Gwern Branwen]

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 2:46 PM, Pontus Granström <lepo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am at level six at the moment, I will do some running tomorrow and usually
> right after I set my personal bests! =)
> I'll post you tomorrow.

Hm, now that I look, you are not listed in the FAQ section. I must
have missed your break. But regardless, going from somewhere on D8B to
D6B isn't necessarily that big a drop - D6B is still way beyond where
everyone starts, ~D2B. (And if running boosts you another level or
two, then the break did even less damage.)

--
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

[whoisbambam]

i think he was on dnb4-5 from dnb8

and is STILL not on dnb8--not even 7, which is where i would think he
would be.

or at least at level 6 mastery...........ie many 100%



On Mar 14, 1:53 pm, Gwern Branwen <gwe...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Jelani Sims]

I've gotten to dual n back 9 before. I'm pretty much in the same boat as this guy. I haven't dual n backed in god knows how long. I plan on starting again in a few weeks as part of a new lifestyle goal. I'm pretty sure 1-5 should be a breeze though. When I quit Dual n back 6 was a joke. 

[Jelani Sims]

There was a guy on this board who had gone over DnB 10. I don't think he posts anymore though. 

[Jelani Sims]

Huhwhat how was your experience with polyphasic sleep? I'm guessing it was negative from the way u r putting it. It seems so interesting, but everything I read about it scares me away. 

[likeprestige]

I'm currently at 9-n-back. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think _cev_
made it to 15-back & cyberiad to a similar (if not more) level.

I need to do the same (take a break for a while then start up again to
test any changes), however, I have an aptitude test coming up in a
couple of months so I'm n-backing on a _few modes_ pretty rigorously
atm. My training schedule is pretty difficult to maintain with other
activities going on (work and study) but I'm just hoping it pays off.

As soon as I complete the test n-back and I are going to go on a break
for a while and meet new people :-)

On Mar 15, 2:58 pm, Jelani Sims <gouki...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There was a guy on this board who had gone over DnB 10. I don't think he
> posts anymore though.
>

> On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Jelani Sims <gouki...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've gotten to dual n back 9 before. I'm pretty much in the same boat as
> > this guy. I haven't dual n backed in god knows how long. I plan on starting
> > again in a few weeks as part of a new lifestyle goal. I'm pretty sure 1-5
> > should be a breeze though. When I quit Dual n back 6 was a joke.
>

[likeprestige]

I may as well post other levels that I've achieved.

So...


D-N-B = 9 back (Training in progress - On and off for nearly a couple
of years now - have really only started to focus in the last month or
two - Continuing on this mode until my results start to plateau)

Pentuple = 4 back (Stopped training on this mode - Will return to it
at a later date)

Quad = 5 back (Stopped training on this mode - As soon as I managed 5-
back I switched to Pentuple)

Quadruple-stim, position, images, sound, sound 2 ---- 1 back = 1.40
sec per/trial - 60% accuracy (Training in progress) ---> Hoping to
make it to __1sec per/trial__ within 2 months


By the way, thanks _huhwhat_ for the results.

[likeprestige]

Thanks again Gwern!

FAQ is looking as good as the tasty mud-cake with whipped cream
sitting in-front of me right now...

On Mar 15, 4:39 am, Gwern Branwen <gwe...@gmail.com> wrote:

[whoisbambam]

Jelani--please let us know how long it takes you to progress thru the
levels?

On Mar 14, 10:53 pm, Jelani Sims <gouki...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've gotten to dual n back 9 before. I'm pretty much in the same boat as
> this guy. I haven't dual n backed in god knows how long. I plan on starting
> again in a few weeks as part of a new lifestyle goal. I'm pretty sure 1-5
> should be a breeze though. When I quit Dual n back 6 was a joke.
>

[whoisbambam]

likeprestige,

congratulations to your working memory achievement!!!!!

[Jelani Sims]

I got to DnB 9 within 2 months. Haven't touched DnB since. Mainly because of procrastination. 

[huhwhat]

whoisbambam,

Thanks! Always glad to help out.

Not sure what those supplements you are taking are, but I did
experiment with nootropics a while back. I took piracetam, idebenone,
and alpha-gpc. Idebenone is a long term nootropic that helps brain
growth and protects neurons. Piracetam is similar, and alpha-gpc is a
short term choline booster. I was mostly just interested in long term
nootropics, but figured I would take a short term one just to give the
long term ones something to work with.

Not sure if this is true but as far as I know, mercury is only
poisonous if you actually swallow and digest it. But you shouldn't be
paranoid about that, or your intelligence, anyway. IQ is not a real
measure of intelligence, and even if it was, it doesn't bring people
happiness. People only THINK it brings them happiness because they
don't know what they're missing, and they think if they were smarter
they will be able to figure it out. That's not true. What will really
make them happier is being social, having confidence, and doing whole
body exercise, especially group sports, etc. What made me a lot
happier was taking a martial art. I understood people better, and even
though I got hit in the head with knock-out power (though I didn't get
knocked out), I felt that I got some REAL intelligence out of that. So
whether or not you recover from your exposure to hazardous materials
has nothing to do with how fulfilled you will be in your life. Just my
2 cents.

ADDer,

The changes that I've seen were not directly visible to me. I had to
do some analysis to find out if there really were some changes taking
place. Intelligence is not one of those things that people are able to
self-analyze easily.

But what I did start to notice was mistakes that people make that I
didn't see before. Everything about my cognitive abilities seems to be
the same, but at a certain point I started noticing more and more
logical flaws and mistakes that people make, even ones that I couldn't
explain but knew intuitively to be false and that I could logically
prove them.

Even ones on a global level, for example, in religion. Most people are
right for rejecting religion, but they're wrong about rejecting the
holy message. A place where the holy message can be found is I think a
few chapters at the beginning of the bible, Matthew 4-7 or something
like that. Anyway, even people that are into religion don't understand
that all their beliefs about god and heaven/hell are just scare
tactics to get them to follow that message (though in my opinion, the
holy message is the best teaching man kind has created and following
it is a really good idea). It seems obvious to me, and it even
specifically says that in the bible, but still people tend not to see
it, and as a result they either miss the message, or scare other
people away from it by making it seem like you have to be in some kind
of cult in order to reap the benefits.

Not that I'm a preacher or anything, just saying that's one of the
things I noticed.

Another thing is that after only 3 years I am reaching seniority at my
company already. It's my first job, I don't have a degree even though
my job requires it, and before doing dnb it confused the hell out of
me (software engineering). But every time I did dnb, I noticed that my
job was not THAT hard, and if I sat down and focused on it I could
figure it out. And the reason I say it's from dnb is because I only
started getting good at it after doing dnb for a month or so. Before
that, I was close to being laid off (the CEO told me "I was going to
let you go, but you started speeding up") Since then my superiors in
the past have specifically mentioned to our company managers that I
have high potential, which is how I got my current position.

I don't know of any tricks or work-arounds but if I were to guess
probably being social would help, and learning motor skills.
Socializing is one of the most complex tasks we can do and it's the
most important survival tactic that humans have. Also learning motor
skills is said to increase intelligence. I read a study once that said
piano players have thicker brains, but I don't have the source for it
anymore.

Jelani Sims,

I did polyphasic sleep successfully for about a month. It was torture
at first, but I got used to it. The mess it created in my social life
was not worth it though. I felt like a prisoner of my sleep. I HAD to
be asleep at exactly the right time, even if it meant cancelling plans
with friends, not being able to go out, sneaking out of work to take
naps, etc. I also had a few experiences where I was reading some text
on my computer and I would start to doze off and as soon as I focused
back on the monitor, ALL the text on the screen had a black, bold font
for a split second, then went back to regular fonts and colors.

I didn't really have that much free time though in the end. I was too
lazy at night to do anything useful or productive. Sometimes I would,
but most of the time I just played video games. I got really good at
Dance Dance Revolution to keep myself awake though.

[Jelani Sims]

Figures. I've heard enough negativity concerning Polyphasic sleeping not to want to try it out anymore. Concerning DnB the only benefit I saw which I thought was rather strange. Was an increased ability in my favorite shooter at the time. It could have been placebo, with me just subconsciously expecting to get better. But for whatever reason I was beating people who a week before were shooting my face off.

Other than that I never noticed anything beneficial. I suppose I expected DnB to just have an obvious and amazing effect, maybe the reason I quit so soon was because I was disappointed. Disappointed that I wasn't solving rubik's cubes in my sleep :/

[Pontus Granström]

I did my intermediate interval running program yesterday, and I managed to score 69% at level six, so next week I am probably at level 7. I am not sure though that it's a drop, it might very well has to do with motivation.
It also seems that I score roughly the same at level 5 as on level 6, perhaps more indicative of not trying hard enough.

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:14 AM, Jelani Sims <gouk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Figures. I've heard enough negativity concerning Polyphasic sleeping not to want to try it out anymore. Concerning DnB the only benefit I saw which I thought was rather strange. Was an increased ability in my favorite shooter at the time. It could have been placebo, with me just subconsciously expecting to get better. But for whatever reason I was beating people who a week before were shooting my face off.

Other than that I never noticed anything beneficial. I suppose I expected DnB to just have an obvious and amazing effect, maybe the reason I quit so soon was because I was disappointed. Disappointed that I wasn't solving rubik's cubes in my sleep :/

[whoisbambam]

Pontus,

thank you for the update.

i am very curious to follow how long it takes you to get yo your
previous performance on dnb

On Mar 16, 3:52 am, Pontus Granström <lepon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I did my intermediate interval running program yesterday, and I managed to
> score 69% at level six, so next week I am probably at level 7. I am not sure
> though that it's a drop, it might very well has to do with motivation.
> It also seems that I score roughly the same at level 5 as on level 6,
> perhaps more indicative of not trying hard enough.
>

[hallu]

On Monday, March 14, 2011 7:46:12 PM UTC+1, ADDer wrote:

Huhwhat, 9n back appears to be almost impossible thing.. i started
just two days back and could reach to 3-n (probably after a total
exercise of around 2 hours. but 3-n appears so tough that even 6-n
appears unthinkable.

How do you know that your playing method based on your first impressions of the game isn't wrong? It's good to make sure that you're not using some sort of strategy making the game more difficult for you. If it can be made easier, it can be made harder as well. I had to adopt and change my approach in order to improve. 

[Pontus Granström]

It hasn't happened one single time that I have thought to myself that each new level is impossible, but my brain thinks otherwise. In other words, stick at it.

--

[hallu]

On Wednesday, March 16, 2011 9:52:29 AM UTC+1, Pontus Granström wrote:

I did my intermediate interval running program yesterday, and I managed to score 69% at level six, so next week I am probably at level 7. I am not sure though that it's a drop, it might very well has to do with motivation.
It also seems that I score roughly the same at level 5 as on level 6, perhaps more indicative of not trying hard enough.

I think the drop might have something to do with the audio stimuli or the act of manipulating two different stimuli at once. IMHO more the latter. I practiced only position-n-back with highest 80%+ 7-back. Today after 3 month pause I've played position-n-back again and reached 66% 7-back under 10 sessions.

Also the interference setting isn't good if it makes the stimuli appear consecutively in one position. For example two first stimuli appear in (3,2), the third one in (1,3), the remaining two in (1,1). So you have 5-back, but its complexity isn't higher than 3-back. However this might depend on the playing method.

[hallu]

On Wednesday, March 16, 2011 1:52:54 PM UTC+1, Pontus Granström wrote:

It hasn't happened one single time that I have thought to myself that each new level is impossible, but my brain thinks otherwise. In other words, stick at it.

If you got it at the first time, you can stick at it, but this doesn't mean, that others aren't following the wrong path.

[Pontus Granström]

Up to level 7 hurray!

--

[whoisbambam]

Pontus,

can you give me details? first, did you previously master level 7?
or? and are you at that same level?

can you repeat what level you were at again (dnb4?) with what average
percent, and then how many days to dnb5, how many days to dnb6, how
many days to dnb7, etc

but based on what i am thinking, it didnt take you long at all.

thanks

On Mar 22, 10:09 am, Pontus Granström <lepon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Up to level 7 hurray!
>

[Pontus Granström]

My highest level is 8, however I have been playing in different multi-stim modes for several months but decided to go back to dnb at the time I posted that I had lost levels, so now after three weeks, I got back to 7, might even make it up to level 8. I got no percentages since I played manually at level 4 and 5, and managed to complete them quite easily. If I get much trouble with level 7 I will change down to level 6 again.

[milestones]

Back to DNB 9 after about a 5 days of playing. I didn't play DNB much
at all for about 2-3 months but I did play other modes, quad back
mainly (where I reached a high of 4 back on quad where I either barely
made it over 50% or was thrown to 3 back). At this point, I'd say
after training a long time (since the beginning of 2008), DNB and the
other modes probably works the same as attention exercises and might
have the same effect -- it is hard to know. I do feel like I am
concentrating more with DNB than the other modes..a deeper, less
scattered and racing attention, which I prefer (but there may be
benefits to the other modes, that's an open question at this point). I
do plan on playing dual crab-back and to stick with that for a while
now.